Jonathan Groff’s Love Triangle Continues, Clay Aiken Gets A TV Series, Ben Whishaw Knows Everyone Knew He Was Gay

Jonathan Groff’s Love Triangle Continues, Clay Aiken Gets A TV Series, Ben Whishaw Knows Everyone Knew He Was Gay

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Dreamy British actor Ben Whishaw, who might be starring as Freddie Mercury in an upcoming biopic, is very happy he came out. He recently told Marie Claire mag that “It was never a secret, everyone around me in my life knew” and now he just wants to get on with life.

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The first season of Looking ended with our protagonist Patrick (Jonathan Groff) involved in a torrid, can’t lose triangle with Kevin (Russell Tovey, above with Goff) and Richie (Raul Castillo). We’ll learn which he chose when the series returns January 11.

clay aiken

American Idol also-ran Clay Aiken may have the election earlier this week, but he’s won a deal for a reality series with Esquire TV, which will chronicle his failed bid to become a North Carolina Congressman.

If you can’t get a ticket to Interstellar this weekend go see the gay-themed Brazilian drama The Way He Looks, which opens in select theaters Friday.

2nd Annual Broadway Sings For Pride Gay Pride Concert

The honors continue to pour in for Laverne Cox. The OITNB star has deservedly been named one of Glamour magazine’s Women of the Year.

Carey NoKey is pursuing the “American Dream” and he’s making it come true so far. The singer will open for RuPaul’s Drag Race Tour next year.

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November may have spawned a monster, but it also spawned the promising-sounding Teatro Moz, the world’s first Morrissey Theater festival that takes place in L.A. November 13.

Jeremy Kinser

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/bkYJJB9y4ik/jonathan-groffs-love-triangle-continues-clay-aiken-gets-a-tv-series-ben-whishaw-knows-everyone-knew-he-was-gay-20141106

A Balloon Took a Camera to Space to Create the Stunning Video for José González’ New Track: WATCH

A Balloon Took a Camera to Space to Create the Stunning Video for José González’ New Track: WATCH

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Most people are familiar with José González because of the famous 2005 SONY Bravia commercial shot in San Francisco with thousands of bouncing balls.

González has a new album forthcoming in February and the first track from it has hit the web along with a video produced by global collective Eyes in Space.

Writes the collective:

Seven billion people on Planet Earth, of which only 536 are lucky enough to have seen Space. Eyes In Space aspire to change this, taking every one on a personal journey to roam the cosmos. The collective’s maiden voyage allows everyone to wander space freely using immersive 360-film to create an endless, all-sensory experience. The galactic journey is accompanied by José González’ newest release. Eyes In Space is a global collective established to mesh artistic experiment with scientific innovation to open new worlds. Space is the collective’s first destination.

Check out the video and the gorgeous track, AFTER THE JUMP


Andy Towle

www.towleroad.com/2014/11/gonzalez.html

N. Ireland Bakery Refuses to Apologize for Denying Gay Bert and Ernie Cake

N. Ireland Bakery Refuses to Apologize for Denying Gay Bert and Ernie Cake

A Christian-owned bakery in Northern Ireland that refused to bake a cake adorned with the Sesame Street pals and the words ‘support gay marriage’ has been ordered to make things right.

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Thom Senzee

www.advocate.com/world/2014/11/06/n-ireland-bakery-refuses-apologize-denying-gay-bert-and-ernie-cake

In Blistering Dissent, Appeals Court Judge Slams Colleagues Who Upheld Gay Marriage Bans

In Blistering Dissent, Appeals Court Judge Slams Colleagues Who Upheld Gay Marriage Bans
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court judge on Tuesday issued a scathing dissent to an opinion supported by two of her colleagues who upheld bans on same-sex marriage in Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee and Kentucky.

In a 2-1 decision, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the rulings of lower federal courts that found same-sex marriage bans unconstitutional.

But in a blistering dissent, Martha Craig Daughtrey wrote that while her colleagues’ opinion would make “an engrossing TED Talk or, possibly, an introductory lecture in Political Philosophy,” it “wholly fails” to address the issue of whether a state constitution’s ban on same-sex marriage violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The majority opinion “treats both the issues and the litigants here as mere abstractions,” Daughtrey wrote.

“Instead of recognizing the plaintiffs as persons, suffering actual harm as a result of being denied the right to marry where they reside or the right to have their valid marriages recognized there, my colleagues view the plaintiffs as social activists who have somehow stumbled into federal court, inadvisably, when they should be out campaigning to win ‘the hearts and minds’ of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee voters to their cause,” she wrote.

“But these plaintiffs are not political zealots trying to push reform on their fellow citizens; they are committed same-sex couples, many of them heading up de facto families, who want to achieve equal status … with their married neighbors, friends, and coworkers, to be accepted as contributing members of their social and religious communities, and to be welcomed as fully legitimate parents at their children’s schools,” she continued. “They seek to do this by virtue of exercising a civil right that most of us take for granted — the right to marry.”

Citing the Supreme Court ruling that struck down key provisions of the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013, Daughtrey said that the majority of the federal appeals court ignored the damage to the children of same-sex couples whose unions were not recognized.

People familiar with the Supreme Court ruling in the Windsor case, Daughtrey wrote, “must have said to themselves at various points in the majority opinion, ‘But what about the children?’ I did, and I could not find the answer in the opinion.”

She added that it was “ironic that irresponsible, unmarried, opposite-sex couples in the Sixth Circuit who produce unwanted offspring must be ‘channeled’ into marriage and thus rewarded with its many psychological and financial benefits, while same-sex couples who become model parents are punished for their responsible behavior by being denied the right to marry.”

In concluding her dissent, Daughtrey cited the oath of office she took more than 20 years ago when she was sworn into office. She said her colleagues “seem to have fallen prey to the misguided notion that the intent of the framers of the United States Constitution can be effectuated only by cleaving to the legislative will and ignoring and demonizing an independent judiciary.” She wrote that the judiciary existed to “ensure that rights, liberties, and duties need not be held hostage by popular whims.”

“If we in the judiciary do not have the authority, and indeed the responsibility, to right fundamental wrongs left excused by a majority of the electorate, our whole intricate, constitutional system of checks and balances, as well as the oaths to which we swore, prove to be nothing but shams,” she wrote.

Read Daughtrey’s dissent below.

Gay Marriage Dissent

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story said the court ruled 3-2. In fact, the ruling was 2-1.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/06/gay-marriage-dissent_n_6117648.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices