Monthly Archives: February 2015
Gay Man in 'Ex-Gay' Billboard's Counter-Ad: 'I Was Born Gay'
Gay Man in 'Ex-Gay' Billboard's Counter-Ad: 'I Was Born Gay'
Nonprofit Planting Peace teamed up with the South African model used in an ‘ex-gay’ billboard to refute the hateful message in a big way.
Sunnivie Brydum
www.advocate.com/ex-gay-therapy/2015/02/18/gay-man-ex-gay-billboards-counter-ad-i-was-born-gay
Walmart Discriminated Against Lesbian Couple, Feds Say
Walmart Discriminated Against Lesbian Couple, Feds Say
BOSTON (AP) — A federal agency says Wal-Mart discriminated against a lesbian employee who sought health coverage for her ailing wife and has ordered “a just resolution” for violating her civil rights.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ordered the retail giant to work with Jacqueline Cote of New Bedford, Massachusetts, who hopes the determination will help her pay off $100,000 in medical bills.
In a Jan. 29 EEOC ruling, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, the agency said Cote “was treated differently and denied benefits because of her sex.”
Cote tried to enroll her partner in Wal-Mart’s health plan repeatedly starting in 2008, but coverage was denied and the company didn’t provide it until 2014. In 2012, Cote’s wife, Diana Smithson, was diagnosed with cancer.
The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company said it expanded its policy in 2014 to include same-sex couples.
“While we disagree with the finding of reasonable cause, we have notified the EEOC of our willingness to meet with them and Miss Cote to discuss resolving the matter,” spokesman Randy Hargrove said.
Cote, 52, and Smithson, 63, met while working at a Wal-Mart store in Augusta, Maine, in 1999. They moved to Massachusetts where they continued to work for Wal-Mart and where they married in May 2004, just days after the state legalized same-sex marriage.
Smithson quit in 2007 to take care of Cote’s elderly mother. That prompted Cote to try to add Smithson to her health plan the following year.
Cote said she tried to enroll online, but the system wouldn’t let her proceed when she indicated her spouse was a woman. When she sought an official explanation, she was told that same-sex spouses were not covered.
Each year thereafter, she tried and failed to enroll Smithson — including in 2012, when Smithson was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
“I was shocked,” said Cote, who was working in the company’s East Falmouth, Massachusetts, store at the time. She said her colleagues in every Wal-Mart store she has worked in have been supportive of the couple.
In 2013, Cote reached out to Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, which filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC the following year.
“If she was a woman married to a man, she would have been given spousal health benefits,” said Allison Wright, an attorney with GLAD who is representing Cote.
Wright said the next step will be attempting settlement negotiations with Wal-Mart.
“We’re estimating up to about $100,000 worth of medical expenses and other damages because of Wal-Mart’s discriminatory denial,” she said.
Cote said the couple paid out of pocket for Smithson’s medical expenses in 2012, when Smithson lost her private health coverage, and up until Jan. 1, 2014, when Wal-Mart’s expanded policy took effect.
The couple has “an inordinate amount of bills,” said Cote, who now works in Wal-Mart’s Swansea, Massachusetts, store as an office associate. Smithson was in remission for 18 months but resumed chemotherapy treatments last month.
“I’m not only doing this for me,” Cote said. “I’m doing this for other gay and lesbian couples that have been discriminated against as well.”
First openly bisexual governor in US history is sworn in – vows to 'restore public's trust'
First openly bisexual governor in US history is sworn in – vows to 'restore public's trust'
Oregon’s Kate Brown replaces John Kitzhaber who resigned in disgrace
gregh
Kate Brown Gives Us Hope: The Importance of Our Nation’s First Openly Bisexual Governor
NEWS: Ansel Elgort, Alabama, Hillary Clinton, Kissing Kevin Spacey
NEWS: Ansel Elgort, Alabama, Hillary Clinton, Kissing Kevin Spacey
Michigan Court Administrator awarded $730,000 for turning in judge caught ‘preaching from the bench.’
What does Ansel Elgort regret about losing his virginity at 14? The lighting: “That’d be one thing I’d do differently. It was, like, fluorescent, bright bedroom light, like, over the covers.”
Jessica Williams will not be replacing Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.
Norman Reedus of Walking Dead fame Flaunts his torso.
Happy Birthday, Cybill Shepard!
Kelly Clarkson says no one wants to work with her.
Jonathan Groff is cute on the red carpet.
7 Alabama counties are still barring same-sex couples from saying “I do.”
Niagra Falls has frozen over.
Is Hillary Clinton seeking favor with Elizabeth Warren?
Speaking of Hillary, is Arkansas’ anti-gay bill a test for the potential Presidential hopeful?
Woman says male ‘enhancement’ supplements made her son snap.
What’s it like to kiss Kevin Spacey? Meechum knows.
Missy Elliot continues to prove why we need her to make a comeback.
Oklahoma might actually eliminate AP US History from schools, replacing it with teaching of sermons, the ten commandments, and Ronald Reagan speeches.
Goldie Hawn tells Harvard Business Review about why there was no sequel to The First Wives Club: “We were all women of a certain age, and everyone took a cut in salary to do it so the studio could make what it needed. We all took a smaller back end than usual and a much smaller front end. And we ended up doing incredibly well. The movie was hugely successful. It made a lot of money. We were on the cover of Time magazine. But two years later, when the studio came back with a sequel, they wanted to offer us exactly the same deal. We went back to ground zero. Had three men come in there, they would have upped their salaries without even thinking about it. But the fear of women’s movies is embedded in the culture.
