Conservative site reports Matthew McConaughey just “came out of the closet”
“But will it hurt his career?”

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Shepard Smith on Coming Out at ‘Crazy’ FOX News

Fox News anchor Shepard Smith gave a speech late last month to his alma mater in which he discussed coming out as a gay man while working at the “craziest conservative network on earth.”

Speaking April 21 at the Meek School of Journalism at the University of Mississippi, with his partner in attendance, Smith expressed how being open about his sexuality allowed him to make it a non-issue in his career and everyday work life. “I don’t think about it,” he said. “It’s not a thing. I go to work. I manage a lot of people. I cover the news. I deal with holy hell around me. I go home to the man I’m in love with.”

Of course, getting to that point was long in the making. At first, Smith decided avoiding the matter of his gay identity professionally was the path of least resistance. USA Today reports:

The Holly Springs, Miss., native said that for his college years and the first two decades of his career, he didn’t hide his sexuality so much as he just steered clear of the issue entirely. He poured himself into his work because he was unprepared to deal with the consequences.

“A. You’re going to hell for it,” he said, listing the reasons he avoided the subject. “B. You’ll never have any friends again. C. What are you going to tell your family? And by the way, you’re on television on the craziest conservative network on Earth,” he joked.”That will probably put you in front of a brick wall. Of course, none of that was true, but that’s how it felt.”

That, he explained, was “why it wasn’t until seven, or eight, or nine years ago, I started living my truth … And when I told the truth, I guess it was considered that I outed myself. I didn’t even think about it because I didn’t think I was in.”

Things did get better after that point.

“Once I figured it all out, I wasn’t hiding anything,” he told the audience. “I was always as true to me as I knew how to be. If I was fibbing to you, it’s because I was fibbing to me. And I didn’t realize I was fibbing to you because I didn’t know I was fibbing to me. And I know that sounds like such a load of (expletive), but it really is my truth. And I don’t have to fib about anything ever again as long as I live and that really makes everything so much easier.”

Previously, Shepherd has denied that former Fox News chief Roger Ailes had prevented his coming out sooner, although his recent willingness to tackle the subject—he first explicitly acknowledged his orientation publicly in that October 2016 interview with the Huffington Post—seems to have come only after Ailes’s departure under pressure from the cable channel.

The post Shepard Smith on Coming Out at ‘Crazy’ FOX News appeared first on Towleroad.

Shepard Smith on Coming Out at ‘Crazy’ FOX News

Harsh Caning Sentence Is Sought By Prosecutors for Gay Couple in Indonesia

Prosecutors in Indonesia’s province of Aceh who have put two men, ages 23 and 20, on trial for the crime under Shariah law of gay sex have called for each to be punished with 80 lashes of the cane.

The maximum sentence allowable is 100 lashes. The lead prosecutor, Gulmani, said the two men had “confessed” in the face of video evidence taken under duress. The men are the first to be tried under the law.

The AP reports:

The couple was arrested in late March after neighborhood vigilantes in the provincial capital Banda Aceh suspected them of being gay and set out to catch them having sex. Mobile phone footage that circulated online and forms part of the evidence shows one of the men naked and visibly distressed as he apparently calls for help on his cellphone. The second man is repeatedly pushed by another man who is preventing the couple from leaving the room.

If found guilty, the men will be the first to be caned for gay sex under a new Shariah code implemented in Aceh two years ago. Aceh is the only province in Muslim-majority Indonesia to practice Shariah law, which was a concession made by the national government in 2006 to end a years-long war with separatists.

In Aceh, the Shariah court’s panel of three judges will announce its verdict next week.

Gulmani told reporters that the men did not accept the court’s offer to appoint a defense lawyer. He declined to elaborate but guilty verdicts are certain in most cases that reach the Shariah court.

The development is one of several in recent years that suggest Indonesia has taken a hard turn toward a more draconian interpretation of Islam, including the conviction Tuesday of the governor of Jakarta to two years in prison for the crime of “blasphemy.” This turn has included an intolerance for LGBTQ individuals, both in criminal crackdowns and policing of social media as well as in the inflammatory rhetoric of its political figures.

Human Rights Watch highlighted this worsening situation in its call for the two men to be released, in which they asserted that “These men had their privacy invaded in a frightening and humiliating manner and now face public torture for the ‘crime’ of their alleged sexual orientation.”

The post Harsh Caning Sentence Is Sought By Prosecutors for Gay Couple in Indonesia appeared first on Towleroad.

Harsh Caning Sentence Is Sought By Prosecutors for Gay Couple in Indonesia

Sean Spicer Had a Meltdown After Trump Fired Comey, Hiding in Bushes, Demanding Darkness

White House press secretary and former Easter Bunny Sean Spicer has a real tough job sometimes. And on Tuesday night, when President Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey, it apparently became too much to handle. RELATED: Sean Spicer’s best moments are also his worst Spicer had planned to email out a statement announcing Comey’s termination,…

White House at Night photo by Robert Scoble is licensed under CC.2.0.

The post Sean Spicer Had a Meltdown After Trump Fired Comey, Hiding in Bushes, Demanding Darkness appeared first on Towleroad.

Sean Spicer Had a Meltdown After Trump Fired Comey, Hiding in Bushes, Demanding Darkness

The Next Great Lesbian Singer

LP is a bonafide star with a number 1 hit single — in Europe. When will America catch on? 

www.advocate.com/current-issue/2017/5/11/next-great-lesbian-singer

Powerful real estate broker’s assistant claims he forced her to listen to his loud gay sex
The former assistant of a powerful gay New York real estate broker is suing her ex-boss for allegedly tormenting her whilst in his employ.

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