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Daily Archives: December 10, 2014
Will 2015 Vatican Synod Follow Pope's Lead on LGBT Families?
Will 2015 Vatican Synod Follow Pope's Lead on LGBT Families?
LGBT Catholic leaders respond to a document and questionnaire sent to clergy ahead of the 2015 Synod of Bishops that calls for direct input from church laity about the future of Catholic LGBT families.
Stevie St. John
Split in two
LOOK: New Photos Of Zachary Quinto and James Franco In 'Michael'
LOOK: New Photos Of Zachary Quinto and James Franco In 'Michael'
New photos have been released showing actors Zachary Quinto and James Franco in their upcoming film Michael, produced by Gus van Sant, which follows the life of “ex-gay” activist Michael Glatze. As Attitude Magazine notes, Glatze was the “co-founder of [the short-lived publication] Young Gay America and a strong advocate for gay rights, who later denounced homosexuality after a health scare.” Glatze married a woman in 2013. Emma Roberts will play Franco’s wife in the film.
We also learned just yesterday that Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears will be scoring the film. Shears made the announcement on Instagram: “Thrilled to announce that I have scored my first feature film with Tim Kvasnofsky.”
Michael will also reportedly feature a steamy threesome between Quinto, Franco and Charlie Carver (whom Towleroad readers may remember from his Teen Wolf days).
Check out a few more sneak peeks of Michael, AFTER THE JUMP…
And in case you missed them, peep a look at Quinto and Franco is late 90s / early 00s period attire HERE.
(Photos via Attitude UK)
Sean Mandell
www.towleroad.com/2014/12/look-new-photos-of-zachary-quinto-and-james-franco-in-michael.html
Michelle Duggar Succeeds In Getting Civil Rights Ordinance Repealed In Fayetteville, AR
Michelle Duggar Succeeds In Getting Civil Rights Ordinance Repealed In Fayetteville, AR
The Duggar family and the people of Fayetteville, AR have a message to members of the LGBT community: They’re not interested in protecting your kind.
Voters there just struck down the city’s Civil Rights Administration ordinance in a special election held on Tuesday. The ordinance, which the City Council had approved earlier this year, prohibited discrimination based on someone’s sexual orientation and gender identity.
“It was a bad law,” Travis Story, the general counsel leading the charge to repeal the ordinance, said during a watch party Tuesday evening.
Resident Joel Hersh told NWAOnline that he voted against the law because, “The objectives were inappropriate.”
Shannon Harvey, who also voted to repeal the law, said she did so “as protection for faith-based organizations.”
The repeal had been endorsed and promoted by reality TV stars Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar of TLC’s 19 Kids And Counting. In addition to donating $10,000 to the campaigns of the three of the most outspoken opponents of the Civil Rights Administration ordinance, earlier this year, Michelle Duggar recorded a creepy automated phone message encouraging residents to repeal the law which she falsely claimed “would allow men–yes, I said men–to use women’s and girls’ restrooms, locker rooms, showers, sleeping areas and other areas that are designated for females only.
But alderman Matthew Petty, the ordinance’s sponsor, is not letting Tuesday’s defeat get him down.
“We believe that we were on the right side of history,” he said. “And if we’re going to win the hearts and minds of people on the other side of this issue, we need to remember that and remember that they’re brothers and sisters of Fayetteville, too
Mayor Lioneld Jordan, who has publicly endorsed the ordinance, added: “This is the first round, but it won’t be the last round. I would have liked to have seen it go differently, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go back and try something again eventually.”
Related stories:
Michelle Duggar Is Harassing Neighbors With Super Creepy Phone Message About Trans People
Duggar Family Member Joins Anti-Gay Family Research Council
Graham Gremore
Lena Dunham On Her Alleged Sexual Assault: 'Survivors Have The Right To Tell Their Stories'
Lena Dunham On Her Alleged Sexual Assault: 'Survivors Have The Right To Tell Their Stories'
In her new book Not That Kind Of Girl, Lena Dunham bravely wrote about a time in college when she was allegedly sexually assaulted by a former classmate. After receiving some harsh backlash from conservative media and readers — which contributed to her publisher’s decision to alter certain parts of the account in future editions of the book — she’s responded with a heartfelt essay.
On Dec. 9 Dunham’s publisher Random House issued a statement that they will be changing the pseudonym used to describe her alleged rapist in the book because the name and description closely resemble a real man who attended college with Dunham. A few hours after the news broke, Dunham published an essay on Buzzfeed responding to her critics and speaking out about her experience coming forward as a sexual assault survivor.
