#baby #long-distance #lgbt
Two Prominent Ferguson Protesters Get Engaged
Two Prominent Ferguson Protesters Get Engaged
ST. LOUIS — Two demonstrators who met while protesting in Ferguson, Missouri, following the Aug. 9 death of Michael Brown are getting married.
Alexis Templeton, 20, and Brittany Ferrell, 25, two of the co-founders of Millennial Activists United, first met in August at protests for police accountability after Brown was killed by former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. The two are also both plaintiffs in a federal court case against law enforcement agencies over their heavy-handed response to demonstrations.
After getting to know each other at the protests, the two started dating. On Tuesday afternoon, Templeton formally proposed to Ferrell at City Hall, where the couple then picked up a marriage license.
A number of activists and members of the media showed up to watch the proposal. Ferrell told the crowd that she had suggested to Ferrell on Monday that they get engaged. They will hold a formal ceremony soon, she added; they have not yet set a date, but their certificate, which still needs signatures from witnesses and an ordained minister in order to become binding, expires in 30 days.
With so many protesters active on social media, the proceedings were well-documented on Twitter, Vine and via livestream. Several people showed up after seeing the news on Twitter, including St. Louis City Counselor Winston Calvert. After the couple signed their marriage license, people chanted, “Black love matters” inside the city hall office.
“She’d made me happy for 130 days, and I want to make her happy for the rest of her life,” Templeton told the crowd.
Templeton’s sister, Bre, who is 23, said she didn’t know Templeton was interested in Ferrell until mid-September.
“Alex came up and sat with my son and she fed him,” she said. “She was like, ‘Dude, I got a crush.’ I was like, ‘OK, that’s cool.’ And she was like, ‘No, I got a crush on a girl.’ I asked her how she felt about it and she said good. I asked her if she wanted to talk about it and she said no.” Alexis laughed as Bre recalled the conversation.
Jamell Spann, a 21-year-old also from Ferguson, played the role of best man during the proposal.
“You are looking at two people that stood shoulder to shoulder, faced rubber bullets, tear gas and discrimination. … To be a black woman in America is an unfathomably deep struggle to go through day in and day out. And being a lesbian black woman in America — you just see how each level compounds,” Spann said. “These two women represent the idea of freedom. They represent the idea of love and that black lives matter and have power and passion. It comes full circle; it’s like watching poetry write itself.”
Rae, 23, a bartender from St. Louis who declined to give her last name, said she came to City Hall because she saw a tweet from Ferrell’s account and thought there was going to be a demonstration. A number of police officers seemed to be under the same impression, standing near the building’s entrance and in the lobby as the group gathered inside.
“I was in the mindset that we were going to shut shit down. I walked in and seen a small group of people and thought I was early,” she said. She soon saw DeRay McKesson, another prominent protester, and asked him what was happening.
“He said we weren’t shutting anything down. I told him about Brittany tweeting be here at 2 p.m., and he told me she and Alexis were getting married today,” she said. “I got excited and I hugged him and my entire demeanor changed.”
Some images from today below:
Additional reporting by Ryan J. Reilly in Washington, D.C.
Suspects in attack against gay couple in Philadelphia ordered to stand trial
Philly Gay Bashing Suspects Held On All Charges, Trial Set For Early January
Philly Gay Bashing Suspects Held On All Charges, Trial Set For Early January
The three violent homophobic assailants charged with beating a gay couple unconscious in an unprovoked gay bashing in Philadelphia on September 11th –Kevin Harrigan, Kathryn Knott, and Philip Williams — appeared Tuesday before Judge Charles Hayden for a preliminary hearing in order to determine if there was enough evidence to proceed to trial on charges of felony assault and conspiracy, among other counts.
Judge Hayden confirmed that yes, the evidence is compelling enough to go to trial. Formal arraignment in Common Pleas Court is scheduled for January 6th.
During an intense day of witness examination, Geoff Nagle testified what he’d seen from his nearby third floor window — initially “a woman in the group pointing her finger at someone and that the person she was pointing her finger at then pushed her hand away.”
Then things “took a drastic turn” when he saw “one of the men in the group put a man in a headlock and that there were punches thrown. He said that he heard cursing and yelling in male and female voices, including language such as “fucking faggot.”
Zachary Hesse, one of two victims in the case, was next to take the stand. He said, “that when the pair encountered the group at 16th and Chancellor, Harrigan asked, “Is that your fucking boyfriend?” “I said, ‘Yeah, that is my fucking boyfriend,” he testified. “‘Do you have a problem with that?’” Then he testified that Harrigan said, “‘So you’re a dirty fucking faggot?’ So I approached him and said, ‘Maybe I am a dirty fucking faggot.’ He pushed me, I pushed him.’”
Hesse identified “Harrigan as the man who first hit him in the head, Knott as the woman who “smacked or hit” him in the head and called him a “fucking faggot,” and Williams as the man who then hit Hesse again.”
Hesse’s boyfriend took the worst of the blows, resulting in two broken cheek bones requiring his jaw to be wired shut for nearly two months.
The trio’s lawyers asked the judge to “dismiss the most serious charges and remand the case back to Municipal Court, but Hayden disagreed, saying that the prosecution had met its burden for the preliminary hearing. He then wished all three of the defendants ‘good luck.’”
via PhillyMag
Related Stories
Suspected Philly Gay Bashers Positively ID’d By Victims, Get December Court Date
Violent Homophobes Charged In Philly Gay Bashing Are Released On Bail
Gay Couple Attacked By “Intoxicated, Well Dressed” Gang Of Violent Heterosexuals In Philadelphia
Dan Tracer
66 Tracks Find a Place in the Annual 'Pop Danthology' Mash-Up: VIDEO
66 Tracks Find a Place in the Annual 'Pop Danthology' Mash-Up: VIDEO
Daniel Kim has released his annual ‘Pop Danthology’ mash-up of this year’s best pop music. Did he outdo DJ Earworm in the battle of the mixes? Kim’s mash-up includes 66 tracks. Can you name them all?
Check it out and weigh in, AFTER THE JUMP…
Andy Towle
LGBT Pride (School Project)
LGBT Pride (School Project)
"Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research….
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TQxeHOf3V4&feature=youtube_gdata
WATCH: Teen With Two Moms Tells Texas It's Time to Change
WATCH: Teen With Two Moms Tells Texas It's Time to Change
Mason Marriott-Voss, a 16-year-old student in Austin raised by two moms, says there’s nothing that needs changing about his family — it’s Texas that needs to change.
Sunnivie Brydum
La Famiglia
La Famiglia
The book our gay men’s book group read and discussed this week is the story of an Italian family, una famiglia. It’s called All This Talk of Love by Christopher Castellani, himself an American from an Italian family. A mother, father, and two grown children (and one deceased) are the book’s main players, but their family, the Grassos, becomes the real protagonist of the novel.
Given how family importance gets heightened during the December holidays, Castellani’s book was a good choice. And as always happens in that group, smart guys discussing a work produced insights that I hadn’t thought of.
It being a family story, discussion of All This Talk of Love slid into tales that several men in the group related about their own families, tales that made the evening even richer. Some men in the group are from Italian families who sound not so different from the Grassos; but same nationality or not, families seem to stand in two-way mirrors that reflect the same picture.
In my experience, thoughts about family bring back memories good and bad, often vying with one another. I strive to remember the good things about my family, mostly now deceased. But it’s easy for those times to get buried under moments and relationships that left one wanting, caused by others and, when I’m honest, by myself as well.
What I’ve found curious about families is that the need does not vanish when an actual family does. Gradually we reach out and create new families — a lover or partner or a distant cousin who grows closer, maybe a teacher or student, maybe a good friend who takes over as welcome sister or brother. With my immediate family all gone, I turn to friends, to be sure, and also to nieces, nephews, and even their children. I’m doing my best to establish a cadre of younger folk who will come around and provide help when needed. Don’t go too far away, please, I’ve hollered. You may get a plea to attend an aging uncle!
Everyone lately has been touched by stories of families who were torn apart by shootings or strangulations, deeply sad tales. The events were examined by a jury of citizens, and the findings they returned have been so controversial, often acquitting a police officer, that protests erupted locally and across the land. Presumably the panel believed in justice as much as those who later protested their findings, but it’s easy to see otherwise. Regardless, men died under circumstances not clear. And those men, part of a family, maybe a lover or husband or brother, certainly a son, are gone.
The Hebrew Bible is filled with family stories of jealousy and betrayal as well as those of love. It seems that the sages who wrote the stories are alerting us to the frequency of unhappy, even murderous family relationships. Accept that we humans were not made perfect, those stories say, and know that to make your family whole needs care and nourishment, and a large measure of forgiveness.
This month, with the wonderful days of Chanukah and Christmas, I think I’ll review the love that was portrayed by Castellani in the Grasso family, and see if I can’t find a little more good to remember in my own.
Stanley Ely includes many family stories in his new memoir, Life Up Close, in paperback and ebook.
www.huffingtonpost.com/stanley-ely/la-famiglia_b_6285108.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices
Inspired by Robbie Rogers, high school soccer star comes out at homecoming by dancing with boyfriend
Inspired by Robbie Rogers, high school soccer star comes out at homecoming by dancing with boyfriend
Michael Martin: ‘If I can come out in a small town in West Virginia and be accepted, and dance with the homecoming king, it shows things are changing’
gregh
HRC Named Best Non-Profit Voice in HIV Awareness
HRC Named Best Non-Profit Voice in HIV Awareness
Earlier this month, HRC was named best non-profit voice in HIV awareness by Healthline.
HRC.org
