=== Video – 2 new results for [webcams] === Everyone should cover up their laptop webcams right now, says FBI director James Comey The FBI has advised everyone to cover up their computers’ webcams to stop them being spied on.
Monthly Archives: September 2016
#AM_Equality Tip Sheet: September 15, 2016
#AM_Equality Tip Sheet: September 15, 2016
IN TODAY’S EDITION: ACC moves championship games out of NC over Anti-LGBTQ HB2…NC Women call out HB@ for disguising discrimination as protection…Salsforce Chief plans continued action for LGBTQ equality…throwback Thursday…Michigan Education Board approves LGBTQ guidance for schools…New back-to-school guide on transgender children…Tenn. Republicans trying to insert themselves in a same-sex divorce case…Catholic school refuses to enroll transgender student…We need to do more for LGBTQ employees…HRC saddened to learn of death of Pulse tragedy survivor
ACC FOLLOWS NCAA LEAD, MOVES CHAMPIONSHIP GAMES OUT OF NC OVER ANTI-LGBTQ HB2: The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) decided yesterday to stand up for the safety of its employees, players, and fans by moving championship games out of North Carolina due to the state and Gov. Pat McCrory’s anti-LGBTQ HB2 law. The ACC announced that law is “inconsistent” with their values of “equality, diversity, inclusion and non-discrimination.” HRC President Chad Griffin hailed the decision: “In standing up for LGBTQ equality, the ACC, the NCAA, and the NBA are all standing on the right side of history. Governor McCrory and state lawmakers should work swiftly to repeal HB2 and bring back championship games to North Carolina. The fact that Governor McCrory and other lawmakers continue to play politics with discrimination is inexcusable, enormously costly, and simply wrong. The people of North Carolina deserve better and have a chance to make their voices heard November 8.” More from HRC.
- The Charlotte Observer reports “Reaction thunders in over ACC decision”: Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts (@CLTMayor) tweets: “How many companies and sports organizations have to leave NC before the Governor and NCGA leadership wake up to the 21st Century & repeal HB2?”
- More coverage of the ACC’s decision at the New York Times, USA Today, and ESPN.
.@PatMcCroryNC has just cost our state – and my city – our legendary @theACC events. We can’t afford your pride anymore, guv. #ncpol #HB2
— Chris Sgro (@cristoferosgro) September 14, 2016
NC WOMEN CALL OUT HB2 FOR DISGUISING DISCRIMINATION AS PROTECTION: Yesterday morning, representatives from women’s right groups held a news conference calling out the North Carolina Republican leaders who claim HB2 is meant to “protect women.” NC Rep. Rosa Gill (@Rep_Rosa_Gill), Jen Ferris (@dillettantrum) of NC Women United and Alexis Dee of the Southern Comfort Conference board of directors spoke to call out supporters of the bill who are trying to disguise discrimination as protection. More from The Charlotte Observer.
SALESFORCE CHIEF PLANS CONTINUED ACTION FOR LGBTQ EQUALITY:Salesforce.com Inc. CEO Mark Benioff (@Benioff) in an interview with Bloomberg’s Brad Stone (@BradStone) and Jeff Green (@JeffAGreen), says his company is hiring its first chief diversity officer, and he plans to “redouble his fight against state laws he considers unfair” to LGBTQ employees. Benioff and other top corporate leaders have led efforts to stop anti-LGBTQ measures in states including Georgia and North Carolina. “While at Salesforce, equality is job one,” Benioff said. Read more here.
THROWBACK THURSDAY: Congressman John Lewis is a civil rights icon and has long-been a stalwart ally to the LGBTQ community. Check out this snapshot of his historic and inspiring efforts for equality featuring his speech from HRC’s National Dinner last weekend.
MICHIGAN EDUCATION BOARD APPROVES LGBTQ GUIDANCE FOR SCHOOLS: Yesterday, the Michigan Education Board approved new guidelines encouraging schools to create a more inclusive environment for their LGBTQ students, with emphasis on allowing transgender students use facilities consistent with their gender identity. The guidelines came after an extensive public comment period, where more than 230 Michiganders gave input. The guidelines affirm that when a student’s gender identity is respected, they are more likely to learn and thrive. More from The Associated Press.
NEW BACK-TO-SCHOOL GUIDE ON TRANSGENDER CHILDREN: Yesterday, HRC Foundation released a new back-to-school guide to equip parents, teachers, and allies of LGBTQ students with information and resources to ensure that their schools are welcoming and safe for LGBTQ youth and the children of LGBTQ parents. The resource, which includes information on HRC Foundation’s Welcoming Schools professional development training modules and checklists for inclusive classroom practices and parent actions, comes during a period of increased attention to LGBTQ-inclusion in schools and harmful political attacks on transgender young people. More from HRC.
- HRC will host experts in education equality during a live panel discussion on the HRC Facebook page at 4 p.m. today, moderated by HRC National Press Secretary Sarah McBride (@SarahEMcBride).
TENN. REPUBLICANS TRYING TO INSERT THEMSELVES IN A SAME-SEX DIVORCE CASE: Fifty-three Republican lawmakers in Tennessee are filing a motion to intervene in the divorce of two Knoxville women arguing over child custody. The misguided elected officials claim that one parent has no right to custody because the relevant Tennessee state law in the case refers to “husband of the birth-mother,” and not same-sex spouses. More from The Tennessean.
CATHOLIC SCHOOL REFUSES TO ENROLL TRANSGENDER STUDENT: A New Jersey Catholic school is refusing to accept a transgender student, citing his gender identity. Read the emotional interview with the student, Mason Catrambone, and his parents at The Philadelphia Inquirer.
- MUST READ: This brave 12-year-old transgender boy’s powerful message to officials in his Pennsylvania school district. Watch Ari Bowman address the East Penn School District board here. Following
“I hope you understand what being #trans means. It doesn’t make me any less or any more. It makes me me.” t.co/Yaw5deYj5j
— HumanRightsCampaign (@HRC) September 15, 2016
WE NEED TO DO MORE FOR LGBTQ EMPLOYEES: After attending the Stanford Graduate School of Business’ first-of-its-kind LGBTQ executive leadership program, Beth Parker (@BethParkerDC) writes in The Guardian about her experience and the work still needed to prevent people from going back “in the closet” in the business world. For more information on the importance of employees being out in the workplace, check out HRC’s groundbreaking “Cost of the Closet and the Rewards of Inclusion” report here.
HRC SADDENED TO LEARN OF DEATH OF PULSE TRAGEDY SURVIVOR:Chris Brodman, 34, died unexpectedly in Tampa three months after the deadly shooting in Orlando. Read more here.
READING RAINBOW
Congrats to The New York Times’ Frank Bruni (@FrankBruni) for winning the Randy Shilts Award for LGBT Coverage from the Association of LGBTQ Journalists!… New Jersey Spotlight highlights Garden State Equality’s efforts to improve LGBTQ reproductive healthcare… The Tennessean reports that trans actress Jen Richards (@SmartAssJen) will join the cast of “Nashville”… Model, actress and YouTube star Gigi Gorgeous came out yesterday saying loud and proud that she’s lesbian…
Have news? Send us your news and tips at [email protected]. Click here to subscribe to A.M. Equality and follow @HRC for all the latest news. Thanks for reading!
www.hrc.org/blog/am-equality-tip-sheet-september-15-2016?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed
Plaintiff in SCOTUS Marriage Equality Case to Lead Pilgrimage to Celebrate LGBTQ Catholics
Plaintiff in SCOTUS Marriage Equality Case to Lead Pilgrimage to Celebrate LGBTQ Catholics
Post submitted by Greg Bourke
My husband, Michael De Leon, and I are both “cradle Catholics” having been born into traditional Catholic families, were raised and have remained active in the faith for all of our lives. In our late-50s now, we have been practicing our faith together for all of our nearly 35 years together as a couple, and the last 29 years we have been openly gay and very active members of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Louisville, Kentucky.
