Fired Homophobic Rugby Star Israel Folau, Who Said Hell Awaits Gay People, Just Got Picked Up by a New Team

Israel Folau, the evangelical Christian Australian rugby star who was fired after social media posts that gays are going to end up in Hell, just got picked up by a new team.

CNN reports: “Disgraced former Australia rugby union star Israel Folau has signed to play rugby league for Tonga, according to reports. Folau’s contract with Rugby Australia was terminated in May after he wrote a homophobic social media post which broke code of conduct rules.”

News.com reports: “The star player’s return to rugby league was set to be with the Tonga national team in the Oceania Cup this year. Folau is unable to play for Tonga in the World Nines at Bankwest Stadium because the event is run by the NRL who have blocked a return to the code for him. The Oceania Cup is run by the Rugby League International Federation (RLIF) who had reportedly accepted Folau’s availability.”

Said Folau in a statement: “I don’t want to bring any of my personal matters into this and I am grateful that the RLIF have endorsed my availability. What I will do now is focus on playing great rugby league and do my talking on the field.”

RLIF however, refutes Folau’s claims:

The post Fired Homophobic Rugby Star Israel Folau, Who Said Hell Awaits Gay People, Just Got Picked Up by a New Team appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Fired Homophobic Rugby Star Israel Folau, Who Said Hell Awaits Gay People, Just Got Picked Up by a New Team

HRC Foundation Announces Historic LGBTQ Leadership Summits on HBCU Campuses

Today, HRC Foundation announced that it is hosting two ground-breaking summits on LGBTQ equality on the campuses of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The first HRC 2019 Regional HBCU Leadership Summit took place at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina, from September 20-22 and the second summit will take place at Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana, from October 4-6.

“This significant step forward in the Human Rights Campaign’s HBCU Program creates exciting new opportunities for campus leaders to engage more deeply on the issues of LGBTQ inclusion and equity,” said HRC President Alphonso David. “By expanding the scope of this important program, we will be able to reach more students, faculty and administrators than ever before, giving them the tools they need to make real and lasting change. We look forward to continuing our partnership with these storied institutions, and supporting the next generation of Black leaders.”

“For more than a decade, HRC’s HBCU Program has been working with campus leaders — from students and administrators to staff and faculty — to support and uplift LGBTQ people on campuses by creating and partnering in developing inclusive programming. We couldn’t be more excited to expand our work through this historic series of LGBTQ leadership summits,” said Leslie Hall, Director of HRC’s HBCU Program. “By engaging students, administrators, staff and faculty on their home turf, we hope to move the needle for LGBTQ inclusion and equity on HBCU campuses by shaping the way these important institutions provide support, services and resources to all of their students.”

In launching this series of on-campus events, HRC’s HBCU Program is taking an aggressive step to expand the work that it has been doing for more than a decade through its national annual summit for LGBTQ student leaders from HBCUs. The national five-day summit, which will take place November 7-12 at HRC’s national headquarters in Washington, D.C., has been the only leadership development and advocacy training program that empowers LGBTQ HBCU students to act as change agents on their campuses and in their communities. Its model of assuring that participating students leave with the skills and competencies to lead effectively through the intersections of race, religion, gender identity and expression, class and sexual orientation is being replicated in the new series of on-campus summits.

Participants will hear from expert facilitators on a variety of topics including action planning, health equity and disparities for LGBTQ Black and African American youth.

The HRC Foundation’s HBCU Program mobilizes and supports HBCUs in enhancing policies and services that promote excellence in LGBTQ inclusion, equity and engagement. The program focuses on promoting individual competencies and collective action, empowering leaders and stakeholders and building a network of committed leaders in pursuit of eliminating stigma and enriching the college experience for LGBTQ students and the entire student body.

HRC’s HBCU Program was founded to support LGBTQ students at HBCUs by providing resources and trainings to advance affirming and supportive college campuses. The program is supported by the Coca-Cola Foundation. For more information about HRC’s HBCU Project, visit www.hrc.org/hbcu.

www.hrc.org/blog/hrc-foundation-announces-historic-lgbtq-leadership-summits-on-hbcu-campuses?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Trans Woman Shot in Dallas Being Investigated as a Hate Crime

Police are looking for a Latino male in a red pickup truck. A trans woman said the suspect shot her in the chest and arm.

www.advocate.com/crime/2019/9/23/trans-woman-shot-dallas-being-investigated-hate-crime

Watch: John Waters has some serious required viewing for you

There’s so much content being pumped out these days, it can be tough to keep up.

