Virginia Senate rules that unmarried gay couples cannot adopt
Same-sex marriage is now legal in the state – and couples who wish to jointly adopt will have to get hitched if they want to both be parents
davidh
www.gaystarnews.com/article/virginia-senate-rules-unmarried-gay-couples-cannot-adopt250115
Bobby Jindal Kicks Off Potential 2016 Presidential Run With Anti-gay Hate Group Prayer Rally: VIDEO
(twitter)
On Saturday, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal headlined an all-day prayer rally at Louisiana State University in an effort to drum up evangelical support for a potential 2016 bid for the White House.
The Response, as the prayer rally was called, was hosted by the rabidly anti-gay American Family Association and featured various self-proclaimed prophets, doomsday sayers, and other assorted religious nuts as Right Wing Watch points out.
The LSU community, which had repeatedly denounced the event in the lead up to this Saturday, showed up to protest the event, the AP reports:
“You’ve heard today is not about political speeches. Today is about humbling ourselves before the Lord. Today we repent for our sins,” he said. […]
Outside the prayer event, critics held a protest, saying the American Family Association, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has classified as a hate group, promotes discrimination against people who are gay or of non-Christian faiths.
Protesters accused Jindal of using the rally for political gain.
“I just knew this wasn’t what LSU stands for. These aren’t LSU values, Louisiana values or American values,” said Peter Jenkins, a 26-year-old graduate student and protest organizer.
Jindal hasn’t commented directly on the views of the American Family Association, which has linked same-sex marriage and abortion to disasters such as tornadoes and Hurricane Katrina.
On Friday, Rachel Maddow devoted a segment of her show to highlighting one of the crazier backers of The Response – Cindy Jacobs. You’ll recall Jacobs as the woman who claims to have a direct line to God and that God has given her special powers – such as the ability to predict natural disasters and raise people from the dead.
Watch Rachel’s killer segment, AFTER THE JUMP…
[photo via Flickr]
Kyler Geoffroy
Transgender Individuals In Italy Share Stories And Photos
When he first realized that he wasn’t interested in playing with dolls or trying on his mother’s makeup, he was seven years old, dressed in lacy pink clothing and at that time regarded as first of four sisters. Forty years have gone by since then. Four decades full of vacations, love stories, disappointments and hormone therapies. Today Loris is a respected engineer and has fallen crazy in love with Carla.
They are bartenders, supermarket clerks, hairstylists, barbers and office managers. They hold regular jobs, lead ordinary lives and have normal pastimes. What’s more, they refuse to be pigeonholed into typical transgender stereotypes or the common images of transgender people. Their lives changed naturally, through routes that were never easy, but which were rewarded with happy endings. Their stories vary a great deal, but all share the same common denominator: a desire to show people that being transgender is far closer to what people consider “normal” than many people would think — despite a lack of basic rights.
In order to share perspectives on transgender people in Italy, a new traveling photography exhibit has just opened in Milan. Entitled Il tuo tabù è la mia famiglia (Your Taboo is My Family), the exhibition is supported by ALA Milano Onlus, together with the Casa dei Diritti del Comune di Milano (House of Rights, Milan Municipality). The images were taken by photographer Valeria Abis and capture transgender people at home, in daily life, together with family members with whom they’ve shared -– not without difficulty -– the path that led them to live as their authentic selves.
For some, the path to change was incredibly long and full of suffering. For others, it was far easier than they’d expected, as they themselves admit.
For Sabrina, 34, who grew up in Brianza, finding her true self was an ordeal that began not long after she became an adult. That’s when she left her family, faced with parents unable or unwilling to accept who she is. “I moved to Milan on my own, but I had no idea how to take care of myself. So I started to work as a prostitute.” Her life became an abyss of humiliation and suffering, culminating with drug abuse. When she turned 29, Sabrina decided to reach out and ask for help. After spending a long period in a therapeutic community, she managed to create the kind of life she wanted for herself. Today she works as a hairdresser and has lots of friends. In the photograph published here, she chose to have her picture taken face to face with her mother.
The exhibition was on display during the month of December at the Casa dei Dritti (via De Amicis 10), and from January through the end of the Expo 2015 will be hosted in different municipal buildings around Milan. It was created with the help of Antonia Monopoli, who works at the “trans window” set up by ALA Onlus, an association that provides psychological assistance designed to help transgender people join the workforce. Monopoli also emphasizes Italy’s problems with rights and bureaucracy concerning these members of its society, issues that often make their lives more painful and full of unnecessary obstacles.
This post originally appeared on HuffPost Italy and was translated into English.
Senior British military general considers coming out as gay
The general, who is married to a woman, says he knows of others senior military who are similarly fearful of discussing their sexuality
davidh
www.gaystarnews.com/article/senior-british-military-general-considers-coming-out-gay250115
Duke Athletes Tackle Homophobia And Other Slurs With 'You Don't Say' Campaign
An ad campaign started by a group of college students to bring awareness and combat words that marginalize and belittle people based on their sexual orientation, gender, race or disability has now blossomed to include 41 student-athletes from Duke University reports Outsports. The athletes pose in uniforms and training outfits next to words they don’t say and why they don’t say them. The campaign was founded by senior Daniel Kort and juniors Anuj Chhabra, Christie Lawrence and Jay Sullivan and on Jan. 7 issued its second online push featuring the student athletes.
Said Kort:
“Sports are really integral to our campus culture, and with that comes a pretty big microphone around our athletic culture. It’s easier to dismiss a message if it’s coming from a social justice-oriented group on campus…by getting people who aren’t traditionally seen as the social justice kids on campus to stand up for this message, it carries a lot more weight. It’s also that these student-athletes care a lot about the issues.”
Kort and his collaborators work received national recognition from the Huffington Post and CNN. Although a sizable portion of the campaign deals with homophobic terms, other ads tackle racist terms such as “oreo,” and “illegal alien,” sexist comments including “man up,” and “they asked for it,” and mental illness pejoratives such as “psycho,” and “retarded.”
Of course, the worthwhile campaign is already receiving detractors attempting to tear down the campaign’s message. Those who oppose “You Don’t Say” claim the campaign is based on censorship and the project is a “hypersensitive” attempt to limit free speech. Kort said that last time most of the negativity came from Facebook, although after the relaunch, detractors have taken more to Twitter to combat the project. Kort and Sullivan have been adamant throughout their two campaigns that the project is not meant to censor speech, but rather to bring a new light to the way students use it. With the student-athletes support, it seems the message is clearly heard on Duke’s campus.
You can follow the “You Don’t Say” campaign on Twitter.
Anthony Costello
WATCH: Rachel Maddow Skewers Bobby Jindal Prayer Rally
An evangelical necromancer and the American Family Association were among the governor’s antigay bedfellows at the event.
Daniel Reynolds
www.advocate.com/politics/media/2015/01/25/watch-rachel-maddow-skewers-bobby-jindal-prayer-rally
Stephen Fry writes to government to demand it ‘Save Soho’
The actor, along with theatrical producer Cameron Mackintosh and designer Paul Smith, has put his name to an open letter saying that Soho is being changed beyond recognition because of London’s rising real estate prices
davidh
Shape Up! Lean Out With Circuit Training!
Well, here we are in our post-holiday winter workout season! It’s time to get back to the gym and burn off all that extra weight we gained over the holiday season (even if your boyfriend says you look cute with a little pudge in your cheeks).
All of us guys want to get lean for spring and keep size in our muscles. It is a fairly common belief that one has to do a lot of cardio in order to stay lean. Although cardio training is good for heart health and burning calories, excessive cardio can hinder muscle growth and even eat away at those muscles you’ve worked so hard on to get big (yes, haha, i said hard-on). This is especially true if you’re on a low carb/low calorie diet, as you might be in order to get leaner.
Another way to get a good calorie burn while strength training, without feeling like a hamster on a wheel while you run on a treadmill or sit on a stationary bike, is circuit training! Circuit training actually puts your body in a state that, if you do it earlier in the day, keeps your body burning calories at a higher rate for the rest of the day, than if you simply just did a session of cardio.
In a circuit, we put three or more exercises together and rotate through them without much rest in between each exercise. Pick three muscle groups; let’s say legs, chest, and biceps. You’ll do about 15 reps of each exercise, to target muscular endurance of each muscle, with no more that 10 seconds rest in between each exercise. Let’s say you start with a leg exercise like a squat and go into some pushups for the chest, followed by a bicep curl with a bar. While you are doing the pushups and bicep curls, your legs are resting from the squat. This is called “active rest.” Once you’ve finished the circuit, rest for about one minute and begin again, completing the cycle a total of two to four times. This long period of time under tension with little rest is sure to get your heart rate up and give you a good sweat, burning plenty of calories, no stair climber required!
Here is an example of a circuit training routine (with equipment that any gym will likely have) that will hit all the major muscle groups, as well as some of the “show off” muscles like biceps and triceps that we want other guys to be checking out on us! Most importantly, it’s going to work out that big, sweet heart of yours!
Circuit 1:
A) Dumbbell deep squat with shoulder press
B) Bench dumbbell chest fly
C) Dumbbell hammer bicep curl
Circuit 2:
A) Alternating leg box step up (use a bar behind the neck to weight yourself)
B) Cable wide-grip lat pulldown
C) Cable tricep pushdown with a rope cable attachment
Circuit 3:
A) Push ups
B) Bent over one-arm row (on bench)
C) Shoulder abductions (side raises)
Since you’re leaning out with all this circuit training, you’re going to be able to see better definition in your abs! Finish with a 10-minute ab routine including crunches, leg raises, and side planks. A great app that you can get on iTunes is called Six Pack Promise. It has tons of ab exercises and even routines to lead you through your ab workout.
Feel free to play around with your circuits and pair different muscle groups together, or even add a fourth exercise into your sets! Anything is possible and it’s important to switch things up on your muscles for gains in strength and endurance. Happy leaning out, boys, I’ll see you at the pool this spring!
The Phoenix Effect, a metabolic bootcamp that gets you in shape fast, is offered exclusively at Mansion Fitness, 7914 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood.
Jeremy Kinser
feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/DGqjtiLVNTs/shape-up-lean-out-with-circuit-training-20150125
SNL's Pete Davidson on Why Exploring Your Sexuality Online Requires a Good Password: VIDEO
After the “golden statue” version of Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street left him questioning his sexuality, SNL‘s Pete Davidson decided to devote a night to binge watching gay porn videos online to see if he might actually be gay.
That night, Pete learned two valuable lessons. 1. He wasn’t actually gay and 2. The importance of having a good computer password so that your girlfriend doesn’t discover you watched the entire Stud Horse series.
Watch, AFTER THE JUMP…
Kyler Geoffroy
Real Struggles Of Being Gay At Work Are Revealed On Whisper
Work life can suck — no arguing that one. But it can go from unpleasant to downright insufferable for LGBT employees who feel pressured to hide their identities from bosses and coworkers for the sake of professional advancement.
We teamed up with Whisper to uncover some of the uncomfortable realities that still exist in the workplace. Although sometimes the biggest problem is simply too much office eye candy.
Here’s what they uncovered:
To see more stories shared confidentially, check out Whisper.
Dan Tracer