Our faith has been so important to us over the years that we sent our two children through the Catholic school system from preschool all the way through Catholic high school. Our son graduated from Trinity High School in May, and our daughter is currently a senior at Sacred Heart Academy. Over our many years at Lourdes, Michael and I have participated in numerous ministries, serving on Parish Council, Worship Committee, Communion Ministry, Youth Ministries (soccer coach, girl scout leader, boy scout leader), Resurrection Choir, Hospitality Ministry, and the list goes on. We love our parish and our faith, and we feel loved by and fully integrated into the larger parish community.
When we move beyond our parish, however, we find a more reticent and often condemning Catholic hierarchy just outside our somewhat insulated community. Over the last few years, the Archdiocese of Louisville has taken discriminatory action to prevent me from returning to service as a Boy Scout Leader at our church-sponsored unit even after the Boy Scouts of America removed its ban on openly gay adult members. Earlier this year, the Archdiocese also denied a proposed gravesite memorial at our local Catholic cemetery for my husband and me just because of our public participation as plaintiffs in the US Supreme Court ruling last year that brought Marriage Equality to the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the whole United States. Legally the Archdiocese has acted within its power to take these positions, but does anybody seriously think this is what Jesus would do?
There are so many pockets of fair-minded and progressive Catholics out there, particular young Catholics, that the loathing and discrimination expressed toward LGBT Catholics seems to be increasingly unjustified and out of step. Many other faiths, some Christian, have already transcended their old ways and have moved toward full inclusion of LGBT members. Our Catholic Church, however, just keeps dragging its feet seeming unwilling to make that leap of faith to stop judging LGBT individuals just because of who they are, the people that God created them to be.
We have seen signs of hope and a change in tone with our new beloved leader, Pope Francis, who has called on Catholics not to judge LGBT people. After the devastating massacre at Pulse in Orlando this summer, Pope Francis sympathetically declared “I repeat what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: that they (LGBT people) must not be discriminated against, that they must be respected and accompanied pastorally.” That doesn’t seem like asking too much, but many Catholic churches and church-sponsored institutions continue to ignore that papal guidance and discriminate prolifically against LGBT Catholics. It seems like not a day goes by that we don’t learn of some new heart-wrenching act of discrimination taking place against LGBT Catholics.
It is this current state of affairs that has inspired my husband and me to join together with my fellow members of the Gay and Lesbian Alumni of Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s College (GALA ND/SMC) to organize a Pilgrimage of Mercy event in New York City on October 2, 2016. This walk-of-the-faithful is patterned after our successful Catholics for Fairness pilgrimages held here in Kentucky the last several years.
Pope Francis has recently declared “We are in the midst of an Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy in the Catholic faith during which we are to be merciful like the Father” and perform acts of mercy and forgiveness to all. It is in this spirit, GALA ND/SMC has partnered with a wide range of organizations to initiate our pilgrimage in support of this decree issued by Pope Francis. Thus far, partner organizations for the Pilgrimage of Mercy include HRC, GLAAD, Freedom for All Americans, Catholics for Fairness, New Ways Ministry, Dignity National and Dignity New York, Out at Saint Paul, Equally Blessed, Believe Out Loud, and Fortunate Families. So many organizations, and so many Catholics in the pews like the ones at our parish, know that discrimination is wrong and they are ready to step up and insist that it is time for this shaming, judging and marginalization to end. LGBT Catholics should have the same access to full participation in the Church that others have, and the religious freedom of LGBT Catholics should also be protected as we seek to be full, active members of our Church.
My husband and would ask that anyone so inclined please offer prayers of support for the success of this Pilgrimage of Mercy, this pilgrimage that we all share toward God’s plan in which all are created equal, and all are welcome.
Archbishop Of Wales: Gay Sex Not Sinful
Archbishop Of Wales: Gay Sex Not Sinful
The Archbishop of Wales, Dr. Barry Morgan, used his final address ahead of retirement to the governing body of the Anglican Church in Wales to encourage a rethink of same-sex relationships, saying there is nothing improper about sex in a committed gay or lesbian relationship.
Related: Anglican Church Has A Message For Homophobic Christians: “Get Over It”
He reminded the members that even Bible passages that seem to harshly condemn homosexuality, such as those detailing the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, can be “interpreted in more than one way,” The Telegraph reports. He added that there is no “one settled understanding of what the Bible says” about sexuality, as well as a range of other topics.
He cited a number of Old Testament and New Testament verses in which, he said, there are contradictions on topics as diverse as the status of eunuchs in Jewish society to the use of violence as a form of legitimate retribution.
“What all this shows is that within the Scriptures themselves, there are radical shifts in understanding in what it means to discern the will of God,” he said.
“It absolutely will not do to quote texts from parts of the Bible in a simplistic way without reference to their contexts,” he added.
He also pointed out that in the past churches have radically shifted their stances on issues such as slavery.
“What all this amounts to is that one cannot argue that there is one accepted traditional way of interpreting scripture that is true and orthodox and all else is modern revisionism, culturally conditioned…so taking the Bible as a whole and taking what it says very seriously may lead us into a very different view of same-sex relationships than the one traditionally upheld by the church,” Dr. Morgan said.
“We are not thereby abandoning the Bible but trying to interpret it in a way that is consistent with the main thrust of the ministry of Jesus, who went out of His way to minister to those who were excluded, marginalised, and abandoned by his society because they were regarded as impure and unholy by the religious leaders of his day, either because of their gender, age, morality or sexuality,” he continued.
Related: Antigay Politician Confronted By Gay Brother On Live TV
Dr. Morgan is stepping down in early 2017 after serving for 14 years as Archbishop. Dr. Morgan previously apologized to the gay community on behalf of the church. In a statement, the church reiterated that gay and lesbian people “are fully affirmed as equal disciples” and apologised for “the persecution and mistreatment they have endured at the hands of the Church.”
feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/iJocKRbAXZE/archbishop-wales-gay-sex-not-sinful-20160915
PHOTOS: There’s Nothing Plastic About The Men In Milan
PHOTOS: There’s Nothing Plastic About The Men In Milan
Spain’s First Gay Football Ref Returns to Game, is Immediately Threatened: ‘Not Long Left to Live, Faggot’
Spain’s First Gay Football Ref Returns to Game, is Immediately Threatened: ‘Not Long Left to Live, Faggot’
Jesús Tomillero, the first openly gay football referee in Spain, who quit last May because of homophobic abuse from fans, changed his mind and returned to work.
Unfortunately, he immediately began receiving anti-gay threats, the Guardian reports:
Jesús Tomillero, 21, was refereeing a game between CD Lasalle and Atlético Zabal in Andalusía’s second division on Saturday when a Lasalle supporter told him to “get off for being gay” after he awarded a penalty to Zabal.
The game was stopped and the man was removed but he managed to get back in and shout “You f**king faggot” at Tomillero.
Following the match – his second since returning – the referee started getting death threats on social media. “You son of a bitch. You messed with the club. We’ll kill you with AIDS, you faggot,” read one.
Another message, featuring a photograph of a handgun and bullets, said: “Not long left to live, faggot.”
RELATED: Homophobic Fan Fined $170 For Harassing Spain’s First Openly Gay Football Referee
Tomillero said that the threats began after he posted about the match on social media.
He now has 24-hour security protecting him.
Tomillero told the paper: “I go the first one about three o’clock [Monday] afternoon. It said: ‘Reporting this was a mistake, Jesús. The boss has put a price on your head.’ There was a picture of a gun and a car and it said: ‘Get ready for what’s coming, faggot.’”
It’s unclear if Tomillero will stay in the game or decide to hang up his uniform once and for all.
The post Spain’s First Gay Football Ref Returns to Game, is Immediately Threatened: ‘Not Long Left to Live, Faggot’ appeared first on Towleroad.
