Obama Administration Appears Optimistic on Marriage Equality
The administration doesn’t have a contingency plan in place in case the Supreme Court issues a negative ruling, White House press secretary Josh Earnest says.
Trudy Ring
Daily Archives: June 15, 2015
Miley Cyrus Launches #InstaPride on Instagram
Miley Cyrus Launches #InstaPride on Instagram
The pop star continues crusading for the LGBT community on social media.
Gina Vivinetto
www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/music/2015/06/15/miley-cyrus-launches-instapride-instagram
A Tale of Two Children: My Path to Fatherhood, and the Psychic Who Saw It Before I Did
A Tale of Two Children: My Path to Fatherhood, and the Psychic Who Saw It Before I Did
Despite keeping a copy of “The Power of Now” by my bed for years, I have always been more into the future than the present. Maybe that’s why I love the idea of psychics. Years ago, I was at lunch with a friend when she mentioned in passing that her assistant’s mother, who was a psychic, was coming to stay with her for the weekend. Without missing a beat, I made an appointment to see this California Cassandra. I had gone to my share of psychics in the past, but I never took them very seriously. I didn’t really believe the guy who told me I was a rock star in my last life (though I did check the date of Elvis and Jim Morrison’s deaths just in case). Nor did I believe the tea leaf reader in New Orleans who told me someone in my family would die within two years (he was wrong, and a jerk). Still, I loved hearing the prophecies of psychics, astrologers and tea leaf readers. Eckhart Tolle and his power of now had nothing on the power of later.
I arrived at my friend’s house and settled myself into the garden with her assistant’s mother, a glamorous older woman with big hair, long lashes, and an unsettling smile. She immediately began by describing my family in such precise detail that it chilled me. Still, I remained dubious. Toward the end of the session, I asked her if she saw children in my future. The psychic’s eyes shot up toward the sky and she began to laugh. “Oh yes,” she said. “I can see your daughter now. She’s a hoot. She has dark, curly hair. Oh, she’s a hoot.” I told her I was in the process of adopting. “Oh you’re not going to adopt,” she said. “You’re going to have biological children.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ve already decided to adopt.”
The psychic was resolute in her prediction. “You will have biological children,” she said. “Definitely a girl. But I see a boy as well, he’s just not coming through as strongly.” Then she added a twist. “A friend will offer to carry your children soon.”
“That’s crazy,” I said. “Who would do that?”
A few months later, a friend of mine offered to be my surrogate. It took me a moment to recover from the offer, not just because of its generosity, but because what I thought was an insane prediction had come to pass. I put the adoption on hold. Unfortunately, my friend and I didn’t have a successful pregnancy. Needing reassurance, I called whom else but the psychic. She assured me that everything would work out. This time, she said she definitely saw both a girl and a boy. Once again, she told me my girl was “a hoot.”
My adoption case was now on hold, and I had sperm sitting in a freezer at a doctor’s office. Rather than go back to the adoption agency, I decided to approach a surrogacy agency instead. Within a year, I had a surrogate who was pregnant with twins. Three months into the pregnancy, I was told that one of my children was a boy, but the second child’s gender was still unknown. In the back of my mind was the psychic’s voice, telling me she could see my daughter with her dark curly hair. I waited anxiously to find out the gender of my second child, in part because I was fascinated to find out if the psychic was right. Six months into the pregnancy, the ultrasound revealed that my second child was a girl.
When I think back to how tightly I held onto the words of this long-lashed clairvoyant, I wonder if her predictions came true because she saw my future, or because she implanted ideas in me that I turned into self-fulfilling prophecies. I am reminded of a story I read as a child about a man who goes to see a psychic. The psychic tells the man that he will murder someone in his lifetime. The man has a miserable life. He won’t open himself to intimacy of any kind because he fears he will kill those he loves. In his old age, the man runs into the psychic on a dock. Feeling that the psychic destroyed his life, the man kills him and fulfills the prophecy. Like the man in the story, perhaps I simply manifested what I was told would happen.
I suppose that if she played a part in my manifesting my life as it is, I must thank her because I wouldn’t want any other children than the ones I have. Still, despite the fact that there’s a woman out there who seemed capable of seeing my curly-haired hoot of a daughter pre-naissance, I haven’t called her, or any other psychic, since my children were born. I don’t really need anyone to tell me what’s next for my family. I’m enjoying the adventure too much to worry about what’s next. I guess being a parent has finally taught me to live in the now and stop living in the later.
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Waiting for the Pride Parade 10
Rapper Mykki Blanco Reveals HIV-Positive Status
Rapper Mykki Blanco Reveals HIV-Positive Status
The rapper, known for candor, shared the news with Facebook followers.
Gina Vivinetto
www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/music/2015/06/15/rapper-mykki-blanco-reveals-hiv-positive-status
These Are The Best And Worst Cities For Families, According To WalletHub
These Are The Best And Worst Cities For Families, According To WalletHub
A new report from personal finance social network WalletHub ranks the best and worst cities for families in 2015.
The top five family-friendly cities are Overland Park, KS; Plano, TX; Virginia Beach, VA; Lincoln, NE; and Sioux Falls, SD — while the bottom five were Jackson, MS; Birmingham, AL; Detroit, MI; Miami, FL; and Baton Rouge, LA. To see each more city rankings, hover over the map below.
Source: WalletHub
Looking at metrics like health, safety, education, child care, affordability and availability of family activities, researchers compared and ranked the 150 most populated U.S. cities.
WalletHub’s report also highlights some more specific statistics about median family salaries, divorce rates, playgrounds per capita, and more. For example, Madison, WI was shown to have the highest number of playgrounds per capita while Hialeah, FL had the fewest.
Visit WalletHub for more information about the rankings and methodology behind this report.
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Welcome to the future…of Towleroad
Welcome to the future…of Towleroad
Welcome to the first phase of the Towleroad redesign which includes our new logo; a cleaned up design from top to bottom; the addition of channels and other ways to better navigate the depth of content in the site; and a more organized site structure that reflects our staggering growth over the past 12 years.
Towleroad has transformed from Andy’s personal blog into the more sophisticated news site produced by our team of more than 25 employees and freelance contributors.
A lot of thought and work went into this, and we had the benefit of the expert mind and design sense of Tadeu Magalhães, a New York-based graphic designer and art director who was already a part of the Towleroad team as one of three founders of the house music collective Occupy the Disco, whose OXD Mirror column inspires us every week.
Said Tadeu: “It has been a pleasure and honor to be involved in the redesign as well as being a collaborator in such an important website for the gay community…I truly hope the redesign of Towleroad is well received as a major improvement to a website that constantly works to keep our community strong, united and up-to-date.”
We’ve wanted to change many things for a long while but have been held back by our legacy technology platform. So, we finally bit the bullet. A huge part of this redesign you can’t see — a migration of the whole site to the industry-leading WordPress platform. And while it was far from trivial to move the 50,000 posts and close to 1 million comments, it means we can now be more agile and responsive going forward. (Though it also means some features may take a few days to update. Patience. Thanks.)
Since the two of us joined forces to became business partners almost 10 years ago, we’ve come a long way because of your intense and ongoing support! And we still need it…
As online media consolidates, it’s harder and harder to publish independently, especially maintaining the journalistic, eclectic, quality, and safe-for-work mix we are committed to. (Rest assured that while we’re updating the look, we’re not changing that.)
It really does makes a material difference when you share our posts on Facebook and elsewhere. Please do when you like a post. (And please, like our page on Facebook if you haven’t).
And you’re in good company! Towleroad continues to reach more gay influentials than any other. You are more engaged, more social, and more involved than the audience of any other LGBT site.
We hope you’re as excited about the new directions and opportunities as we are.
Andy Towle and Michael Goff
The post Welcome to the future…of Towleroad appeared first on Towleroad.
Michael Goff
www.towleroad.com/2015/06/welcome-to-the-future-of-towleroad.html
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Surprising No One, Jeb Bush Announces Presidential Campaign
Surprising No One, Jeb Bush Announces Presidential Campaign
With a sigh, the former Florida governor said the words he’s been holding back for months: He’s running for president.
Sunnivie Brydum
Chobani Debuts Stunning — And Sexy — Lesbian-Themed Commercial
Chobani Debuts Stunning — And Sexy — Lesbian-Themed Commercial
Greek yogurt giant Chobani is celebrating LGBT Pride Month with a stunning — and sexy — new commercial.
Released June 15, the “Simply 100” commercial shows a lesbian couple sharing an intimate moment before breakfast in bed.
The new clip is part of Chobani’s “Love This Life” creative campaign, which aims to highlight “real, authentic moments in life — modern American stories.” The inclusive message of the ad, a Chobani spokeperson told The Huffington Post via email, is in line with the company’s longtime support of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.
“As part of our founding mission to make better food for more people, inclusiveness is at the heart of Chobani,” the spokesperson added. “We’re proud that our products are enjoyed by all and we celebrate that diversity whenever — and however — we can.”
It isn’t the first time that Chobani has spoken out in support of LGBT rights. Last year, officials released an image of stacked yogurt cups representing the colors of the rainbow with the tagline “Naturally Powering Everyone,” just days after the the company, which was a sponsor of the United States Olympic Committee and Team USA, publicly denounced Russia’s “gay propaganda” laws.
At the time, the Russian legislation, which imposes fines and even jail time on individuals who are deemed to be distributing “gay propaganda” to minors, had sparked an international backlash in advance of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
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