So here to make things even more complicated, John Waters takes a frolic through the Criterion Collection to pick out five classic films that deserve a watch and/or a rewatch.

Related: John Waters on Kevin Spacey, Provincetown, petty theft, and his own biopic

How many have you seen?

Watch:

www.queerty.com/watch-john-waters-serious-required-viewing-20190923?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Rob McElhenney Opens Up About Decision to Make His ‘Always Sunny’ Character Mac Come Out as Gay

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is set to return on September 25 for a 14th season. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, creator and star Rob McElhenney talks about the challenges of doing the show for 14 seasons, and how he thinks he’ll be able to do it forever.

He also talked about the decision to have his character, Mac, come out as gay at the end of the last season.

Said McElhenney: ‘It was actually born more out of his intense, ultraconservative, right-leaning principals. We always take whatever viewpoint any character has to the extreme. We have certainly mined plenty of comedy out of the extreme right and the extreme left. We were looking at Mac at one point, and I was like, “He is such an arch-arch Catholic conservative when it suits him, and when it doesn’t, he drops that.” And most of the people I know in that camp tend to be fairly homophobic. So we began going down that road: Let’s satirize that hard Christian conservative who is also intensely homophobic. OK, so what’s the next step from there? And that’s when I thought, “Let’s just make him gay.” What we realized is, if you look back over the seasons, it almost worked retroactively.’

McElhenney also talked about the prior season, in which Mac came out of the closet, but then went back in.

Added McElhenney: ‘I didn’t expect it, but there was a massive outpouring from our LGBTQ fans, who were really upset. They felt like, “Oh, wow, he finally came out. We feel represented. This is a really fun and cool character.” That made them feel like it was a chance for us to do something different, and we put him back in the closet. We thought about it over the off-season, and I realized, “Man, that is a bummer. We had an opportunity there, and we screwed it up.” And we ameliorated that in the season after, where Mac winds up coming out and staying out, and the response was so overwhelmingly positive, certainly from the people that we cared about, though of course there was a negative response from a segment of the audience we didn’t care about. It felt good that we were recognizing a part of our audience in a way that was not pandering, that wasn’t offensive or upsetting or a caricature. We weren’t creating a gay character for comedic effect, that was there just to be gay and to be funny because he was gay, but a very complex, very disturbed, very fucked-up and awful character, who happens to be gay. And we ran with that.’

McElhenney goes on to discuss how they decided to have Mac come out via a unique dance number.

Read the full interview HERE.

The post Rob McElhenney Opens Up About Decision to Make His ‘Always Sunny’ Character Mac Come Out as Gay appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Rob McElhenney Opens Up About Decision to Make His ‘Always Sunny’ Character Mac Come Out as Gay

#AM_Equality Tipsheet: September 23, 2019

REP. JENNIFER WEXTON, AYANNA PRESSLEY LEAD EFFORTS TO STOP HUD’S DISCRIMINATORY PROPOSED RULE TO STRIP TRANSGENDER PROTECTIONS: More from HRC. 

Today, @RepPressley and I wrote to @SecretaryCarson, along with 59 of our colleagues, to demand LGBTQ protections be reinstated in HUD’s grant making process.

HUD should not allow housing providers to discriminate—and I can’t believe we have to say that. pic.twitter.com/iXdzzhm8fk

— Rep. Jennifer Wexton (@RepWexton) September 19, 2019

TODAY IS CELEBRATE BISEXUAL VISIBILITY DAY: 

Too often bisexual people are excluded from LGBTQ spaces and are invisible to each other—all things that can make the journey of living authentically incredibly daunting.

This #BiVisibilityDay, know that your experiences are valid and you are seen. t.co/f4nAvLDPZN pic.twitter.com/jvGfTRXANN

— Human Rights Campaign (@HRC) September 23, 2019

MUST READ MONDAY — WE’RE STILL FIGHTING A NEW “DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL”: Eight years since DADT was repealed, Modern Military Association of America’s Stephen Peters (@stephenpeters2) writes in The Advocate about the latest battle for equality in the military — ending the discriminatory Trump-Pence administration ban on transgender servicemembers. More from The Advocate.

TRANSGENDER WOMAN SHOT MULTIPLE TIMES IN HATE CRIME FRIDAY, DALLAS POLICE SAY: According to a report in the Dallas Morning News, police said a man pulled alongside the victim and yelled “a number of slurs about her gender identity,” then fired multiple shots, striking her in the chest and arm. Read more at the Dallas Morning News.

ANTI-LGBTQ ROBERT DESTRO CONFIRMED AS STATE DEPT ASS. SEC OF STATE FOR DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND LABOR: “Throughout his career, Mr. Destro has focused a great deal of his writings on rejecting advances for LGBTQ human rights,” reads a letter from HRC Government Affairs David Stacy to the U.S. Senate in opposition to Destro’s nomination. More from Washington Blade. 

AT EMMY’S, LAVERNE COX AND ACLU’S CHASE STRANGIO RAISE AWARENESS ABOUT UPCOMING SCOTUS ARGUMENTS ON LEGAL PROTECTIONS FOR LGBTQ EMPLOYEES:

• Category is… history in the making! Billy Porter (@TheBillyPorter) became the first ever gay Black man to be nominated for, and also win, an Emmy for Lead Actor in a Drama Series, for his role as Pray Tell in Pose. More from Variety.
• While on stage accepting an Emmy for her work in The Act, Patricia Arquette (@PattyArquette) paid tribute to her late trans sister: “I’m in mourning every day of my life, Alexis, and I will be the rest of my life for you “until we just change the world so that trans people aren’t persecuted.” Read more at ABC.
• Other LGBTQ and allied winners included Ben Whishaw and RuPaul’s Drag Race. See the full list at The New York Times.

Thank you @chasestrangio and @Lavernecox for shedding light on issues facing the LGBTQ community even as you celebrate on the #Emmys2019 red carpet. ����⚪ t.co/kueh8cJrYf

— Human Rights Campaign (@HRC) September 22, 2019

HOW MAJOR CORPORATIONS ARE STANDING UP TO END GUN VIOLENCE: More from Axios.

QUEER EYE’S JONATHAN VAN NESS (@JVN) BRAVELY OPENS UP ABOUT SURVIVING SEXUAL ABUSE AND LIVING WITH HIV: Thank you to Van Ness for sharing his story and working to end the stigma facing people living with HIV. More from The New York Times.

SHAWNEE MISSION, KS. SCHOOL DISTRICT VOTES TO ADD LGBTQ PROTECTIONS TO ITS NONDISCRIMINATION POLICY: More from AP. 

THE ADVOCATE SPOTLIGHTS LGBTQ RIGHTS RECORD OF DEM PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES: Read the piece in The Advocate. 

I MADE YOU PICKLES, IN SOLIDARITY — A SYMBOL FOR TRANS EQUALITY: In her regular column for the New York Times, trans activist and writer Jennifer Finney Boylan (@JennyBoylan) writes about how the pickle is a symbol for transgender equality, and says she receives a lot of them from her readers. While thankful for the gifts, she writes: “But if given a choice between a pickle, and say, justice, I’d have to go with the latter,” pointing to the ongoing epidemic of violence against transgender women — most women of color — and how trans individuals are still at risk of being fired in 26 states. Read her full oped in The New York Times.

GLOBAL EQUALITY NEWS

REPORTED ANTI-LGBTQ MOTIVATED HATE CRIMES ON THE RISE IN THE UK:  A BBC 5 Live investigation found the number of hate crime reports across the UK more than doubled in the last five years, to over 13,000. More from BBC. 

READING RAINBOW – Bookmark now to read on your lunch break!
Vice highlights female pastors who are working to create a welcoming and supportive space for LGBTQ Christians to express their faith

Have news? Send us your news and tips at [email protected]. Click here to subscribe to #AM_Equality and follow @HRC for all the latest news. Thanks for reading!

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