Joe Biden, Britney Spears, U.S. Navy, Sarah McBride, Tim Kaine, Ning Zetao: HOT LINKS

BFFs. Vice President Biden wishes President Obama a happy birthday in the cutest way possible.

Happy 55th, Barack! A brother to me, a best friend forever. pic.twitter.com/uNsxouTKOO

— Vice President Biden (@VP) August 4, 2016

GEOPOLITICS. Russia and the U.S. are fighting a proxy war over who will be the next Secretary General of the United Nations: “Washington, which is believed to want a woman in the U.N. role, has been backing Argentina’s foreign minister in the secretive selection process, U.N. sources say. Meanwhile, U.N. sources say Russia is angling for a female Bulgarian diplomat with family ties to the Soviet Union, a nod to its desire to see an Eastern European in the job.”

NORTH CAROLINA. Schools in Charlotte have put transgender bathroom rights on hold following Supreme Court’s stay in Gavin Grimm case: “The announcement coincides with a letter-writing campaign launched by the N.C. Values Coalition, which is urging parents to bombard CMS with letters saying the regulations that were announced in June would jeopardize students’ ‘privacy, safety and dignity.’”

HOLLYWOOD PROBLEMS. Olivia Munn is reportedly tearing QB Aaron Rodgers’ family apart.

FLAWLESS. Sarah Jessica Parker may not want to call herself a feminist but Barack Obama is more than happy to own the label. 

GODNEY. Britney Spears teases new “Make Me” music video on Instagram stories.

GAY LA. Fortune Feimster, Jimmy Fowlie, and Chris Eckert perform next Tuesday August 9 in The Gale at Los Angeles’ The Groundlings, serving up a ferociously queer night of Improv. 

SAN DIEGO. Historic AIDS hospice to be preserved. 

IN THE NAVY. No more blue camouflage or “blueberries” for sailors (which they say is a good thing): “They failed to reduce the number of uniforms sailors must maintain. Their threads put sailors at risk for worsening burn injuries by melting. And sailors said they were uncomfortable and that the only camouflage they offered was when someone fell overboard.”

READ TO FILTH. Transgender activist, HRC staff member and DNC speaker Sarah McBride rips Clint Eastwood for defending Trump’s racism. 

Clint Eastwood was born in 1930. Let’s start a list of things that weren’t considered racist when he was growing up. pic.twitter.com/xuySp45dZv

— Sarah McBride (@SarahEMcBride) August 4, 2016

MUSIC. Kristin Chenoweth announces new album, The Art of Elegance.

PROUD AND POSITIVE. plus names author Kevin Sessums as #1 most amazing HIV+ person of 2016: “Sessums is a rarity: an HIV-positive journalist who has also written two New York Times bestselling memoirs: Mississippi Sissy and, more recently, I Left It on the Mountain.”

VP VERSUS VP. Tim Kaine goes after Mike Pence for his record on LGBT rights while campaigning in North Carolina: “The vice presidential nominee on the Republican side, Mike Pence, did something like the North Carolina bill,” Kaine added. “Found that immediately, discriminating against LGBT people immediately companies started to pull out. You’re seeing those announcements in North Carolina too, whether it’s the All-Star game or PayPal. Same thing happened in Indiana and he had to kind of do a U-turn.”

PREP. Hillary Clinton releases plan to fight for an AIDS-free generation, endorses expansion of PrEP.

THURSDAY THIRST. Chinese Olympic swimmer Ning Zetao. 

The post Joe Biden, Britney Spears, U.S. Navy, Sarah McBride, Tim Kaine, Ning Zetao: HOT LINKS appeared first on Towleroad.

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Get Ready for Rio with This Full-Length Documentary on Tom Daley – WATCH

A new documentary on Tom Daley takes a deep dive into his quest for Olympic gold, his experience coming out as a high-profile athlete, and his relationship with Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black.

Produced by ITV, Tom Daley: Diving for Gold describes itself as “An intimate portrait of one of Britain’s best-loved sporting heroes” that “follows Tom Daley’s four-year journey from London 2012 until now.”

Daley announced that he would be taking part in the documentary last month, though it has been filming for quite some time.

With the Rio Olympics already underway, and the opening ceremonies set to kick off tomorrow, get in the Olympic spirit with this full-length documentary on one of the most famous out athletes in the world.

Watch, below.

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HRC Strongly Condemns Ugandan Police Raid of LGBTQ Pride Event

Today, HRC strongly condemned the police raid of a peaceful LGBTQ pride event in Kampala, the country’s capital. While events continue to unfold, police arrested several participants, including activists Frank Mugisha and Pepe Onziema of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG).

“The violent raid and arrest of LGBTQ leaders attending a Uganda Pride event is an affront to the universal freedom to peaceably assemble and to the basic dignity of LGBTQ Ugandans,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “Ugandan authorities must stop targeting and persecuting LGBTQ people. The victims of the raid deserve an apology from their government and police force. The world is watching.”

The raid was carried out shortly after a Ugandan tribute to the 49 victims of the deadly shooting in Orlando. The event marked the second evening of Uganda Pride 2016. HRC and other partners sponsored Uganda Pride’s opening reception the previous night. HRC is monitoring the situation closely and working with partners in Uganda to help in any way that we can.

“The reaction to the raid highlighted the ever-growing global movement for LGBTQ equality,” said Ty Cobb, Director, HRC Global. “Within minutes after the raid began, activists from around the world joined forces to condemn the incident and call for the release of those who were in custody. We are stronger together.”

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, in office since 1986, signed the country’s infamous Anti-Homosexuality Bill in February 2014. Though the Constitutional Court subsequently invalidated it in August the same year, the law created a violent backlash against the LGBTQ Ugandan community that persists today. President Museveni won re-election in February with 62 percent of the vote, however international electoral observers asserted that the election “fell short of key democratic benchmarks,” noting the arrest of opposition party members and the government’s shutdown of social media sites.

Another recent law affecting the LGBTQ community and activists is the Non-Governmental Organizations Act. Passed in November 2015, it requires all non-government organizations to apply for a permit in order to operate and gives authorities the ability to jail leaders of organizations if their message is “against public interests.” The measure threatens to stop the work of organizations including SMUG, as well as the work of other international NGOs operating in Uganda. Under President Museveni’s authoritarian rule, the situation remains grim for LGBTQ groups and activists and they are unable to advocate peacefully.

Read more about LGBTQ rights in Uganda here.

www.hrc.org/blog/hrc-strongly-condemns-ugandan-police-raid-of-lgbtq-pride-event?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Ugandan Pride event raided, LGBT leaders arrested

www.glaad.org/blog/ugandan-pride-event-raided-lgbt-leaders-arrested

HB 2 Takes Center Stage at Tim Kaine's North Carolina Rally

The energetic rally was punctuated by chants of “vote, vote, vote!”

www.advocate.com/election/2016/8/04/hb-2-takes-center-stage-tim-kaines-north-carolina-rally

Coming Soon: A Classy London Café That Serves Men Coffee… With Benefits

“Would you like a side of oral copulation with your coffee?”

That’s what patrons who enter Bradley Charvet’s “fellatio café” in London will soon be greeted with when they stop in for their daily cup of joe.

Related: Barilla Launches New Restaurant In NYC And The Reviews Aren’t Good

According to the Evening Standard, the small business owner is teaming up with the app BumPix to launch a coffee shop where escorts-turned-baristas administer oral sex on male customers as they sip their morning espressos.

Classy!

Now, we know what you’re thinking: Wouldn’t that be considered prostitution? And isn’t that illegal? The answer: Yes and no.

Running a brothel is against the law in the U.K., but Charvet and BumPix believe they’ve found a loophole in the law.

“We are happy this will be a legal business in the UK, which is nice because it will be organized and controlled,” he said. “We need to fix some details to avoid trouble. It’s on the way. The project is in progress. At the moment, our lawyer is doing the job to get the right stuff done.”

Related: Can This ‘Golden Girls’-Themed Cafe Lure Fans To Washington Heights?

A cup of coffee would start at £50 (that’s $65 U.S.).

“If the fellatio is long, over 15 minutes, extras are going to be added,” Charvet explained. “£10 per 15 minutes.”

The cafe will mostly cater to straight men, but, Charvet says, “we’re thinking about offering gay services as well.”

“We know that the gay community is important,” he tells GayStarNews. “That’s why we’re thinking about offering gay services as well.”

When asked if he felt the coffee shop may cross ethical lines, Charvet said, “I would say no one is forced to work in this coffee shop. It’s a normal job.”

“You do your job,” he added. “Eight hours per day, if they decide to work in full time.”

Eight hours… a day?!

Yeesh.

Related: Coffee Shop Owner Bans Antigay Lawmakers Unless They’re Accompanied By An LGBT Person

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Murder Trial For Gay-For-Pay Actor Gets Underway

Pretty much everything is unpleasant in the story of Daeveion Mangum and Michael Castagne, and the details set to come out at trial will probably be even worse.

Here’s the backstory: Michael was a 60-year-old man who ran an amateur adult site as a side business. (His regular job was managing a wine bar.) His site’s videos tended to involve “medical exams” with other men.

And then, one day, he was found bludgeoned to death and his studio set on fire. According to police, he was killed by Daeveion, a model he’d hired and worked with on a few previous pictures. On this occasion, according to a witness, Michael had pressured the suspect to appear with another man in a scene, but Daeveion refused. The other man left the studio, but when he heard that Michael had been killed, came forward to accuse him.

The trial began this week, and prosecutors say that Daeveion killed Michael by hitting him over the head 32 times (yikes) and then setting him on fire. Gruesome. The defense maintains that he was simply acting in self-defense after Michael tried to sexually assault him.

It’s impossible to know exactly what happened, but as defenses go, it certainly reminds one of the “gay panic” strategy employed by gay bashers everywhere. Though it’s fallen out of favor these days, there was a time when all an assailant had to say was “he came on to me” to have charges dismissed.

That may not be what happened here — it’s possible that self-defense was indeed called for. But it’s hard to imagine why it was also necessary to set Michael’s body on fire after he was killed.

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Megyn Kelly Can’t Even with Donald Trump: ‘Oh Good God’ – WATCH

Megyn Kelly, perhaps much like RNC Chair RNC Preibus, is apoplectic over Donald Trump’s inability to not self-destruct.

Kelly played a video of Trump on the stump on Wednesday in which he reminded voters of all the scandals he has been entangled in since he started running for president. While Trump may be trying to ‘counterpunch’, all he ends up doing is undermining his own campaign.

Kelly said, “What is he doing relitigating every controversy from the primary season?”

Kelly also took a dig at Trump after he claimed he’s a friend to disabled people because he’s spent millions of dollars putting ramps in his buildings. “The fact that Trump has put ramps in his building is required by law, he doesn’t get extra credit for that!” Kelly said.

When Trump supporter David Wohl responded by saying, “They’re very expensive in his buildings, Megyn,” Kelly lost it. “Oh good God,” she said as she put her head down on her news desk.

Of Trump’s inability to stay on message and his love of controversy, Kelly added, “It’s true the mainstream media now hates Trump…but must he help them? Must he help them so generously every single day?”

I mean. We’re fine with it.

via GIPHY

RELATED: Seth Meyers Tells Dems to ‘Stay Out Of It’: ‘Let Trump Dig His Own Grave’ – WATCH

Watch Kelly lose her ability to even, below.

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Catholic Archdiocese Loses Motion to Dismiss Fired Gay Employee’s Discrimination Lawsuit – VIDEO

An Illinois man who was fired from his position as an employee of the Catholic Church because he is gay has been given the go ahead to sue after a federal judge rejected the Chicago Archdiocese’s motion to dismiss.

Colin Collette (above), the former music director at the Holy Family Catholic Community church in Inverness, Illinois for the last 17 years, was fired by pastor Terry Keehan in 2014 after Collette posted photos of his proposal to his long-time same-sex partner Will Nifong (right, with Collette).

At the time, Keehan told Collette that his relationship violated the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church.

In August 2014, hundreds of people attended a meeting at which most attendees voiced support for Collette. A church cantor announced his resignation because of the dismissal.

Colin Collette is fighting the #CatholicChurch for #Justice #LoveWins #FundedJustice t.co/l7MgXnskpn pic.twitter.com/eDr91nojjX

— Funded Justice (@FundedJustice) July 10, 2016

According to The Chicago Tribune, Collette’s lawsuit asserts that his firing amounted to “intentional” discrimination and is seeking reinstatement of his job, lost wages and damages.

In its motion to dismiss, the archdiocese cited the “ministerial exception,” which restricts employment discrimination claims by church ministers. However, Judge Charles Kocoras ruled that further legal arguments would be needed to determine whether the ministerial exception applies.

Watch a 2014 statement made by Collette below.

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