Taiwan Celebrates High Court’s Ruling for Marriage Equality

The court’s ruling paves the way for Taiwan to become the first place in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage.

www.advocate.com/world/2017/5/24/taiwan-celebrates-high-courts-ruling-marriage-equality

“Fabulous husky gaysian” Peter Kim plans to spend his Pride dancing to Lady Gaga in a RompHim
Pride season is upon us.

www.queerty.com/fabulous-husky-gaysian-peter-kim-plans-spend-pride-dancing-lady-gaga-romphim-20170524?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

When drag queens say there’s no drama, there’s almost certainly no drama
Which… kinda becomes it’s own kind of drama.

www.queerty.com/drag-queens-say-theres-no-drama-theres-almost-certainly-no-drama-20170524?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Rodrigo Duterte, AIDS, Janet Mock, Donatella Versace, Tom Cruise, Spider-Man: HOT LINKS

ONE MILLION. The number of people who will die in sub-Saharan Africa under Trump budget cuts, according to experts: “The United States currently spends more than $6 billion annually on programs that buy antiretroviral drugs for about 11.5 million people worldwide who are infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. The Trump administration has proposed slashing those programs by at least $1.1 billion — nearly a fifth of their current funding, said Jen Kates, a vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation.”

DICTATOR TO DICTATOR. Trump phoned Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, complimented him on murdering thousands of drug dealers.

TEXAS. Senate to reject “compromise” bathroom bill: “Sen. Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, confirmed to The Dallas Morning News late Tuesday he wouldn’t accept changes made to his Senate Bill 2078, asking the House to appoint the conference committee. Then just before 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday, the Senate tacked their original bathroom bill onto a catch-all piece of legislation meant as a clean up bill for local county governance.

$42.5 MILLION. The six month price tag for protecting Trump and family in New York City.

GOOD QUESTION. Could Trump issue himself a pardon?

AWKWARD MESS. Ellen has no idea what to make of Jessica Simpson, and neither does anyone else.

FBI DIRECTOR. Joe Lieberman no longer the front-runner: :Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been interviewing candidates for the job, including acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, former congressman and FBI special agent Mike Rogers, and Fran Townsend, former Homeland Security adviser to President George W. Bush.:

SURVIVOR’S JEFF VARNER. Outing Zeke Smith and the shame that followed.

MANCHESTER. Bombing suspect had ties to al Qaeda, and trained for terrorism abroad: “The U.S. intelligence official, who has direct knowledge of the investigation, said Abedi, whose family is of Libyan descent, was identified by a bank card found in his pocket at the scene of the explosion after an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena. The identification was confirmed by facial recognition technology, the official said. Abedi had traveled to Libya within the last 12 months, one of multiple countries he had visited, the official said. And while he had “clear ties to al Qaeda,” the official said, Abedi could have also had connections to other groups.”

INSTAGRAM UPDATE. Adam Lambert, Brock O’Hurn, Liam Payne, Trey Songz, Wilson Cruz, and more.

JANET MOCK. The trans activist and author says she learned some of her journalism skills working as a stripper: “Everyone talks about the tricks that we were doing, which was great and glamorous and looked like a Nelly video. But for clients, it was more about the quiet stuff: sitting and letting someone rub your thigh, and you nodding and listening. As a journalist, I did learn a lot there, but I also think it’s just the emotional capacity to be open and vulnerable in that sense, and letting the other person lead you to a different place you didn’t even know you wanted to go.”

SURFING SAFARI. Liam Hemsworth shirtless in Malibu.

FIRST LOOK. Penelope Cruz as Donatella Versace in Versace: American Crime Story from Ryan Murphy.

TOM CRUISE. Yes, there will be a Top Gun sequel.

WORLDWIDE EXCLUSIVE: @TomCruise just confirmed that Top Gun 2 is happening! “I’m gonna start filming it probably in the next year”. #sun7 pic.twitter.com/X17xvxz4Q4

— Sunrise (@sunriseon7) May 23, 2017

TEASER OF THE DAY. In a Heartbeat. “A closeted boy runs the risk of being outed by his own heart after it pops out of his chest to chase down the boy of his dreams.” The animated film will be available for free this summer.

TRAILER OF THE DAY. Spider-Man: Homecoming.

MMM PAPI. One man’s dance interpretation.

HUMP DAY HOTTIE. Devin Truss.

The post Rodrigo Duterte, AIDS, Janet Mock, Donatella Versace, Tom Cruise, Spider-Man: HOT LINKS appeared first on Towleroad.

Rodrigo Duterte, AIDS, Janet Mock, Donatella Versace, Tom Cruise, Spider-Man: HOT LINKS

Here’s what Penelope Cruz looks like as Donatella Versace in “The Assassination of Gianni Versace”
She definitely has excellent taste in Speedo-clad cheesecake.

www.queerty.com/heres-penelope-cruz-looks-like-donatella-versace-assassination-gianni-versace-20170524?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Morrissey Attacks UK Prime Minister, London Mayor, and Queen Elizabeth After Manchester Bombing

Former Smiths frontman Morrissey blasted UK Prime Minister Theresa May, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, and (his more frequent target) Queen Elizabeth in a xenophobic Facebook post following the Manchester bombing.

Wrote Morrissey:

Celebrating my birthday in Manchester as news of the Manchester Arena bomb broke. The anger is monumental.

For what reason will this ever stop?

Theresa May says such attacks “will not break us”, but her own life is lived in a bullet-proof bubble, and she evidently does not need to identify any young people today in Manchester morgues. Also, “will not break us” means that the tragedy will not break her, or her policies on immigration. The young people of Manchester are already broken – thanks all the same, Theresa. Sadiq Khan says “London is united with Manchester”, but he does not condemn Islamic State – who have claimed responsibility for the bomb. The Queen receives absurd praise for her ‘strong words’ against the attack, yet she does not cancel today’s garden party at Buckingham Palace – for which no criticism is allowed in the Britain of free press. Manchester mayor Andy Burnham says the attack is the work of an “extremist”. An extreme what? An extreme rabbit?

In modern Britain everyone seems petrified to officially say what we all say in private. Politicians tell us they are unafraid, but they are never the victims. How easy to be unafraid when one is protected from the line of fire. The people have no such protections.

Morrissey
23 May 2017.

Alt-right homocon troll Milo Yiannopoulos was one of a crowd which agreed with Morrissey’s post, commenting “Amen.”

Morrissey’s last stint in the headlines took place last October, when he cheered the Brexit vote, calling it “magnificent.”

The post Morrissey Attacks UK Prime Minister, London Mayor, and Queen Elizabeth After Manchester Bombing appeared first on Towleroad.

Morrissey Attacks UK Prime Minister, London Mayor, and Queen Elizabeth After Manchester Bombing

Trump’s Proposed Budget Cuts Critical Programs Impacting LGBTQ People

Yesterday, the Trump administration released its budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 2018. It fell like a ton of bricks on the doorstep of Congress, which now has the job of deciding how much to spend on federal agencies and myriad programs to meet the needs of millions upon millions of Americans. If enacted into law, the president’s proposal would devastate federal safety net programs, eliminate health care for millions of Americans (including those living with HIV), and undercut civil rights protections in the U.S. and human rights protections abroad. Although HRC is hopeful that Congress will reject many of these draconian cuts, this budget unfortunately follows the contours of previous Republican budgets proposed by Congress.

The FY18 budget purports to save $3.6 trillion over ten years, triggering unimaginable cuts to safety net programs. On the chopping block are critical programs that focus on preventing, fighting, and finding cures for diseases, and on programs that provide health services to people living with HIV, low-income women, children, the disabled and elderly.

Health & HIV

Before delivering his detailed budget, the president endorsed the House-passed legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which included $839 billion in cuts to Medicaid. The FY18 budget takes austerity to a new low by requesting another $600 billion in cuts by placing a ceiling on federal Medicaid funding to states.

Alarmingly, the administration is also proposing a $1.2 billion reduction in funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and a $186 million – or  20 percent — cut to the agency’s prevention efforts for HIV, hepatitis, STIs and tuberculosis. While paying lip service to the need to address the HIV epidemic, the administration actually plans to reduce activities around testing, support services for persons living with HIV, and prevention services. They also proposed curtailing Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) prevention projects.

The president’s attack on the nation’s health extends to research as well. He proposed gutting research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by $6 billion, with $838 million taken from the Institute focused on finding a cure for HIV.  The proposal so thoroughly defunds science that former CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden tweeted that the cuts advocated by the administration  “would increase illness, death.”

As expected, the administration’s FY18 submission would block Planned Parenthood from receiving reimbursement for services under the Medicaid program. But this proposal goes even further by barring the organization from participating in any federal health programs. This would dramatically impact access to reproductive health services, as well as HIV testing and counseling to prevent sexual assault.

The president’s proposed parental leave program was something of a novelty, given other social programs faced drastic spending cuts. The administration proposed allowing new parents to take six weeks of paid leave for the birth or adoption of a child. However 75 percent of workers who take family leave each year do so for family caregiving or medical reasons unrelated to childbirth or adoption.

Severely undermining enforcement of employment protections, the budget contains a plan to eliminate the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) and place responsibility for federal contract oversight with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) — ignoring the significant differences in expertise and mission. The EEOC would not be given any additional funding to address its own backlog of complaints let alone subsume the responsibilities of OFCCP. The OFCCP is responsible for enforcement of LGBTQ non-discrimination protections for employees of federal contractors.

International

On the international front, the budget threatens to end U.S. leadership on human rights and health and humanitarian assistance abroad, which will have an enormous impact on LGBTQ people who face threats and violence around the world. With almost 30 percent of the overall funding slashed at the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development, Trump’s budget would severely harm our ability to help refugees, people living with HIV & AIDS, and those fighting for human rights.

Migration and refugee assistance programs would see a jaw-dropping 83 percent cut for this year, when more refugees need our help than at any time since World War II. This would directly harm LGBTQ people who are trying to flee state-sanctioned violence in places including Chechnya, Uganda and Bangladesh.

The proposal would also eliminate the Development Assistance account, which funds democracy and human rights programs around the world and helps LGBTQ organizations to build their capacity and change hearts and minds in their communities. The budget cynically claims to fold this crucial funding tool into the Economic Support and Development Fund, but cuts that fund and decimates it even further in coming years.

Voluntary  contributions by the U.S. to the United Nations, which vaccinates nearly half the world’s children and provides food to 80 million hungry people across the globe, would be completely eliminated. Funding for peacekeeping has been slashed by 37 percent, which could lead to deadly destabilization in already vulnerable parts of the world, places where LGBTQ people are especially at risk.

Even Global Health — the programs that provide vaccinations, treatments and education to nursing moms, children and people fighting diseases — faces a steep cut of nearly a quarter. Family planning programs are eliminated entirely. This will put life-saving medications and treatments out of reach for some of our world’s most defenseless people, especially those living with HIV.

Perhaps even more ominous, the budget lays out Trump’s projections for future funding, including even steeper cuts to international affairs in 2019 — slashing more than half of our nation’s diplomacy and development budget, compared the this year’s spending. Refugee programs in particular would drop from a current spending level of $3.4 billion to less than $720 million in just two years.

Rather than address the needs of the American people, the administration’s proposal turns a blind-eye. Cuts to these critical programs would have a devastating impact on LGBTQ people in the U.S. and around the world. HRC will work to defeat this proposal and fight to preserve these essential programs.  

www.hrc.org/blog/trumps-proposed-budget-cuts-critical-programs-impacting-lgbtq-people?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed