California police lieutenant suspended over anti-gay-marriage letter

A high-ranking police lieutenant in California has been officially placed on paid administrative leave after a letter he wrote to a newspaper strongly condemning the US Supreme Court’s ruling to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide was published.

Lt Toby Will, who has served the city of Stockton for two decades, signed the letter with his rank and employer and confirmed with the newspaper editor that is how he wanted it to appear in print, according to media reports.

His letter, which appeared in the Stockton Record on Wednesday, began with a biblical passage that condemned homosexual behavior.

The letter continued: ‘Man’s rebellion, ungodliness, and unrighteousness in rejecting the truth in order that he may live according to the vile and sinful passions of his corrupt heart is going to be met with the wrath of God.’

A day after the letter was published, the newspaper reported that the letter has ‘received special attention’ as it was written by a ‘high-ranking officer with the Stockton Police Department’.

In his correspondence with the newspaper, Will said he is aware that the letter which is signed with his public position might ‘have a negative impact on an otherwise impeccable police career.’

He said, ‘I feel very strongly regarding this issue. Much (not all), but much of the media leaves the public with the sense that this recent turn of events is being embraced by the broader public, as well as most spheres of professional society. This is not the case; and I would just like to be one voice, as a lieutenant of a moderate sized police agency that makes it very clear that I operate from a biblical world view, not a pop-culture one.’

Police department spokesman Officer Joe Silva clarified on Wednesday that Will ‘does not speak for the Police Department, and regarding his use of his police position, it is under administrative review.’

Following the publication of the letter, Police Chief Eric Jones also made a call to the San Joaquin Pride Center ‘to reassure them that Will does not speak for the Police Department,’ the spokesperson said.

The centre has conducted LGBT sensitivity training for the police department.

Renee Hall, chairwoman of the Pride Center board of directors, expressed her dismay with the letter saying that while everyone has the right to express their beliefs, there is a ‘fine line, especially when you are a police officer.’

‘How can you be a police officer when you don’t believe in the law? How are you going to be able to do your job? Are my wife and my child going to feel comfortable calling the Stockton police knowing he is not wanting to help us?’

Hall’s wife and partner of 33 years Susan Eggman, who represents Stockton in the California Assembly and previously served on the Stockton City Council, was equally distressed by the letter.

‘I think Lt. Will has put the city of Stockton and the Stockton Police Department in a very uncomfortable position in that he insisted that his title be used and going on record that he does not believe in the law,’ she was quoted by the Record as saying.

‘It is doubly sad that he insisted to be identified with one of the best police departments in the state of California.’

‘I think he crossed the line when he started using language like vile and debauchery. As far as being representative of the city, as an LGBT person, if I see a letter like that signed by a public official, I would be appalled and I don’t know if I would want to spend my money in Stockton.’

The newspaper printed several letters from readers in support as well as those who agreed with Will.

One reader wrote, ‘I resent this man with real authority insinuating his law enforcement position into this discussion.’

The post California police lieutenant suspended over anti-gay-marriage letter appeared first on Gay Star News.

Sylvia Tan

www.gaystarnews.com/article/california-police-lieutenant-suspended-over-anti-gay-marriage-letter/

Chelsea Manning Defense Fund Flooded With Donations

A legal defense fund for Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence worker sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking secret documents to WikiLeaks, has been flooded with donations, exceeding its goal with more than $125,000 in 48 hours.

“The level of grassroots support for this campaign has been truly impressive. Close to 1,100 donors in just 48 hours made their voices heard for Chelsea’s cause,” Trevor Timm, executive director of Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement. “It really shows how small donations can add up to something huge. Because of this success, we’re raising our goal to the full amount Chelsea Manning’s attorney has estimated will be needed to bring the case through oral arguments in the Army Court of Appeals. We’re confident, with your help, we can get there.”

Nancy Hollander, Manning’s attorney, said contributions to the crowdsourced fund are “beyond our wildest dreams.”

“We are grateful for this outpouring and continued support as we travel down this long road,” Hollander said.

Manning, 27, is imprisoned at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas for giving hundreds of thousands of government files to WikiLeaks, including information on U.S. operations in Guantánamo Bay and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Formerly Pfc. Bradley Manning, she will be eligible for parole in about 2020.

Manning began the process of transitioning to a woman last year, and was approved for a gender-reassignment hormone therapy in February. It was the first time the Defense Department has authorized such a treatment for an active service member, and followed a lawsuit pressing the military to allow Manning’s transition.

Manning and her legal team are pursuing an appeal of her conviction, with the hope of reducing her prison term. Prior to the fundraising campaign, Manning had collected about $40,000 in donations to cover legal fees.

First Look Media, the news organization created by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, announced the campaign on Wednesday, and pledged to match $60,000 in donations. According to the statement, $10,000 of the match will come from First Look’s prominent investigative journalist, Glenn Greenwald, who has led coverage of former National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden’s disclosures of government spying on ordinary citizens.

Greenwald explained the campaign in a post for First Look’s investigative news outfit, The Intercept:

“Whatever else one thinks of Manning, she should not face limits in her ability to pursue her legal rights with full zeal, nor should her already difficult circumstances be exacerbated by worries over how to pay legal fees,” he wrote. “Her actions redounded to the benefit of all of us, and it’s incumbent on those who are able to do what they can to help her defend her legal rights. It’s in our collective interest to ensure that whistleblowers are able to receive a full, vigorous defense of their rights, and that the government’s pernicious anti-transparency theories be contested.”

