15 LGBT, Ally Celebs on How to Prevent Another 'Orlando'
www.advocate.com/youth/2016/6/16/15-lgbt-ally-celebs-how-prevent-another-orlando
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Grieving Woman IDs Our Murderers: We Must 'Disarm Hate' (Video)
Grieving Woman IDs Our Murderers: We Must 'Disarm Hate' (Video)
Nearly one year after the horrific mass shooting at a South Carolina church that took her mother, two cousins and six others, Rev. Sharon Risher joined gun control advocates on Capitol Hill.
www.advocate.com/crime/2016/6/16/grieving-woman-ids-our-murderers-we-must-disarm-hate-video
Who Is Distributing Pro-Gay, Pro-Gun Posters Throughout West Hollywood?
Who Is Distributing Pro-Gay, Pro-Gun Posters Throughout West Hollywood?
A mysterious poster campaign began making its way through West Hollywood on Wednesday morning; posters featuring a queered-up version of the Gadsden Flag, complete with a rattlesnake chillaxin’ on top of the Pride rainbow.
Featuring the hashtag #ShootBack, the poster is not-so subtly advocating for a harsher, more aggressive stance on gay self-defense.
Related: The Gays Who Love Guns
As The Daily Wire reports, the posters have been seen all over the neighborhood, prominently displayed on storefronts for Pacific Design Center, The Abbey, and, improbably, West Hollywood City Hall.
Artist Chad Michael Morrisette even arranged 50 mannequins on his rooftop to highlight the artwork; an oblique tribute to the Pulse victims.
Related: How To Stop Gay Bashing? Pink Pistols Has 1 Suggestion
The poster campaign is clearly a call to (and for) arms; a provocative plea for gays to abandon any notion of pacifism, and embrace the Second Amendment rather than hope for its amendment.
Here are some photographs from The Daily Wire‘s pictorial essay:
BREAKING: Sources Claim Orlando Shooter Texted Wife During Attack
BREAKING: Sources Claim Orlando Shooter Texted Wife During Attack
CNN reports that Orlando shooter Omar Mateen and his wife Noor Salman exchanged text messages back and forth while he was in the act of massacring attendees at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub.
According to law officials, he texted Salman while holed up in a club bathroom around 4am, roughly two hours after the attack started.
In the text, he reportedly asked her if she’d seen the news.
Salman allegedly responded with a text that said she loved him, and also tried to call Mateen a handful of times during his standoff with police.
She called him after reports of the attack were popping up, apparently realizing then that it might be her husband behind the carnage.
According to officials, he didn’t answer. We’ll update as more details emerge.
Ugandan High School Reportedly Suspends 20 Students on Suspicion of Being Gay
Ugandan High School Reportedly Suspends 20 Students on Suspicion of Being Gay
When it comes to LGBT rights, you can’t do much worse than Uganda. Same-sex relationships are illegal for both men and women in the country, and the crime can carry lengthy prison sentences.
An infamous anti-LGBT bill, known in the West as the Kill the Gays bill, was introduced in 2009, advertised as a “Christmas Gift” to its advocates by Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga in 2012, and signed into law in 2014 by President Yoweri Museveni.
Thankfully it was annulled on a technicality in 2015, but just its introduction, even if the bill ultimately didn’t become law, had a lasting effect: a report released last April showed an increase in violent acts against LGBT Ugandans.
Homophobia is very much part of the culture in the country.
Wednesday The Kuchu Times reported that three students from Mbarara High School in western Uganda were beaten by a gang of fellow students after they were caught looking at pictures of gay dating sites on their phones. A day later, 20 students were indefinitely suspended:
It is reported that around 2am on the morning of Sunday 12, 2016, three students in their senior three were caught viewing pictures on gay dating sites on their smart phones. Before they knew what was happening, they were surrounded by a gang of their fellow students who started shouting, “homosexuals, homosexuals!” The noise alarmed the rest of the student’s community who gathered and started beating the three.
The victims were battered severely and forced to divulge names of other students involved in homosexuality. In fear of being tortured further, they named a number of students; one of whom was the Head boy.
The Police intervened and rescued the victims from the lynching mob before escorting them to their homes. Reports further indicate that as of Tuesday afternoon, management had a list of over 20 students who were being accused of engaging in same sex relationships and had resolved to suspend them indefinitely.
Three students were also injured in the fiasco and rushed to hospital.
(An earlier tweet by Ugandan LGBT activist Dr. Frank Mugisha said that seven students had been suspended.)
Uganda:7 students have been suspended from Mbarara high school & 1 in hospital after severe attacks on over 20 students suspected to be gay
— Dr. Frank Mugisha (@frankmugisha) June 14, 2016
Last year, a similar incident happened at another school in Mbarara. Students at Ntatre School went on a rampage after the school’s administration failed to punish students who engaged in homosexuality. Anti-riot police had to be deployed to calm down the worsening situation caused by the students who attempted to lynch to death their colleagues accusing them of practicing homosexuality.
This week, as Ugandans mourn the victims of the Orlando mass shooting, Nicholas Opiyo, the lawyer who challenged Uganda’s anti-gay law, told Voice of America that “while most Ugandans are horrified by the Orlando, Florida massacre, anti-gay government officials are using such violence to justify the ill-treatment of gays in Uganda.”
Photo credit: Mbarara High School/Facebook
The post Ugandan High School Reportedly Suspends 20 Students on Suspicion of Being Gay appeared first on Towleroad.
President Obama Speaks After Meeting Orlando Survivors, Victims’ Families – WATCH LIVE
President Obama Speaks After Meeting Orlando Survivors, Victims’ Families – WATCH LIVE
President Obama on Thursday travelled to Orlando, Florida on Thursday to meet with survivors and families of victims of Sunday’s massacre at gay nightclub Pulse.
Obama, along with Vice President Joe Biden, were greeted by Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, who presented the president with a T-shirt featuring a rainbow heart and the hashtag #OrlandoUnited.
The White House said the afternoon visit will be private with the families, and Obama will “stand in solidarity with the Orlando community.”
.@orlandomayor presents .@POTUS with a T-shirt moments after he landed in #Orlando: t.co/5eQYQvLSiI pic.twitter.com/4t0plPyNcO
— WESH 2 News (@WESH) June 16, 2016
Obama is set to make an address before traveling back to Washington, DC.
Watch the president speak live, below.
You can also watch video of President Obama arriving in Orlando earlier, below.
The post President Obama Speaks After Meeting Orlando Survivors, Victims’ Families – WATCH LIVE appeared first on Towleroad.
Goddess Diamond is the 14th transgender person killed this year
Goddess Diamond is the 14th transgender person killed this year
Rest in power, Goddess Diamond. Her chosen first name is not yet known, so the Advocate.com reports that Venus Selenite, a black trans feminine artist, coined the name Goddess for Diamond so that Goddess would not be referred to by her birth name in stories about her death.
On June 5, Goddess Diamond was found dead by “blunt force trauma” in a burning car in New Orleans. Her death was not reported until four days after she was found. She was just 20 years old, and worked at Wal-Mart.
George Melichar, a friend and co-worker, described Goddess as “very loved and…very kind” in a statement to the The New Orleans Advocate. As so often happens when a trans person is killed, this story in the New Orleans paper misgenders Goddess and uses her birth name, even though Melichar confirms that she identified as a woman and was in the process of transitioning.
The trans community experiences this invalidation of her identity as adding insult to injury, and contributing to an unacceptable and dangerous erasure of her authentically lived life. GLAAD has a resource for journalists called “Doubly Victimized” which details best practices for fairly and accurately reporting on trans people who’ve been victims of crime. We hope other friends who knew Goddess will come forward and share her chosen name with local media.
Goddess becomes the 14th known trans person killed in the United States since January 1, 2016. That’s 14 violent deaths in 24 weeks. This follows 2015, the deadliest year in recorded history, in which 21 transgender people were murdered. These statistics do not include transgender people who were violently attacked, but did not die.
In the wake of the mass shooting in Orlando that targeted an LGBT nightclub where 49 people were killed and 53 injured, the murder of Goddess Diamond reminds us yet again of the ongoing slow motion mass murder of transgender people, particularly trans women of color. Sadly, fear of violence is a daily reality for transgender people – especially transgender women.
We see you, Goddess. We say your name.
June 16, 2016
Issues:
www.glaad.org/blog/goddess-diamond-14th-transgender-person-killed-year
Disney, Comcast NBCUniversal, Orlando Magic and more make donations #WeAreOrlando
Disney, Comcast NBCUniversal, Orlando Magic and more make donations #WeAreOrlando
Photo Credit: Pulse
In the wake of the tragedy that happened this weekend at Pulse in Orlando, many entertainment entities and professional sports organizations have donated to help the survivors and families of the victims, and to support the work of local non-profit organizations mobilizing on the ground in Orlando.
On Tuesday, Disney announced their donation of $1 million to the OneOrlando fund set up by the city’s mayor. The funds raised will be distributed by the Central Florida Foundation to related local non-profits. Today, Comcast NBCUniversal announced that they will also be donating $1 million to OneOrlando. Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids (BC/EFA) donated $150,000 on behalf of the Broadway community with the funds split equally between OneOrlando, Equality Florida, and The LGBT Community Center of Central Florida. BC/EFA has also partnered with Hamilton writer and star Lin-Manuel Miranda to sell a shirt featuring Miranda’s now famous “love is love is love” sonnet from this weekend’s Tony Awards with sales benefitting Equality Florida.
The sports world have also stepped up to show support for the survivors and families of victims. Orlando’s professional basketball team, the Orlando Magic, donated $100,000 to OneOrlando with the team owners donating another $400,000. Moreover, the Magic, in partnership with the Orlando Lions, Pride, Predators, and Solar Bears, have launched a line of t-shirts featuring the #OrlandoUnited slogan. Proceeds of the shirts will benefit OneOrlando.
Donations can be made to help the victims and families affected by the Pulse shooting through Equality Florida’s GoFundMe page. More resources are available here for those seeking information or who wish to offer help, you can also find a vigil near you to honor the victims and families. GLAAD introduced a temporary profile frame that allows Facebook users to add a pride flag flying at half-staff and We Are Orlando banner to their profile photo. To add the filter, click “Try it” at the bottom of this post and set the length of time the frame will last. The frame has been used over 2.9 million times.
June 16, 2016
Issues:
Tags:
www.glaad.org/blog/disney-comcast-nbcuniversal-orlando-magic-and-more-make-donations-weareorlando
How Orlando Is Helping the Pulse Shooting Victims
How Orlando Is Helping the Pulse Shooting Victims
Equality Florida is leading the fundraising effort to support the victims, survivors, and their families as contributions roll in from corporations and people around the world.
www.advocate.com/crime/2016/6/16/how-orlando-helping-pulse-shooting-victims
Coroner's Chilling Description of Pulse Brings You Where 'Time Stood Still'
Coroner's Chilling Description of Pulse Brings You Where 'Time Stood Still'
The medical examiner describes visiting the nightclub as part of his job identifying the 49 victims.
