Ramię w ramię po równość – LGBT i przyjaciele: Debata
Debata "Ramię w ramię po równość – LGBT i przyjaciele” poświęcona roli sojuszników i osób publicznych w walce o prawa osób LGBT. Celem debaty było pokazanie jak silna i liczna…
LGBT Groups, Conservatives Outraged As Straight Mates Marry for Rugby Tickets
NYU Student Lucy Parks Writes Heartbreaking Letter About Dropping Out Of College
NYU Student Lucy Parks Writes Heartbreaking Letter About Dropping Out Of College
A New York University has published the letter she personally wrote to school president John Sexton explaining her anger that she must drop out of college due to financial concerns, seeing it as the only way to avoid a life in education debt.
Lucy Parks said she faced violence as a gay teen in rural Virginia, and wanted to go somewhere like NYU in New York City — located blocks away from what some consider the birthplace of gay rights activism — that’s considered LGBT friendly. She further explained she came from modest means, with a middle school librarian as her mother and a father who made instruments and cabinets before passing away due to cancer.
Parks, who would’ve graduated in 2016, said she told the financial aid office in fall 2013 she needed at least another $10,000 or she’d have to leave, but was only offered an increase of $2,000:
After my college fund had been entirely depleted by the two years that I spent here, I faced the difficult choice of leaving without a degree or taking on an extra $60,000 to $80,000 of debt on top of the $15,000 I already owe. For fear that I would have to dedicate the best years of my life to paying that off, I decided to leave. I remain confident in my choice, but deeply saddened and angered by the fact that my only options were either to leave or devote years of my life post-graduation to paying off my debts.
(Read the entire letter embedded below.)
NYU has faced considerable criticism in recent years over generous loans for college administrators’ second homes, apartments for professors who don’t work for the university, while having one of the most indebted student bodies in the country.
Parks explains in the letter, posted on Sept. 10, although the university was her “dream school,” she concluded “students are not valued at NYU, but profit is”:
I am writing you because I am angry. President Sexton, you make nearly $1.5 million a year and as one of your students I often had to go hungry – and I am not the only one. I am angry that the new president-to-be of our Board of Trustees used to make millions off of student loan debt incurred by people like me. I am angry that people like him get far more say in the decisions of this University than teachers or students. I am angry that kickbacks and swanky vacation home packages have been given to favored professors and administrators, but students are still living in Bobst because they can’t afford housing. I am angry because NYU is continuing with the 2031 plan for expansion despite the fact that students, professors, and community members all stand firmly against it. And while so much of our money is being spent on those things, students like me have to leave because we aren’t given enough financial aid.
NYU did not immediately return request for comment.
Prior to her submission of the letter, she posted about dropping out on Twitter.
Just turned in my form to drop out of #NYU! I am now officially no longer a student. #EducationIsARight #StudentDebt pic.twitter.com/3RXEfayxHQ
— Lucy Parks (@ParksLucifer) September 2, 2014
NYU Student & Labor Action Movement, a campus activist group, is citing her letter as one reason they are organizing to demonstration against the growing student debt crisis.
Letter to John Sexton on my dropping out of NYU by Lucy Parks
Return of Rosie O'Donnell and two new co-hosts gives The View highest ratings in eight years
Return of Rosie O'Donnell and two new co-hosts gives The View highest ratings in eight years
O’Donnell, Rosie Perez and Nicolle Wallace join Whoopi Goldberg and draw 3.9 million viewers
gregh
HRC’s National Dinner Lexus Raffle Winner: One Year Later
HRC’s National Dinner Lexus Raffle Winner: One Year Later
Last year, Brian B. was shocked when he won a Lexus from the raffle at HRC’s Annual National Dinner.
HRC.org
Boy Scouts Leader Accused Of Coercing Teens Into Late Night, Boozed-Fueled Threesome
Boy Scouts Leader Accused Of Coercing Teens Into Late Night, Boozed-Fueled Threesome
Three men gave graphic testimony in a Morristown, New Jersey Court on Monday, alleging they were sexually abused by former Morris County Boy Scout leader, Stephen Corcoran (pictured), when they were teenagers.
The first alleged victim testified that his abuse began in the 1990s when he was just 10. One day, Corcoran invited him over to his house. When he got there, the Scout leader offered him a beer then showed him pornography on his computer.
“This is what kids do in Europe,” Corcoran allegedly said. “It’s okay.”
The alleged victim told the court that the abuse continued for seven more years, often late at night during overnight camping trips. Corcoran would lead him to dark, secluded locations — including the woods along the banks of the Delaware River, on top of a boat at West Point, and in a hotel room whilst on a ski trip to Vermont — then offer him alcohol and engage in sex acts with the boy.
A second alleged victim testified that his abuse began when he was 13. He was invited over to Corcoran’s house to work on a merit badge. While there, the Scout leader showed him pornography. The first time, the man said, Corcoran didn’t touch him. But the second time, he performed oral sex on him. The man testified that he never told anybody about the abuse because he was afraid “They’d think I was gay or stupid for masturbating with a Scout leader.”
A third alleged victim told the court his sexual activities with Corcoran began in 1999 when he was 17. One day he asked Corcoran to help fix his computer. Corcoran noticed that he had gay porn stored on it.
“Nobody knew I was gay yet,” the man testified. “He reassured me it was okay. He said ‘it’s okay if you’re bisexual. I’m bisexual too.’ ”
Then, he said, Corcoran unzipped his pants and began pleasuring himself.
A few months later, Corcoran invited him over to his house for “a few drinks” and a threesome with another boy.
“That freaked me out,” he said.
The man described the experience as “frightening,” and “very naughty,” but admitted that he also kind of enjoyed it.
After he turned 18, the alleged victim testified, he continued having sex with Corcoran and even invited him to several of his birthday parties until well into his late 20s. He said he agreed to testify against him because he believes this sort of things happens much more often than is reported within the Boy Scouts of America organization.
“It’s clear that this is a widespread thing that’s happening,” the man said.
Corcoran now faces four counts of aggravated sexual assault and five counts of sexual assault, along with 11 counts of child endangerment.
Related stories:
Boy Scouts Plan To Kick Out Gay Teen On His Birthday, But Keep His Straight Twin
Teacher Convicted Of Hooking Up With 14-Year-Old Schoolboy
Boy Scouts Vote To Lift Ban On Gay Scouts
Graham Gremore
Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett Release New Cover of 'Nature Boy' – LISTEN
Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett Release New Cover of 'Nature Boy' – LISTEN
Off of their upcoming jazz duets album comes Gaga and Bennett’s cover of the song, “Nature Boy.” Gaga paid tribute to the late musician Paul Horn, whose flute solo is featured on the song. Gaga took to Twitter to share the story behind the song and Horn’s contributions:
Nature Boy was composed in 1941 by eden ahbez, a wandering man from Brooklyn with long hair. It was recorded first by Nat King Cole in 1947…
You will recognize it also famously as used in ‘Moulin Rouge,’ but our rendition with the now late multi-reedist Paul Horn is spectacular…
Horn was meant to join Tony & me for the PBS special but sadly passed just weeks before, a New Age Jazz pioneer, lets celebrate him 2day…
You will hear his genius in the flute solo of our “NATURE BOY” a solo that will echo through the world today. And forever. #TheGreatPaulHorn
Listen to the new track, AFTER THE JUMP…
Sean Mandell
www.towleroad.com/2014/09/lady-gaga-and-tony-bennett-release-new-cover-of-nature-boy-listen.html
LGBT 4 LIFE
LGBT 4 LIFE
I created this video with the YouTube Slideshow Creator (www.youtube.com/upload)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsotMDqtBhE&feature=youtube_gdata
Two Transgender Teens Crowned Homecoming Royalty
Two Transgender Teens Crowned Homecoming Royalty
This week, Scarlett Lenh of Colorado and Mel Gonzalez of Texas were overjoyed to learn that their classmates had voted them, respectively, homecoming queen and king.
Mitch Kellaway
www.advocate.com/politics/transgender/2014/09/16/two-transgender-teens-crowned-homecoming-royalty
Misogyny and Homphobia in the NFL: Is America's Crisis of Masculinity Playing Out in Its Favorite Sport?
Misogyny and Homphobia in the NFL: Is America's Crisis of Masculinity Playing Out in Its Favorite Sport?
The Ray Rice scandal has lifted the lid off the NFL like never before. And it raises a very important question: Is it a coincidence that the NFL is more popular than ever, with the Super Bowl as the ultimate national event, at the same time that many American men are in the midst of a masculinity crisis — and that now we’re seeing that crisis playing out literally within the NFL itself?
Women are asserting themselves, roles are changing for men and women, and the gay and transgender movements are challenging sexuality and gender as well as challenging the definition, and even the idea, of masculinity. Is it really any wonder that many more straight men — as well as many women, judging by the statistics of who the newest fans are — may be confused and threatened about these changing roles, flocking to an institution that is a citadel of well-defined, old-fashioned masculinity, where the men are real men and women stand behind them, cheering them on? If masculinity were a religion, after all, the NFL would be its Wahhabism or Christian Dominionism.
Two weeks ago I pointed to the virulent homophobia of the NFL, where Coach Mike Priefer of the Vikings was given a mere two-game suspension — now back in the game — for saying gays should be rounded up and put “on an island, and nuke it until it glows,” while the first (and only) openly gay player was drafted much later than predicted in the rounds and then passed over for a roster, only picked up for a practice squad. And while Ray Rice was suspended indefinitely — only after a video surfaced showing more graphically what we knew before about his pummeling of his then-fiancée in an elevator — there are many other cases of domestic abuse of women and now child abuse, in which players see few if any ramifications from the NFL.
Let’s be honest: Professional football, perhaps more than any other male team sport, is based on misogyny and homophobia, built on it from the ground up. Entire generations of American men have been raised on the idea that if they don’t participate in male team sports, they’re maybe a little faggy, and football, as surely the most aggressive of male team sports, is the holy grail if you want to prove you’re not. Entire generations have grown up — and, in many cases, still grow up — with it being routine for high-school and college football coaches to demean the players during training by calling them “girls” or “ladies” if they don’t perform well, or even going further with “pussies” and “pansies.” And what are these terms really all about? The idea that women are less than men, and that being less than a real man, and being a like a woman, is being like a homo, which is the worst thing you can possibly be.
Women and LGBT people are challenging this demeaning behavior and have even successfully stopped it in many places. Masculine identity as defined for generations, however, is so culturally powerful that it cuts across class and race boundaries — bonding men of all kinds together — and seems to be only becoming stronger as the American crisis in masculinity escalates. I’ll never forget when I went on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in the ’90s for the first time — back when their was a trading “floor,” before most trading became electronic. Everything crystalized for me when I looked down at this largely straight male world: blue-blood WASPS running the show mixed with the traders on the floor, the working-class guys from Staten Island and Brooklyn scrambling back and forth, all bonding on winning and making money.
And isn’t that what professional football is all about for many who run the game: winning and making money, no matter what racial or class background you come from? Is it any wonder, then, that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who earned $105 million in five years, connects with and tacitly if not not publicly defends the players who, even if they went a little too far (in his mind), are simply protecting those boundaries of masculinity for all men, punching back against the onslaught of women and homosexuals demanding equality?
Before you say, “Hey, wait, I love football, and I’m not a monster!” let me be clear that I’m not making a generalization regarding all the fans. It’s a broad and interesting game that attracts a diverse audience, many for healthy and productive reasons. Indeed, many gay men and a great many lesbians are fans — although Rachel Maddow acknowledged the other night that, though she’s long been an NFL fan, she can no longer watch the game after the recent response to Rice’s domestic assault. Like any national phenomenon, I think there are different ways that people participate and connect. It’s sort of like the way I might watch the brilliant phenomenon of The Sopranos or Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas and the way a would-be gangster from my old neighborhood might watch them.
But now something’s become too real and raw, hence Maddow’s response. The only way to change professional football is at its foundation, transforming the culture in our schools and what defines masculinity — and what defines being a girl or a woman or gay or transgender — and, most importantly, that needs to happen within sports programs, not separate from them. That’s likely to take a long time and may be utopian, since it could actually forever change, or even end, the game of football as we know it.
