Daily Archives: September 10, 2014
3 Great Dating Tips Every Single Lesbian Should Follow
3 Great Dating Tips Every Single Lesbian Should Follow
By Mary Malia for YourTango.com
Ladies, we’re going to give it to you straight. After coming out, one of the reasons why it’s sometimes hard for us to find love — or jump back into the dating field, for that matter — is because we end up getting in our own way. It makes sense that we’re so caught up in figuring out the protocol for asking a woman that we miss out on a lot of opportunities. It’s okay to be nervous about how to approach that girl that we ran into at the bookstore or on line at the coffee shop; we just have to remember that the only way that anything can happen is if we put ourselves out there. That being said, are there any dating rules that we can follow to make playing the field easier?
More from YourTango: Why Dads Relate To Me As A Lesbian
When dating expert Mary Malia talks about ways to get out of our comfort zone and find love, she couldn’t be more spot on. We don’t need “gaydar” to crack the code of whether or not a woman is interested; we just have to get up and ask her! And if she ends up saying that she doesn’t feel the same, we shouldn’t take it so hard. Just brush it off and smile because the more you ask, there’ll come a day when you get to that “Yes”!
This content originally appeared on YourTango.com as: “3 Foolproof Dating Tips Lesbians Should Follow“
More great content from YourTango:
What Happens When A Lesbian Has An Affair With A Married Woman?
The Reason for the Rabbit
The Reason for the Rabbit
Opal the Rabbit has become somewhat of a mascot for the Fayetteville, Arkansas transgender community.
HRC.org
www.hrc.org/blog/entry/the-reason-for-the-rabbit?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed
Topeka Welcomes First “God Loves Gays” Billboard To Taunt Westboro Baptists
Topeka Welcomes First “God Loves Gays” Billboard To Taunt Westboro Baptists
God followed through with his promise to incessantly harass the Westboro Baptist Church this week with the unveiling of a brand new “God Loves Gays” billboard in the hate group’s hometown of Topeka, Kansas.
We reported in August that the user behind Twitter’s humorous “God” account had been raising funds on Indiegogo with the intention of taunting the WBC with a year-long billboard campaign that stood in direct opposition to their infamous “God Hates Fags” slur.
Well, the Indiegogo page had raised over $86,000 at time of posting, and Mashable reports that the first billboard was erected and unveiled on Monday morning. Though the billboard has only been reserved through March 2015, it’s just as colorful, eye-catching, and downright gay as anyone would’ve expected.
Thank you, @TheGoodGodAbove & all His supporters for generously providing this new billboard to the @cityoftopeka pic.twitter.com/g5BrHX9VYB
— PlantingPeace (@Planting_Peace) September 8, 2014
Ever the social media savants, WBC blasted the billboard on Twitter with a Photoshopped image featuring their own rebuttal billboard.
Lil Westboro Baptist Church elect sheep immediately noticed man pleasing billboard @thetweetofgod was a BIG FAT LIE! t.co/0vD5sReW0O
— WBCSays (@FalseReligions) September 10, 2014
In an email to Mashable, Shirley Phelps-Roper praised the “lying billboard”:
“Thank God for that lying billboard! Every soul that sees it will either rejoice for the lie and the vain hope of afflicting the servants of God at WBC. Or, they will sigh and mourn for that awful sin and all the parts of it, knowing that every single soul that weighed in with money or words, in favor of that lying billboard, will stand before God in the Judgment, so very ashamed. Knowing also, that when they stand before God in the judgment, it will be TOO LATE for repentance, and eternal torment will follow.”
According to God, the national advertising company that sold him the billboard space was hesitant at first:
“They seemed a tad nervous. Thus far they have only let Me purchase the billboard through March of 2015. I wanted to purchase the full year. I also wanted to investigate other bigger billboards around town. But before they’ll do that the billboard company wants to see if the community accepts it and likes it first.”
But a spokesperson from Lamar Advertising says that’s not the case:
“We support the First Amendment right of advertisers and believe that it is in the best interest of our company and the communities we serve to accept advertising copy openly. We do not accept or reject copy based upon agreement or disagreement with the views presented. We are firmly committed to our copy acceptance policy.”
No overwhelming opposition to the billboard has been reported since its unveiling Monday. Now with nearly $40,000 in excess funds from an overachieving Indiegogo campaign, God has promised to erect similar billboards in other anti-gay cities across America.
Matthew Tharrett
Discrimination Against Gay Teachers In Ireland To End Soon
Discrimination Against Gay Teachers In Ireland To End Soon
Ireland’s Minister of State at the Department of Justice & Equality, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, has indicated that a forthcoming change in legislation will ensure that public service workers will no longer face discrimination based on sexual orientation, marital status, or gender identity, reports The Journal.
The Irish government announced in June that it intended to introduce an amendment to the Employment Equality Act.
The Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI), which “has vigorously campaigned for amendment of the act in order to remove the cloud of fear and intimidation which hangs over many of our members because of its continued existence,” said that it welcomes Ó Ríordáin’s commitment to amend Section 37 of the Employment Equality Act.
Ó Ríordáin said:
“This has been of particular concern to those in the education and health sectors where many schools and hospitals are funded by the state, but run by a religious order.
“The consequence of this Act can have a chilling effect on concerned workers who are divorced or are single parents, as well as members of the LGBT Community, as it can mean that they cannot be open about their status in their workplace.
“In education, it denies many young LGBT people role models, as their LGBT teachers cannot openly identify their sexuality.”
The TUI added, “It should go without saying in 2014 that nobody should be discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation or family status.”
Ireland is set to hold a referendum on same-sex marriage in early 2015.
Jim Redmond
www.towleroad.com/2014/09/discrimination-against-gay-teachers-in-ireland-to-end-soon.html
Welcome to LGBT Vision!
Welcome to LGBT Vision!
Welcome to LGBT Vision to those of you that haven’t seen this channel before. After changing the theme of the channel from Mental Health to LGBT, I’m hoping to be able to reach out to the world…
Privacy, Security and GPS-Based Apps: An Inside Look From SCRUFF
Privacy, Security and GPS-Based Apps: An Inside Look From SCRUFF
The privacy and security of location-based apps has become a major concern for smartphone users around the globe. Recent headlines say it all: “Tinder flaw left users vulnerable.” “Grindr security glitch exposes gay users in Uganda, Russian Kremlin.” As the CEO of SCRUFF, one of the largest gay dating apps in the world, I take these reports seriously. While there are measures we have taken to protect our community, it’s critical that all users understand the benefits and limitations intrinsic to location-based apps.
The most important thing you should know about location-based apps is this: Any app that shows relative distance between members can be used to pinpoint your location.
“But how? It only tells him I’m 1 mile away, he could never find me!” you reply.
Here’s a quick refresher on geometry: If I know you are 1 mile away from me, but I don’t know which direction, then the circumference of a circle, centered at my location, defines the set of possible places you could be. If I simply move to two other places and record your relative distance, with those three readings I can calculate your location. This is called “trilateration,” and you can read more about it on Wikipedia.
“Okay, but I have hidden my distance in the app, so I can’t be located, right?”
Imagine you and I go to a party at a friend’s house, and after arriving you head to the backyard and I stay in the living room. Five minutes later, I launch SCRUFF to see who’s nearby, and in between you and me in the list of nearby guys is a really cute guy who has hidden his distance. Guess what? You know that, while he could be in any direction, he is no further away than the distance from the living room to the backyard. In this case, the area of a circle defines the set of possible places that cute guy could be, and if you take enough readings you can form an increasingly precise boundary around his location. As a result, in any app that orders results by distance, you can eventually locate a member who has his distance hidden.
The technical feasibility of either approach generally requires a sophisticated user to reverse-engineer the app in question — simply launching the app and writing down relative locations isn’t going to be sufficient. Furthermore, this kind of reverse engineering is almost always against the terms of service of an app, and in some jurisdictions may be illegal. However, this hasn’t stopped some from building tools that attempt to make location discovery possible.
As a result of the recent emergence of these tools, other apps have chosen to eliminate geo-location capabilities entirely, so that no location information is ever shown. While this can be a viable approach, it is only sufficient if the app refrains from ordering results by distance. SCRUFF knows many users enjoy the location feature and would regret its loss. More than a year ago we engineered a solution that protects user privacy while still enabling location-based data to be shared.
When a user elects to hide his distance on SCRUFF, we not only remove the information from his profile data, but we also randomize his location on our servers. This means that, if he lives in the West Village in NYC, he could potentially appear in between two people in SoHo. However, if he uses SCRUFF in the countryside, randomizing his location by a few blocks might still not be enough. That’s why we take density into account, so if you live in the city, your location will be randomized by a few blocks, but in the country it could be a few miles or more.
This issue is even more critical for people who live in regions that criminalize homosexuality or male/female interaction, such as Russia and the Middle East. Hiding distance may be a smart option for people in these places to enable in all location-based apps that provide this feature. SCRUFF wants to ensure our members both who live in these countries and who travel to these countries stay informed, and in an upcoming release we will be enabling “hide distance” by default for people in these regions.
In addition, we’ve struck an innovative partnership with ILGA, a non-profit that publishes an annual report of gay and lesbian rights worldwide. Coming soon, when a user travels to a country included in the ILGA report and launches SCRUFF, he will see an alert informing him of the presence of local laws criminalizing homosexual activity. By increasing awareness about these laws, we hope to keep our members vigilant and raise the global pressure for reform.
Ultimately, the possibility of location discovery is something we all must consider whenever we use location-based apps for dating, traveling, hooking up, or making friends. As the stakes have increased, app designers must meet the challenge of building robust systems that incorporate advanced location obfuscation techniques. Though today’s headlines happen to target gays, the challenges of location security affect any religion, gender, sexuality or minority group who finds community through location-based apps.
PHOTOS: Los Angeles Goes Ginger For A Night
PHOTOS: Los Angeles Goes Ginger For A Night
The LA Eagle plays host to a bi-monthly ginger-them party, although there are more ginger fans than gingers themselves. Turn on your red-hot button on as you check out this party.
Click here to see the full gallery on GayCities…
Gabe Cooper
feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/WUPzIQzhG90/photos-los-angeles-goes-ginger-for-a-night-20140910
GOP Senate Candidate From Oregon To Run Pro-Marriage Equality Ad: VIDEO
GOP Senate Candidate From Oregon To Run Pro-Marriage Equality Ad: VIDEO
Monica Wehby (above left) is proving to be a rare bird in the GOP senate race. The Oregon candidate, battling against incumbent Jeff Merkley (D), is set to air a television ad touting her pro-gay marriage stance. Not only is her position surprising, but the ad also stars one of the plaintiffs from the case which struck down Oregon’s ban, Ben West (above right).
Mediaite reports:
“Marrying my husband was the happiest day of my life,” West says in the ad. “I was proud of Oregon and our country. But there’s a lot of work left to do. Whether it’s standing up for equality or for the unemployed or for the next generation, we need leaders who have the courage to do what’s right. That’s why I support Monica Wehby. I know she’ll fight for every Oregon family, including mine.”
Kudos to Wehby! The probability of her winning the race is slim as she currently trails Merkley in the polls by 13 points, but the blatantly supportive message is admirable to say the least.
Check out the campaign ad, AFTER THE JUMP…
Joseph Ehrman-Dupre
United Nations Celebrates First Anniversary Of Pro-LGBT Campaign
United Nations Celebrates First Anniversary Of Pro-LGBT Campaign
United Nations Celebrates First Anniversary Of Pro-LGBT Campaign.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru_ncxg9_2Y&feature=youtube_gdata