Friday, March 30, 2012

Mitt Romney Secretly Gave Race-Wedging NOM $10,000 In 2008

Mitt Romney Secretly Gave Race-Wedging NOM $10,000 In 2008: pRecords show that Mitt Romney secretly funneled $10,000 to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) in 2008 through the Alabama chapter of his Free and Strong America PAC. Alabama’s lax financial disclosure laws helped keep the donation hidden until a NOM whistle-blower shared it with the Human Rights Campaign. The donation was made just weeks [...]/p

Only Gay In The World Music Video To Rihanna Only Girl

Ke$ha - Take if Off (Official Music video) by the Boys of BOSTON

Beyonce - Run the world (Gays) - The Gay Kingdom

It's All Because (The Gays Are Getting Married)

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Top 10 Highlights From NOM’s Race-Wedging, Donor-Hiding, Victim-Playing Confidential Strategies

Top 10 Highlights From NOM’s Race-Wedging, Donor-Hiding, Victim-Playing Confidential Strategies: pThe fallout has begun from the National Organization for Marriage’s failed attempt to circumvent Maine’s campaign finance disclosure laws. The Human Rights Campaign has published four of NOM’s confidential strategic memos from 2009, which explicitly confirm many of the insidious tactics LGBT bloggers have been documenting for years. Most alarming from the memos is NOM’s [...]/p

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Gay Men Being Drugged and Robbed

From SFWeekly.com: "San Francisco police are asking gay men in the Castro to be a little more judicious about who they take home from the bar after a night of drinking.

It seems there have been too many instances laltely in which older gay men are being targeted by (straight) criminals who are coming into gay bars, flirting with men, and then robbing them after they take them home.


Sgt. Chuck Limbert, the LGBT liaison for the Mission District, tells us that one victim recently called him to report an incident where he was drinking at a Castro bar when a really good-looking man walked in and bought him a drink. The two began talking and after some time, the hottie suggested they go home together, Limbert said.

"[The victim] said he wasn't making good decisions, that his vision was blurry and he didn't know what was going on," Limbert said. The two went to the victim's apartment, where he started vomiting. When he came out of the bathroom, the suspect grabbed the man's computer and demanded the victim's password. When the man refused to give it to him, the suspect hit him, and the victim ran out of the apartment, screaming.

Limbert said after that call, he was in the Castro off-duty, when other gay men approached him, telling him they, too, had been victims of similar crimes. "They would say 'I took someone home and passed out and woke up and my credit cards were gone,' and another said he went home with someone and woke up and his entire wallet was missing," Limbert said.

As a gay man and resident of the Castro himself, Limbert decided to alert the community of these nefarious crimes, none of which are happening at any particular bar. He met with a local merchants group and offered tips to help stop gay men from becoming victims.

Bartenders and businesses should be mindful of those who have clearly had too much to drink; hail them a cab, or at the very least ask them if they are okay. Patrons should also be aware of who they are mingling with -- ask to see someone's ID before you take them home, and if you can, jot down their driver's license number before you two go home together, Limbert said.

"I think this has been going on but for a long time, but it's not being reported, because there's a perceived embarrassment associated with it," Limbert said. "People don't want to be perceived as being that naive."

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Shootings prompt changes in East St. Louis liquor sales

From Stltoday.com: BY PHILLIP O'CONNOR • poconnor@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8321 | Posted: Sunday, March 11, 2012 4:14 pm

EAST ST. LOUIS • Two shootings over the weekend outside two nightclubs left one man dead, two wounded and prompted the city on Sunday to suspend non-casino liquor sales after 1 a.m. until further notice.

The earlier closing hours marked an about face by Mayor Alvin Parks, who last month rejected a call by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, to rein in the city’s club scene.

"Ultimately, the city of East St. Louis will do whatever it deems necessary to bring about an environment that is as healthy and as safe as it can be,’’ Parks said in a written statement released Sunday.

About 4 a.m. Saturday two men, ages 21 and 27, were shot as they walked to their car in the 200 block of Collinsville Avenue after leaving the nearby Club Flava, according to East St. Louis Police Chief Michael Floore.

"Apparently, they had gotten into it with some other guys during the course of the night," Floore said. "A car pulled up and opened fire on the two guys."

The men, both of St. Louis, were taken to an undisclosed hospital with what Floore described as non-life threatening wounds. Police have not located the suspects, whom Floore said are also from St. Louis, and fled the scene in a gold-colored vehicle.

The second shooting happened about 4 a.m. Sunday in the 100 block of Collinsville. The victim, Steven H. Holmes, 23, of East St. Louis was shot as he walked to his vehicle in the parking lot behind Club 103 after being denied entry.

He died later at a hospital. Police say a suspect in the second shooting remained at large Sunday afternoon.

Not long after Holmes was killed, shots were fired at three East St. Louis homes. It’s unclear whether those shootings were connected to Holmes’ death, Floore said.

After the shootings near the two entertainment venues, East St. Louis police spokeswoman Francella Jackson said the city had suspended all non-casino liquor sales after 1 a.m. until further notice. She says it was done "in order to restabilize the community’s health and safety."

The city also suspended Club 103’s liquor license and Club Flava’s business license until disciplinary hearings scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday. Both hearings could lead to license revocations and closure of the businesses, a city press release said.

Parks was in the audience last month when Durbin criticized the city for not doing enough to crack down on late-night liquor store sales and club operations, which he said create an "atmosphere of violence."

East St. Louis has one of the highest crime rates in the country, according to statistics. Durbin said the city’s crime rate is four times the state average and twice that of the city of Chicago.

Parks resisted Durbin's pleas, saying the clubs had already been reined in by requiring them to have extra security.

He also said sales tax the clubs bring in helped fuel the local economy and said he hoped Durbin would find federal money to help the city hire more police officers.

Floore, the police chief, said community marches and other measures had been undertaken to try to stop the violence.

"But obviously that’s not happening," he said. "We need more officers."

Thursday, March 08, 2012

Homeless youth: the next battle for gay equality

By VERENA DOBNIK, Associated Press – 1 hour ago
NEW YORK (AP) — Iro Uikka clutches his throat as he describes the violent clash that led to spending his nights sleeping in New York City subway cars.
"When I told my mother I was gay, she grabbed me by the neck and threw me out," he says. "Then she threw my coat on top of me and shut the door."
That was five years ago when he was 18, still living at home in Florida.
Uikka is among tens of thousands of homeless youths across America who are LGBT — lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Most are on the streets because they have nowhere else to go — outcasts who leave home after being rejected by family members or flee shelters because residents bully or beat them.
LGBT young people represent a dramatically high proportion of an estimated 600,000 or more homeless youths across the country — between 20 percent and 40 percent, according to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute. But only about 5 percent of youths identify themselves as lesbian, gay or bisexual, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"We've won battles for gay marriage and gays in the military," says Carl Siciliano, founder and executive director of the New York-based Ali Forney Center, the nation's largest organization for LGBT youth. "This is the next frontier, the next battle: helping these youths."
The White House has taken notice. Members of the Obama Administration are hosting a national conference on housing and homelessness in America's LGBT communities on Friday in Detroit. They'll discuss these issues with advocates, community leaders and the public.
Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh, who is openly gay, is one of the participants.
"I take this discussion personally because I know too many people who have been kicked out of their homes because of their orientation," he told The Associated Press. "To get this kind of attention from the White House is exactly what we need to raise conscientiousness and to help parents find a way to deal with their kids' orientation."
Detroit has the only nonprofit agency in the Midwest that focuses on LGBT youth — the Ruth Ellis Center, co-host of the Friday conference. But the largely voiceless, powerless youth are fighting to survive from coast to coast.
They live on streets, in subways and train stations, on river piers, in parks and abandoned houses. They're robbed, raped and assaulted. Some are murdered.
And they're invisible to most Americans.
Lesbian, gay and bisexual youth are about four times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight peers, according to the CDC. And one in three is thrown out by their parents, according to data collected from youth across the country by the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University.
Some youth use "survival sex" to land in a warm bed, or they move from home to home of friends and acquaintances.
In the past, Ryan Kennedy resorted to survival sex. He lists his education on Facebook as "Urban Survivalism at University of NYC Streets." He adopted a rebellious middle name for his page, calling himself "Ryan TransEquality Kennedy."
"I wouldn't be alive today if I didn't get some help," says Kennedy, a transgender youth whose Connecticut family threw him out at 15. He says he was a girl who felt like a boy. He's now transitioning to male.
After years living on the streets, Kennedy, now 22, has a bed thanks to The Door, a New York nonprofit that offers shelter, food, counseling and job training programs.
On any given day, there are almost 4,000 homeless youths in New York City, and at least 1,000 are LGBT, according to a 2008 census released by the City Council.
Meager government funds and private donations cover about 350 New York beds for homeless youth. Hundreds more are on waiting lists, providers say.
In recent years, the New York state Legislature has cut funding to support homeless youth programs in general by about 70 percent.
Somehow, these vulnerable Americans survive, without beds.
Each night, some fill tables at a fast-food shop off Manhattan's Union Square. One is a lively 19-year-old bisexual man from Virginia.
When he leaves in the late evening, Baresco Escobar goes to the far end of Brooklyn to sleep in an abandoned house with dozens of homeless kids, covering bare floors with blankets and cuddling for warmth.
"Home is where you're supposed to have stability, unconditional love, support, a foundation," he says. Instead, back in Virginia, "I was in a place of dysfunction, with expectations that didn't apply to me — full of judgment, discrimination and hypocrisy."
Escobar goes to the Ali Forney drop-in center on Manhattan's West Side, which offers clothing, counseling, workshops in life skills, showers, laundry facilities and HIV testing. A nurse is available for quick checkups, sending clients for follow-ups with doctors.
Escobar does not live in Ali Forney's emergency housing units, which have a total of only 47 beds in Brooklyn and Queens assigned for a few months at a time. The center also has limited transitional housing where residents get coached on how to prepare for job or school interviews.
The Ali Forney Center opened in 2002. Siciliano named it after a transgender youth who was kicked out of his home at 13. He was found shot to death on a Harlem sidewalk in 1997, at 22. By then, he had become a counselor to his homeless friends.
Siciliano knows of five other LGBT youths who were killed in New York over the years.
Despite the hardships, the city is a magnet for young people who grew up with conservative traditions, whether among immigrants from Caribbean and Asian countries or parts of the United States where residents are less accepting of sexual diversity.
Gizmo Lopez, 19, comes from a staunchly Catholic family with Puerto Rican roots. She now sleeps on the subway.
"I'm bisexual, and my stepfather didn't approve; he said it's wrong," said the teenager, whose mother died two years ago.
Her stepfather moved to Puerto Rico with her two half-brothers, leaving her behind — alone in the family's apartment on Manhattan's Lower East Side. One afternoon, when she came home from school, "I found a pink slip on the door."
She was evicted.
"I took my stuff, cried and left," she says. "We're nomads."
In the Midwest, the only nonprofit agency for LGBT youth is Detroit's Ruth Ellis Center, which offers meals and other basic services and has 10 beds.
The support saved Demetrius Smith, an 18-year-old who left his great-grandmother's Michigan farm years ago because "she whipped me, and she beat me with an umbrella because she thought I acted like a girl."
He bought food and other necessities by working as an escort. That ended last August. An older friend is letting Smith stay with him and the teenager is finishing high school.
Siciliano believes there's a new reason for the rising number of LGBT youths seeking shelter. As some states legalize gay marriage and the military welcomes openly gay soldiers, "Many kids think, 'Oh, I'm ready to come out,'" he says.
As a result, the average age of young people declaring their sexuality — or at least sharing their doubts about it — has dropped dramatically in recent years to as young as the early teens, according to the Family Acceptance Project.
Some families are not ready for them, nor are segments of society, he says. Each rejection turns into a homeless youth looking for a bed. And there aren't enough.
"These kids are the collateral damage of our cultural wars," Siciliano says.
Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Archie gay marriage comic sells out in face of boycott call

Conservative lobby One Million Moms' campaign for Toys R Us to withdraw wedding issue from sale falls flat
Alison Flood
guardian.co.uk, Friday 2 March 2012 06.00 EST


Archie's happy ending: detail from the cover of now sold-out gay wedding issue
Despite attempts by a conservative American mothers' group to have it pulled from sale, the new Archie comic, which features a gay marriage, has just sold out.

Tracing the adventures of the teenagers Archie, Betty and Veronica in the small town of Riverdale, the Archie storyline has been running for 70 years and is one of America's most popular comic series. Its publisher described the marriage of Kevin Keller, the series' first gay character, in the latest issue as "a historic moment", announcing yesterday that the Life with Archie #16 had sold out.

The strong sales follow a call from the American Family Association's website One Million Moms for Toys R Us to stop selling the new Archie issue. The conservative Christian group is concerned that "children are now being exposed to same-sex marriage in a toy store". "Please remove all the same-sex 'Just Married – Archie' comic books immediately from your shelves. My decision to shop in your stores depends on it," they have written to the retailer.

Homosexuality is a topic which is "too complicated" for children to understand, say the mothers, and "a trip to the toy store turns into a premature discussion on sexual orientation and is completely uncalled for".

But Archie Comics co-chief executive John Goldwater has said that the company "stands by" the new issue. "Riverdale is a safe, welcoming place that does not judge anyone. It's an idealised version of America that will hopefully become reality someday," he said.

"We're sorry the American Family Association/OneMillionMoms.com feels so negatively about our product, but they have every right to their opinion, just like we have the right to stand by ours. Kevin Keller will forever be a part of Riverdale, and he will live a happy, long life free of prejudice, hate and narrow-minded people."

Announcing yesterday that the Kevin Keller issue had sold out, Goldwater said that Archie's fans "have come out full force to support" the gay character. "He is, without a doubt, the most important new character in Archie history. He's here to stay," Goldwater added.

© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.
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