Coming Soon: A Virulently Homophobic Feature By Kirk Cameron’s Creationist Buddy, Ray Comfort

Grab your Bible, brimstone and buttered popcorn! Ray Comfort, a close personal pal of confirmed Creationist wackadoodle Kirk Cameron, is about to release a feature-length film called Audacity, which plumbs the depths of two hot-button issues: gay marriage and God’s unstoppered wrath.

Related: Kirk Cameron + Ray Comfort’s 150th Anniversary Edition of Darwin’s Theory Includes … Creationism

Comfort (who believes bananas are incontrovertible proof of God’s existence because they fit in your hand) executive produced this tacky tale of a bike messenger/aspiring comedian (Traver Owens) who must defend his stubborn views on religion and homosexuality in the face of militant, in-yo-face gays and gay supporters. Judging by the trailer, he’s harangued by an uppity young woman with a gay sister (the audacity!), two lesbians who brightly chirp about their marriage license in the tight confines of an elevator (the audacity!), and then, just to be that way, a scary guy with a gun (the audacity!)

We’ve watched the trailer five times and still have no idea what’s going on, but it definitely looks cringey-hilarious in its infinite ineptitude, and we’ll be watching the whole goddamn thing with Godspeed. OH, THE AUDACITY…!

Derek de Koff

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DOJ To Virginia School Board: Transgender Students Just Need To Pee

After proposals to restrict restroom use by transgender public school students were introduced in several states this year, LGBT advocates argued such a statute would run afoul of federal law.

Thankfully, none of the proposals — some of which would have placed bounties on the heads of trans students — passed. And this week, the U.S. Department of Justice affirmed LGBT advocates’ position in a filing that says Title IX of the U.S. Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits sex discrimination, requires schools to allow transgender students to use restrooms according to their gender identity.

The DOJ filing comes in the case of 16-year-old Gavin Grimm (above), who is transgender and sued the school board in rural Gloucester County, Virginia, for the right to use the boys’ restroom. Grimm had used the boys’ restroom until pressure from parents prompted the school board to require him to use an “alternative” restroom in December.

The Washington Post reports:

In a statement of interest filed Tuesday, the Justice Department argues that the Gloucester County school board’s policy violates Grimm’s rights, and federal officials are seeking to ensure that “all students, including transgender students, have the opportunity to learn in an environment free of sex discrimination.” …

“Singling out transgender students and subjecting them to differential treatment can also make them more vulnerable to bullying and harassment, a problem that transgender students already face,” according to the Justice document. The filing also cites figures showing that more than 90 percent of LGBT students in middle school and high school reported being verbally harassed and about half said they were attacked physically.

DOJ on Gloucester Transgender Bathrooms

The post DOJ To Virginia School Board: Transgender Students Just Need To Pee appeared first on Towleroad.

John Wright

DOJ To Virginia School Board: Transgender Students Just Need To Pee

The Marriage Equality Photo Seen Round the World

Meet the couple featured in a photo from Decision Day that has becoming iconic of that moment.

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Ross von Metzke

www.advocate.com/politics/media/2015/07/02/marriage-equality-photo-seen-round-world

Why It's Time to Reject Gay Separatism
This week, my guest on The Sewers of Paris (a podcast about how entertainment has changed the lives of gay men) is Raymond Miller, a Canadian actor who had doubts about coming out of the closet. But once he finally made the leap, he discovered a big huge queer community waiting to catch him.

The week that this episode comes out is the week that the Supreme Court overturned marriage bans across the United States, which is amazing and revolutionary and I’m still kind of in disbelief that it’s finally happened. It changes a lot, and not just laws about marriage. It means an end to one of the biggest, most visible ways in which queer people are oppressed.

But what is that going to mean for gay men? If we’re not fighting oppression, is there anything that we have in common anymore? Well, yeah, there is one thing — one common thing that we all want. Each other. Whether it’s friendship, or brotherhood, falling in love or falling into bed, we’ll always seek each other out.

And the less we have to deal with oppression, the more energy we can devote towards finding and being good to each other.

For my recommendations this week, please set aside some time for The Boys in the Band. And if you’ve already seen it, watch Making the Boys, the 2011 documentary about it. You can find the movie on YouTube, but you might enjoy reading the play instead. It’s a beautiful and heartbreaking depiction of all the ways that gay men use our own pain to inflict pain on others. In the world of The Boys in the Band, we come together for comfort and companionship, but we come so battered and abused by the world that we can’t help battering and abusing each other. Whether you watch it or read it, The Boys in the Band is a vital text, but I should warn you: brace yourself.

Imagine what the lives of gay men would have been, 50 years ago, if they had been as accepted by society as we are today, or will be in another decade? How much damage and suffering could they have avoided, whether inflicted by the world or by themselves? But with the acceptance that we now enjoy comes a new challenge: we don’t have that common bond of outsider status that once connected us. And sure, we’ll still share a bond in that we’re all interested in what’s in each other’s pants. But that interest is probably not enough to constitute a fully realized community.

So I think now’s a good time not just to appreciate each other and everything that queers have accomplished together, but to ask ourselves, “okay, I’m gay — now what ELSE am I?”

Fortunately, John Waters has some helpful advice in this area. For my second recommendation, I want you to go watch John Waters’s 2015 commencement address at the Rhode Island School of Design. I can’t even imagine how much controversy must have surrounded the decision to invite him, but thank God they did, because here’s what he has to say:

Refuse to isolate yourself. Separatism is for losers. Gay is not enough anymore. It’s a good start, but I don’t want my memoirs to be in the gay section near true crime at the back of the bookstore next to the bathrooms. No! I want it up front with the best-sellers.

In other words, he’s saying times are changing. These days we’re accepted in more and more places. For the first time, the straight world is extending us a welcoming hand without asking us to change. Let’s see what happens if we accept it.

— 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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Why is Facebook refusing to listen to trans people over their ‘real names’ policy?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg put his head above the parapet on Tuesday to defend Facebook’s ‘real names’ policy, claiming that it did not prevent individuals from using nicknames and that it had been misinterpreted.

The trans community has reacted with disbelief, with many accusing Zuckerberg of lying.

In a public Q&A on his Facebook page, Zuckerberg suggested Facebook’s policy had been misinterpreted in some cases. Claiming that the aim was to increase security for marginalized communities and make it easier for individuals to connect with friends, he said: ‘There is some confusion about what our policy actually is.

‘Real name does not mean your legal name. Your real name is whatever you go by and what your friends call you. If your friends all call you by a nickname and you want to use that name on Facebook, you should be able to do that.

‘In this way, we should be able to support everyone using their own real names, including everyone in the transgender community. We are working on better and more ways for people to show us what their real name is so we can both keep this policy which protects so many people in our community while also serving the transgender community.’

This interpretation of Facebook’s policy was instantly rejected by many, who took to the keyboard to vent their anger.

Commenting on this news on Buzzfeed, one Facebook user wrote: ‘”Real name does not mean your legal name”. Yes, that’s why your service has been kicking trans people off and forcing them to use their dead name. Your lying is disgusting.’

Another pointed out the discrepancy between Zuckerberg’s claim that using nickname was acceptable, and the fact that Facebook demands a range of official government documentation before they will allow individuals to return.

Others, more charitably, suggested Zuckerberg was simply not aware of how this policy was playing out in practice.

According to Facebook’s own guidelines on the issue, individuals whose name has been challenged should seek first to provide ‘any government-issued ID that contains your name and date of birth’.

According to Facebook, they also allow individuals to provide other documentation, which allows for individuals who have adopted alternative names in everyday life, but have not taken any steps to regularize this position with the state, to remain on Facebook. This, however, was directly contradicted by a third commenter who wrote: ‘I’m trans and was asked to provide legal documentation. This is a straight up lie.’

These sentiments were echoed across a number of forums, where Zuckerberg’s justification of Facebook’s policy has had exactly the opposite effect to that intended: rather than pour oil on troubled waters, it seems only to have provoked further anger.

In the UK, a number of activists are now seeking the support of their MP to fight this policy, and efforts are underway to arrange a meeting between Facebook and trans communities across Europe.

Gay Star News quizzed Facebook about Zuckerberg’s comments. In light of the assertion that ‘real name’ does not have to be your ‘legal name’, we asked why they request ‘legal proofs’ to prove a name. We also asked whether Zuckerberg’s comments meant they were backing away from their earlier stated position of describing this as an ‘authentic name policy’.

Facebook have not yet responded.

The post Why is Facebook refusing to listen to trans people over their ‘real names’ policy? appeared first on Gay Star News.

Jane Fae

www.gaystarnews.com/article/why-is-facebook-refusing-to-listen-to-trans-people-over-their-real-names-policy/

Celebrating at Mississippi Pride

At Jackson’s 2015 Mississippi Pride, members of the LGBT and allied community were ready to celebrate. 
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/celebrating-at-mississippi-pride?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

“No Gays Allowed” Business Owner Learns There Are Consequences To Being A Hateful Bigot

Another antigay business owner has learned there are consequences to bigotry.

Earlier this week, Jeff Amyx hung a handwritten sign in the window of his Tennessee hardware store: “No Gays Allowed” in response to the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling.

“The Supreme Court did not speak for me when they voted to make this legal, and I can’t accept it,” Amyx told his local news station.

After the story went viral, Amyx was hit with a storm of backlash. It started with angry phone calls and emails.

“A lot of people have called and cussed me and said nasty things,” Amyx said.

Then a Facebook group was created calling for people to boycott the store.

But it took budget moving equipment company U-Haul dropping Amyx as a customer and demanding he take down its logo from his website for the small businessman to rethink his actions.

On Tuesday, Amyx replaced the “No Gays Allowed” sign with a more polite but no less ridiculous one: “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone who would violate our rights of freedom of speech and freedom of religion.”

Related: Five Disgraced Business Owners Who Learned That Homophobia Just Doesn’t Sell

Graham Gremore

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Gay Pride Version Of Famed Iwo Jima Flag Photo Elicits Controversy, Death Threats

A photo alluding to an iconic image from World War II meant to depict the struggle for gay rights has stirred controversy online.

The picture (above) was take taken ten years ago by photographer Ed Freeman for the cover of Frontiers Magazine. It alludes to the now iconic image (below) of US Marines raising the American flag at Iwo Jima during a battle that saw 6,821 servicemen lose their lives.

The original photograph also became the inspiration for the Marine Corps War Memorial at Arlington Cemetery. Freeman’s photograph found a new life after Friday’s ruling from the Supreme Court on same-sex marriage. The image circulated on social media and Freeman himself even re-posted it, weighing in on the image’s significance: 

When I took this picture almost ten years ago, it never, never occurred to me that it would someday come to symbolize the victory we are celebrating today. Congratulations to all of us! Love to you all.

Since the photo began to circulate, however, Freeman has received many hateful reactions on Twitter and Facebook suggesting that the image is disrespectful. Freeman has also received a death threat, as The Washington Post reports: 

“He said if he ever saw me, he’d kill me,” Freeman said in a phone interview. “I got swamped with vitriolic hate mail.”

Freeman reported the threat to the FBI.

The photographer insists that haters are misunderstanding what his intention was with the photograph:

Freeman, whose studio is in Los Angeles, said he never expected the backlash. The image, taken before social media was ubiquitous, was partially staged using models, and completed with Photoshop, he said.

“The principle complaint that people have is that I am equating the gay struggle with the contribution and sacrifice of American servicemen,” he said. “But there is no equal sign here. This is not meant as a sign of disrespect. For God sake, no. I totally support people in uniform. There is no comparison going on here. The comparison is going on in people’s heads, and they’re spoiling for a fight. They’re already on edge because of  the gay marriage decision.”

One silver lining from the story may be that one of Freeman’s critics has given him an idea for his next photo:

“One of them said, ‘Well, why don’t you have an astronaut planting a gay flag on the moon?’” he laughed. “And I said, ‘Well, why not?’”

The post Gay Pride Version Of Famed Iwo Jima Flag Photo Elicits Controversy, Death Threats appeared first on Towleroad.

Sean Mandell

Gay Pride Version of Famed Iwo Jima Flag Photo Elicits Controversy, Death Threats

New Orleans Man Who Kidnapped Trans Woman Granted 'Rare' Minimum Sentence

After assault and attempted rape charges were dropped, a judge chose to be unusually lenient, citing the attacker’s age.

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Mitch Kellaway

www.advocate.com/crime/2015/07/02/new-orleans-man-who-kidnapped-trans-woman-granted-rare-minimum-sentence