PHOTOS: The National Treasures of Australia
A collection of intimate portraits of LGBTI people over the age of 65 comprised Richard Hedger’s exhibit that was a part of Sydney’s Mardi Gras festival.
Christopher Harrity
www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/art/photography/2015/03/23/photos-national-treasures-australia
Bob Jones III Apologizes For Saying Gays Should Be Stoned To Death
Bob Jones III, the controversial evangelical preacher and chancellor of Bob Jones University, has apologized for saying that gays should be stoned to death during comments made at the White House 35 years ago.
Jones, who was the university’s president at the time, was delivering a petition to then-President Jimmy Carter against extending Civil Rights Act protections to gays.
“I’m sure this will be greatly misquoted,” he said in 1980, according to the Associated Press. “But it would not be a bad idea to bring the swift justice today that was brought in Israel’s day against murder and rape and homosexuality. I guarantee it would solve the problem post-haste if homosexuals were stoned, if murderers were immediately killed as the Bible commands.”
On Saturday, Jones issued a statement taking back those words.
“I take personal ownership of this inflammatory rhetoric. This reckless statement was made in the heat of a political controversy 35 years ago. It is antithetical to my theology and my 50 years of preaching a redeeming Christ Who came into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. Upon now reading these long-forgotten words, they seem to me as words belonging to a total stranger — were my name not attached.
I cannot erase them, but wish I could, because they do not represent the belief of my heart or the content of my preaching. Neither before, nor since, that event in 1980 have I ever advocated the stoning of sinners.”
Jones’ full statement is available on the website of the Greenville, South Carolina, university.
The statement comes after a three-year-old petition calling on Jones to apologize for his comments began getting more attention in recent weeks. The petition was launched on Change.org by BJUnity, an organization dedicated to helping LGBT students from Bob Jones University.
The group accepted the apology.
“It is never too late to say you’re sorry,” Jeffrey Hoffman, BJUnity’s executive director, told WSPA. “Most people are just shocked. We never expected to see an apology.”
The organization also released a statement online saying it was grateful that Jones had taken back “words that have caused deep harm for many more people than any of us knows. This means a lot to us because it represents the beginning of a change in the rhetoric and conversation.”
BJUnity also invited both Jones and BJU President Steve Pettit to attend a presentation in Greenville on Monday night by Matthew Vines, author of “God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships.”
Bob Jones University was founded in 1927 by Jones’ grandfather. It was once a frequent stop among Republican presidential hopefuls, hosting Ronald Reagan, Pat Buchanan, Bob Dole and George W. Bush, among others, as they sought the GOP nomination.
Gay Man Brutally Beaten In Possible Hate Crime In Mississippi
Police in Mississippi are investigating a brutal assault that may have been an anti-gay hate crime.
Devin Norman (above) suffered a broken cheek bone and other serious facial injuries when he was attacked in the parking lot of a Walmart in Corinth, Mississippi, on Friday afternoon.
From WTVA-TV:
Investigators said James David Scott (right), 23, of Tishomingo County, confronted the victim, Devin Norman, 26, of Corinth, about an alleged post made on social media.
“The alleged Facebook post was apparently sexual in nature,” Police Chief Ralph Dance said. “We haven’t been able to verify that there was ever a Facebook post made.”
After a few words were exchanged between the two, police said Scott threw Norman to the ground and kicked him several times in the face.
Scott fled on foot before being captured, but was later released on bond. He is currently charged with simple assault, but police say the charge will be upgraded to aggravated assault because Norman suffered broken bones.
Norman and his friends say the incident was an anti-gay hate crime, but police haven’t confirmed that, according to WTVA-TV:
They are, however, investigating to see if there’s a possible hate crime.
Dance also said the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been contacted by members of the community, and it’s currently being investigated.
“We’ve heard from several people, including the victim, that the suspect beat him up because he’s homosexual,” Dance said. “So far, we don’t have any proof that’s the case.”
Mississippi’s hate crime law doesn’t include sexual orientation, but Scott could face federal charges under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act.
A post about the attack went viral on Facebook over the weekend, and Norman’s friends launched a GoFundMe campaign, “Justice For Devin,” to help with medical and other expenses. They also staged a rally outside the Walmart on Sunday (below).
“Devin Norman is a rockstar in our small town in MIssissippi,” the GoFundMe campaign states. “Everyone knows him and everyone loves him, so we were shocked and completely heartbroken when he was brutally attacked in a Walmart parking lot. He was completely defenseless as his cowardly attacker relentlessly beat him for being gay. … Nobody should ever feel this way or be treated this way. Violence is not the answer — love is!”
John Wright
www.towleroad.com/2015/03/gay-man-brutally-beaten-in-possible-hate-crime-in-mississippi.html
The Advocate, The Imitation Game, and Transparent Among GLAAD Award Winners
The Advocate, The Imitation Game, Transparent and more were among the night’s big winners at the 26th Annual GLAAD Media Awards in Los Angeles on Saturday.
Jase Peeples
Georgia School Official Confirms: 'I Am Gay'
Outed by reports he used Grindr at work.
Dawn Ennis
www.advocate.com/lgbt/2015/03/22/georgia-school-official-confirms-i-am-gay
Fully Human
My name is Josephine Skriver, and I am many things.
I am human. I have the capacity to love and to be loved. I feel empathy. I have a mind that allows me to form opinions and to gain perspective on situations and the world around me. I am an opinion-former. I hurt. I feel joy. I feel gratitude. I am a daughter to two beautiful people, who both happen to be gay. I am a sister to a boy who is also human and who has the same capabilities as I do. I am a friend. I am a lover. I am a dreamer. I am certainly many things, but one thing I am not — is synthetic.
There is no such thing as a synthetic human. Every person, no matter their religion, background, skin color, opinion or sexual orientation, is part of our reality and deserves not only to receive love, but also to give love. I believe the ultimate gift of love is what brings life into this world and helps such lives grow. Helping them to understand, helping them to smile. Did my mother and father not deserve that joy because they are both gay themselves? Were they not allowed to feel the warmth of parenting? Were they not allowed the most basic of human rights — to create love? Of course they deserved — and deserve — those things. We all deserve those things. My parents had a burning desire to bring life into this world, which is why they came together through a life-giving process and gave my brother and I the chance to be a part of this universe. Two innocent children. Don’t we all start that way?
When we first arrive in this world we do not discriminate. We are innocent and do not hate. All we know is love and we love unconditionally, blindly, and without reason. I sometimes wish more of us could stay that way and remember how that feels like for as long as possible, that the world didn’t take this away from us as early as it tends to do. Because of this inevitability, I feel convicted to be on a mission to shine a light on everyone who has lost those feelings to darkness. To remind them that it still exists, whether it be out in the open or still hiding in a dark corner, waiting to revive again.
Some of my favorite memories in my life don’t involve much. Being held by parents and adored by them was always enough. I didn’t care or judge my parents by their sexual orientation, the color of their skin, or what they believed in. I didn’t look at my parents and see gay or straight – I saw passion and dedication. All I knew is that they loved me, and I loved them. Most importantly, I could not be more grateful. If anything, I will always admire my parents for not allowing their sexual orientation and all of the legal and social walls to prevent them from following their heart and dreams. The two of them, through the miracle of IVF, gave me a chance to live, to find a path, and to create a story of my own. Now, I intend to use one of the storybook’s pages to stand up for everyone out there who feels alone and scared, or are constantly told that they are in any way less than another human on this earth. I am here to remind you that you are equal — you are not a statistic nor a science experiment. You are strong. You are beautiful. And you are as real as anyone else. As humans, we are simply who we are and what we feel.
We have the right to free speech, and I will not take that away from anyone, because that would be both hypocritical and absurd of me. However, I can’t help but to feel sadness whenever I hear others use their voices to bring hurt, whether it be big or small. If a platform and voice exists, it should be used to bring positivity and togetherness — not to segregate, classify and tear people apart. I am not here to say that speaking your mind is not okay, because the ability to have our own unique perspectives and views is one of the beauties of being human. I just feel that often people say cruel or naive things simply because they simply do not know or understand, even if their intention was not to hurt. So I am here in an attempt to educate and to ask people to allow themselves to be educated. Ask questions, research, discover and learn things firsthand.
In the end, I can’t control what others feel or say, but I can control me. I will not mirror distaste and I will not judge by circumstance. If you are someone who has judged me or anyone else on how we were born and conceived, on how we were brought up, or for any other reason, I am here to say that we feel just like you. We hurt just like you. We love just like you — and those feelings are not something that can be disregarded as “synthetic.”
If I could ask for one thing, it would be to look at me as a “who” and not a “what.” I would request for everyone to get to know me and to have conversations with me. If you have the time, I would love for you to meet my parents, for I am sure they would brighten your life as I have witnessed them do for so many others. I would ask for you to hold my hand so you can feel that it’s not so different from your own. I have seen a lot of hate and cruelty lately, but another beauty of being human is that though we have the ability to hate and be cruel, we also have the ability to hope. And so I become that idealist and hope — that one day all in this world will look at each other as equals; that we will each learn tolerance and understanding.
In the end, I would be lying if I said that I haven’t been hurt by some of the recent comments and remarks that referred to my own life. But you know what? I forgive the people who said them and I will continue to love them, and I believe that I can help open eyes both today and beyond.
If that doesn’t make me biologically, emotionally…fully human, I don’t know what will.
Idaho House Calls On Congress To Impeach Judges Who Rule In Favor Of Marriage Equality
Idaho Republican lawmakers want to impeach judges who rule in favor of same-sex marriage.
In a 44-25 vote, the Idaho House on Friday passed a non-binding resolution calling on Congress to impeach judges who go beyond the “original intent” of the U.S. Constitution when it comes to marriage.
Supporters of the resolution believe marriage should be left to the states under the 10th Amendment, and are outraged that the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection is being applied to gay people.
From The Spokesman-Review:
“I think somehow, someday we’ve gotta take a stand,” GOP Rep. Paul Shepherd (right) told the House. A sixth-term state representative from Riggins who owns a sawmill and log home company, Shepherd was the author and sponsor of the measure.
“You can’t say an immoral behavior according to God’s word, what we’ve all been taught since the beginning, is something that’s just, and that’s really kinda what this is all about,” he told the House. “We’d better uphold Christian morals. As an example, how about fornication, adultery and other issues.”
More from The Times-News:
“The men that wrote the 14th Amendment would be turning over in their graves if they could see it was being interpreted in such a way as to force states to accept same-sex marriage,” said Rep. Linden Bateman, R-Idaho Falls.
Eleven Republicans joined 14 Democrats in opposing the measure. Same-sex marriage has been legal in Idaho since last year, despite Republican Gov. Butch Otter’s legal crusade against it. One recent poll showed that 53 percent of Idahoans now support same-sex marriage.
From The Spokesman-Review:
Rep. John McCrostie (right), D-Boise, who is gay, told the House, “Of all the bills that I’ve voted on in the last weeks, HJM 4 causes me the most hurt. … This bill is personal, and it hurts me. … This bill implies that my marriage isn’t worth as much as someone else’s.”
More from McCrostie in The Times-News:
“Is my marriage so despicable that a federal judge should be impeached?” he asked.
Since the resolution likely won’t result in any federal judges being impeached, McCrostie said, all it does at the end of the day is give lawmakers something to campaign on while telling gay Idahoans they are worthless.
Another Democratic lawmaker said the resolution would only hurt Idaho’s image:
“This puts us in the Web, this puts us in the news, as a state that is intolerant and does not understand the important separation of powers,” said Rep. Mat Erpelding, D-Boise.
Shepherd, the author of the resolution, said he also would have voted to impeach Chief Justice Earl Warren over the Supreme Court’s decisions in the early 1960s ending mandatory prayer in schools.
Given that he supports the “original intent” of the Constitution, Shepherd also presumably would advocate counting African-Americans as three-fifths of a person.
Read the full resolution, AFTER THE JUMP …
John Wright
Trans Reporter Zoey Tur in Hot Water Over Remarks on Trans Bodies, Rights
Following contentious commentary, trans advocates are vocally questioning Zoey Tur’s recently established role as a media spokesperson.
Mitch Kellaway
<i>Pretty Woman</i> Turns 25
One of the most iconic scenes of ’90s cinema comes from the 1990 film Pretty Woman.
The legendary moment is when Julia Roberts, playing down-and-out LA sex worker Vivian Ward, walks into a Rodeo Drive boutique to buy an expensive and elegant evening gown. She is soon rudely asked to leave by the shop assistants. Her provocative attire and slap-dash look make both think that poor Vivian doesn’t have a cent to her name.
Loaded up with cash but unable to use any of her $100s, Vivian despondently exists the store, upset at how these women “wouldn’t let her shop”. (Memorably another ’90s movie, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, paid tribute to this scene. While watching Pretty Woman, Michele says to Romy, “I just get really happy when they finally let her shop.”) After later Vivian wins her way into respective Rodeo society, she returns to the scene of the (fashion) crime and dishes out some home truths to the snotty shop clerks.
Vivian is a local L.A. street girl whose roommate has used up all their rent money on drugs while Vivian is struggling to make ends meet working the streets. One night as Vivian takes a walk down Hollywood Boulevard a flash sports car pulls up and the dashing and debonair Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) pokes his head out the window. The sauve Edward asks her to help him with directions around Hollywood before Vivian soon slides inside.
Edward asks Vive to be his girl for a week-long rendezvous, with one condition — that she join him for dinner as his female companion for a business meeting. But after cruising through Beverly Hills with her hundred dollar bills trying to find an outfit appropriate to wear that night, Vivian is escorted out of the high-end stores because of her skimpy clothes and unrefined attitude.
As you can expect, emotions get mixed up in Edward and Vive’s transactional sexual arrangement and Edward must soon choose whether to stick to his cool cold business tricks or make this beautiful but uncultured woman his girl. Between expensive jewellery and limousine trips, Edward and Vivian work out their differences and happiness ensues by film’s end.
Looking back at Pretty Woman, it’s not hard to see the era it was made in. The film came out right at the end of the 1980s and that decade’s big business boom, high-end fashion culture, and obsession with luxury, wealth and coin. We see the glamorous hotel rooms, decadent and exotic meals, and the ravishing clothes and hats Vivian gets along her Beverly Hill shopping strips.
The film proved to be an enormous success when it was first released in 1990 and has since become one of the seminal movies of the romantic-comedy genre. It also helped launch Julia Roberts’s acting career and gave the Hollywood star her first Best Actress Academy Award nomination — a rare feat even by today’s standards since Roberts played a sex worker.
Of course, being an American film, Pretty Woman joins the mythology captured in cinema people trying to climb the social ladder out of the slums and into the mansions. Undoubtedly, many women have watched the film believing that a gallant and rich man could sweep them off their feet and make them his girl, too. Either way, Pretty Woman still offers an excitingly escapist tale. Many of us can believe that the handsome Gere will one day cruise up to us on a street corner somewhere and asks us to join him inside.
With her bad blonde wig and safety pins holding her imitation leather boots, Roberts still dazzles us with her earthy, warm, and self-deprecating Vivian 25 years on. She transforms from the anxious, risqué and cash-strapped Hollywood girl into a beautiful, assertive and self-aware woman after her windswept romance with Edward in their luxurious hotel room.
While 50 Shades of Grey has recently captured our attentions and titillated our imagination, it may be time to forget about the s-and-m kink and stripped back Beyoncé tracks and instead indulge in a Pretty Woman couch session. You’ll see Julia Roberts work the streets in black thigh-high pumps, a black American Express credit card, and, of course, encounter an intensely romantic fire-escape reunion that will leave you begging for more.
But we warned: you will be singing that title track by Roy Orbison for weeks afterwards. I know I still am.
www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-smith/post_9212_b_6917972.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices
Barney Frank Speaks Out Against 'Abysmally Ignorant' Ben Carson and Closeted, Anti-gay Politicians: VIDEO
In an interview with CNN’s Gloria Borger earlier today, former Rep. Barney Frank touched on a wide range of topics: his early conversations with colleagues on the Hill about his sexual orientation, why he didn’t “conform to a gay stereotype,” his thoughts on current, closeted gay lawmakers, his incredulity with neurosurgeon Ben Carson’s views on homosexuality, why Democrats have a white male problem, and more.
Watch, AFTER THE JUMP…
Frank’s discussion on coming out in the 1980s can be found here.
Kyler Geoffroy
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