Gym Employee Who Busta Rhymes Allegedly Called A Faggot And Threw A Protein Shake At Breaks His Silence

Ole Hernandez says he had no idea who Busta Rhymes was before the rapper allegedly called him a faggot then threw a protein shake in his face. Now, he’s speaking out about the incident for the very first time.

33-year-old Hernandez works at the front counter of Steel Gym in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. On August 5, he found himself on the receiving end of a string of homophobic and racist epithets made by 43-year-old Rhymes after he told the hip hop artist he couldn’t bring a cameraman into the gym.

Related: Rapper Busta Rhymes Hurls Anti-Gay Slur Over Missing Ketchup At Miami Burger Joint

Speaking to The New York Post this week, Hernandez says Rhymes flew into a rage, allegedly yelling: “You don’t know who I am! I’m Busta Rhymes! I’m the real n–ga! You’re a f–king f–got, you are a p–sy! You are a Mexican crossing the border to come to this country! I will f–k you up!”

Surveillance video doesn’t capture the audio from the altercation, but it does show Rhymes visibly upset and reaching across the counter towards Hernandez before his security guard intervenes to pull him away.

This isn’t the first time Rhymes has been accused of using antigay slurs. In 2013, he was accused of calling a lesbian fast food worker a “fag” and a “bitch” then trying to jump over the counter when she forgot to give him ketchup with his meal.

Related: Alec Baldwin Throws Yet Another Temper Tantrum, Calls Photographer A “C**ksucking F*g!”

The next day, Rhymes returned to Steel Gym to rehash the previous day’s beef with Hernandez.

Surveillance video obtained by The Post shows the two men exchanging words again before Rhymes throws the contents of his water bottle at Hernandez. Hernandez responds by throwing water back at Rhymes, who then proceeds to knock over a computer and swing punches before grabbing a chocolate protein shake and tossing it at Hernandez, hitting him with it in the face.

According to Hernandez, Rhymes’ security guards then raced behind the counter and slammed him into a door. That altercation, however, happened off camera.

Afterwards, Rhymes was arrested for felony assault and was ordered to attend anger-management classes. Hernandez tells The Post that he is “furious” the rapper managed to escape any jail time or fines.

As for having no idea Rhymes was at the time of the assault, Hernandez had this to say:

“I am a Mexican. I like mariachi. I don’t like rap.”

Related: Jonah Hill Yells Homophobic Slur At Photographer Complimenting His Outfit

Graham Gremore

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News: President Obama, Male Model Monday, Eiffel Tower, Depression, RBG

POTUS. President Obama speaks at G20 conference in Turkey, responds to and fields questions regarding the terrorist attacks in Paris: “”If folks want to pop off and have opinions about what they think they would do, present a specific plan. If they think somehow their advisers are better than the Chairman of my Joint Chiefs of Staff and the folks who are actually on the ground, I want to meet them,” Obama said. “And we can have that debate. But what I’m not interested in doing is posing or pursuing some notion of American leadership or America winning or whatever other slogans they come up with that has no relationship to what is actually going to work to protect the American people and to protect the people in the region who are getting killed and to protect our allies and people like France. I’m too busy for that.”

MALE MODEL MONDAY. Nick Truelove. 

XENOPHOBIA. GOP governors fail to grasp that they don’t have the legal authority to tell President Obama that they will not accept refugees from Syria: “The Refugee Act of 1980 gives the President “broad discretion,” as Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress notes, to accept refugees, including those from Syria. He adds, “there is no lawful means that permits a state government to dictate immigration policy to the president.”

BUSINESS. Marriott to purchase Starwood Hotels & Resorts: “The combined hotelier, to be based in Bethesda, would own or franchise 5,500 properties and be the only company to have more than 1 million hotel rooms. The cash and stock purchase marks the largest hotel deal since the private equity firm Blackstone Group bought Hilton Worldwide for $26 billion in 2007.”

SPORTS. OutSports talks to 5 gay college basketball coaches about living in the closet: They “represented just a sampling of the closeted men in college basketball we met or talked with those 72 hours in Indianapolis. Some of them are from major Div. 1 programs. Others are at Div. 2 or 3 schools. All of them are scared.”

PARIS. The lights are back on in the Eiffel Tower, now in the tricolor.

MENTAL HEALTH. New study shows lesbians may be better than gay men in handling depression: “While both gay and lesbian partners offer support to a partner who’s depressed, only lesbians tended to offer support back when they were depressed…Previous research showed that among straight couples, wives were more likely than husbands to offer support to a depressed spouse and they’re also more likely to try to shield their depression from spouses.”

MUSIC. Coldplay honors victims of Paris terror attack with cover of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” 

COMICS. Ezra Miller explains how his incarnation of The Flash will differ from that on the CW: “I hope to realize him as a person, and I think what’s most exciting for me in superhero mythologies is when we feel the humanity of someone who is heroic — or the heroism of someone who is a flawed, deeply human person.”

TELEVISION. First look at Queen Latifah and Common in NBC’s The Wiz Live!

HEADLINE MAGIC. “Justin Bieber will do anything to top One Direction.” “Sources say his team’s found ways to pump album sales including bundling his new release, ‘Purpose,’ with tickets to two Staples Center shows last week — ‘That would be nearly another 40,000 albums [sold] right there,’ said a source.”

INK. Adam Levine now has a not-so-little mermaid on his back. 

FILM. Carol director Todd Haynes to reunite with Julianne Moore for film Wonderstruck: “Wonderstruck follows the intertwined narratives of two deaf children, Ben and Rose. Ben lives with his family in Minnesota in 1977, and runs off to New York following his mother’s death when a mysterious note shows up. Rose, who is locked in a house in 1927 New Jersey, also escapes to New York to see her idol, film actress Lillian Mayhew. The film is being produced by Christine Vachon, Pam Koffler and John Sloss.”

JUSTICE. RBG talks about the interconnectivity of feminism and the gay rights movement: “It’s a facet of the gay rights movement that people don’t think about enough. Why suddenly marriage equality? Because it wasn’t until 1981 that the court struck down Louisiana’s “head and master rule,” that the husband was head and master of the house. Marriage was a relationship between the dominant, breadwinning husband and the subordinate, child-rearing wife. What lesbian or gay man would want that?”

The post News: President Obama, Male Model Monday, Eiffel Tower, Depression, RBG appeared first on Towleroad.

Sean Mandell

News: President Obama, Male Model Monday, Eiffel Tower, Depression, RBG

Buffalo Church Removes 'Jesus Had 2 Dads' Sign After Uproar

A Roman Catholic church in Buffalo, N.Y., has taken down a “Jesus Had 2 Dads” sign, with the pastor saying he didn’t realize it could convey support for same-sex marriage, which the faith opposes.

Saints Columba-Brigid Catholic Church last week put up the sign with the message “Jesus Had 2 Dads and He Turned Out Just Fine,” a reference to Jesus being both the son of God and the son of a man, Joseph. The Rev. Roy T. Herberger, the church’s pastor, told The Buffalo News the message was one of several he found by Googling “funny church signs,” and he decided to use it as a way to support children with stepparents or other nonnuclear family arrangements.

“My only purpose was to say, ‘Look, hang in there. People understand what you’re going through. Don’t give up on yourself,’” he told the News. He said he didn’t realize the statement could be interpreted as endorsing same-sex marriage or parenting by gay couples.

Many others, however, did see that meaning in the sign, and they responded with antigay sentiments. “This pro-homosexual sign effectively mocks the Blessed Trinity, mocks the Hypostatic Union, mocks the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph — some of the most sacred components of our Catholic Faith,” wrote John Vennari on the Catholic Family News website.

Also, several people left negative comments about the sign in the guest book on the parish’s website, calling it “an abomination,” “blasphemous,” “heretical,” “an outrageous mockery of the Catholic faith,” the Buffalo paper reports.