Indonesia Moves Ahead with Banning 80+ Gay Apps and Websites
Indonesia Moves Ahead with Banning 80+ Gay Apps and Websites
Last week we reported that officials in Indonesia were considering a ban on Grindr, Scruff, Hornet, Adam4Adam and similar gay apps after a pedophilia ring was found to have used apps to ‘pimp’ teenage boys.
Now, it appears they are moving ahead with the plans, which encompass up to 80 apps and websites, according to Buzzfeed News:
“The participants of the meeting all agree to block websites promoting LGBT,” Aidil Chendramata, director of information security for the Ministry of Communications, told BuzzFeed News following the meeting. The panel included representatives from the Ministry of Human Development, the National Police, and the Ministry of Religious Affairs, which was represented by a member of the country’s Muslim clerics association. “Most of the contents are leading toward pornography [and have] violated the law on pornography and the law on child protection,” Chendramata said.
The move comes several months after the Ministry of Communication announced it would craft a ban on LGBT “propaganda” in March, part of an unprecedented crackdown on LGBT rights in the country. The Constitutional Court is separatelyconsidering a petition that could make homosexuality a crime in Indonesia for the first time.
The meeting was initially convened to review a police request to block Grindr and 17 other gay apps they allege were used by a child prostitution ring. But the meeting reviewed a broader list, said Ericson Siregar, an officer with the National Police Criminal Investigations Department who participated in the meeting, because the Ministry of Communication had “previously investigated gay applications” and identified dozens for “promoting LGBT.”
Experts say the move is part of a broader attack on US-based social media, but the gay apps are the “low-hanging fruit”, easier to knock off because of nudity and their sexual nature.
In an interview following the speech with BuzzFeed News, Siradj added that Indonesia’s Islamic institutions were also fighting on a second online front — against extremist Islamic groups overseas.
“On Facebook, Twitter, and other sites, there are right-wing extremism, radicalism … ISIS also uses it, Al-Qaeda also uses it, other terrorists such as Jamaah Islam, Jamaah Tabliq Al-Hijrom, Mujahiddin also use it — so it is not only LGBT,” Siradj said. “Radicalism is not the nature or role of Islam in Indonesia…. Radicalism in religion all comes from the Middle East.”
The post Indonesia Moves Ahead with Banning 80+ Gay Apps and Websites appeared first on Towleroad.
John Waters Star Kim ‘Hatchet-Face’ McGuire Has Died
John Waters Star Kim ‘Hatchet-Face’ McGuire Has Died
Actress Kim McGuire has died, the Divine official Facebook page reports.McGuire is best known for playing Mona “Hatchet-Face” Malnorowski in the 1990 John Waters musical comedy Cry-Baby, starring Johnny Depp. McGuire was 60.
Watch some Hatchet-Face highlights:
McGuire’s friend Suzy Hixson set up a GoFundMe campaign to cover Kim’s funeral costs and her husband Gene’s living expenses.
She writes:
What many people don’t know is Kim was accomplished in so many other feats as well. She flourished in theater and passed the BAR to become an attorney in multiple states. Much of this came tumbling down when Hurricane Katrina hit. Kim and Gene were living in New Orleans at the time and unfortunately lost everything in the hurricane. They actually had to swim out of their home! As one could imagine, this took a toll on both Kim and Gene mentally and physically. They lost all things dear to them and had to rebuild their life together from square one. Shortly after the tragedy, they relocated to Mississippi and then eventually to Naples, Florida. Since the hurricane, Kim became an accomplished author with her dear husband Gene by her side and publishing books of his own.
The post John Waters Star Kim ‘Hatchet-Face’ McGuire Has Died appeared first on Towleroad.
Google Alert – chat room
=== News – 1 new result for [chat room] === Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) Introduces Desktop Facebook Live Video, To Introduce Facebook … Markets Daily The said source code indicates that every public chat room has a unique link that can be shared to any user, enabling them to join the discussion.
Google Alert – webcams
=== News – 3 new results for [webcams] === FBI chief James Comey recommends taping over your webcam Engadget If hackers get a hold of your webcam, they can easily turn your life into a reality show without your consent. Back in 2014, someone put up a website …