 The campaign continues to accept donations, which can be made here.

— 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.

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WATCH: Zoey Tur's Tense Exchange With Transphobic Brietbart Editor

After being called ‘sir’ on Thursday’s episode of Dr. Drew on Call, trans reporter Zoey Tur wasn’t having any more of conservative writer Ben Shapiro’s transphobia.

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Sunnivie Brydum

www.advocate.com/media/2015/07/17/watch-zoey-turs-tense-exchange-transphobic-brietbart-editor

Getting Married Past This Age Increases Your Risk Of Divorce, Research Suggests

 Want to get married and stay married? Don’t rush to get hitched when you’re young — but don’t wait too long, either. Once you’re past your early 30s, the risk of divorce starts to creep up again, according to new analysis. 

Nicholas Wolfinger, a sociologist at the University of Utah, looked at data from the National Survey of Family Growth and found that while the risk of divorce declines steadily from your teens into your late 20s — it starts to rise again somewhere in your 30s. 

Once you reach the age of 32, the odds of getting a divorce increase by 5 percent each year. 

As Wolfinger breaks it down on the Institute For Family Studies blog, “Those who tie the knot after their early thirties are now more likely to divorce than those who marry in their late 20s.” 

Wolfinger writes that it’s “no mystery” why those who marry as teens face a higher risk of divorce: most of us don’t have the coping skills or maturity to deal with marriage in our teens or early 20s, he suggests — and marrying young correlates with lower educational attainment, which increases the risk for divorce regardless of age. 

But why does waiting until you’re well into your 30s increase the odds? Shouldn’t you be better equipped to handle the stresses of marriage the older you get? 

The researcher isn’t entirely sure but suggests it might have something to do with what he calls the “selection effect”: those who wait to wed may be the type of people who just aren’t cut out for marriage. Ouch. 

“They delay marriage, often because they can’t find anyone willing to marry them,” Wolfinger explains in his blog. “When they do tie the knot, their marriages are automatically at high risk for divorce. More generally, perhaps people who marry later face a pool of potential spouses that has been winnowed down to exclude the individuals most predisposed to succeed at matrimony” 

The Huffington Post reached out to Wolfinger for comment but he did not reply by the time of publication. 

For those of you suddenly feeling like you just. can’t. win regardless of when you decide to marry, take heart: This is just a statistical analysis based on general trends and may not reflect your personal experience. And overall, the divorce rate in the U.S. continues to drop from its peak in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Phew. 

For more on Wolfinger’s analysis, head here. 

 Keep in touch! Check out HuffPost Divorce on Facebook.

— 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.

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David Thorpe confronts his ‘gay voice’ in his new film Do I Sound Gay?

David Thorpe wondered if other gay men were as distressed about the way they talk as he was.

So in his new documentary, Do I Sound Gay?, he asked some very famous ones including actor George Takei, designer Tim Gunn, author David Sedaris, newsman Don Lemon and columnist Dan Savage to weigh in.

Comic Margaret Cho also shares some insights in the film which opened Friday (17 July) in Los Angeles., Atlanta, Philadelphia and Denver.

‘Sometimes a voice is just a voice and sometimes it’s a symbol of something much bigger,’ Thorpe told the audience after a sell-out screening at the Outfest Film Festival in Los Angeles this week.

Thorpe shares in the film his life-long struggle with ‘gay voice’ – something you can’t quite define but you know it when you hear it.

He examines the questions ‘Do gay men who talk like gay men do it naturally or it is learned?’ and ‘Why are so may gay men so hung up on not sounding gay?’

One of the reasons is survival and how sounding gay as a boy or a teen can lead to bullying, says Savage who founded It Gets Better Project.

Thorpe said that while growing up, ‘if something sounds gay it’s like the worse thing ever. It’s associated with a lot of shame and a lot of stigma. … It’s amazing to me how many of my gay friends had speech therapy as kids.’

When he came out in college, he believes he got a lot less self-conscious: ‘I wanted to look gay and sound gay. I was so excited to be out of the closet.’

But later he began to wonder: ‘How did I get this gay voice stuck on me? Is it my real voice or this voice I reached for after I came out?’

In the film, he works with two different noted speech therapists in an attempt to see if he could change his voice to make it sound ‘less gay.’

In the end he learns that the real issue is this: ‘Coming to terms with my voice is coming to terms with myself.’

To find out where the film is screening, go to DoISoundGay.com

The post David Thorpe confronts his ‘gay voice’ in his new film Do I Sound Gay? appeared first on Gay Star News.

Greg Hernandez

www.gaystarnews.com/article/david-thorpe-confronts-his-gay-voice-in-his-new-film-do-i-sound-gay/

Kentucky Bill Would Allow Clerks to Deny Marriage Licenses to Same-Sex Couples

The proposed legislation aims to ‘protect religious freedoms’ of state government officials.

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Daniel Reynolds

www.advocate.com/politics/2015/07/17/kentucky-bill-would-allow-clerks-deny-marriage-licenses-same-sex-couples