Federal Judge Won’t Stay Ruling Striking Down Mississippi’s Horrific Anti-LGBT Law

A federal judge has denied a request for a stay of his ruling striking down Mississippi’s anti-LGBT “religious freedom bill”, HB 1523. That means the law won’t remain in effect as Governor Phil Bryant appeals the judge’s ruling.

Bryant signed HB 1523 into law in April and on July 1, US District Judge Carlton Reeves struck it down. 

HB 1523 has been described as the worst religious freedom bill to-date in the entire country.

In Judge Reeves’ denial of the request for a stay, he suggests that the bill’s proponents could not demonstrate a considerable enough reason why the bill needed to remain in place during the appeals process.

Via BuzzFeed: 

“[I]ssuing a marriage license to a gay couple is not like being forced into armed combat or to assist with an abortion. Matters of life and death are sui generis. If movants truly believe that providing services to LGBT citizens forces them to ‘tinker with the machinery of death,’ their animus exceeds anything seen in Romer, Windsor, or the marriage equality cases,” he wrote — referencing the U.S. Supreme Court’s earlier gay rights cases.

“The motions are denied,” Reeves wrote in Monday’s order. “The baton is now passed.”

The post Federal Judge Won’t Stay Ruling Striking Down Mississippi’s Horrific Anti-LGBT Law appeared first on Towleroad.

feeds.towleroad.com/~r/towleroad/feed/~3/HIxeUh-NyWw/

Trump Crony Roger Stone Goes After Khan Family with Help from Notorious Homophobes – VIDEO

Former Trump campaign staff member and current confidante Roger Stone attacked the family of fallen Army Captain Humayun Khan by spreading accusations made by notorious homophobes Walid and Theodore Shoebat that Khan was a terrorist and that his father is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Talking Points Memo reports: 

In a lengthy post published Sunday, [Walid] Shoebat and his son Theodore argue that Khizr Khan, who made an emotional appeal Thursday at the Democratic National Convention to vote for Hillary Clinton to honor his son, “wants to advance Sharia Law and bring Muslims into the United States.”

The grammatically-challenged post concludes that Khan’s academic work on Islamic law, along with his work in immigration legal services, means he is a jihadi. The writers also group Captain Khan in with so-called “Muslim martyrs” who they accuse of being double agents for the U.S. and Al-Qaeda.

“Is it likely that Khan’s son was killed before his Islamist mission was accomplished? Only another type of investigation will determine that,” the blog reads.

That post came the same day that the Islamic State said Captain Khan died as an “apostate.”

Mr. Khan more than an aggrieved father of a Muslim son- he’s Muslim Brotherhood agent helping Hillary t.co/mJuUYw60nK

— Roger Stone (@RogerJStoneJr) August 1, 2016

RELATED: Gold Star Families Demand Trump Apologize to Khans, Americans in Open Letter

The name Shoebat should be familiar to our readers. We’ve previously reported on the antics of the both Walid and Theodore. The younger Shoebat has, among other things, called for the execution of gays and said that Christians who do not support the “extermination of gays” are liars and heretics.

Theodore also said that the Orlando massacre was just ‘scum killing scum.’ Via Right Wing Watch: 

Both Islam and homosexuality are aberrations, he declared, and “Muslims kill each other all the time [and] sodomites kill each other all the time,” so this case of a Muslim killing dozens of gay people was nothing more than “mutant killing mutant, devil killing devil.”

“Sodomites are criminals” and do not deserve the prayers of Christians, Shoebat stated. “The sodomites who were killed in this club were not innocent people. They were not good people. They were not people who were just victims who we should just feel sorry for. It was scum killing scum.”

Walid Shoebat also made sure to issue forth hateful remarks post-Orlando, as John Aravosis points out: 

“The only ones moaning over fifty gays slaughtered are liberals, idiots and gay lovers….

I don’t care about gays who are Muslim loving anti-gun liberals. Stupid people who hate life die. Stupid people who hate life always die.

The haters of God love death….

The FBI doesn’t care since the system is impossible to fix unless of course to be ‘Muslim’ should be illegal and tot (sic) be ‘Gay’ should also be illegal since gays are disgusting and are Muslim-loving anti guns.”

Walid is also on record as saying that radical Islam leads to gay right and cannibalism, and that ISIS is promoting the “homosexual agenda.” 

The post Trump Crony Roger Stone Goes After Khan Family with Help from Notorious Homophobes – VIDEO appeared first on Towleroad.

feeds.towleroad.com/~r/towleroad/feed/~3/tb7DvGp7D6A/

Rainbow Flag Emoji Will Finally Arrive on iPhones This Fall

Apple users will finally be getting a rainbow flag emoji when the company releases its iOS 10 for iPad and iPhone this fall, the company announced in a press release:

Writes Apple:

More than one hundred new and redesigned emoji characters will be available to iPhone and iPad users this Fall with iOS 10. This exciting update brings more gender options to existing characters, including new female athletes and professionals, adds beautiful redesigns of popular emoji, a new rainbow flag and more family options.

Apple is working closely with the Unicode Consortium to ensure that popular emoji characters reflect the diversity of people everywhere.

What new emoji would you like to see happen?

Here are some of the additional emoji announced:

The post Rainbow Flag Emoji Will Finally Arrive on iPhones This Fall appeared first on Towleroad.

feeds.towleroad.com/~r/towleroad/feed/~3/BAkaRBP08CM/

The Naming Project lets summer campers explore sexual orientation, gender and faith

www.glaad.org/blog/naming-project-lets-summer-campers-explore-sexual-orientation-gender-and-faith

Peter Thiel Likes the Idea of Injecting Young Blood Into His Body

The gay Republican and PayPal cofounder is said to be very interested in a process called parabiosis, which allegedly extends the human life span.

www.advocate.com/health/2016/8/01/peter-thiel-likes-idea-injecting-young-blood-his-body

End Of An Era: Gay.Com Chat Rooms Are No More As Of Today

It’s the end of an era.

Gay.com, the once thriving website that catered to gay men looking to hookup, is under new management as of today and some pretty big changes are underway.

Related: Bathhouses And Beyond: A Brief History Of Gay Cruising

Gay men of the late ’90s and early ’00s surely remember hours (and hours) spent glued to at their desktop computers hopping from chat room to chat room messaging guys, scanning photos, then sending them alias email addresses. It was the original Grindr.

Well now, according to the site’s FAQ page, those iconic chatrooms will “disappear”  as of August 1, 2016.

Related: If Gay.com Goes Offline and Hundreds of Thousands of People Can’t Hook Up, Does It Make a Sound?

“All the personal information you provided in your profile, including pictures and stories, will be permanently deleted,” the page continues. “Unfortunately, you will not able to retrieve any of your old information. … The dating website as you know it, will not be coming back.”

Honestly, we haven’t logged onto Gay.com in probably about a decade, maybe longer. In fact, we don’t even remember our usernames or passwords anymore. But it’s still sad to think that all those guys we had once favorited and all those chats records we had saved will cease to exist.

Related: Remorseless Confession Of Grindr Catfisher May Send Chill Down Your Spine

What are some of your best (and worse) Gay.com memories? Share them in the comments section below…

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/8HPiYNdfiS4/end-era-gay-com-chat-rooms-no-today-20160801

Did Gus Kenworthy Delete Evidence Of Partying With Prince Of Death-To-Gays Brunei?

According to an Instagram photo floating around this weekend, Gus Kenworthy (a professional skier), Matt Wilkas (an actor), and Caitlyn Jenner (an embarrassment) all went to a party for the son of the Sultan of Brunei. And they didn’t get stoned to death, not even once!

The photo comes via Kenneth Walsh of Kenneth in the 212. He claims that Gus posted a photo of the trio at a party before deleting it a few minutes later. According to Kenneth, the party was a celebration for the Sultan’s son. As you’ve surely heard, Brunei imposes harsh penalties on LGBTs, up to and including death for consensual gay sex. Unsurprisingly, the laws there are even worse for women.

So is it true? Well, Caitlyn was photographed entering a birthday party this weekend by the Daily Mail, though they didn’t say whose. And Prince Azim’s birthday is indeed July 29.

But is the photo of the trio actually from the Prince’s birthday? That’s harder to verify. There don’t seem to be any reports of Azim throwing a party this weekend (which doesn’t mean he didn’t) so it’s possible it’s a misunderstanding, a hoax, a joke, or simply a malicious lie someone cooked up to make everyone look bad. Or it could be true.

But hey, who cares about accuracy! Accuse first, ask questions later, that’s how we like to do things.

What’s not in dispute, though, is the harsh and horrible regime ruling the country. It’s not just queer people who suffer under the absolute monarchy; with religious law strictly enforced, everyone is forced to endure terrible treatment with the worst directed at marginalized groups.

If the rumors are indeed true, and these celebs did attend a bash for a despotic family, now would be a great opportunity to restore their standing the community by speaking out against the regime. Actually, it would be nice if they did so regardless of whether they were actually there.

We’ll wait.

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/p2WlR6UFOsc/gus-kenworthy-delete-evidence-partying-prince-death-gays-brunei-20160801

Lesbian Shot Dead in Front of Fiancee Weeks Before Wedding in Downtown Austin – VIDEO

Just over a month before she was set to marry her fiancee, a California woman was killed early Sunday when gunfire broke out on a crowded street in downtown Austin.

Teqnika Moultrie (above right), 30, who lives in the Bay Area, had been visiting her fiancee’s family in the Texas capital.

Moultrie and her fiancee, Sabrina Rudd (above left), planned to marry in September. They were picking up donuts in Austin’s 6th Street entertainment district shortly after 2 a.m. when Moultrie was struck in the head by a stray bullet.

“The violence needs to stop,” Teqnika’s brother, Richard Moultrie, told KTBC-TV. “Every day you look on Facebook, you look on the news, it’s every day something tragic is happening. Something has to stop, something has to give.”

When the gunfire erupted, Rudd dove to the ground before looking back to see that Moultrie had suffered “a devastating gunshot wound to the head,” according to police reports.

“She’s taking it really, really hard,” Richard Moultrie said of Rudd.

Police are still looking for the alleged shooter, 24-year-old Endicott Ishmael McCray (right), who’s now wanted on a charge of first-degree murder.

The Austin Statesman reports that McCray pulled a gun from his waistband and opened fire after he had been shoved by another man he was with. Panic erupted on 6th Street as revelers jammed the streets just as bars were closing, and police initially described it as an active shooter situation.

In addition to killing Moultrie, police say McCray wounded five people, four of whom were taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds.

“He’s destroyed his own life, he’s destroyed my sister’s life, and he’s destroyed our life. He needs to pay for what he’s done,” Richard Moultrie said.

Watch KTBC’s report below.

The post Lesbian Shot Dead in Front of Fiancee Weeks Before Wedding in Downtown Austin – VIDEO appeared first on Towleroad.

feeds.towleroad.com/~r/towleroad/feed/~3/ttCiOTuqzMI/

Marco Rubio To Headline Anti-LGBT Event in Orlando on Two Month Anniversary of Pulse Massacre

Senator Marco Rubio will headline an anti-LGBT religious conference being held in Orlando on the two month anniversary of the massacre at gay nightclub Pulse.

Right Wing Watch reports: 

The Orlando-based Liberty Counsel Action, an extreme anti-LGBT group whose affiliate is famous for representing Kentucky clerk Kim Davis in her stand against the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision, announced in an email [on July 27] that the Florida Renewal Project will be hosting an event called “Rediscovering God in America” in August. The event will be headlined by Rubio, who will speak alongside anti-LGBT activists David Barton, Bill Federer, Ken Graves and Mat Staver.

The Florida Renewal Project is an affiliate of conservative activist David Lane’s American Renewal Project, which hosts “Rediscovering God” conferences around the country.

Mat Staver is perhaps the most famous person on that list, as he represented anti-gay county clerk Kim Davis as she defied the Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage.

Another individual slated to appear at the conference is notorious homophobe David Lane. More on his record via NCRM: 

Lane has called homosexuality “debauchery,” suggested that Christians should be prepared to martyr themselves in order to prevent marriage equality, and has said that homosexuality is a moral crisis that “threatened our utter destruction.”

Lane’s focus for several years has been to encourage anti-LGBT Christian pastorsto run for political offices across local, state, and national levels. He has been closely tied to Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, and Ted Cruz, and in 2013 Lane wrote an op-ed calling for a “war to restore a Christian America.”

Rubio previously insinuated that it was the Orlando massacre which motivated him to seek re-election to the Senate after saying he would not seek re-election if he lost his bid for the Republican nomination for president (which he did). And while Rubio tried to court favor with the LGBT community in the days following the massacre, he’s apparently gone back to his old habits of pal-ing around with dangerous homophobes who sow the seeds of violent anti-LGBT crimes with their hateful rhetoric.

Eliel Cruz, Executive Director of Faith in America, a religious organization focused on sending affirming messages to LGBT people of faith, blasted Rubio in a statement issued Monday.

Said Cruz,

“The event ‘Rediscovering God in America Renewal Project’ is a who’s who [of] some of the country’s most hateful anti-LGBT persons. It’s incredulous a Senator of [the] United States is willing to collude with individuals who are dedicated to oppressing LGBT people. The beliefs shared by this group actively harm LGBT people. This is not the America we want. God will not be found anywhere near that event.”

Senator @marcorubio is headlining a vehemently anti LGBT conference in Orlando just after Pulse. Our statement: pic.twitter.com/8lgJA1Sgbc

— Eliel Cruz (@elielcruz) August 1, 2016

The post Marco Rubio To Headline Anti-LGBT Event in Orlando on Two Month Anniversary of Pulse Massacre appeared first on Towleroad.

feeds.towleroad.com/~r/towleroad/feed/~3/6k60nkbZA4w/