Disabled Tory MP Calls Toby Young ‘Dark And Dangerous’ In Plea To Ministers To Act
A Tory MP begged ministers to rethink the appointment of Toby Young, citing the education advisor’s “dark and very dangerous” views on disabilities and working class people.

Young was named as a board member of the Office for Students, but there has been widespread public outcry at the move by ministers.

Robert Halfon, the influential chair of the Education Select Committee, joined a chorus of voices, including that of his Conservative colleague Dr Sarah Wollaston, calling for the Government to sack him on Monday.

Countless deeply offensive remarks have made by Young and a petition against the appointment has more than 200,000 signatures.

It points out the free schools champion once referred to children with learning difficulties as “illiterate troglodytes” and complained about “ghastly” political correctness which meant schools being forced to have wheelchair ramps.

Young also once referred to state school undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge as “stains”.

Halfon, who has cerebral palsy and osteoarthritis, told Universities Minister Jo Johnson, who was answering an Urgent Question in the House of Commons from Labour on the issue, “things have gone badly wrong”.

He set aside numerous sexist tweets Young had posted and hastily deleted, but picked out an an article on eugenics from 2015.

In it, Young proposed that poorer people should be helped to choose which embryos were allowed to develop, based on intelligence.

Halfon said: “And I’m not talking about the things he has done on Twitter. What I’m more concerned about is some quite dark articles, when he talks about the disabled, when he talks about the working classes are much more significant, in 2015.

“And I have the article here on what he calls ‘progressive eugenics’. I find this incredibly dark and very dangerous stuff.

“I suggest to my Hon Friend that he looks again at this appointment because i don’t think it will put confidence in students.”

A particularly offensive post saw Young ‘joke’ about masturbating over photographs of refugees during Comic Relief.

Wollaston later said Young’s comments “do cross a line” and were “indicative of an underlying character”.

“I do feel that he should withdraw or at last as we all do when we apply for jobs we say whether or not there is anything in our past that could cause embarrassment – if that question was asked and he answered ‘no’ then there is a case for the board revisiting and asking him to step down,” she said.

Dawn Butler, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Equalities, condemned the appointment and comments by Johnson’s brother, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, saying Young was the “ideal man for the job”.

She said: “Is it just simply a case of the jobs for boys?

“Boris Johnson, the minister’s brother, has declared that he has caustic wit, which makes him the ideal man for the job,” he said. “If boasting of masturbating over pictures of dying and starving children is caustic wit, then I have most definitely lost my sense of humour.”

The Universities Minister defended the appointment, claiming Young would provide scrutiny from outside the sector as well as praising his work on free schools.

Johnson also called Young “an eloquent advocate of free speech”.

The minister said: “It is of course right that Mr Young has apologised unreservedly to the Office for Students’ board.

“It is also right that he has said he regrets the comments and has given an undertaking that the kind of remarks made in the past will not be repeated.

“Be in no doubt, if he or any board member were to make these kind of inappropriate comments in the future, they would be dismissed.”

Johnson also attempted to defend Young’s views on disabled people, telling Halfon: “He has been a champion of students, of children with disabilities

“He has a brother with learning disabilities and he is patron of the residential care home, in which his brother, who has learning difficulties lived.”

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/toby-young-robert-halfon_uk_5a539edbe4b003133ecac98b

CEO Joel Simkhai officially out at Grindr… Will the sexual racism he promotes go with him?
Simkhai has repeatedly given sexual racism a pass and still thinks writing sh*t like “No Blacks” or “No Asians” on your dating profile isn’t racist.

www.queerty.com/ceo-joel-simkhai-officially-grindr-will-sexual-racism-promotes-go-20180108?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Alan Cumming to Be First Openly Gay Lead Character in a Network Drama, in CBS Crime Drama ‘Instinct’

Alan Cumming is set to star in the procedural crime drama Instinct as an openly gay former CIA operative and will be making network TV history in that role.

Cumming and the show’s producers are praising CBS for taking that chance, Deadline reports:

Instinct executive producer Michael Rauch had kicked off the show’s TCA Q&A, also giving CBS a lot of credit for putting on the air the country’s first hour-long series with a gay lead character. The series and the character are based on James Patterson’s upcoming book. Cumming plays Dylan, a former CIA operative who has since built a different life as a gifted professor and writer, but gets pulled back into his old life when the NYPD needs his help to stop a serial killer.

Said Cumming at the TCA presser: “I applaud everyone at CBS for having the courage to put that on, in the climate that might not be the best time to do it…the President is actively condoning, by his silence, violence and persecution against the LGBT community….I think it’s the perfect time and needs to be done…[It’s] all that more important we should have a character with a healthy same-sex marriage.”

The show premieres on March 11.

More at Deadline….

Watch a trailer for Instinct:

The post Alan Cumming to Be First Openly Gay Lead Character in a Network Drama, in CBS Crime Drama ‘Instinct’ appeared first on Towleroad.

Alan Cumming to Be First Openly Gay Lead Character in a Network Drama, in CBS Crime Drama ‘Instinct’

Union und SPD wollen Deutschlands Klimaziel für 2020 kippen

Die Unterhändler von CDU, CSU und SPD wollen das deutsche Klimaschutzziel einer Reduzierung des Kohlendioxid-Ausstoßes um 40 Prozent bis 2020 offiziell aufgeben. 

Das ist passiert: 

► Union und SPD wollen die ohnehin nicht mehr erreichbaren Klimaziele für 2020 kippen, wenn sie erneut in einer Großen Koalition regieren.

► Mit einem Maßnahmenpaket soll stattdessen erreicht werden, dass die Lücke zu diesem Ziel so weit wie möglich geschlossen werden kann. 

► So solle eine Kommission einen Aktionsplan zum schrittweisen Ausstieg aus der Kohleverstromung erarbeiten, berichtete das Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland.

Darum ist es wichtig:

Auf eine solche Kommission hatte sich die jetzt noch geschäftsführende große Koalition bereits nach langem Hin und Her im November 2016 geeinigt, als Teil des Klimaschutzplans 2050.

Offiziell hält Deutschland bis heute am Vorhaben fest, seinen Kohlendioxid-Ausstoß bis 2020 um 40 Prozent im Vergleich zum Jahr 1990 reduzieren zu wollen – auch wenn schon seit längerem absehbar ist, dass die Zielmarke kaum noch erreichbar ist. 

Insbesondere CDU und SPD tun sich schwer, die Kohleverstromung zugunsten des Klimaschutzes massiv zurückzufahren. Sie befürchten in dem Fall hohe Arbeitsplatzverluste an ihren Kohlestandorten in West- und Ostdeutschland. 

➨ Mehr zum Thema: Rabenschwarze Bilanz: Wie Angela Merkel beim Klimaschutz versagt hat

Was ihr noch wissen müsst: 

Aus der Opposition kommt Kritik am Plan der Sondierer:

“Das 40-Prozent-Klimaziel für 2020 wird zum ersten Opfer der neuen und alten GroKo”, erklärte Grünen-Fraktionschefin Katrin Göring-Eckardt auf Twitter. Die Entscheidung finde sie “unfassbar verantwortungslos”.

www.huffingtonpost.de/entry/union-und-spd-kippen-deutschlands-klimaziel-fur-2020_de_5a539c3ce4b01e1a4b1805d8

Oprah Winfrey ‘Would Absolutely’ Run For President… She Just Needs A Plan
Oprah Winfrey’s political stock appears to have escalated swiftly after her widely-lauded appearance at last night’s Golden Globe Awards.

The daytime TV host she was forced to deny she was planning to run for President shortly after winning the Cecil B DeMille lifetime achievement award.

Social media lit up after her rousing acceptance speech, which, in keeping with the main theme of the night, praised the #MeToo movement that grew from the allegations levelled against film industry figures like Harvey Weinstein.

“This year, we became the story,” Winfrey said as she accepted the award, the first black women to ever do so.

Now I know why the #GoldenGlobes are on a Sunday, because Oprah just took me to church.#Oprah
During the ceremony, the Los Angeles Times told Winfrey: “The internet is saying Oprah for president in 2020.”

She replied: “I’m just glad I got through the speech!”

When asked if she’d consider a 2020 run, Winfrey told the Times, “Okay!”

I’m ready to slap a sticker that says “A New Day Is On The Horizon, #Oprah 2020″ on my car, laptop, water bottle, and everything i mf own
But don’t get too excited – she also told Bloomberg that “I don’t” have plans to run.
Her longtime partner, Stedman Graham, did nothing to quash any rumours, saying “she would absolutely do it”.
Our country would be better if we had a President who could speak as eloquently and passionately as #Oprah just did.#GoldenGlobes
If that speech doesn’t make you want to change the world, nothing will. #Oprah #oprahforpresident
If Winfrey, 63, did decide to run for President she in some senses would be mirroring Donald Trump’s move from the TV and entertainment world into politics.

There would be some significant differences however – its doubtful she has had many dealings with Russia and her views on white supremacists have always been unequivocal.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/oprah-winfrey-2020-president_uk_5a538b10e4b003133eca8294

Christa Leigh Steele-Knudslien is the First Known Transgender Woman Killed in 2018

HRC mourns the tragic loss of Christa Leigh Steele-Knudslien, 42, in the first known case of deadly violence against the transgender community in 2018. A local news outlet reports that she was found dead in her home on Friday night in North Adams, Massachusetts.

According to reports, Leigh Steele-Knudslien’s husband, Mark, turned himself in Friday night, admitting to killing his wife. He will be arraigned on a murder charge today.

Transgender advocate Monica Roberts on her TransGriot blog writes about Steele-Knudslien’s life, legacy and lasting impact on the community. Steele-Knudslien, Roberts notes, organized and produced the Miss Trans New England and other pageants, and was loved and known by many in both the local and national trans community.

Steele-Knudslien’s death comes after HRC Foundation and the Trans People of Color Coalition released a report documenting the senseless acts of violence that made 2017 the deadliest year on record for transgender people, particularly for trans women of color.

To learn more about HRC’s transgender justice work, visit hrc.org/Transgender.

www.hrc.org/blog/christa-leigh-steele-knudslien-is-the-first-known-transgender-woman-killed?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Supreme Court refuses to hear challenge to Mississippi anti-LGBTQ law

www.glaad.org/blog/supreme-court-refuses-hear-challenge-mississippi-anti-lgbtq-law