'Modern Family' Star Eric Stonestreet Reveals How Playing Gay Changed His Life
Eric Stonestreet may not have known anyone who was openly gay during his adolescent years in Kansas, but his Emmy-winning “Modern Family” turn quickly changed all of that.

The 43-year-old actor, who is straight, told HuffPost Live in an interview this week that he feels “more on the front lines of what it means to stand up for people’s equality” after playing Cameron Tucker on “Modern Family,” which was just renewed for a seventh season.

“I’m just more active in that community and I feel a little bit more responsible for people’s words and actions,” he said.

Stonestreet also opened up about some early concerns he had over tackling the role, and said that he felt particularly protective of his co-star, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who is openly gay, noting, “I was worried from the beginning that I was going to be part of a gay bashing of sorts.”

Last year, he joked that his character was a “bossy, fussy bottom,” adding that many gay fans had approached him in hopes of “challenging” his sexuality.

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www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/20/eric-stonestreet-on-playing-gay_n_7345620.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Are Gay Sex Shops Corrupting New York’s Youth? Some Residents Say So.

Manhattan’s Chelsea district may be known as the city’s premier gayborhood, but its supposedly liberal residents there say they’ve officially reached the limit to their tolerance when it comes to gay sex shops.

The neighborhood just had it’s fifth gay sex shop open up along a five-block stretch on Eighth Avenue. And it turns out, five is the unlucky number.

“It’s starting to feel like Times Square around here,” Stephen P. Williams told the New York Times.

Williams said he’s tired of seeing things like Boy Butter (“a revolutionary creamy formula”) and penis-enlargement systems (“used successfully for 30 years with 15 million satisfied customers”) being advertised in large window displays.

Yes, and the crap that chain stores peddle is so much more pleasing. Plus, where else would J.Lo’s boytoys like Casper Smart who are on the downlow possibly go and get photographed in the process?

One man described as a “father” told the Times that he was recently cooking dinner with his 6-year-old son. When he asked him to get the olive oil, the child replied: “Dad, why don’t we use the Boy Butter?”

Related: Right-Wing Mayor’s Family-Values Platform Foiled By Pesky Gay Sex Shop Receipts

Neighbors also say they regularly find used condoms and latex gloves in front of their homes and see men having sex on playground benches, though police beg to differ.

“We aren’t seeing what they are seeing,” Deputy Inspector Michelle Irizarry said, “and they are not calling us to these locations when they see these things.”

Corey Johnson, the openly gay councilman who represents Chelsea, says he hopes to find a common ground between neighbors and shop owners.

“Chelsea, as a neighborhood, is known around the world as a place of diversity and inclusion,” he said. “One of the challenges that neighborhoods face is how to balance local concerns.”

Good luck with that, councilman.

Related: Keep Your Nipples Unclamped! Newly-Released Documents Reveal Maggie Thatcher Wanted To Ban Sex Toys

Graham Gremore

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Out Actor and YouTube Vlogger Troye Sivan Talks What Happens After Coming Out: VIDEO

Sean Mandell

www.towleroad.com/2015/05/out-actor-and-youtube-vlogger-troye-sivan-talks-what-happens-after-coming-out-video.html

In Honor of Her Birthday, Let's Revisit Cher's Hits

Raise a toast to one of our most beloved divas. It’s her 69th birthday.

read more

Gina Vivinetto

www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/music/2015/05/20/honor-her-birthday-lets-revisit-chers-hits

'Q,' Smartphone App, Aims To Build An All-Inclusive, Online Queer Community
Queer community building in 2015 happens, more than ever before, in an online context.

In light of this, a new app called “Q” aims to create the biggest and most all-inclusive queer social networking platform that allows all people identifying as queer to connect, no matter what their gender. While other queer apps tend to be for specific kinds of bodies or meeting people for specific kinds of connections, “Q” aims to complicate the way that the queer community meets and interacts with one another in online space.

Creator Eric Cervini decided to build the app out of a frustration with how most apps made for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community tended to be for white, masculine gay men looking for sex.

“When we log on, we’re constantly told to be a man, to have a perfect body, to act or to talk a certain way, to be someone other than who we truly are,” Cervini said in a press release. “We deserve better. ‘Q’ is open to anyone who identifies as queer, and we rely on our members to tell us how we can be as inclusive and user-friendly as possible.”