Sean Mandell
Education and Employment Services for Disconnected LGBT Youth
Education and Employment Services for Disconnected LGBT Youth
For more information about the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Youth Center, visit www.lalgbtcenter.org/youth_center.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBH3Gntp-tc&feature=youtube_gdata
Kate Brown, First Openly LGBT Governor, Assumes Office With Pointed Inauguration Speech
Kate Brown, First Openly LGBT Governor, Assumes Office With Pointed Inauguration Speech
Kate Brown took office as Oregon’s governor Wednesday, promising to leave behind the political scandal that has plagued the state recently.
Michelle Garcia
A Week to Remember in Alabama
A Week to Remember in Alabama
I’ve still got chills thinking about the week that began Monday, Feb. 9. When I woke up that Monday at 5 a.m., it finally hit me: I was about to witness same-sex couples say their vows and be legally wed in Birmingham, Alabama.
When I got to the courthouse, gallons of coffee in tow, I paused for a moment in Linn Park where organizers had planned a marriage celebration event complete with wedding arches, officiants galore, and, of course, wedding cupcakes. After soaking it all in, I walked around to the street-facing side of the courthouse where a press conference had just concluded.
I spotted my dear friend, Alicia Roden, dressed to the nines carrying Valentine’s Day balloons and an adorable hand-made sign. “Yes, I will marry you,” the sign said, “for the low, low officiant fee of 2 hugs.” I immediately asked if I could take her picture and share it. “Adorbs,” I wrote on Facebook.
You see, over the weekend, some probate judges, emboldened by Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, had created mass confusion saying they wouldn’t follow the federal district court ruling. Alicia’s sign hit home for me because it pushed back against that narrative, embodying the true spirit of that day: people helping people (often strangers) out of love and community.
That evening someone told us the picture was sitting atop Reddit and had more than 200,000 views on imgur. The following day, it had more than 2 million views.
Alicia and I were talking about what it meant for her image to go viral, and she told me, “I’ve wrestled a lot as a designer, artist, writer — maybe just as a human — with what more I could be doing, how I could have some genuine impact on the people and issues that are meaningful to me. Just wake up every day, make an effort for something you know is right, give someone else love and encouragement and that will eventually be ‘doing enough.'”
That’s my Alabama. I grow wearing of opinion writers and pundits and activists from everywhere but Alabama spewing unhelpful, uninformed drivel about our state. I confess that we’re an easy target due to past transgressions. But much of the critique is hypocritical.
Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley has done very little to fight marriage equality, aside from issuing a couple toothless statements. Yet those statements are offered as proof that Alabama is stuck in the past. Yet when New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie lost the state’s request for a stay late in 2013, he was heralded as some kind of gift to the GOP. “Governor Christie did the right thing,” the Human Rights Campaign declared.
Meanwhile, just a few months later, HRC said, “the only thing ‘complicating’ the execution of the law in Alabama is the stonewalling of individuals like Justice Moore, Gov. Bentley, and the probate judges who are refusing to follow the binding implications of a federal court ruling.” I think it’s fair to ask how this is helpful. I digress.
Each day, more and more courthouses began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. By Friday, the number of counties outright refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples along was six out of 67 — a complete flip from Monday.
The incredible week concluded Sunday, Feb. 15 (the day after Valentine’s Day) with the 17th Annual Vigil for Victims of Hate and Violence. Where the other six days of the week were celebratory, Sunday was somber. The Vigil has been held every year since Billy Jack Gaither was murdered in 1999. Two men beat Gaither with an ax handle, slit his throat, threw his body on a pile of tires and set it on fire in Sylacauga, Ala., because he was gay.
In a way it’s fitting that marriage equality came to the Yellowhammer State the same week as the Vigil. There’s a stark contrast in tone and substance, at the end of the day, both events are about a community bound by love, determined not to give up in spite of odious supreme court justices, ignorant probate judges, or violent hate crimes.
Rep. Patricia Todd, Alabama’s first and only openly gay lawmaker, and Jacob H. Ezell, a student at the University of North Alabama, were honored during the ceremony by Equality Alabama. Todd was elected in 2006, the same year the Sanctity of Marriage Amendment passed with 81 percent support. She’s miraculously managed to keep anti-gay legislation from passing in one of the most conservative states in the union, while less conservative states pass more and more.
Jacob Ezell represents the new generation growing into leadership roles. A social work student at UNA, he has successfully championed gender-neutral restrooms on campus and established a program to raise awareness of sexual assault and rape.
“I am honored to be called an activist,” he told me. “Many of my role models are activists.” He believes the LGBTQ movement needs to focus on transgender rights now that the marriage fight is winding down.
“I believe that the title ‘activist’ is not one to be used lightly; for me, it must be earned. When I first realized that I wanted to be a trans* rights activists, I also realized that I could not call myself one unless I actually put in the work.”
There is plenty of work to be done here, but Alabamians deserve to be proud for once, and to honor those who’ve come before us and who will come after. We’ll never forget this past week, and let’s never fail to put in the work going forward.
Robbie Williams mocks Bruce Jenner in explaining his pink hair
Robbie Williams mocks Bruce Jenner in explaining his pink hair
‘Much like Bruce Jenner, it is in transition’
gregh
www.gaystarnews.com/article/robbie-williams-mocks-bruce-jenner-explaining-his-pink-hair180215
