Monthly Archives: June 2018



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MISC

Alaska Town’s City Council Meeting Canceled After Members Refuse to Attend Over Pride Month Declaration

Alaska Town’s City Council Meeting Canceled After Members Refuse to Attend Over Pride Month Declaration
homer alaska

A City Council meeting was cancelled in Homer, Alaska this week after several members declined to attend because the city was going to recognize Pride Month.

The Homer News reports:

Mayor Bryan Zak had been scheduled to read a mayoral recognition in support of Pride Month at Monday’s regularly scheduled city council meeting. After numerous emails poured in both in support and in opposition of the recognition, council members Heath Smith, Shelly Erickson and Tom Stroozas notified City Clerk Melissa Jacobsen on Monday afternoon to say they could not attend the meeting. With four members of the six members needed for a quorum, the meeting was canceled. Jacobsen said it is unclear if the absences can be counted as excused. Normally, the mayor rules on the validity of an absence, but because the meeting wasn’t held, he couldn’t do that.

The canceled meeting didn’t stop Zak from reading the recognition. At 6 p.m. — the time the meeting would have been held normally — a crowd of about 75 people listened in the Homer City Hall parking lot as Zak recognized June as Homer Pride Month.

The absent members claimed they did not oppose the recognition itself, but did not want to “promote discord and controversy within the community.”

The post Alaska Town’s City Council Meeting Canceled After Members Refuse to Attend Over Pride Month Declaration appeared first on Towleroad.


Alaska Town’s City Council Meeting Canceled After Members Refuse to Attend Over Pride Month Declaration

PHOTOS

Toronto Pride

Toronto Pride

Kevin.Riggall posted a photo:

Toronto Pride

Toronto has always felt fairly progressive to me. They take Pride Month seriously, with rainbow flags all over the city. The LED sign in Nathan Phillips Square illuminated as a rainbow is another reminder of how inclusive Canada tries to be from someone living in another country.

Toronto Pride

MISC

Anti-Gay Students Prompt California Teacher to Go on Mental Health Leave: WATCH

Anti-Gay Students Prompt California Teacher to Go on Mental Health Leave: WATCH
Averee Lane

Averee Lane

Averee Patton with Parents / ABC10

A California middle school teacher took a mental health leave of absence after she says students bullied her upon discovering she is gay, something she said she had not shared with them.

Estes, who teaches at Spring View Middle School in Rocklin, first revealed what had happened in a Facebook post in which she wrote: “At the start of the school year, some students found out that I am gay — a fact I had never shared with my students. They posted photos online and it became the talk of the campus. While it is dehumanizing and painful to be outed, my hope was that it would die down. Instead, it escalated to the point that I was being harassed in and out of the classroom. When I sought the help and support of my administration, I did not find it. The situation became so severe that I sought the support of the union, who hired me a lawyer to help me navigate this situation.”



The Facebook post prompted a local news station, ABC10, to interview Estes about the situation.

ABC 10 reports:

Estes says students started following her on YouTube and one night she got a comment from a person from Rocklin that read, “Don’t be stupid, be a smarty. You can join the Nazi Party. Now accepting dykes.”

A few months later, a student made a disparaging comment about gay marriage during a class presentation that included remarks about “homos” and comments that it is “Adam and Eve” not “Adam and Steve.”

Watch their report:



The school said it can’t comment on the situation since it involves litigation.

ABC10 decided to present the other side of Estes story and interviewed Averee Patton, the student behind the presentation that included gay marriage.

Patton and her parents are religiously-motivated bigots and stand behind the school district’s non-defense of Estes.

Said Averee’s mother Lane: “As far as we’re concerned, we back the school district 100 percent. She shouldn’t have her sexual preferences pushed on you and our religious views shouldn’t be pushed on anybody else.”

Averee explained that the school project which started this homophobic snowball rolling was one in which she was assigned to describe a Utopian society.

Said Averee: “I made my rules no abortion, no racism and no gay marriage….She told me it was disrespectful and I should have reworded it differently. I had gone over it with my family and their said it was OK.”

Averee later added: “My parents have taught me all that I need to know and I don’t think the school needs to teach me anything.”

Watch ABC10’s follow-up report:



The post Anti-Gay Students Prompt California Teacher to Go on Mental Health Leave: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.


Anti-Gay Students Prompt California Teacher to Go on Mental Health Leave: WATCH

NEWS

New Jersey’s Capital City Trenton Just Elected its First Gay Mayor, Reed Gusciora, in Stunning Upset Win

New Jersey’s Capital City Trenton Just Elected its First Gay Mayor, Reed Gusciora, in Stunning Upset Win
Reed Gusciora

Reed Gusciora

Assemblyman Reed Gusciora has been elected mayor of Trenton, New Jersey, and is the first gay man to hold that office.

The Trentonian reports: “In stunning fashion, Gusciora (D-Mercer/Hunterdon) knocked off opponent Paul Perez by a 4,500-to-4,145 margin, according to unofficial election results…Gusciora’s upset win comes even more as a surprise since he was shy of Perez by 740 votes in the May election. Gusciora may be one of the first mayoral candidates to finish second in the May election and then cruise to victory in the June runoff. Gusciora, who came out in 2006 as the state’s first openly gay legislator, led the charge to legalize gay marriage and civil unions in New Jersey.”

 

The post New Jersey’s Capital City Trenton Just Elected its First Gay Mayor, Reed Gusciora, in Stunning Upset Win appeared first on Towleroad.


New Jersey’s Capital City Trenton Just Elected its First Gay Mayor, Reed Gusciora, in Stunning Upset Win

NEWS

HRC Statement on American Medical Association Endorsement of Two LGBTQ-Inclusive Policies

HRC Statement on American Medical Association Endorsement of Two LGBTQ-Inclusive Policies

Today, HRC Foundation praised the American Medical Association (AMA) for endorsing two new pro-LGBTQ policies, one focused on appropriate treatment and placement of transgender prisoners and one supporting the inclusion of LGBTQ people in medical leave policies. The AMA and its members will advocate for these policies, adopted at the AMA annual meeting earlier this week.

The AMA has endorsed a policy on transgender prisoners urging correctional facilities to allow prisoners to be housed in facilities consistent with their gender identity and to cease the use of administrative segregation and solitary confinement based on transgender status . In many cases, transgender prisoners are forced into incorrect facilities, leading to increased levels of harassment and violence, or forced into solitary housing simply based upon the fact that they are transgender . The policy regarding family and medical leave calls for a more inclusive definition of “family” in the application of family and medical leave laws, including the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), that would specifically include LGBTQ-led households.

“It is heartening that the American Medical Association continues to lead the way in endorsing policies that would improve the health outcomes of LGBTQ Americans,” said Mary Beth Maxwell, Senior Vice President for Programs, Research and Training at the Human Rights Campaign. “These policies would allow transgender prisoners to be treated with dignity and respect while incarcerated, and help to expand LGBTQ-led families’ access to family and medical leave.”

Earlier this year, HRC Foundation released a report detailing the results of its groundbreaking nationwide survey of LGBTQ people that reveals an urgent need for inclusive employer-paid family and medical leave. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), a federal law guaranteeing certain employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year.

Read more about the AMA’s LGBTQ-inclusive policies here.

www.hrc.org/blog/hrc-on-american-medical-association-endorsement-of-two-lgtbq-inclusive-poli?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

NEWS

Apple CEO Tim Cook Talks Equality and Coming Out: ‘I Did It for a Greater Purpose’ – WATCH

Apple CEO Tim Cook Talks Equality and Coming Out: ‘I Did It for a Greater Purpose’ – WATCH
Tim Cook coming out

In a wide-ranging interview (above) with Bloomberg’s David Rubenstein, Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke about if he’d ever consider running for president, his recent meeting with Trump, Apple’s products and succeeding founder Steve Jobs, as well as the issues of privacy and equality, including his own coming out.

Said Cook: “Many of the problems of the world come down to the lack of equality. It’s the fact that it’s the kid who is born in one ZIP code doesn’t have a good education because he happens to be born in that ZIP code. It’s someone who is maybe in the LGBT community who is fired because of that. It’s someone who has a different religion than the majority and are therefore ostracized in some way. If one day you could wave a wand and everybody would treat each other with dignity and respect, there are many, many problems that would go away with that….I (decided to come out) for a greater purpose. I realized there were a lot of kids out there that were not being treated very well—including in their own families. Kids need someone to say ‘oh, they did okay in life, and they’re gay, so it must not be a life sentence in some kind of way.’ We’re getting these notes… it would tug on my heart even more, and it got to the point, and it got to the point where I thought, I’m making the wrong call, by trying to do something that is comfortable for me, which is to stay private. I needed to do something for the greater good.”

The post Apple CEO Tim Cook Talks Equality and Coming Out: ‘I Did It for a Greater Purpose’ – WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.


Apple CEO Tim Cook Talks Equality and Coming Out: ‘I Did It for a Greater Purpose’ – WATCH

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