Blue Basement Bar
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Monthly Archives: September 2016
Conviction Overturned For Roommate Of Tyler Clementi, New Trial Ordered
Conviction Overturned For Roommate Of Tyler Clementi, New Trial Ordered
A New Jersey appeals court overturned Dharun Ravi‘s conviction on charges related to his webcam spying on his roommate, former Rutgers student Tyler Clementi, who committed suicide shortly thereafter.
Related: Monica Lewinsky Says Suicide Of Tyler Clementi Prompted Her To Break Her Decade-Long Silence
Ravi was convicted in 2012 on 15 charges, including counts of bias intimidation, a portion of which the state Supreme Court has since invalidated, ruling that it was “constitutionally vague.”
The three judge panel ruled that his prosecution on these charges “tainted the jury’s verdict on the remaining charges,” determining that he therefore did not receive a fair trial, The New York Times reports. They have ordered a new trial on the charges not related to bias intimidation, such as invasion of privacy and tampering with evidence.
The Times notes that the state’s bias crime law differed from that of many other states, writing, “It said defendants could be convicted if their victims ‘reasonably believed’ that they were harassed or intimidated because of a characteristic such as race or sexual orientation.”
Related: First Openly Gay Man To Climb Mount Everest Did It For At-Risk LGBTQ Youth
Last year, the state Supreme Court ruled that it was the defendant’s intent that mattered, not the victim’s perception of events.
The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s office now has to decide if it will appeal to the state Supreme Court, retry Ravi, or drop the case entirely.
Ravi originally faced up to 10 years in prison, but was sentenced to 30 days, three years probation, 300 hours of community service and to pay $10,000 to a program to help victims of hate crimes. He served 20 days of the 30 day prison sentence.
The appellate court condemned Ravi’s actions, even while overturning the conviction, with Judge Jose Fuentes writing for the court, “The social environment that transformed a private act of sexual intimacy into a grotesque voyeuristic spectacle must be unequivocally condemned in the strongest possible way.”
Related: Play Inspired By Tyler Clementi Debuts In Chicago (Photos)
Clementi’s parents, Joe and Jane Clementi, wrote a reaction to the decision, posted to the Tyler Clementi Foundation’s website:
Joe and I are not legal experts so we cannot interpret the law. All we can do is try to understand and deal with are the facts as we know them now.
We know that Tyler’s private moments were stolen from him and used to humiliate him. His life was forever affected and the lives of those who knew and loved him have been forever changed.
In light of today’s decision, we will do what we encourage all people to do before they push that send button, and that is to pause and consider the implications of their message. Does it encourage and build someone up or does it destroy and harm another person?
Our world moves very fast which pushes us to be impulsively spontaneous and sometimes harsh.
Today’s decision shows us how much more work there is to be done, and will push us forward with stronger determination to create a kinder more empathic society where every person is valued and respected. We will continue to work even harder sharing Tyler’s story through the Tyler Clementi Foundation and our many partners
BREAKING: Guy Irons In The Buff While Lip-Synching To Britney Spears
BREAKING: Guy Irons In The Buff While Lip-Synching To Britney Spears
Various news channels have reported that an unnamed, naked man was allegedly seen doing his ironing while nonchalantly lip-synching to Britney Spears’ recently released single, “Do You Want To Come Over?”
Related: Derrick Barry: Get to Know the World’s #1 Britney Spears Impersonator (Interview)
Troubling footage has surfaced which appears to show the man, who has yet to be identified, dragging his steaming iron across a white button-up shirt, all while indulging in some impromptu dance moves while taking part in what can only be described as a bizarre impersonation of the pop sensation.
Related: WATCH: Impromptu Locker Room Strip Tease Interrupted By Unsuspecting Bro
Queerty has viewed the footage, which consists of sixteen seconds, and would describe the man in question as well-built, swarthy, bearded, hirsute, and very sprightly.
We’ll update this post as more information becomes available.
Watch:
Actress Alexis Arquette Died of Complications Related to AIDS: REPORTS
Actress Alexis Arquette Died of Complications Related to AIDS: REPORTS
Multiple sources have come forward saying that transgender actress and activist Alexis Arquette’s sudden death on Sunday at age 47 was due to complications related to AIDS.
Alexis Arquette died from complications related to AIDS, a source confirms to PEOPLE.
The transgender actress died Sunday morning surrounded by her family at age 47, her brother, Richmond announced on Facebook (Richmond’s agent confirmed the news to PEOPLE in a statement Sunday). No further details about the actress’ health are available at this time.
When news of Arquette’s death broke on Sunday no specific cause was named, though TMZ suggested that Arquette had been battling an unnamed illness.
Radar Online also has sources confirming to them that Arquette had been battling AIDS:
“Alexis was living with AIDS and he had an inoperable tumor and he had developed an infection,” [Arquette’s ex-boyfriend] Robert Dupont explained to Radar. “I was told that went to his liver and throughout his body.”
Dupont, who famously ran in Andy Warhol‘s social circles and was a fixture at New York City’s most infamous club, Studio 54, dated Arquette for several years in the 1990s and said she was placed “in an induced coma” before passing away. […]
Of Arquette’s life before passing away, Dupont said,
“He was working as an artist and living in an Actors Fund home in West Hollywood for people with HIV and AIDS. He hated it. People kept breaking into his apartment and they did alcohol and drugs. Alexis hated that. He never did drugs and he didn’t drink […] His family offered to have him live with them, but he wanted to be independent.”
Another source reported to Radar that Arquette passed due to AIDS complications, saying, “Towards the end he was in a lot of pain, but he was not going to give up. He was holding on so hard at the end and he was such a fighter. Alexis was sick for so long.”
Read some of the tributes that poured in for Arquette, here.
The post Actress Alexis Arquette Died of Complications Related to AIDS: REPORTS appeared first on Towleroad.
Two Openly Gay Men are Running for Russia’s National Assembly in Defiance of Putin
Two Openly Gay Men are Running for Russia’s National Assembly in Defiance of Putin
For what appears to be the first time in Russian history, two openly gay men are running for seats in the State Duma, the lower house of the country’s Federal Assembly.
Both men have been outspoken gay rights activists and say that the 2013 anti-gay propaganda law spurred them to run for elected office.
Bulat Barantayev (33, above) and Aleksei Korolyov (29, right) are both running as part of the liberal Parnas political coalition.
While both are staunchly anti-Putin, Barantayev has gone so far as to call for the impeachment and imprisonment of the Russian president along with any other corrupt government officials.
Neither Barantayev nor Korolyov believe they have a chance of winning a seat in the Duma, not least because of their anti-Putin positions in a country which he rules almost autocratically. Still, they hope their candidacies will show conservative politicians that LGBT Russians aren’t afraid to stand up to bigotry.
Barantayev told Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty,
“For a long time now, I have used all opportunities to cultivate an audience for accepting LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] people. By my example, I show that gays in Russia can create their own successful businesses, can meet with people, can have children, and can even run for the State Duma.”
Said Korolyov,
“The LGBT community now is in a desperate situation and we need allies. It is good that we have been able to form an alliance with Parnas. The LGBT community gets new resources to defend itself and the party should get some new voters…. I decided to run because the ruling party has adopted an extreme homophobic position. The authorities are facilitating a homophobic discourse in society that is inciting hate crimes.”
Of the anti-gay propaganda law, Barantayev said, “The mechanism that the authorities are using to foster homophobia in society is very primitive. The LGBT community has been branded as enemies in order to divert the public’s attention from real economic and political problems.”
Korolyov has been actively making inroads with the liberal side of the political establishment when it comes to backing LGBT rights. He explains,
“For four years, I have been working to establish relations between the LGBT community and various democratic organizations, including the Yabloko party. Before the passage of the ‘gay propaganda’ law, many democrats said the topic isn’t important and society won’t respond positively. Now everyone understands that the LGBT community needs support.”
