Five Things Homos Love To Hate (In Addition To Kim Davis)

We have a confession to make: We love Kim Davis. Or rather, we love to hate Kim Davis.

Related: PHOTOS: Kim Davis Memes Just Keep Getting Better

She’s the perfect villain. She’s privileged (white, middle class, hetero) and in a position of power, and she’s been using those two things to impose her religious beliefs upon others. And all the while she’s been getting tons and tons of attention for it, in which she visibly delights.

Related: Kim Davis’ Marriage History Explained In One Handy Flowchart

How could anyone not love to hate a person like that?

Of course, it helps to know that the Notorious K.I.M. is legally wrong, and even most conservatives agree. And just think about how much fun is it to denounce her, and that feeling of moral superiority it provides. Then, of course, there are all the memes.

This got us to thinking about all the other things we homos love to hate.

Scroll down for five other things…

Madonna

For whatever reason, gay men love trashing Madonna for sport. If we’re not criticizing her for an age we already are or soon will be (“How dare she be 57!”), we’re tearing apart her new single (“Featuring Nicki Minaj? Again? Really?!”) or rolling our eyes at her latest red carpet antic (“Can you believe she flashed her butt? Ew! Gross!”)… Then we drop $350 to watch her shake her sexy lady butt while knowing all the words to the songs we profess to hate. It’s the weirdest thing.

Straight women in gay bars

Nothing kills a buzz faster than when a bachelorette party rolls up to a gay bar ready to boogie to the latest Britney jam. It’s every gay man’s worst nightmare: squealing women dancing on tables in a desperate ploy for male attention. But, secretly, we enjoying watching these ladies get progressively more intoxicated until they are eventually escorted out of the building. And, of course, we’re the ones who often invite them inside in the first place, just to show them what they can’t have. It helps to reaffirm our homosexuality by reminding us why we’re gay in the first place.

Shirtless men at Pride

We criticize these guys for giving us a bad name and perpetuating the the myth that all gay men are lascivious, sex-crazed narcissists, while at time drooling over them and secretly hoping that maybe, just maybe, we’ll bump into one (or three) of them at the bar later.

Condoms

Let’s face it, condoms just aren’t sexy. They remind us of all the things that could go wrong when having sex: stinky messes, diseases, infections, etc. But they’re necessary because they keep us healthy. So we wear them, boys. Even though we hate them. Whomp, whomp. And don’t forget about PrEP.

Frat boys

We hate them because of what they represent: heterosexism, elitism, douchebaggery, etc. We denounce their lack of proper hygiene, their terrible sense of style, their ill manners. Yet at the same time we love them because they’re kinda hot and because, even though they’re probably pretty sloppy and selfish in the sack, we still kinda sorta want to hook up with them, even if just for the bragging rights.

Related: 10 Totally Obnoxious Things You Have To Be Gay To Fully Understand

Graham Gremore

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Playground for LGBTI families to open in Florida

Families of all shapes and sizes are to benefit from a new interactive playground in Florida, USA, specifically designed to create a safe space for LGBTI parents, children, and straight allies to network.

The playground will be built at the Fort Lauderdale’s Pride Center – a community center which provides social services including counselling, mentoring, exercise classes and HIV testing – in order to support the growing number of LGBTI families in the South Florida area.

Surveys of local LGBTI parents have indicated there are insufficient resources and services locally, and that same-sex couples parenting children have their own set of unique challenges.

‘With the national legislation of gay marriages and state adoptions by gay couples, we are evolving to fulfill our mission,’ said Robert Boo, CEO of The Pride Center.

‘As our stakeholders expand their families, we must be prepared to respond to this changing environment and the playground build is an ideal start.’

When completed, the playground will be roughly half the size of an NBA basketball court (2,500 sq ft), and will use ideas from local children to ensure the space supports their creative development.

Following a design day last month (August 18), 20 children illustrated their dream playground and shared their designs with the project managers.

‘I like rainbows and a lot of things that challenge the muscles – such as a rock-climbing wall, tire slides and tall slides,’ said 12-year-old Adele Barsky Moore.

‘I’d like to see a Florida-themed playground that has underwater fish, a coral reef, mermaid designs and maybe a grotto.’

The Center has launched a fundraising challenge in order to raise the $75,000 needed to turn the playground into a reality, and is calling for 150 volunteers from the community to help construct it on October 16.

Boo added: ‘A playground is more than just a physical space. Creative play is developmentally important for our children and future leaders.

‘It’s a brain-expander, a friend-maker and a mentor-connector,’

‘Together, with our national benefactors plus the support of the local business community and volunteers, we can meet our mission of providing a welcoming space that celebrates, nurtures and empowers the LGBT community and our friends and neighbors in South Florida while setting an example for other national organizations.’

To volunteer, visit the Pride Center website.

The post Playground for LGBTI families to open in Florida appeared first on Gay Star News.

Mel Spencer

www.gaystarnews.com/article/playground-for-lgbti-families-to-open-in-florida/

PHOTOS: It’s All Glitz And Glam Inside Buenos Aires’ Hottest Discoteca

What’s new Buenos Aires? Glam is one of the hottest discotecas in all of Argentina. Known for its glitzy go-go boys, flashy bartenders, and world-class DJs who play all the latest electronic, dance and world music, this popular nightclub doesn’t close until well after sunrise.

Scroll down for a taste of Glam, and check out the full gallery of images over at GayCities…

Photo credit: Glam

Graham Gremore

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Golden Girls: Growing Old, Growing Up and Growing Asian American
Today marks the 30th anniversary of the debut of The Golden Girls on NBC. From modest beginnings, the show would become a huge success, garnering top ratings for NBC and accolades for the show, its cast and crew. But more importantly, from a cultural perspective, it has had a much larger impact. As the first network broadcast show to focus on older women, The Golden Girls changed the way we looked at them and broke many stereotypes. From water cooler chatter to professionally refereed academic journals, much has been made of what their groundbreaking portrayals mean for how we understand women and aging.

The Golden Girls, both the four women and the show named for them, did not operate in a vacuum. As women with families, jobs, lovers and friends living in a multicultural community in Miami, FL, they had a number of complicated experiences while living together with the resultant highs and lows that made their lives fun to watch. The show, by examining their reactions to a wide range of topics — from sex, to interracial relationships, to disability visibility, broached a number of topics that had been considered off limits for mainstream networks at the time and challenged previously entrenched notions of what was successful television. Tracey Ross, Center for American Progress Fellow, calls The Golden Girls, “the most progressive show on television,” thirty years out.

I was an avid fan of The Golden Girls while it was on the air. As a young Filipino American entering his teen years at the time, perhaps the larger implications of what the show meant escaped me. I found myself agreeing with the show’s messages about how people should respect difference — whether by age or by race or by any other community. My upbringing in a Filipino family taught me to respect my elders and so even though these white women were very different than my lolas (grandmothers), I knew that they deserved my respect, which they earned regardless through the strength they showed. As an Asian American outside the “black or white” dichotomy through which race was discussed even for a progressive show like The Golden Girls, I knew that someone’s skin color shouldn’t determine how I felt about them. Their positive messages about the gay men and lesbians in their lives spoke to me as I grappled with my own feelings and coming out process. Whether I knew it or not, who I was becoming as a young gay man of color, was keeping time with how these four women were becoming who they were.

I know I am not the only one who has been influenced by The Golden Girls. Their impact, on Asian Americans interestingly enough, shows how media messages can be received in many different ways. My friend, Jose Antonio Vargas, whose story as perhaps the most famous undocumented immigrant in the United States thanks to his “coming out” in 2011 and founding of the “Define American” project and most recently, #EmergeUS (a project with the Los Angeles Times), talks about how The Golden Girls helped teach him English, and undoubtedly, how to “be” American. Ai-Jen Poo, 2014 MacArthur Fellow, talks about The Golden Girls in her book “Aging with Dignity.” She writes, “Probably the single most effective product to come out of Hollywood in terms of turning around the cultural stereotypes about older women was the hugely popular and successful television show The Golden Girls in the late 1980s and early 1990s.”

Ai-Jen, Jose and myself are probably not indicative of the entire Asian American community. As advocates, writers and policy wonks who work on issues such as aging, workers’ rights’ and immigration, our viewpoints reflect our own perspectives. But if The Golden Girls have taught us anything, it’s to walk our own path. Perhaps at that party their opening theme song sings about, this lesson is their biggest gift.

