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Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus Announces Transgender Equality Task Force
The Task Force is chaired by Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA), who has a transgender granddaughter. Also on the Task Force is Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), who has a transgender son.
HRC.org
Caitlyn Jenner Still Plans to Vote Republican in 2016
Caitlyn Jenner was in Des Moines, Iowa on Saturday and hoped to attend the Democratic Debate, according to a story in the L.A. Times about CBS News director John Dickerson, and the last minute changes that needed to be made to the debate following the Paris attacks.
Jenner is a Republican, a fact that was much discussed during her coming out as transgender, when many questioned how she could support a party which shows so little support for, and often active hatred towards LGBT people.
When interviewed about her desire to attend the Democratic Debate, Jenner told the L.A. Times that she still plans to vote for a Donald Trump or a Ben Carson or someone else in the GOP clown car:
There were minor decisions to be attended to as well. Caitlyn Jenner, who as Bruce Jenner was a Drake Relays champion in 1976, was in Des Moines visiting the university campus with her reality show producers. Although a Republican, she asked for a ticket to the debate. The request went all the way up to CBS News President David Rhodes.
“Our person told her person that we don’t have any tickets left, which happens to be factual.” Rhodes said.
(Jenner told The Times that she did not get into the debate hall but that she was able to watch it on television with students on the Drake University campus. She said she still planned to vote Republican. “They didn’t convince me,” she said.)
In related news, Jenner has been criticized for being named Glamour’s Woman of the Year, most viciously by actress Rose McGowan, who lambasted her in a since-deleted Facebook post:
“Caitlyn Jenner you do not understand what being a woman is about at all. You want to be a woman and stand with us- well learn us. We are more than deciding what to wear. We are more than the stereotypes foisted upon us by people like you. You’re a woman now? Well f**king learn that we have had a VERY different experience than your life of male privilege. Woman of the year? No, not until you wake up and join the fight. Being a woman comes with a lot of baggage. The weight of unequal history. You’d do well to learn it. You’d do well to wake up. Woman of the year? Not by a long f**king shot.”
(h/t/ world of wonder)
The post Caitlyn Jenner Still Plans to Vote Republican in 2016 appeared first on Towleroad.
Andy Towle
Antonin Scalia: If We Protect Gays, Why Not Child Molesters?
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is famed for his archconservative views and often-homophobic rhetoric, but he took it up a notch even for him Monday, saying the logic behind making LGBT people a protected minority could just as easily apply to child molesters.
Scalia, speaking to first-year law students at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., said there is no constitutional basis for gay rights decisions made by the court, The New York Times reports. “What minorities deserve protection?” he asked. “What? It’s up to me to identify deserving minorities?”
Those decisions should be made by the people and their elected representatives, he said, not judges. He “allowed that the First Amendment protects political and religious minorities but suggested that there was no principled way for courts to make further distinctions based on the text of the Constitution,” the Times reports.
“What about pederasts?” he asked, with some sarcasm. “What about child abusers? So should I on the Supreme Court say this is a deserving minority. Nobody loves them. … No, if you believe in democracy, you should put it to the people.”
He also said, “The notion that everything you care a lot about has to be in the Constitution is a very dangerous notion,” The Washington Post reports. “It begins with stuff that we all agree upon … and at the bottom of that slope is same-sex marriage.”
There was some swift reaction to Scalia’s comments. New Republic blogger Jeet Heer called the remarks “breathtaking in their bigotry” and wrote, “Apparently you can be a Supreme Court justice without being able to understand the elementary distinction between consensual relationships between adults and heinous acts that by definition are coercive.”
In his dissents on Supreme Court decisions regarding LGBT rights, Scalia has often argued for the right of the people to assert opposition to homosexuality through discriminatory laws. In his dissent in 1996’s Romer v. Evans, which struck down an antigay Colorado ballot measure, he wrote that the measure was “a modest attempt by seemingly tolerant Coloradans to preserve traditional sexual mores against the efforts of a politically powerful minority to revise those mores through use of the laws.”
In 2003, in dissenting from the Lawrence v. Texas ruling, which invalidated antisodomy laws, he advocated for the rights of Americans who “do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children’s schools, or as boarders in their home” because “they view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive.”
You can read more of Scalia’s greatest antigay hits here.
Trudy Ring
www.advocate.com/politics/2015/11/17/antonin-scalia-if-we-protect-gays-why-not-child-molesters
Transgender State Legislator: Not This Time
When Kansas State Representative Harold Lane announced his retirement, I didn’t hesitate to make it known that I planned to try become the nominee to fill his unexpired term. November 14, the six Democratic precinct committee members for Kansas House District 58 gathered together to make that nomination. It went to Reverend Ben Scott. Governor Brownback will now make an appointment to fill this seat in the Kansas Legislature.
There is much more to this story than a transgender woman from Topeka not being selected as the nominee. It was not a difficult decision for me to place my name into consideration for this seat. I have long had my eye on the right opportunity to come along. This one certainly had all the earmarks of the right opportunity.
Far more took place in that room than just the six precinct committee member electing a nominee. When Bryan Lowry of The Wichita Eagle ran a story on this little election, it was picked up by The Associate Press and went out coast to coast. It was also picked up by newspapers across Kansas.
Perhaps the most important thing I set out to do was to give a few young people, who happen to be transgender, some hope that they could live authentically and make it in this world. I’m thinking that we — me and all the other marginalized people who stand up and claim our dignity — are making a difference. The door has been opened. It can never be closed again. Speaking loudly and clearly I say to you, You can more than make it in this world. You can make this world a place where we don’t have to wonder if we can live authentically.
I got to give a speech before the election. A lot of people were there who didn’t really know much about me. Now they do. Several of these people, leaders in the community, came up to me after the meeting and shared how much they appreciated what I had to say. Amazing things will come out of this. Multiple requests have already been made for me to share about my journey.
I have learned in the last several years that when I put good stuff out to the universe, good stuff comes back to me. I am extremely excited to see what good stuff will come from this. I am certain of one thing, the universe knows exactly where I am supposed to be. It is leading constantly to that precise place and I will arrive at the precise time I am supposed to arrive.
A couple weeks ago, I registered for the final two classes to achieve my Master of Social Work degree from Washburn University. If I had been appointed to the Kansas House of Representatives, I would have needed to postpone my MSW by as much as a year and a half. I couldn’t have been at my MSW practicum, and at the State Capitol at the same time. I knew, going into this, that no matter what happened, it was good.
I shook Rev. Scott’s hand on the way out of the meeting and offered my congratulations. In the speech he gave before the election, he talked about justice for all people. I am concerned that Rev. Scott does not believe justice for all people translates in to laws that make it illegal to discriminate against LGBT people. I could be wrong. If not, you can expect me to step up again.
Finally, I believe that every time we get the word transgender into a newspaper in Kansas, we bump the football a little bit down the field; a little closer to the goal line. We didn’t lose. We bumped the football far enough down the field to get a first down. We have a new set of downs and we still have the ball.
The end of this story is not yet written. In the course of this experience, I was asked several times what it would mean to be the first transgender woman elected to the Kansas Legislature. My response has been to say, We need to get to a place where we don’t have to recognize the first of any population to achieve something; a place where the legislature in Kansas is representative of the diversity in Kansas. Touchdown.
— 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.
Cate Blanchett: Love scene with Rooney Mara in Carol is ‘very erotic, tender and beautiful’
In her latest film Carol, two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett plays a wealthy 1950s housewife who enters into a secret romance with a young store clerk who played by Rooney Mara.
The romance is a passionate one – something the film does not shy away from.
‘The consummation of their relationship was very important and it was done in a way that was not gratuitous,’ Blanchett said at the film’s New York premiere on Monday (16 November).
‘It was very erotic, tender and beautiful. That is very true to the relationship the two women had. It’s very easy to forget that the love that these two women are experiencing was considered to be criminal and they risked everything to be with each other.’
Fueling the physical passion between the two women is deep emotion.
‘To me, the film is about the power of falling in love,’ says Blanchett. ‘Whether it’s a woman falling for another women or a heterosexual couple falling in love, any great love story has roadblocks and impediments, but our film shows that it’s about the dangerous, volcanic feelings that you experience when you fall in love.
‘When you fall in love, you’re out of control and there’s some fear and panic and your heart beats faster. That doesn’t change if you are gay or heterosexual. There’s universality to that. It happens to all of us. It happened to me when I met my husband.’
The post Cate Blanchett: Love scene with Rooney Mara in Carol is ‘very erotic, tender and beautiful’ appeared first on Gay Star News.
Greg Hernandez
Lesbian Parent Petitions U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Adoption Rights Case
If the justices decide to select the case for review this term, a decision would be expected by the end of June.
HRC.org
Antigay Pastor Steven Anderson Says Victims Of Paris Attacks Worshipped Death And Therefore Deserved To Die
Antigay pastor Steven Anderson is back and he’s angrier than ever.
In his latest hate speech, the father-of-eight went after victims of the Paris terrorist attacks, who he says are completely to blame for their own senseless murders.
Anderson was talking about one of the attacks, in particular, that happened at the Le Bataclan Theatre, where the band The Eagles Of Death Metal was performing.
Related: The Best Of The Worst Antigay Video Meltdowns Of 2015 (So Far!)
“When you go to a concert of death metal, somebody might get killed,” Anderson preached. “You know, you’re worshiping death, and then, all of a sudden, people start dying!”
Way to keep it classy, Steven.
Oh, and for the record, The Eagles Of Death Metal isn’t actually a death metal band. The name is meant to be satirical. Not that it really matters.
Related: Pastor Envisions An AIDS-Free World By Christmas If We “Execute The Homos Like God Recommends”
Anderson continued: “Well, you love death so much, you bought the ticket, you love worshiping Satan! Well, let’s have some of Satan’s religion come in and shoot you! I mean, that’s what these people should think about before they go into such a wicked concert!”
In the past, Anderson has called for all the “homos” in America to be executed by the government, for President Obama to be murdered, for Caitlyn Jenner’s heart to be “ripped from his chest,” and for all “gay pedophiles” to die of brain cancer, among other things.
Fast forward to the 5:45 mark in the video below to hear Anderson’s latest vomit-inducing comments. Or don’t.
h/t: Joe.My.God.
Graham Gremore
It’s Official: Salt Lake City Elects Openly Gay Jackie Biskupski as Mayor
The vote count is official. Jackie Biskupski has been elected Salt Lake City’s mayor, beating incumbent mayor Ralph Becker. She’s the first openly gay person to hold the office.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports:
The official canvass was approved by the Salt Lake City Council shortly after 2 p.m. Tuesday — two weeks after Election Day. The official vote count had Biskupski beating Mayor Ralph Becker 51.5 percent to 48.5 percent. Of the 38,598 ballots, Biskupski received 19,896 to Becker’s 18,702. That’s a 3 percentage-point difference.
On election night, Biskupski led by 1,450 votes with a 4 percentage-point edge. Becker refused to concede the election although he would have had to capture 2 of every 3 outstanding votes to pull even.
The post It’s Official: Salt Lake City Elects Openly Gay Jackie Biskupski as Mayor appeared first on Towleroad.
Andy Towle
It’s Official: Salt Lake City Elects Openly Gay Jackie Biskupski as Mayor
gerda_slut posted a photo:
Jonathan Groff Promises 'The Most Intense Sex Scene' In 'Looking' Finale
Sounds like “Looking” is planning to go out with a literal bang.
In a Nov. 7 appearance at San Francisco’s Curran Theatre, series star Jonathan Groff revealed that he’d just wrapped a particularly steamy scene for the show’s wrap-up movie, which is slated for release early next year.
“There’s a lot of sex,” Groff told writer and editor Kevin Sessums in an onstage interview, according to Broadway World. “I don’t want to say who it was with, but I just shot the most intense sex scene I’ve ever done.”
The 30-year-old actor, who is currently on leave from his Beyoncé-approved stint as King George in the smash Broadway musical, “Hamilton,” said he was proud of the way that “Looking” opened minds, particularly when it came to gay sex.
“One of the cool things about ‘Looking’ is that after the first season, a lot of people — shockingly, liberal, open artists in New York and L.A. — said they didn’t know that gay people could have sex while facing each other,” he said. “The show illuminated intimacy in sex [between men] without being porny or salacious. Those scenes felt very real and true to life. I was excited to do them.”
Despite critical raves, “Looking” struggled to find an audience, and in March, was canceled by HBO after just two seasons, a fact which still saddens Groff. But the cast has happily reunited for the wrap-up movie, as evidenced by these Instagram shots posted to the official “Looking” account.
“Not a day has gone by that I haven’t wept,” he said. “It’s been very emotional [but] great that we get to say goodbye to San Francisco and our characters.”
The out actor also opened up about still being “deep in the closet” during his breakout role in Broadway’s “Spring Awakening,” for which he received a 2007 Tony Award nomination.
“I had a boyfriend who was my ‘roommate.’ And we kept two bedrooms [in case] family or visitors came over,” he recalled. “I was only gay between the four walls of that apartment. I was very compartmentalized.”
After he left the show, Groff says he went to Italy on vacation and had an epiphany of sorts, and these days, it’s a much different story.
“I didn’t realize how suffocating being in the closet was all those years. Now that I’m out, it’s liberating to talk about it,” he said. “I’m really proud to be gay.”
Also on HuffPost:
— 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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