“To be very clear, ‘Barry’ is a pseudonym, not the name of the man who assaulted me, and any resemblance to a person with this name is an unfortunate and surreal coincidence,” Dunham wrote on Buzzfeed.
She admitted that she didn’t think her story would be met with open arms since the discussion of sexual assault “is far more inflammatory and divisive than it should be,” but Dunham hoped that readers would at least honor her privacy and not “attempt to reopen these wounds or deepen my trauma.” Sadly, this was not the case.
“I have had my character and credibility questioned at every turn. I have been attacked online with violent and misogynistic language,” Dunham wrote. “My work has been torn apart in an attempt to prove I am a liar, or worse, a deviant myself.. I have been made to feel, on multiple occasions, as though I am to blame for what happened.”
Dunham described the reasons she didn’t report the assault, writing, “I was afraid that no one would believe me.” Similar to other sexual assault survivors, Dunham says was afraid to ask for help from a system and culture that so rarely supports victims of sexual violence:
I was afraid other potential partners would consider me damaged goods. I was afraid I was overreacting. I was afraid it was my fault. I was afraid he would be angry. Eight years later, I know just how classic these fears are. They are the reason that the majority of college women who are assaulted will never report it.
She reflected on her experience as a survivor and what she’s learned about how our culture deals with the topic of sexual assault:
Since coming out as a survivor I have gone from an intellectual sense of the ways in which victims are doubted and debased to a bone-deep understanding of this reality. I hope to apply that understanding to art and advocacy. I am deeply grateful for the support I have received. I am deeply grateful that this dialogue is taking place. I am angry but I am not alone… Survivors have the right to tell their stories, to take back control after the ultimate loss of control. There is no right way to survive rape and there is no right way to be a victim.
Dunham closed the essay by explaining the simple way people can support survivors of sexual assault through their healing process. “You can help by never defining a survivor by what has been taken from her,” she wrote. “You can help by saying I believe you.”
Head over to Buzzfeed to read Dunham’s full essay.
Flying, Lunching, and Working Out: Your Diary Entries for #DayInLGBT
Flying, Lunching, and Working Out: Your Diary Entries for #DayInLGBT
The first part of our diary series, capturing the #DayInLGBT.
Advocate Contributors
The State Of Alabama Is Now Issuing Personalized Antigay License Plates
The State Of Alabama Is Now Issuing Personalized Antigay License Plates
Well, this is just lovely.
The great state of Alabama has issued the owner of a shiny black Ford Mustang a vanity license plate that displays the words “No Homo.”
The plate reads “N0H0M0,” with zeroes instead of letter o’s. According to Gay Star News, “No Homo” is a term used in hip hop culture by someone who wants to distance himself from something he said that may give the impression he’s gay.
“In a sense,” music journalist Nick Catucci explains in New York Magazine, “‘no homo’ is just a more evolved way of calling someone a faggot.”
The plate was first noticed by Paul Fulton Jr. earlier this week. He told ThinkProgress that he was “first shocked, then angered” that the state had issued a blatantly homophobic plate.
“How could they allow outright discrimination to be published on a state license plate?” he said.
Of course, Alabama has a lot of work to do with it comes to how it treats gay people. The state does not recognize marriages between same-sex couples. On top of that, it has no nondiscrimination ordinances or hate crime laws that protect LGBT people. And up until 2003, sodomy was still illegal. Even today, despite the U.S. Supreme Court striking down all state sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas, lawmakers in Alabama have yet to actually remove the unconstitutional, unenforceable sodomy law from the state’s books. So we can’t say we’re totally surprised it issued this license plate like this, though it’s still disappointing.
Amanda Collier, a spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Revenue, told ThinkProgress that there was a process is in place to monitor personalized license plates.
When a driver files a request for a vanity plate, she explained, a three-person review panel considers each application, sometimes offering alternative lettering for the requested message.
“There is a list of more than 6,000 plates that are strictly banned and will not be allowed on any tag in the state,” she said, including “anything explicit, any profanity, or vulgar language.”
Evidently, antigay messages don’t quality as explicit, profane or vulgar.
Related stories:
Gender-Bending, All-Male Dance Troupe Causes Outrage And “Disgust” In Alabama
Apple CEO Tim Cook Reads Alabama’s Anti-Gay Governor to Filth
Alabama Woman Charged With Murder After Shooting Son’s Boyfriend In The Back
Graham Gremore
We Must Do Better
We Must Do Better
Devestating news about 12-year-old boy’s death by suicide in Northern California’s Sacramento County.
HRC.org
www.hrc.org/blog/entry/we-must-do-better?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed
Beijing (3), Nov-2014