Users on “Q” are required to display their first name and a photo, and are encouraged to share their stories through “memoirs” that have no character limit. As “Q” is currently in the early stages of development, Cervini emhpasized that changes and developments would be made based on the experiences and feedback of the “Q” community.

Want to learn more about “Q”? The app is currently engaged in a Kickstarter campaign. Head here for more information.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/20/q-smartphone-app_n_7343230.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Exclusive: New Trailer for Trans-Focused Documentary Series “Becoming Us”

Today, HRC is proud to release a new trailer for the ABC Family documentary series “Becoming Us.”
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/exclusive-new-trailer-for-trans-focused-documentary-series-becoming-us?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Chris Pratt Loves To Get Naked, Doesn’t Understand How Taking Out His Junk Could Offend

Don’t try to put Chris Pratt in a box. Not because he’s a multi-talented performer and comedian (which he is), but because when you come back to let him out, he’ll probably be naked.

On second thought, put Chris Pratt in a box.

The actor recently shed some insight on his propensity to shed his pants. He told GQ:

“I was a jokester, I had a dirty mind, and a dirty sense of humor. I was naked all the time. It was just recently, in the last few years since I’ve become an adult, that I’ve learned to keep my clothes on.”

Unfortunately, his lesson in staying clothed seems to line up chronologically with attaining that crazy action-star body.

But please, go on:

“I got suspended from the track team in high school for getting naked on the track bus,” he recalled. “I was always getting naked. I thought it was hilarious. I didn’t understand how somebody could be so offended by me just taking my junk out.”

We’re with you there, Chris.

He goes on to recall a scene in Parks and Rec in which he stripped down unscripted. He was asked to shock Amy Poehler, and shock her he did.

“HR sent me a letter. Someone obviously must have complained about it or something. I guess now that I don’t work for them, I can make fun of it, but part of the letter was saying, like, ‘Also, don’t mock this. Just so we’re clear, you’re being reprimanded, and don’t go around talking about how this is funny,’” Pratt revealed. “[It was] the take they f**king used, by the way, that made the air, and was hilarious, so I was totally right, but apparently if you want to get naked there’s certain protocols you have to take to prevent people from being offended — you have to give them the opportunity to not see it.”

But that’s just not the way Chris operates:

“But that’s how I was in high school, too,” he continued. “I remember walking into the coach’s office with just a sock on. Not on my feet. And I was like, ‘Hey, Coach, can I talk to you?’ And they were like, ‘Jesus, God!’ I liked making people feel uncomfortable.”

Dan Tracer

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/In9RcJnNIq4/chris-pratt-loves-to-get-naked-doesnt-understand-how-taking-out-his-junk-could-offend-20150520

'Steven Universe' Creator Opens Up About Creating Gender-Fused Character, Stevonnie

Charles Pulliam-Moore

www.towleroad.com/2015/05/steven-universe-creator-rebecca-sugar-opens-up-about-creating-stevonnie.html

Support For Same-Sex Marriage Reaches Record High
Support for same-sex marriage has reached an all-time high, according to recent polls. A new survey from Gallup shows a record 60 percent of Americans now say they approve of legalized same-sex marriage.

The trend measured by Gallup closely matches results from other polls that have been measuring public opinion on same-sex marriage. An ABC/Washington Post poll conducted in April found that 61 percent of Americans approve. Similarly, a Quinnipiac University poll from the same month measured approval at 58 percent.

Approval of same-sex marriage has grown at a rapid rate in the last two decades. When Gallup first surveyed Americans on the issue in 1996, only 27 percent approved. Nineteen years later, that number has more than doubled, growing 5 points in the last month alone.

In fact, the shift in approval is one of the “fastest changes ever measured” by the General Social Survey, which has measured trends in American public opinion for the last 40 years.

Gallup finds that a majority of Democrats and independents favor legalizing same-sex marriage. Republicans are less inclined, with only 37 percent expressing support. Still, support among Republicans has been climbing within the last two decades, jumping 11 percentage points in the last three years.

The latest results come just one month before the Supreme Court is scheduled to rule on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage.

Gallup surveyed 1,024 adults via live telephone interviews conducted May 6-10.

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www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/20/support-for-same-sex-marriage-_n_7342790.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices