LGBT 241014 – TV VIJESTI
Category Archives: MISC
_MG_5795
WATCH: Ellen Predicts the World Series With Male Strippers
WATCH: Ellen Predicts the World Series With Male Strippers
Even if her method doesn’t work, we all win anyway.
Jami Smith
www.advocate.com/comedy/2014/10/24/watch-ellen-predicts-world-series-male-strippers
Ty And Rob's Story From The Let Love Define Family Series
Ty And Rob's Story From The Let Love Define Family Series
This week’s Huffington Post Gay Voices RaiseAChild.US “Let Love Define Family™” series installment focuses on Diligent Recruitment of foster-adopt parents for deaf and hard-of-hearing foster children with the story of Rob and Ty, an engineer and an American Sign Language interpreter who have opened their hearts to two toddlers with connections to the deaf community.
Imagine being a deaf two-and-a-half year old with no communication skills and then suddenly being removed from the only home you ever knew. For little Nina (not her real name), fortune shined on her when she was moved from two consecutive foster homes into the loving home of Robert Edwards, 32, an engineering project manager, and Ty Blake-Holden, 30, a sign language interpreter.
“Nina’s communicating was just squinting and screaming at the time, so the first thing we did was to teach her the basic signs,” explained Rob. “The original audiology report said she was profoundly deaf in one ear and moderately deaf in the other ear, but after we took her to another audiologist, we learned she does have residual hearing. Now that she has hearing aids, she is learning both speech and American Sign Language.”
Joseanna Moseby of Five Acres, a foster care and adoption agency based in Altadena, Calif., found Ty and Rob through the agency’s Diligent Recruitment program, arising from a federal grant to address the lack of permanency for deaf and hard-of-hearing children in foster care. Moseby collaborates with the Los County Department of Children and Family Services’ Deaf Unit in Covina to recruit, train, and certify parents and families to take in the children and be able to provide them with deaf language (American Sign Language or ASL) and deaf culture.
“Deaf culture is a way of life, just as with any culture,” explained Moseby, who earned her masters in social work at Gallaudet University, the world’s only institution of higher education devoted to deaf and hard-of-hearing students. “Just as with any culture, there are norms and certain things that are accepted. For instance, with the deaf culture you need to know how to get a person’s attention properly. You can tap them, wave within eyesight, or flicker a light switch.”
In addition to these norms, deaf culture includes its own jokes, history, theater and poetry. Understanding deaf technology is also important for fost-adopt parents. They need to understand things like listening devices, cochlear implants and video phones, which can also be used as a video relay system to communicate with hearing people. Texting can limit expression. With a live interpreter by video, the American Sign Language components, including movement of the face and torso, can be fully expressed and understood.
“When a deaf child comes into the home, the Diligent Recruitment foster parent already understands these things,” said Moseby. “They understand that the child needs a video phone and how it works, and they can better understand the academic needs of the child, such as what kind of school is best for them. We tell them to help the child get involved in the deaf community, such as taking the child to a deaf church.”
While Ty is fluent in ASL, Rob only has about 100 signs, but he knows all the baby signs so he’s several steps ahead of Nina, who is now three. They have also been placed with two-and-a-year-old Marco (not his real name), who is hearing but whose biological mother is deaf.
Ty learned ASL through immersion at California State University Northridge where he joined a deaf fraternity on a whim and also pursued two Bachelors degrees in Business and Intercultural Communication (ASL). In 2007, Ty moved to Washington, DC, for an interpreting internship. Within a few days he met Rob, who was working as a nuclear engineer in the Navy. A lasting romance led to their wedding in August 2010 at the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, CA. They obtained a marriage license the following year in New York.
Ty and Rob, who live in Long Beach, CA, always knew they wanted children, though they disagreed on the number. Ty was ready for five kids, but they compromised at three. Ty’s flexible schedule helps with caring for Marco and Nina. Marco is in daycare and Nina attends a Long Beach public school’s Deaf program for three year olds. Although they’d like to take in other children in the future, they have their hands full for the moment.
Because Ty’s sister, who lives an hour away, has already fostered and adopted children, Ty and Rob have already experienced the joy — and sometimes heartache — of adopting through foster care and are dedicated to providing as much love as possible to any child who is in their care, no matter how long the child stays. Nina is on schedule to be reunified with her biological family this November. Rob and Ty are hopeful they will be able to adopt Marco, but understand that reunification is a strong possibility.
“Ty and Rob are spectacular parents in meeting the needs of both children, who are at very different stages and with completely different family situations,” said Moseby. “Permanency is our primary goal — whether through reunification or adoption. Ty and Rob accept it and understand the importance of maintaining a relationship with the birth family if that’s in the best interests of the child. They’ve done a great job as foster parents and have made a positive impact on both children’s lives whether the children are reunified with their birth families or whether they are staying with them forever.”
Corinne Lightweaver is the Communications Manager at RaiseAChild.US, a national organization headquartered in Hollywood, California that encourages the LGBT community to build families through fostering and adopting to serve the needs of the 400,000 children in the U.S. foster care system. Since 2011, RaiseAChild.US has run media campaigns and events to educate prospective parents and the public, and has engaged more than 2,200 prospective parents. For information about how you can become a foster or fost/adopt parent, visit www.RaiseAChild.US.
Two gay teens attacked with stones outside school in Spain
Two gay teens attacked with stones outside school in Spain
A young lesbian was hospitalized
joem
www.gaystarnews.com/article/two-gay-teens-attacked-stones-outside-school-spain241014
The Heat is on in the Granite State
The Heat is on in the Granite State
HRC members and staff are engaged in election work across the Granite State.
HRC.org
www.hrc.org/blog/entry/the-heat-is-on-in-the-granite-state?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed
British Home Office Talks Dirty to Gay Asylum Seekers
British Home Office Talks Dirty to Gay Asylum Seekers
Welcome to England, international visitors! The British Home Office hopes that you enjoy your stay, and is happy to extend asylum to those of you who face violence and persecution in your homeland. But first, Her Majesty just needs a few details about your penis.
An internal investigation has revealed that gay and lesbian asylum seekers are subjected to very insane, very sexy questions that of course are never put to heterosexual individuals. Among them:
- One interviewee was asked why he would claim to have sex every day, when that is “not even normal in heterosexual relationships.”
- Another was asked if he had less than 100 sexual partners, the implication being that average gay men have assignations numbering in the triple digits.
- A third man was asked why he would be in a relationship with a man, when there’s so much to be offered by heterosexual coupling.
And a leaked internal memo reveals even more insulting questioning. These are all direct quotes:
- Did you put your penis into x’s backside?
- When x was penetrating you, did you have an erection?
- Did x ejaculate inside you?
- Why did you use a condom?
- What is it about men’s backsides that attracts you?
- What is it about the way men walk that turns you on?
It would be kind of hot if this interrogation was happening in a porn, with glistening sweat dripping off the interviewee’s face as the mean investigator barks questions at him and eventually demands that he prove just how gay he can be. But it’s not OK for this to be happening in reality, where real actual peoples’ lives are at stake.
Between 10 and 12 percent of interviews contain inappropriate questions, according to the investigation.
To their credit, officials have pledged to crack down on inappropriate questions, to respond quickly to complaints, and to improve training.
But we don’t think that goes far enough: British officials should be required to themselves answer any questions that asylum interviewees face. So how about it, Prime Minister David Cameron: what is it about men’s backsides that attracts you?
matt baume
Elders React to Nicki Minaj's Anaconda: VIDEO
Elders React to Nicki Minaj's Anaconda: VIDEO
The music video is apparently a little too bootylicious for a few of these old-timers.
“Now you wonder why kids are so screwed up nowadays, cause of this kind of sh*t”‘
Watch, AFTER THE JUMP…
Kyler Geoffroy
www.towleroad.com/2014/10/elders-react-to-nicki-minajs-anaconda-video.html
LGBT Health & Wellness Roundup Oct 24 2014
LGBT Health & Wellness Roundup Oct 24 2014
Please visit us at lgbtcenters.org or on our Facebook & Twitter @LGBTHealthLink. And if you like it share it!
