Andrew Garfield has gone to gay heaven…

Hunky Oscar-nominee Andrew Garfield says he has gone to “gay heaven” after filming an appearance on RuPaul‘s Drag Race UK.

Garfield dropped in among the judges for the inaugural season of the popular reality show, along with RuPaul, Michelle Visage and comedian Alan Carr. In the first clip released from the show, Garfield expresses his gratitude.

Related: Andrew Garfield dedicates Best Actor Tony win to LGBTQ community in empowering speech

“Ru, I am so happy. I feel like a competition winner, and the prize is a day in gay heaven. Thank you so much,” Garfield beams.

“I’ll let you know what gay heaven is in just a little bit!” RuPaul says, looking quite thirsty. Not that we blame him…

Other celebrity judges for the season include Geri Halliwell Horner, singer Cheryl and Twiggy.

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK debuts October 3.

www.queerty.com/andrew-garfield-gone-gay-heaven-20190822?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

As Hickenlooper Enters Historic Colorado Race, Dan Baer Stands Ground

“Shall we settle this at a rodeo?”

www.advocate.com/politics/2019/8/22/hickenlooper-enters-historic-colorado-race-dan-baer-stands-ground

Man claims gay “hot tub parties” to blame for uncle’s murder at the hands of straight gardener

In a scathing new op-ed titled My uncle, a heroic priest, was murdered while cleaning up gay mafia in DC parish and published by the Christian extremist blog Life Site, writer Kevin Wells claims LGBTQ people are directly responsible for his uncle’s untimely death nearly 20 years ago.

Quick backstory: In June of 2000, Wells’ uncle, monsignor Thomas Wells, was found stabbed to death inside the rectory of Mother Seton Parish in Germantown, Maryland. The murderer turned out to be 25-year-old Robert Paul Lucas, a heterosexual tree trimmer who was living out of his van.

Wells writes:

An unshakable conviction, shared by dozens of priests and thousands of lay faithful in the Maryland/DC corridor, is that Msgr. Wells’s life and 29-year priesthood ended as a direct result of the active homosexuality practiced by priests who once lived in that rectory.

He then goes on to elaborate on the conspiracy theory, which involves homoerotic clergy “hot tub parties,” as well as three priests at Mother Seton Parish who were accused of sexually abusing teen boys.

Related: Antigay youth pastor busted for sexting teen boy, asking for x-rated pics

Wells continues:

The now-bulldozed Mother Seton rectory in Germantown, Maryland had been the site of years of appalling sacrilege and sin. It emerged that two priests, Rev. Paul E. Lavin and Rev. Aaron J. Cote, who had served at Mother Seton, had been credibly accused as sexual predators of teenage boys. Lavin has been stripped of his clerical faculties and Cote, accused of sexual molestation in at least four states and Peru, died in 2012. A third Mother Seton priest, who seems to have vanished from the state of Maryland, is widely known to have been sexually active with other men prior to my uncle’s arrival.

He says his uncle was brought in to “get rid of the rot” in the “sin-haunted rectory” and exorcise it of the “appalling sacrilege” that happened there.

“My uncle’s first official act as pastor at Mother Seton was to rip out the rectory hot tub,” Wells writes. “Priests living in the Mother Seton rectory were widely known to have thrown ‘hot tub parties’ for other priests.”

Years later, Wells claims a “secret service agent” approached him to say his uncle was “hand-picked” by the Cardinal to take care of the situation and that if it weren’t for all the homosexuality that happened there, the priest would likely still be alive today.

“I have no doubt about it, that night, his murderer was looking for a ‘trick,’” the secret service agent allegedly told him. “Msgr. Wells was murdered because of the homosexual activity that had taken place in that rectory.”

The well-documented truth is that, shortly after the murder, Lucas confessed to killing Wells while he was burglarizing the rectory. Police recovered some of the items stolen from the rectory in his van.

Detectives concluded that the murder happened when Wells woke up and tried to stop the burglary. Lucas was sentenced to 25 years for murder, 10 for robbery, and seven and-a-half years for burglary.

But facts be damned! Wells says that until the Catholic church does more to combat homosexuality, “the Church’s sickness will worsen” and it “will remain on life support.”

Way to honor your uncle’s legacy, Kevin.

Related: Priest arrested for spending church money on beach house, boyfriends, and a Grindr XTRA account

www.queerty.com/man-claims-gay-hot-tub-parties-blame-uncles-murder-hands-straight-gardener-20190822?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Catholic Priest Arrested for Stealing $100K from Church to Pay His Grindr Hookups

Monsignor Joseph McLoone, a Catholic priest in Pennsylvania, has been arrested and charged with 18 counts including felony theft for stealing $98,000 from his church parishioners to pay his Grindr hookups, and buy a beach house.

PhillyMag reports: “Investigators claim that McLoone opened a secret checking account in 2011 and diverted parishioner donations into that account and misappropriated other church funds undetected for the next seven years. According to prosecutors, McLoone used the funds to pay for dinners, travel, and a beach home in Ocean City, New Jersey. Investigators say that when he was confronted by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia about the money, he also admitted to paying for “personal relationships” with other men with the church funds. According to the police complaint filed in court, McLoone sent thousands of dollars to men he met on the social networking app Grindr using online payment methods such as Square and J-Pay.”

PennLive reports: ‘On Nov. 2 of that year – his first All Souls Day holiday there — McLoone opened an account with TD Bank called the “St. Joseph Activity Account.” Over the next six years, he diverted donation checks written to the parish to that account. He also used the account to take the entirety of the All Soul’s collections each year and convert checks written to St. Joseph’s into checks made out to himself and others within the parish. McLoone created this account to hide the funds from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and ensure no one saw that he was using the funds for his personal lifestyle.’

The post Catholic Priest Arrested for Stealing $100K from Church to Pay His Grindr Hookups appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Catholic Priest Arrested for Stealing $100K from Church to Pay His Grindr Hookups

Sean Spicer Reacts After ‘DWTS’ Host Tom Bergeron Slams the Former White House Liar’s ‘Politically Divisive’ Casting

Shortly after it was announced that former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer is to compete on Dancing with the Stars, host Tom Bergeron dropped a bomb on Twitter that he ain’t happy with the casting.

Said Bergeron: “A few months ago, during a lunch with DWTS‘ new Executive Producer, I offered suggestions for Season 28. Chief among them was my hope that DWTS, in its returning following an unprecedented year-long hiatus, would be a joyful respite from our exhausting political climate and free of inevitably divisive bookings from ANY party affiliations. I left that lunch convinced we were in agreement. Subsequently (and rather obviously), a decision was made to, as we often say in Hollywood, ‘go in a different direction.’ It is the prerogative of the producers, in partnership with the network, to make whatever decisions they feel are in the best long term interests of the franchise. We can agree to disagree, as we do now, but ultimately it’s their call. I’ll let it to them to answer any further questions about those decisions.”

It isn’t just Bergeron. CNN spoke with nine ABC staffers. One of them said, “It’s a slap in the face to those of us who had to deal with his baloney and the consequences of the ongoing lies and disinformation campaign at the White House.”

Spicer responded to Bergeron’s unhappiness that ABC is glamorizing a paid liar for the Liar in Chief.

Said Spicer to The Blast: “Tom has been a great host to this show for 28 seasons. I actually think that this show is a great opportunity to be an example, how we can have better dialogue and respectfully learn from each other. I would hope by the end of the show Tom looks at this as more of an opportunity to help reach the divide that exists right now. I think that my job right now is to go out there and set an example. … and show America that we can have our political biases, we can vote for our candidates, we can actually get along and have a good time as individuals and do fun things together.”

Spicer will make six figures for DWTS: “According to multiple sources, contestants on the ABC competition series make $125,000 for the show’s rehearsal period and their first two weeks on the air. If they make it to week three and beyond, they begin to earn additional fees each week. Sources say that the maximum contestants can earn is $295,000. By comparison, Spicer was making just under $180,000 during his time with the Trump administration, per a White House report released in 2017.”

The post Sean Spicer Reacts After ‘DWTS’ Host Tom Bergeron Slams the Former White House Liar’s ‘Politically Divisive’ Casting appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Sean Spicer Reacts After ‘DWTS’ Host Tom Bergeron Slams the Former White House Liar’s ‘Politically Divisive’ Casting

#AM_Equality Tipsheet: August 22, 2019

NEW WASHINGTON POST ANALYSIS FINDS THAT PROSECUTIONS OF HATE CRIMES IN D.C. HAVE DECREASED SIGNIFICANTLY: “Of the 178 suspected hate crimes in 2017, police closed 54 cases involving adults by arrest. Prosecutors charged two cases as hate crimes, and both were later dropped as part of plea deals,” write Michael E. Miller (@MikeMillerDC‏) and Steven Rich (@dataeditor). “The Post’s months-long analysis of more than 200,000 D.C. police and court records found that hate-crime prosecutions and convictions are at their lowest point in at least a decade.” Read the full story here.

TRUMP-PENCE ADMINISTRATION REFUSES TO USE CORRECT PRONOUNS TO REFER TO TRANSGENDER WOMAN IN SCOTUS FILING: More from The Associated Press.

2020 DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES SPEAK OUT ABOUT TRANSGENDER RIGHTS: Through the National Center for Transgender Equality’s “TransForm the White House Forum,” the candidates are sharing how they would protect and advance trans rights. Read more from HRC, TIME and CBS News.

THANKFUL THURSDAY — OHIO SEN. SHERROD BROWN AND AUTHOR CONNIE SCHULTZ SPEAK AT HRC CLEVELAND DINNER: More from HRC.

DANCE INSTRUCTOR & SHOP OWNER GIL RAMIREZ IS MAKING SPACE FOR LGBTQ PEOPLE IN A SMALL CALIFORNIA TOWN: Read more from Diana Marcum (@DianaMarcum) at the Los Angeles Times.

U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE OVERTURNS WISCONSIN’S DISCRIMINATORY MEDICAID POLICY THAT EXCLUDED GENDER-AFFIRMING HEALTH CARE FOR TRANSGENDER PEOPLE: More from PinkNews.

FINAL EPISODE OF POSE’S SEASON TWO AIRED LAST NIGHT: More from Mother Jones (warning — spoilers at link).

HORRIBLE — FLORIDA TEACHER REFUSES TO USE CORRECT PRONOUNS FOR TRANSGENDER STUDENT, THREATENS TO KICK HER OUT OF CLASS: More from Business Insider.

TREY PEARSON RELEASES NEW MUSIC VIDEO ABOUT HIS CHRISTIAN FAITH AND COMING OUT: More here.

GLOBAL EQUALITY NEWS

NATACHA RUBY FLORES (“SAMANTHA”), UNA MUJER TRANSGÉNERO ECUATORIANA, FUE ASESINADA EN LA PUERTA DE SU DOMICILIO LA SEMANA PASADA: Según sus familiares, Flores, estilista de profesión, fue encontrada sin vida el viernes 16 de agosto. Las cámaras de seguridad mostraron que una pareja condujo el ataque en la entrada de su edificio. Más de Ecuavisa.

U.K. JUDGE DENIES ASYLUM FOR GAY MAN ON GROUNDS THAT HE WAS NOT “EFFEMINATE” ENOUGH TO BE GAY: The case is set to be retried. More from Independent.

NEW RESEARCH SHOWS ANTI-LGBTQ SENTIMENT ON THE RISE IN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES THAT DON’T HAVE MARRIAGE EQUALITY: Conversely, acceptance of LGBTQ people has risen in countries that recognize same-sex marriage. More from Reuters.

READING RAINBOW – Bookmark now to read on your lunch break!

HRC congratulates visionary filmmaker and openly transgender woman Lana Wachowski, who will return to write and direct Matrix 4; Advocate interviews Gamal Palmer (@gamaljason), SVP of Leadership Development at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles

www.hrc.org/blog/am-equality-tipsheet-august-22-2019?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed