WATCH: 'Traditional Marriage' Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means
Time for a history lesson: calling marriage a union between one man and one woman is, in fact, a redefinition of the strictly ‘traditional’ definition of marriage.
Matt Baume
Monthly Archives: June 2015
9 Harrowing Images That Capture The Lasting Impact Of Sexual Assault
9 Harrowing Images That Capture The Lasting Impact Of Sexual Assault
Survivors of assault and abuse are sharing their experiences on a powerful new Tumblr, Lasting Impact.
(Story continues below.)
Founder Alison, who asked that her last name remain private, created Lasting Impact to raise awareness about the long-lasting impact that incidents of sexual assault, domestic violence, and emotional and physical abuse have on those who experience them. The project is also a place for survivors to share stories of healing.
“As a survivor of childhood sexual assault, I struggled for many years with mental health issues that impacted almost every aspect of my daily life and left me feeling confused and alone,” Alison told The Huffington Post. “It wasn’t until I began to connect with other survivors that I came to realize that this is a common and valid response to trauma, and it was only then that I truly began to heal.”
The Tumblr entries come from survivors who write in to share how their experiences affected and changed them. Some also share how they have healed from their traumas and found hope for the future.
“Survivors often face a myriad of psychological, emotional, social, and physical challenges following an assault, and I wanted to expand the conversation about sexual assault and domestic violence to include the complex, long-term toll trauma takes on an individual,” Alison told HuffPost.
Alison also hopes that the Tumblr will be a positive place for survivors.
“While the campaign focuses primarily on the challenges faced by survivors, it also shows that we all have an incredible capacity for courage, resilience, and growth,” she told HuffPost. “Survivors’ stories do not have to begin and end with fear, violation, and despair. It is my hope that when survivors read these stories, they recognize that their experiences are valid and understand that no matter what they are feeling, they are never alone.”
See more powerful images from Lasting Impact below.
Need help? In the U.S., visit the National Sexual Assault Online Hotline operated by RAINN. For more resources, visit the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.
— 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.
If Elected, Mike Huckabee Will Do Everything In His Power To Quash Gay Marriage
If Elected, Mike Huckabee Will Do Everything In His Power To Quash Gay Marriage
Should he get elected, presidential hopeful and shambling creepshow Mike Huckabee has big plans for the gays… but those plans don’t include the right to marry.
In a casual conversation with Iowa radio host Steve Deace and Religious Right organizer Bob Vander Plaats, Huckabee intoned, “Until the Congress of the United States puts on my desk a bill that basically defies the laws of Nature and Nature’s God, and defies the longstanding tradition of marriage, the federal government will not recognize same-sex marriage because there is no law that requires it, and that would be true for the military and it would be true for all federal institutions.”
Related: Mike Huckabee: I Wish I Came Out As Transgender In HS To Shower With The Girls
As the night sky rained infant blood, Huckabee soldiered on: “If the Congress decides that they want to pass enabling legislation, they could put it on my desk and I would veto it, and they can attempt to override it. That’s the process.”
Failing to realize Father Time had been unkind to his cohorts, reducing them to piles of bleached bone, he continued. He was not yet finished speaking, you see.
“If liberals were subjected to a conservative court that forced them to tithe their income to scripture or forced them to go to church or forced them to believe something that they don’t want to believe, they would say, ‘We can’t do that, that would go against our conscience.’ And I would say, ‘You are exactly right and we can’t have such a ruling. This is why I find this very unsettling… is because liberals will rue the day when the sword they use to enact their agenda is the sword of the court, rather than to do it by way of the people’s elected representatives.”
Okay, it wasn’t so much a casual conversation as an interminable monologue, but you get the picture.
h/t: LGBTQNation
Derek de Koff
News: Rainbow Crosswalks, Bobby Jindal, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Chris Pratt
News: Rainbow Crosswalks, Bobby Jindal, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Chris Pratt
> Rainbow Crosswalks are discriminatory?
> Pressure mounts for President Obama to end the ban on transgender servicemembers in the military:
“For Obama, the issue represents another chance to cement his legacy as a leader who removed discriminatory barriers. But after the long, uneasy battle over overturning Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell, there are some risks for the president if he is seen as pushing the military beyond its comfort level with transgender troops.”
> This Momma Rabbit goes hard on a snake that tried to eat her babies for dinner. You go, rabbit.
> Anti-gay Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal enters the 2016 race.
> Michael C. Hall will star in new David Bowie musical, Lazarus.
> A new Game of Thrones conspiracy theory about that thing that happened on the season finale…you know, the thing.
> David Beckham and son Brooklyn (16) both go boxing.
A photo posted by David Beckham (@davidbeckham) on Jun 22, 2015 at 3:41am PDT
> Buckingham Palace is crumbling, has asbestos.
> Sarah Palin has been fired from FOX News again.
> Dzhokhar Tsarnaev apologizes to victims of the Boston Marathon Bombing and their families:
“I am sorry for the lives that I’ve taken, for the suffering that I’ve caused you, and the damage that I’ve done,” he told the court today in Boston prior to the judge imposing the sentence on him. “I pray to Allah to bestow his mercy on you,” Tsarnaev said. “I pray for your relief, for your healing, for your well-being, for your health.” He added: “I ask Allah for mercy for me and for my brother,” Tamerlan.
> New horrific video of ISIS drowning and immolating prisoners released.
> Alabama gets rid of the Confederate battle flag at its state capitol.
> Chris Pratt makes it easy for you to objectify him (and his muscles) on the cover of Men’s Health.
> Speaking of Pratt, the Smithsonian has just taken #PrattKeeping to new heights.