What's the Probability That Michael Sam Was Cut Because He's Gay, Really?
What's the Probability That Michael Sam Was Cut Because He's Gay, Really?
I’ve seen a little too much insistence this week, online and on social media, that Michael Sam’s being cut from the Dallas Cowboys’ practice squad had nothing to do with his being gay. It’s a bit overwrought and defensive. A lot of fans seem to want to believe the NFL is not a homophobic institution, and that the Sam story somehow proved it: The NFL gave a shot to the first openly gay player ever drafted and treated him well, and his fate was based on his performance, and that’s that.
But Michael Sam’s being gay has been so much a part of this story from the moment he came out, with anonymous NFL executives saying he wouldn’t be accepted, and some commentators and even some players making anti-gay remarks, right up through his late-round drafting and beyond. Can anyone really say for sure whether or not his being gay had anything to do with his being cut?
As both Outsports’ Jim Buzinski and WCBS sports radio host Jared Max point out, there are no other openly gay players in the NFL right now, and if the NBA’s Jason Collins indeed retires soon, as many commentators are predicting, there will be no openly gay player in any of the four major sports leagues. That’s not exactly a sign of acceptance. Add to this the fact that the NFL has given minor or no penalties to players like the San Francisco 49ers’ Chris Culliver after homophobic incidents. It also stood by the hiring of anti-gay former New York Giant David Tyree — who worked to stop marriage equality, adheres to an extremist anti-gay ideology and has expressed the belief that gays can be made straight — as the New York Giants’ director of player development.
So it can’t be ruled out that Michael Sam was cut because he’s gay, not with the NFL’s record. People can point to Sam’s performance at this or that juncture, but that’s been countered by pointing to other players who’ve performed similarly and have done just fine. Buzinski notes, looking at the chronology of events, that it was all quite suspicious:
Sam was the SEC co-defensive player of the year in 2013. Yet he was drafted in the seventh round, 249 out of 256 players selected. That’s three rounds and 124 players later than what bookies set his draft order at. It’s also by far the lowest any SEC defensive player of the year had been drafted in at least a decade. …
With the draft winding down, I have always suspected that the league made calls to St. Louis to encourage/cajole/plead with the Rams to take Sam. … Sam not being drafted would have been a huge embarrassment to the league and set back its efforts to appear more inclusive of gays.
After former voach Tony Dungy called Sam a “distraction” and said he’d have stayed away from picking him, Sam seemed to become even more of a hot potato. The Rams chose not to keep him, which seemed like a football decision, since he wasn’t what they needed. But the fact that he wasn’t immediately chosen by another team was “unprecedented,” according to Michael Freeman of the Bleacher Report:
It can’t be stressed enough how Sam not being signed despite a productive preseason is almost unprecedented. In my two decades of covering the NFL, it isn’t just rare; it’s basically unheard of for a player to not make the league after playing well in the preseason.
And Adam Schefter of ESPN tweeted:
12 players had 2.5 or more sacks this preseason. 10 are on 53-man rosters. One on practice squad. And last, Michael Sam, hasn’t found work.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) September 1, 2014
NFL insider Peter King, of MMQB.com and NBC, reported that the Cowboys finally took Sam for the practice squad after “a league official contacted multiple teams asking if they’d evaluated Sam,” and that the NFL “avoided a nightmare situation” when the Cowboys signed him. (The NFL denied King’s claim.) Then, a month and a half later, he was cut, almost unnoticed, while the country was focused on Ebola, the attack on the Canadian Parliament and other pressing concerns.
Again, any of the individual actions can be explained away as a football decision. But when you add it all up and throw in the NFL’s past and current disregard for homophobia (in incidents and hiring), it’s impossible to escape the very real probability that Sam’s being gay was a factor that determined his fate. And Jim Buzinski is right when he says it will give any other player pause about coming out, which may be exactly what the NFL wanted.