And Bishop Richard J. Malone of the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo received calls from around the world protesting the message, he told the paper. “As soon as I learned of this sign, I took immediate action to have it removed,” he said in a prepared statement. “The pastor of SS. Columba-Brigid Parish told me that the ‘2 Dads’ were meant to refer to a child who has both a father and stepfather. There are several children in his parish who have both a father and stepfather. However, given the potential for the meaning of this message to be misunderstood and even perceived in a heretical way, it was immediately removed.”

Some of Herberger’s parishioners supported the sign’s message. “I think it’s great,” Petra Fontanez told The Buffalo News. “That’s actually what I like from this church.” She recalled not feeling accepted by the Catholic faith when she was a single mother with children by two different fathers.

Herberger recently gave a sermon encouraging acceptance of all loving relationships, and the signage appeared to be an extension of that, said Margaret McGrath, a member of the church’s parish council and director of its Family Resource and Advocacy Center. Father Roy is the true spirit of the Catholic Church,” she told the paper. “He is Pope Francis among us.”

Trudy Ring

www.advocate.com/religion/2015/11/16/buffalo-church-removes-jesus-had-2-dads-sign-after-uproar

Here's Why This Catholic Church Accidentally Supported Gay Rights For A Minute

A Catholic priest was ordered to remove a “Jesus had 2 dads” sign amid outrage from some Catholic communities that the sign showed support of same-sex parents. The sign was put up last week and remained until the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo ordered them to be removed.

SS. Columba-Brigid Roman Catholic Church in Buffalo, NY, changed its church’s sign last week to read: “Jesus had 2 dads and he turned out just fine.” But Rev. Roy Herberger, a priest at the church who wrote the sign, said it was intended to express support for children with stepparents — not for same-sex parents.

“I only had one purpose,” the priest told Yahoo Parenting. “After 48 years in the church, I see so many kids with stepparents, or even in single-family homes or being raised by grandparents, who feel that they’re not as good as other kids who have nuclear mother and father family.” He added, “I wanted to provide support and understanding for kids in that situation.”

While studies have shown an emergence of younger Catholics supporting the acceptance of gays and lesbians — as high as 85 percent, according to a Pew Research Center study in July, the Catholic Church opposes and prohibits same-sex marriage within the institution.  

The Catholic Family News interpreted the sign as expressing support for same-sex parents raising a child together. John Vennari, an editor of the site, uploaded a photo of the sign Tuesday shortly after it appeared at the church, calling it a “pro-homosexual sign” that mocks “the most sacred components” of the Catholic faith. He wrote a letter denouncing the sign in The Catholic Family News. 

“It expresses the idea of a family that’s not consistent with what the church was taught for 2,000 years,” Vennari later told WKBW, a local affiliate of ABC news in Buffalo. 

Once news spread of the sign, Bishop Richard J. Malone of the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo, immediately called for Rev. Herberger to take it down. A spokesperson from the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo told The Huffington Post, the sign was removed last Monday

“As soon as I learned of this sign, I took immediate action to have it removed,” Malone said in a statement released to The Buffalo News. “There are several children in his parish who have both a father and stepfather … however, given the potential for the meaning of this message to be misunderstood and even perceived in a heretical way, it was immediately removed.” 

Although Herberger told Yahoo he had “no trouble” taking the sign down, the church’s online guestbook that invites users to post comments, shows varying opinions about its message. 

One commenter Lorraine, referred to the sign as “an abomination before God and a real true hate crime to encourage sin” while another commenter, Jim, found the sign to present a positive message, “one of love and support.”

While the comments ranged from an expression of gratitude to utter disappointment, an updated statement from the Catholic Family News declared that Herberger should have been “aware” of the sign’s implications in the first place. 

A representative from SS. Columba-Brigid Roman Catholic Church told The Huffington Post that the church will not provide any further comments regarding the sign. 

H/T: PinkNews

— 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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Charlie Sheen reportedly set to publicly confirm he is HIV positive

Actor Charlie Sheen is scheduled to go public with news that he is HIV positive, according to several news reports on Monday (16 November).

The Golden Globe Award winning actor, best known for the sitcom Two and a Half Men and the films Wall Street and Platoon, is expected to discuss his status on NBC’s The Today Show on Tuesday (17 November).

The Today Show is teasing the interview on Twitter as a ‘revealing live’ chat but does not confirm the HIV diagnosis.

Sheen, 50, was reportedly threatened with lawsuits by some former sexual partners which has led to his going public, according to TMZ.

Well-known publicist and crisis manager Howard Bragman tells People.com he was approached by Sheen’s people six months ago to deal with the crisis but he did not end up working with the actor.

‘The interview could open up a lot of sympathy for him, but he has to be concerned about a fear of litigation from former sexual partners. You don’t take that lightly,’ Bragman said.

Bragman has been told that Sheen is getting treatment and that people in his life are aware of his status.

‘It’s been going on for quite awhile,’ Bragman said. ‘He’s not necessarily comfortable talking about it. It was very hard to get up the courage for him to talk about it.’

Sheen is the son of actor Martin Sheen and brother of actor-director Emilio Estevez. He came to fame with roles in such films as Young Guns, Major League and Eight Men Out.

He turned to television in 2000 by replacing Micheal J. Fox in the ABC sitcom Spin City. He then went on to star for eight seasons on the CBS comedy Two and a Half Men before being fired after a public feud with the show’s producer.

More recently, Sheen starred in the FX comedy Anger Management which ran for 100 episodes.

Other famous Americans currently living with HIV include retired NBA star Magic Johnson, Olympic diving legend Greg Louganis, playwright and author Larry Kramer, retired figure skater Rudy Galindo and Who’s the Boss star Danny Pintauro.

The post Charlie Sheen reportedly set to publicly confirm he is HIV positive appeared first on Gay Star News.

Greg Hernandez

www.gaystarnews.com/article/charlie-sheen-reportedly-set-to-publicly-confirm-he-is-hiv-positive/

HRC Honors Netflix Star Tituss Burgess with HRC Visibility Award

On Saturday, HRC honored Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star Tituss Burgess with the HRC Visibility Award at the 2015 St. Louis Gala.
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/hrc-honors-netflix-star-tituss-burgess-with-hrc-visibility-award?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Utah Judge Who Removed Foster Child from Gay Moms Recuses Himself

A juvenile court judge in Utah who ordered a foster child be removed from the care of two gay foster moms has recused himself from the case.

BREAKING NEWS: Juvenile court judge removes himself from foster care case involving same-sex couple. @fox13now #utpol #LGBT

— Ben Winslow (@BenWinslow) November 16, 2015

Judge Scott N. Johansen had argued that the foster child being cared for by gay moms April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce (right) would be better off in a foster home with heterosexual parents. Johansen claimed his argument was backed up by “research”, though he never cited any specific source.

After mounting pressure from civil rights groups and an investigation by the state, Johansen temporarily reversed his previous decision.

Johansen’s move today to remove himself comes in response to a request from Hoagland and Peirce. A court document obtained by reporter Ben Winslow reads, “Foster parents in this case have moved the Court for an orderto disqualify the Judge…the Court hereby disqualifies himself from this case and refers all pending matters to be assigned by the Presiding Judge.”

Lesbian foster parents asked judge to disqualify himself from case. He did. Read the order. @fox13now #utpol #LGBT pic.twitter.com/BFenIPnmxJ

— Ben Winslow (@BenWinslow) November 16, 2015

RELATED: Utah Governor: Judge Who Removed Child from Gay Foster Parents Should ‘Follow the Law’ – VIDEO

While Johansen may be out of the picture, another juvenile court judge will now have to step in to decide the fate of this case.

Meanwhile, liberal think tank Alliance For a Better Utah has launched an online petition to see Johansen removed from the bench.

The post Utah Judge Who Removed Foster Child from Gay Moms Recuses Himself appeared first on Towleroad.

Sean Mandell

Utah Judge Who Removed Foster Child from Gay Moms Recuses Himself