#PrattKeeping is a key component of the exhibition process. Our Dinosaur Curator, Matthew Carrano, has a tough job! pic.twitter.com/IUCAP6LTBK
— Smithsonian’s NMNH (@NMNH) June 23, 2015
The post News: Rainbow Crosswalks, Bobby Jindal, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Chris Pratt appeared first on Towleroad.
Sean Mandell
News: Rainbow Crosswalks, Bobby Jindal, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Chris Pratt
WATCH: Blood Mirror Reflects FDA's Gay Blood Ban in 7-Foot Tower
WATCH: Blood Mirror Reflects FDA's Gay Blood Ban in 7-Foot Tower
Blood Mirror by Jordan Eagles is a 7-foot-tall sculpture designed as a protest to the FDA’s discriminatory blood donation policy.
Dawn Ennis
New Hillary Video Hints At Marriage Equality Victory, Brings Back The Macarena
New Hillary Video Hints At Marriage Equality Victory, Brings Back The Macarena
By the looks of this strategically timed message from Camp Hillary, you’d almost think she’s running for public office.
Just days (or day!) away from the Supreme Court’s ruling on national same-sex marriage, Clinton has released a video proclaiming that it’s “time for marriage equality.”
“The story of America is one of hard-fought, hard-won progress,” she begins, foreshadowing her own projected rise to power. But this is about the gays, after all.
“Barriers that once prevented people from enjoying the full measure of liberty, the full experience of dignity and the full benefits of humanity have fallen away,” she continues.
“Some have suggested that gay rights and human rights are separate and distinct, but in fact, they are one and the same.”
It’s not exactly a groundbreaking position, but this message needs to land in as wide a field as possible.
We’ll call this a solid home run.
Watch below:
All love is equal. It’s time for marriage equality.
Posted by Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Dan Tracer
First Look: Taye Diggs as Broadway’s ‘Hedwig’
First Look: Taye Diggs as Broadway’s ‘Hedwig’
We’ve seen Neil Patrick Harris, Andrew Rannells, Michael C. Hall, Darren Criss, and orginator John Cameron Mitchell don Hedwig’s blonde wig on Broadway. Now Taye Diggs will take the wig out of the box. Released today is the first preview of how the Broadway veteran will look as the iconic East German.
“Hedwig is the role of a lifetime. I’m looking forward to being challenged performance-wise on many levels, as well as being humbled by the musical’s social implications,” Diggs says in the new issue of PEOPLE, adding: “I also like wearing nail polish.”
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is also back in the news as the show has announced it will make its 4th donation to the Hetrick-Martin Institute (HMI), the nation’s oldest and largest LGBTQ youth service organization. Hediwg will donate another $100,000 bringing the grand total the show has donated to help at-risk LGBT youth up from its previous total of $400,000 to half a million dollars. Current Hedwig star Darren Criss will take part in NYC’s Pride parade on the HMI float and perform this Sunday at 7 PM.
Diggs will begin his run starting July 22.
The post First Look: Taye Diggs as Broadway’s ‘Hedwig’ appeared first on Towleroad.
Sean Mandell
LGBT Pride and Allst
Religious Liberty Not to Be Used As a Weapon of Discrimination
Religious Liberty Not to Be Used As a Weapon of Discrimination
Dick and Betty Odgaard are in the process of closing the Gortz-Haus and creating their own ministry called God’s Original Design Ministry. The art gallery and bistro were at the center of a 2013 discrimination complaint when the Odgaards refused to allow a same-gender couple use of the facility for their wedding. The complaint was settled with a payment of $5000 to the couple and, to meet their agreement not to discriminate against same-gender couples, the Odgaards stopped providing wedding services altogether. Now the facility is up for sale and the church the Odgaards attend is rumored to be an interested party.
This little venue in Grimes, Iowa has garnered a great deal of attention. Presidential hopeful Ted Cruz responded to the shuttering of the business by saying that “the Odgaards livelihood has been taken away by this liberal fascism.” Radio personality Steve Deace recently wrote: The Odgaards’ are living proof the Rainbow Jihad is a movement of liars.” At One Iowa we simply believe that religious liberty is alive and well.
Perhaps a lesson in the true meaning of religious liberty, as our founders envisioned it, is the best way to have this discussion.
In this country we enjoy America’s first freedom, the freedom of religion. A house of worship should be able to perform marriage ceremonies and offer the blessings of marriage to those couples it has defined within its guidelines and beliefs. Within the tenets of that religion, whatever it is, it can and does make choices about who it will and who it will not marry. That is religious liberty.
LGBT people in Iowa also have access to the same basic rights and freedoms that government offers to all citizens, including the right to marry. And so, a same-gender couple has the right to legally marry and to marry within a faith tradition that embraces their marriage if they so choose. That is also religious liberty.
Public accommodation must be free from religious distinctions. A business, open to the public, must provide the services it normally provides to anyone regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation. And that is also a part of our constitutional guarantees.
In this country our government is prohibited from establishing an official church – that is the establishment cause of the first amendment – and, people are free to worship as they please, or not at all – that is the free exercise clause.
Very simply, the Gortz Haus is a secular space – a gallery and an event venue. It is no longer a church and as long as it is not a church it’s services and uses must be made available.
Religious liberty cannot be used as a weapon of discrimination; not at the lunch counter, not at the grocery store and not at an art gallery and wedding venue.
— 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.
Wembley Arch to light up like a rainbow for Pride In London
Wembley Arch to light up like a rainbow for Pride In London
Iconic structure gets a makeover for Pride in association with Coca-Cola
jamiet
www.gaystarnews.com/article/wembley-arch-light-rainbow-pride-london240615