Both men are not particularly worried for their safety despite their high visibility. They say that since they have no chance of winning they are not viewed as a threat.
“The authorities believe there is no chance I’ll be elected in today’s Russia. So they don’t pay any attention to me,” Barantayev said.
Barantayev has however been attacked in the past because he is gay:
“I was called and summoned to the mayor’s office in response to my application to hold an LGBT event. But outside the building, I was jumped by thugs and beaten up. When I return home late, young men that I don’t know call me by name and shout obscenities. Because of the attacks, I am a little afraid to be out in public sometimes. But I don’t have a victim complex. They treat us the way we let them treat us.”
PREVIOUSLY – WATCH: Flamboyantly Dressed Military Vet Vows to ‘Beat Up All These Gays’ At St. Petersburg Pride Rally
Korolyov, meanwhile, is hopeful about the future. “Maybe I’ll be elected to the eighth Duma [in 2021],” he said. “We can’t hide and be afraid. The discriminatory law has activated the LGBT community and has spurred development. We recognize that if we don’t do politics, politics will do us.”
[Top photo via Facebook]
The post Two Openly Gay Men are Running for Russia’s National Assembly in Defiance of Putin appeared first on Towleroad.
#MusicMonday: Billy Porter Reveals New Song at HRC National Dinner
#MusicMonday: Billy Porter Reveals New Song at HRC National Dinner
At HRC’s National Dinner Saturday night, Billy Porter premiered his still unrecorded new song “All That Matters.”
“A number of years back, I wrote this tune in support of the marriage equality movement and recently I realized that the lyric and sentiment of the song transcends just marriage and embraces the fact that something Martin Luther King Jr. said that, ‘Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that,” he said at the event. “And hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. Am I right? Love is love is love is love is love is love and that’s all that matters.”
Porter is a Tony and Grammy Award-winning singer, composer, actor, playwright and director. Among his numerous critically acclaimed roles, Porter starred as “Lola” in the smash hit Broadway musical Kinky Boots, for which he won the 2013 Drama Desk and Tony Awards for Best Actor in a Musical.
Porter told OUT Magazine, “There are many parallels between Lola and myself — mainly the idea of being an outsider and holding on to who you are. I think the joy and the pleasure of Kinky Boots is that it transcends sexuality, it transcends stereotypes, and it transcends fear, which I think motivates a lot of the bigotry and homophobia that exists in the world. It’s nice to reach people at a human level.”
Watch the video below to listen to the song and click here for all the videos from the 20th annual National Dinner.
2016 Vancouver Pride Parade
2016 Vancouver Pride Parade
Wulf Odinson Photography posted a photo:
Part of Vancouver`s 2016 Gay Pride celebrations.
Barbra Streisand Clowns Trump With Parody Version Of “Send In The Clowns”
Barbra Streisand Clowns Trump With Parody Version Of “Send In The Clowns”
Barbra Streisand skewered Donald Trump at an LGBTQ fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in New York on Friday with a parody of the Stephen Sondheim song “Send in the Clowns.”
Streisand followed Clinton, who introduced her saying, “We all love this woman, either from afar or, luckily enough, up close.”
Related: Tim Kaine Also Thinks It’s Absurd That Donald Trump Is Peddling “LGBT For Trump” Shirts
The crowd, of about 1,000, ate up every second of the performance. She begins:
Is he that rich?
Maybe he’s poor?
Till he reveals his returns
Who can be sure?
Who needs this clown?
Ouch. Since we know Trump is most sensitive about his wealth this has to hurt. She continues:
Something’s amiss
I don’t approve
If he were running the free world
Where would we move?
Name me a town
Just who is this clown?
And when we thought we’d heard it all
Huffing and puffing about his big fantasy wall
Making his entrance on stage
He just shoots from the hip
He’s full of bull
He’s lost his grip
And if by chance
He gets to heaven
Even up there he’ll declare
Chapter 11
Who’d hire this clown?
This sad vulgar clown
“You’re fired!” you clown
Hillary’s kind
Smart, that is clear,
While she is giving us hope, Trump is selling us fear
Look how he changes his views every time that he speaks
It’s lie after lie
Can’t take eight more weeks
This is no farce
Maybe he’s broke?
Is this the art of his deal?
Or some awful joke?
You’ve got to admit
This silly halfwit
Is so full of shit!
Watch video of the performance below, captured by actress Debra Messing.
BABS rewrites lyrics to “Send In The Clowns” for Trump harpoon. Your Welcome??? pic.twitter.com/qVRF5yF6Ur
— Debra Messing (@DebraMessing) September 10, 2016
Tim Kaine Also Thinks It’s Absurd That Donald Is Peddling “LGBTQ For Trump” Shirts
Tim Kaine Also Thinks It’s Absurd That Donald Is Peddling “LGBTQ For Trump” Shirts
There’s absolutely no question that Donald Trump is bad bad bad for queer people. He’s said over and over that he opposes marriage equality, he has zero plans for improving the lives of LGBTs, and he’s surrounded himself with anti-gay extremists. (Compare that to Hillary, who has multiple detailed plans to help queer people at home and abroad.)
And yet … Trump’s merchandising people have the nerve to produce a line of “LGBTQ for Trump” t-shirts that you can buy on the site. Of all the messages you can put on your body, why on Earth would you choose one that tells people you’re an easily manipulated lunatic?
Related: The Official Donald Trump LGBTQ Swag You’ve Been Waiting For Is Finally Here
This weekend, Tim Kaine, Hillary’s running mate, pointed out just how bizarre it is for the Republican frontrunner to offer such a product.“Go to the position page [and] search for an LGBTQ agenda. Or maybe I can save you the time — there isn’t one. No mention. It’s invisible. It’s a non-issue. Now, if you go to the store part of his website, you will find a shirt targeted at your community asking for your money.”
Yup, no plan to correct the records of service members discharged under DADT. No HIV policy. No mention of pressuring foreign governments to stop killing queer people. (Maybe that’s because Mike Pence, Trump’s running mate, once defended the right of anti-gay countries to imprison and execute gays.)
But hey, you can still get a t-shirt! So Trump can’t be all bad!
Nyle DiMarco Says a Major Advantage of Being Deaf is That He Can’t Hear Donald Trump: WATCH
Nyle DiMarco Says a Major Advantage of Being Deaf is That He Can’t Hear Donald Trump: WATCH
Dancing with the Stars and America’s Next Top Model winner Nyle DiMarco spoke at the Human Rights Campaign National Gala over the weekend and gave an inspiring speech about what it means to him to be deaf, and also LGBTQ.
Said DiMarco:
“Tonight is about embracing our identities and our differences to find confidence to do whatever we are inspired to do. My passion, personally, is being my true self while inspiring young people who are struggling with their identities to love themselves for who they are. And myself, as a sexually fluid deaf man, I know that embracing all our identities is the way to thrive and to overcome the limitations and prejudices that surround us. There is no doubt in my mind that human diversity is what colors our world. For all LGBTQ Americans, we know from experience that labels can’t hold us back. We can change the world one person at a time simply by being our true selves.”
RELATED: America’s Next Top Model Stud And Fan Favorite Nyle DiMarco Comes Out as Sexually Fluid
DiMarco also joked that one major advantage he has over people who can hear is that he doesn’t have to listen to Donald Trump:
“Seriously, I don’t find not being able to hear an obstacle or a boundary. For me and for many of us, it is an advantage and it’s a part of my identity in fact. It’s a huge part of who I am. And in this very turbulent political year, trust me, don’t you want to sometimes just turn the volume off completely when Donald Trump starts to rant? I have a tremendous advantage there as well. I don’t hear a thing.”
Watch DiMarco’s inspiring speech:
The post Nyle DiMarco Says a Major Advantage of Being Deaf is That He Can’t Hear Donald Trump: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.