So, to The Golden Girls, at the ripe young age of 30, I still say, “Thank you for being a friend.”

— 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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North Carolina bar faces national backlash after owner throws gay couple out

A bar in Fayetteville in the US state of North Carolina has come under fire after its owner told a gay couple to leave.

Pam Griffin, owner of Louie’s Sports Pub, said she has received threats from across the country via social media after the incident made the news.

Griffin and the couple however have different stories about what happened.

According to media reports, Andrew Deras and Dustin Baker, who have been together for the past few months, said it was just a 2-second peck.

‘He put his arm around me, he gave me a kiss, and she said this wasn’t right, this wasn’t OK,’ said Deras, who was visiting from California. ‘She threatened both of us. He gave me a kiss. It was very minor. It was just a peck. It was two seconds.’

Griffin said other customers were complaining and so she said she asked the couple to cool it.

‘I walked up to them calmly. I asked them guys, you know, can you kind of just separate, kind of move apart?’

She told WRAL News, ‘I don’t care if you stay and drink. We don’t need to be doing that, and just calm down because you’re making people feel uncomfortable.’

She said they then laughed and gave each other another ‘big kiss.’

Barker said he just gave Andrew another kiss, because ‘I’m certainly allowed to,’ he said in a Facebook post after the incident, the Fayetteville Observer reported.

‘That’s when she started getting really crazy’, he said.

‘She’s saying, “This is enough. This is enough,” like basically telling us to get out.’

The couple said they didn’t feel like complying, especially since they say their initial display of affection was a two-second-long peck so they paid their bill and left.

Griffin said the couple weren’t asked to leave because they are gay but because they were causing a disturbance.

She told ABC News, ‘It was only one reason why they were asked to go, when they disrespected and flipped me off, cussing and interlocked in a very deep kiss, then yes, I am going to ask you to go cause I have numerous customers complaining,’ she said.

She added that should a heterosexual couple acted similarly, she would have asked them to stop.

The pub’s Facebook page has since received dozens of comments deploring the owner’s treatment of the gay couple.

The post North Carolina bar faces national backlash after owner throws gay couple out appeared first on Gay Star News.

Sylvia Tan

www.gaystarnews.com/article/north-carolina-bar-faces-national-backlash-after-owner-throws-gay-couple-out/

Texas Judge Recognizes Same-Sex Common Law Marriage In Historic Ruling

A Texas probate judge recognized a common law marriage between two women this week, granting that the women were in fact legal spouses and defying objections from the state attorney general in the process. The ruling is a historic first for the Lone Star State.

On Tuesday, Travis County Probate Judge Guy Herman approved an agreement between Sonemaly Phrasavath and the family of her late partner, Stella Powell, who died of colon cancer in 2014, to split Powell’s assets. The ruling simultaneously recognized the couple’s common law marriage, the Houston Chronicle first reported.

Brian Thompson, attorney for Phrasavath, told The Huffington Post that his client can finally move on with her life with this critical ruling.

“Sonemaly is pleased that Judge Herman’s ruling acknowledges her marriage to Stella Powell and allows her to move forward from the tragedy of losing her wife,” Thompson said. 

Phrasavath and Powell met in 2004 and were married in 2008 in Texas — long before the Supreme Court’s June ruling that legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states and ended the bans in states like Texas. When Powell died in 2014, a legal battle began between Phrasavath and Powell’s family over her deceased partner’s estate.

In Texas, a common law marriage is legally valid and includes the same rights enjoyed in other marriages, given that the adult couple agrees to marry, lives together for an indeterminate time and communicates to other people that they are, in fact, a married couple. The Houston Chronicle adds that, in 2008, Phrasavath and Powell also held a marriage ceremony with a Zen Buddhist priest in the state.

However, because same-sex marriage was still banned at the time, Powell’s family argued that Phrasavath had no right to Powell’s estate. But Herman ruled in 2014 that Phrasavath was entitled to her partner’s estate because Texas’ same-sex marriage ban was in violation of the couple’s constitutional rights.

State Attorney General Ken Paxton disagreed with Herman, intervened in the case, and struck down the judge’s ruling as unconstitutional in 2014. This year, two months after the historic SCOTUS ruling on same-sex marriage, Paxton filed a motion in Travis County probate court to block Phrasavath from receiving any funds from her partner’s estate. He argued that because same-sex marriage was illegal during the entire course of the women’s relationship, it wasn’t relevant that same-sex marriage is now legal in Texas and across the nation.

“Phrasavath asks the court to reach back in time and declare that a relationship that at all points of existence could not have been a valid marriage under Texas law is now — over a year after the death of one spouse — a valid informal marriage under Texas law,” the attorney general’s motion reads. “The court should not rewind history and supplant statutory requirements to establish as valid what state law at the time foreclosed as invalid.”

But this week, that’s just what Judge Herman did, approving a settlement agreement between the Powell family and Phrasavath. Herman also removed Paxton from the case, arguing that the state no longer had a role to play in the dispute.

While the issue appears to be settled, Cynthia Meyer, spokeswoman for the state attorney general, told The Huffington Post that the office is still evaluating its options on any future steps to be taken against Herman’s ruling.

“It’s important that the state’s interests in constitutional issues be represented,” Meyer said. “This ruling could create confusion by potentially leading to the reopening of past probate cases long finalized, in the process creating new conflicts between families and surviving domestic partners.”

Thompson called Paxton’s efforts to interfere in the case “shameless and desperate” and said his client remains disappointed in the attorney general’s office for pursuing this case months after the historic SCOTUS ruling. “Attorney General Ken Paxton continues to disregard the law and spend the hard-earned tax dollars of Texans to finance his mean-spirited campaign against Texas’s same-sex families,” he said.

— 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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Actress-model Patricia Velasquez tells GSN about life since coming out as a lesbian

Patricia Velasquez knows what it’s like to be the world’s first Latina supermodel.

She knows what it’s like to be featured in the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated, to walk down the runway at major fashion shows around the world, and to appear in a big box office movie (The Mummy) and its sequel.

What the Venezuelan beauty did not know until earlier this year was how the world would react once it found that she is a lesbian.

‘The reaction and support has been phenomenal,’ Velasquez tells Gay Star News. ‘There’s never really been a Hispanic woman from my side say, “Yes, I am gay.”‘

Velásquez, 44, made this revelation in her memoir, Straight Walk, in which she shares with readers how her relationship with Sandra Bernhard made her realize she was a lesbian.

‘I’ve had a great career and I fight for so many causes but somebody wrote after the book came out that probably my biggest contribution to humankind has been this book and my coming out,’ she says.

‘It definitely has been a source of inspiration for a lot of people. When I wrote the book I felt like if I could help one person, then that’s it I’ve done the job and it seems that there has been hundreds of people. It’s been a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful life.’

In writing the book, Velasquez admits she ‘of course’ had worries that coming out would be harmful to her career.

‘I used to model before for many, many years for the likes of Victoria Secret and Sports Illustrated and it’s almost like I felt like I was going to betray the men who had been so supportive throughout the years,’ she says.

‘But finally, we have to lead by example. This is the best contribution I can give to the world and that’s why I decided to do it.’

Velasquez’s coming out comes at a time that she is enjoying acclaim on the film festival circuit for her lead performance as a former model dying of cancer in Liz in September.

The film is based on the classic lesbian play, Last Summer at Bluefish Cove, and directed by Venezuelan director Fina Torres (Woman on Top).

It was released on DVD by Wolfe Video in the US this month and screen’s twice this weekend at Cinema Diverse, the Palm Springs LGBTQ Film Festival.

The post Actress-model Patricia Velasquez tells GSN about life since coming out as a lesbian appeared first on Gay Star News.

Greg Hernandez

www.gaystarnews.com/article/actress-model-patricia-velasquez-tells-gsn-about-life-since-coming-out-as-a-lesbian/

Amanda Simpson Advances As The Highest Ranking Openly Transgender Official In The U.S., Ever

President Obama gave Amanda Simpson a worthy (not to mention wordy) promotion from Executive Director of the U.S. Army Office of Energy Initiatives to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Operational Energy.

Related: Obama Has Just Nominated The First Openly Gay Service Secretary To Lead The Army

In 2010, she made history as the first openly trans woman to be appointed by the Obama (or any) administration. Now she has achieved another milestone in a series of firsts.

When Simpson was transitioning, she worked for defense contractor Raytheon and had clients such as the Air Force and the Navy. In an interview with R29, she recalls that when news spread that some upper management suggested she be moved off to other activities, her defense contacts insisted they didn’t care whether she wore “slacks or a dress” and that she remain in her role.

“And, this was coming from people with stars, bars, and little birdies on their shoulders. They understood that it’s all about the ability to do the job,” she said.

Related: These Ladies In The Streets Marked The First Transgender Uprising In The U.S. Back In 1966

Simpson’s new gig arrives the same day as news that President Obama will nominate Pentagon official Eric Fanning to lead the Army, potentially making him the first openly gay civilian secretary of a military service.

As far as LGBTQ representation in the federal government goes, it’s quite the day. We just never would have expected such a rapid leadership rise within the defense department of all places.

Dan Tracer

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Marriage Contract Bill Defeated in Alabama

A bill to abolish marriage licenses in Alabama and replace them with contracts died Tuesday night after it didn’t get enough votes in the sourthern state’s House of Representatives. 

The bill, which was designed to address the concerns of some probate judges about issuing licenses to same-sex couples, won a simple majority of votes in the House, 53-36, but not the required two-thirds majority, reports AL.com, a site for several Alabama newspapers. The two-thirds majority was required because the bill was not included in the governor’s call for the current special legislative session. Gov. Robert Bentley convened the session to deal with a budget shortfall.

County probate judges are responsible for issuing marriage licenses in Alabama. The bill would have changed state law so that the judges would not issue licenses but merely record a contract signed by the two people marrying, in the same way that judges record deeds. 

More than half a dozen probate judges, out of the state’s 67 counties, have resisted issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples since the U.S. Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling in June. One of them, Nick Williams of Washington County, has even asked the state Supreme Court for permission to abstain from signing marriage licenses for same-sex couples, as he calls the documents “a license to engage in sodomy.”

Some members of the legislature, however, believed changing the procedure would probably not satisfy judges who are opposed to marriage equality. “What is the difference between handing me a piece of paper for a license versus accepting a piece of paper from me for a marriage contract?” said Rep. Patricia Todd, the first openly gay Alabama legislator, according to AL.com.

The bill had passed the Senate Monday by a vote of 26-2. A similar bill died earlier this year in the legislature’s most recent regular session.

Raffy Ermac

www.advocate.com/marriage-equality/2015/9/18/marriage-contract-bill-defeated-alabama

Openly gay man nominated by Obama to be US Secretary of the Army

President Barack Obama made history on Friday (18 January) by nominating an openly gay man to be the next US Secretary of the Navy.

Eric Fanning, 47, has had Defense Department jobs spanning several military branches. He has served as Air Force under secretary, deputy under secretary of the Navy and deputy chief management officer of the Navy.

He most recently been acting under secretary of the Army and is a close civilian adviser to Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter.

Fanning would be the first openly gay head of any service in the military if he is confirmed by the US Senate. He is already the highest ranking openly gay member of the Department of Defense.

‘Eric brings many years of proven experience and exceptional leadership to this new role,’ Obama said in a statement. ‘I look forward to working with Eric to keep our Army the very best in the world.’

OutServe-SLDN, a network of LGBTI military personnel, praised Obama for the appointment of Fanning.

‘Having an openly gay individual in high level positions within the Department of Defense helps to set the tone at the top and provides an opportunity to bring better understanding about both the shared and the unique needs of LGBT individuals in the military and their families,’ said
OutServe-SLDN Interim Executive Director Matt Thorn.

Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin said Fanning’s nomination ‘is a sign of hope and a demonstration of continued progress toward fairness and equality in our nation’s armed forces.’

Fanning’s appointment comes four years after the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the policy that prevented gay and lesbian service members from being open about their sexual orientation. but because he is a civilian, Fanning was never subject to the policy.

The post Openly gay man nominated by Obama to be US Secretary of the Army appeared first on Gay Star News.

Greg Hernandez

www.gaystarnews.com/article/openly-gay-man-nominated-by-obama-to-be-us-secretary-of-the-army/