Pepsi pulls disastrous protest ad, formally apologizes to Kendall Jenner
They’re sorry for what people are calling “the worst ad ever”.

www.queerty.com/pepsi-pulls-disastrous-protest-ad-formally-apologizes-kendall-jenner-20170405?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

North Korea, Anchorage, Colton Haynes, Queer British Art, Vin Diesel, NASA’s Cassini Probe: HOT LINKS

NORTH KOREA. Missile launch provocation ahead of U.S. – China summit. “The missile flew about 60 km (40 miles) from its launch site at Sinpo, a port city on North Korea’s east coast, the South Korean Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. Sinpo is home to a North Korean submarine base. The launch comes just a day before the start of a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, where talks about adding pressure on the North to drop its arms development will take centre stage.”

ART YOU CAN EAT. Put Vin Diesel between your lips and take a bite.

FIVETHIRTYEIGHT. Is filibustering Gorsuch a smart strategy?

NEIL GORSUCH. Plagiarist?

WESTCHESTER COUNTY. Transgender woman and former TV reporter runs for office in Hillary Clinton’s town.

ANCHORAGE. City makes history with election of two openly gay lawmakers: “Christopher Constant, running against a prominent Democrat and three lesser known conservatives for the downtown seat being vacated by Flynn, won Tuesday with 52 percent of the vote. His closest competitor was David Dunsmore, a fellow Democrat, who mustered just 23.35 percent of the vote after the latter pursued a final week of negative campaigning, which evidently backfired. Felix Rivera, also openly gay, is now too an Assembly member-elect, fending off three challengers while maintaining nearly 47 percent of the vote in midtown Anchorage. Rivera ran for the seat being vacated by Assembly Chair Elvi Gray-Jackson with her full support — as well as the support of current Vice-chair Dick Traini.”

DATE NIGHT. Colton Haynes and Jeff Leatham step out to Chateau Marmont.

BRONZED. What Tom Daley is after the Diving World Cup.

QUEER BRITISH ART. A review of Tate Britain’s new exhibit: “The exhibition’s focus on white male artists is impossible to ignore, with women, trans people and people of color glaringly underrepresented. The exhibition’s curator, Clare Barlow, confesses that, ‘we have been constantly frustrated by the comparative scarcity of material relating to intersectional identities: working-class queer lives, queer people of color, trans and genderqueer identities, even queer women artists.’”

FINLAND. More than 800 same-sex couples marry during first month of marriage equality. “New figures from the Population Register Centre of Finland show 770 same-sex couples have changed their relationship status to married since March 1. Since Finland granted gay marriages equal legal footing, couples were able to change their status from registered to married by simply submitting a form to their local register office. A total of 87 new same-sex couples tied the knot in the same time period, making the grand total of gay marriages 857 in the first month after the legal change.”

SPACE. NASA’s Cassini probe will plunge into the planet.

HUMP DAY HOTTIE. Anthony Webster.

The post North Korea, Anchorage, Colton Haynes, Queer British Art, Vin Diesel, NASA’s Cassini Probe: HOT LINKS appeared first on Towleroad.

North Korea, Anchorage, Colton Haynes, Queer British Art, Vin Diesel, NASA’s Cassini Probe: HOT LINKS

Texas Democrats Take a Stand Against Anti-Transgender Legislation

Post submitted by David Topping, HRC Texas Field Manager

Last month, ten Senate Democrats in Texas stood up for the LGBTQ community by speaking against the anti-transgender bill SB 6. During the Senate hearing and on the floor, these ten legislators took their colleagues to task for pushing discrimination against the LGBTQ community. As a thank you, HRC Federal Club member Danielle Skidmore and local HRC volunteer Steve Alcocer delivered framed “Thank You” cards to the ten heroes. These cards were signed with the names of constituents and other advocates who came to Austin for All In For Equality Advocacy Day on March 20.

SB 6 — dishonestly titled the “Privacy Protection Act” — is a bill expressly intended to discriminate against and block facility access for transgender Texans. The bill would overturn non-discrimination ordinances currently providing critical protections in several major Texas cities; further, it would force state agencies, municipalities, public schools and public universities to discriminate against transgender people. By making it illegal for transgender people in Texas to be afforded access to facilities consistent with their identity, it opens them up to increased discrimination and harassment as they simply live their everyday lives. It also exposes Texas to tremendous risk of the kind of financial, legal, and political blowback that North Carolina has reckoned since the passage of HB2.

Volunteer to join us.

HRC has opened four offices throughout Texas: Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio. We have a team of five organizers working to mobilize our members and supporters against anti-LGBTQ discrimination. Live in Texas and want to get more involved in the fight against discrimination in Texas? Contact HRC Texas Field Manager David Topping for more info.

www.hrc.org/blog/texas-democrats-take-a-stand-against-anti-transgender-legislation?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

VIDEO: Tarell Alvin McCraney dedicates 'Moonlight' GLAAD Media Award to women of color

www.glaad.org/blog/watch-tarell-alvin-mccraney-accepts-outstanding-film-award-glaadawards

'Maurice' and More Mark a Special Year for San Francisco Film Fest

The nation’s oldest film festival, turning 60, honors James Ivory and spotlights social justice issues.

www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/2017/4/05/maurice-and-more-mark-special-year-san-francisco-film-fest

Guess how many tickets were purchased for Shia LaBeouf’s new film?
Hint: The number is more than zero, but less than two. ?

www.queerty.com/guess-many-tickets-purchased-shia-labeoufs-new-film-20170405?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

7th Circuit Says Anti-Gay Discrimination is Sex Discrimination Under Title VII: An Analysis of the Ruling

Kimberly Hively

Yesterday, a federal appellate court held, in Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College, that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in the workplace “on the basis of sex”, also prohibits an employer from firing someone because he or she is gay. This is, as they say, a big f*in deal. Although the argument and decision are pretty straightforward, let’s break it down and discuss how we got here.

It has been a refrain among LGBT lawyers and advocates that, in states without their own anti-discrimination statute that included sexual orientation, an employee could be fired simply for being gay. After Obergefell, for example, it was true in some states that a man could marry a man in the morning and get fired in the afternoon. This was the case because federal nondiscrimination law did not explicitly cover sexual orientation.

Then the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, an executive agency that hears employment discrimination cases, concluded that, actually, Title VII’s sex discrimination provision does cover sexual orientation discrimination. Think of it this way: Firing a man because he is married to a man is discrimination on the basis of sex because you wouldn’t fire a women for being married to a man. Only a man can be fired for being married to man, and only a woman could be fired for being married to a woman. Therefore, you are treating the sexes differently. That’s discrimination “on the basis of sex.”

But the ruling of an executive agency is not the law of the land. And there had been contrary court decisions from federal district and appellate courts affirming that Title VII was written to protect women in the workplace, not gays.

A lot has changed since Title VII was written and passed by Congress in 1964. In particular, the legal status of gay persons has changed. And anti-discrimination law itself is broader. In a case called Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, the Supreme Court held that Title VII’s ban on sex discrimination can be triggered when an employee is discriminated against for failing to conform to gender stereotypes.

In that case, a female employee alleged that she was denied a promotion because the partners at Price Waterhouse thought her “too masculine.” They made fun of her appearance; suggested she wear lipstick, dresses, and high heels; and suggested that she was too “macho” and lacked “charm.” Notice how this kind of discrimination is not the classic form of sex discrimination. Ms. Hopkins was not denied a promotion because she is a woman; she was denied a promotion because she didn’t act like a stereotypical woman.

Hively, a lesbian, is also not a stereotypical woman. In fact, according to the majority opinion, she is the “ultimate case of failure to conform to the female stereotype” because she married a woman. Suddenly, discriminating against lesbians for being too masculine sounds a lot like sex discrimination.

Another Supreme Court case, Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, had a hand in this. This is a complicated case, one that we’ll turn back to in time, and one that isn’t entirely on our side. But for now, note that Oncale was about male-on-male sexual harassment taking place on what may be among the most “masculine” workplaces out there short of a rugby team locker room and a police department: an oil platform. Supervisors and crew members taunted, threatened, assaulted, and humiliated Oncale, suggesting he was gay. One of them even threatened Oncale with rape. The company didn’t do anything about it.

The case made it all the way up to the Supreme Court because a lower court had found that men could not sexually harass men under Title VII. That, Justice Scalia said, was “argle bargle,” to use one of his choice phrases from another case. Giving us his best textualism, Scalia said that there is nothing in the statute that said that a man cannot discriminate against another man. The prohibition protects both men and women and even though the drafters of Title VII may not have thought at all about male-on-male harassment, they wrote a statute that said nothing about the sexes of the parties involved, only the nature of the discrimination and harassment.

Put these two cases together and sexual orientation discrimination is sex discrimination. A man harassing another man for allegedly loving men is actionable under Title VII per Oncale. A man firing a man because he isn’t masculine enough is actionable under Hopkins. In a way, Oncale and Hopkins adequately describe what being gay in the workplace is like. Many of us do not conform to gender stereotypes with respect to our behavior, mannerisms, attitude, and dress. And we all are attracted to persons of the same sex. Therefore, protecting sexual orientation discrimination under sex discrimination makes sense.

In the next column, we will discuss what happens next. Stay tuned.

The post 7th Circuit Says Anti-Gay Discrimination is Sex Discrimination Under Title VII: An Analysis of the Ruling appeared first on Towleroad.

7th Circuit Says Anti-Gay Discrimination is Sex Discrimination Under Title VII: An Analysis of the Ruling

Four Highlights from Day One of HRC’s Global Summit

Post submitted by Saurav Jung Thapa, Associate Director of Research, HRC Global and Jay Gilliam, Senior Global Programs Officer, HRC Global 

HRC’s second annual Global Innovative Advocacy Summit program began yesterday in Washington, D.C.

Read about and see pics of the top four highlights from its first day. 

1. Storytelling is the foundation for global equality action.

The first day of the Global Summit focused on storytelling and its importance to LGBTQ work everywhere around the world.

HRC Project One America Director Ben Needham moderated a panel on building public awareness through storytelling. Global innovators from Bangladesh, Sudan and Uganda participated in the panel along with HRC Associate Director of Video Ben Shallenberger, who has produced many viral videos for HRC in the last nine years. 

The panelists discussed the power of videos to capture stories of LGBTQ lives, challenges and opportunities and convey it with impact and meaning to the community and to wider audiences. 

2. HRC has a rich history of stories.

The global innovators heard about HRC’s remarkable 37-year journey from amazing leaders – who led and continue to lead – the organization.

Two former HRC leaders, Vic Basile and Joe Solmonese, and Senior Vice President for Development & Membership Cathy Nelson, a 27-year veteran of the organization, shared their inspiring stories in a session moderated by Senior Vice President for Programs, Research and Training Mary Beth Maxwell.

Basile marveled at HRC’s tremendous growth and described how the organization had only three staff and a 600 square feet office in the early 1980’s when he was its leader.  

3. Innovation talks showcase work from around the world.

Global innovators from India, Peru, Tunisia and Croatia gave Innovation-talks modeled on the TEDx Talks.

For example, Abhina Aher of India showed a video and talked about how Dancing Queens, a transgender dancing troupe she founded, is working with allies and raising social awareness in her country on LGBTQ issues and challenges.

4. Marketplace brings global innovators together with others in the global equality movement.

Global innovators networked with a variety of LGBTQ organizations from around the U.S. to learn more about how these organizations support global equality advocates and organizations.

On Monday, the global innovators visited the World Bank, had a roundtable discussion with U.S. Representatives Joe Kennedy (D-MA) and Alan Lowenthal (D-CA) and attended a reception with the Norwegian Ambassador to the U.S. Kare R. Aas.

Follow the daily Global Summit blogs here and follow conversations online at #HRCGlobalSummit.

www.hrc.org/blog/four-highlights-from-day-one-of-hrcs-global-summit?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

What is Mike Pence and Trump Administration's opinion on Hively v. Ivy Tech court ruling?

www.glaad.org/blog/what-mike-pence-and-trump-administrations-opinion-hively-v-ivy-tech-court-ruling