Category Archives: MISC
Myth or Truth? PrEP Makes Gay Men Stop Using Condoms
Myth or Truth? PrEP Makes Gay Men Stop Using Condoms
This month we’ll look at one myth a day about PrEP — and tell you why it doesn’t hold up.
Katie Peoples
www.advocate.com/31-days-prep/2014/10/01/myth-or-truth-prep-makes-gay-men-stop-using-condoms
The Decline Of U.S. Marriage Rates Explained In One Incredible Gif
The Decline Of U.S. Marriage Rates Explained In One Incredible Gif
It’s no secret that marriage rates in the U.S. are declining, but sometimes you have to see things to believe them.
Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. census, researchers at Movoto — a real-estate blog dedicated to data crunching — created this gif that demonstrates the fall in marriage rates by state from 1970 to 2011. (You’ll notice that Nevada is singled out, as its marriage rates are drastically higher than the rest of the country).
Source: Movoto.com
While researching marriage rates, Movoto went one step further and split the data into two time periods: 1970-2003 and 2004-2011. “We selected 2004 as a boundary because it was the first year that gay marriage took effect in a U.S. state (Massachusetts),” Movoto explained in their report.
Their goal in doing so was to determine whether or not same-sex marriage is to blame for falling marriage rates, as some religious conservatives may postulate.
According to the numbers, same-sex marriage had no effect on declining marriage rates whatsoever. Twenty-four states saw faster declining marriage rates after 2004, but 25 states plus Washington DC saw the decline in marriage rates slow down after 2004.
So what’s really happening?
Some theories point to the economy, some argue Millennials don’t feel the same societal pressure to marry as generations before them and others suggest that the younger generations simply don’t need marriage anymore, instead choosing to cohabitate and raise children outside the institution of marriage.
What do you think is causing the decline in marriage rates? Tell us in the comments section below!
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www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/01/marriage-rates_n_5915648.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices
Facebook’s Policy To Be Clarified
Facebook’s Policy To Be Clarified
Today, Facebook apologized for deleting the accounts and pledged to work with community advocates to clarify its policies.
HRC.org
www.hrc.org/blog/entry/facebooks-policy-to-be-clarified?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed
WWF Says Earth Has Lost 50% Of Its Wildlife In The Past 40 Years
WWF Says Earth Has Lost 50% Of Its Wildlife In The Past 40 Years
A new report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Zoological Society of London has found the number of wild animals on Earth has reduced by half over the last 40 years, according to The Guardian. The decrease comes as a result of the negative impact humans have had on ecosystems across the globe. Wildlife have been hunted and killed for food by humans at an unsustainable rate and have also had their habitats destroyed or polluted:
The steep decline of animal, fish and bird numbers was calculated by analysing 10,000 different populations, covering 3,000 species in total. This data was then, for the first time, used to create a representative “Living Planet Index” (LPI), reflecting the state of all 45,000 known vertebrates. […]
The report concludes that today’s average global rate of consumption would need 1.5 planet Earths to sustain it. But four planets would be required to sustain US levels of consumption, or 2.5 Earths to match UK consumption levels.
The fastest decline among the animal populations were found in freshwater ecosystems, where numbers have plummeted by 75% since 1970. “Rivers are the bottom of the system,” said Dave Tickner, WWF’s chief freshwater adviser. “Whatever happens on the land, it all ends up in the rivers.” For example, he said, tens of billions of tonnes of effluent are dumped in the Ganges in India every year.
Sean Mandell
www.towleroad.com/2014/10/wwf-says-earth-has-lost-50-of-its-wildlife-in-the-past-40-years.html
LGBT real-name controversy: Facebook apologizes, promises changes
LGBT real-name controversy: Facebook apologizes, promises changes
LGBT real-name controversy: Facebook apologizes, promises changes.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV0XjKk3TrI&feature=youtube_gdata
Facebook Apologizes for 'Real Name' Policy
Facebook Apologizes for 'Real Name' Policy
The social media giant clarified its policy today, saying it has always been intended to encourage users to appear under their ‘authentic name.’
Sunnivie Brydum
editorial.advocate.com/politics/media/2014/10/01/facebook-apologizes-real-name-policy
Facebook Apologizes To LGBT Community For Controversial Name Change Policy
Facebook Apologizes To LGBT Community For Controversial Name Change Policy
Facebook is apologizing to members of the LGBT community, specifically drag queens and transgender individuals, over the way their name change policy has disproportionately targeted and affected their identities.
Facebook came under fire several weeks ago after forcing a large percentage of individuals operating personal profiles on Facebook under pseudonyms, stage names, or any name not matching their legal name to change their name on Facebook or risk having their profiles deactivated. A number of individuals spoke out on the issue, including RuPaul and Sisters Of Perpetual Indulgence member Sister Roma, who orchestrated a face-to-face meeting with Facebook to discuss the implications of this policy.
Today, the company’s chief product officer, Chris Cox, apologized to “the affected community of drag queens, drag kings, transgender, and extensive community of our friends, neighbors, and members of the LGBT community” through a post on his personal profile.
Cox notes in his apology, “Our policy has never been to require everyone on Facebook to use their legal name. The spirit of our policy is that everyone on Facebook uses the authentic name they use in real life. For Sister Roma, that’s Sister Roma. For Lil Miss Hot Mess, that’s Lil Miss Hot Mess. Part of what’s been so difficult about this conversation is that we support both of these individuals, and so many others affected by this, completely and utterly in how they use Facebook.”
This is a victory not only for drag queens and transgender individuals, but every person who chooses to self-identify for whatever reasons while navigating the Internet.
Suspected Philly Gay Bashers Positively ID’d By Victims, Get December Court Date
Suspected Philly Gay Bashers Positively ID’d By Victims, Get December Court Date
Looks like 24-year-old homophobe and accused gay basher Kathryn Knott will need to stay out of trouble for the next two months before she’s due back in court, a task that shouldn’t be too hard considering her recent termination from her job as an ER technician.
She, along with 24-year-old Philip Williams and 26-year-old Kevin Harrigan, were taken into police custody last week and charged with aggravated assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, and criminal conspiracy for their involvement in the violent September 11th gay bashing in Philadelphia that left a gay couple hospitalized with severe injuries.
All three are expected back in court for a preliminary hearing on December 16th, where a judge will determine whether there is enough evidence in the case to prosecute the assailants.
If the case goes to trial, Harrigan’s attorney Josh Scarpello tells Philly magazine that “the earliest [trial date] would be February or March.” He adds that “if it’s scheduled to be a jury trial, it could take even longer.”
The three were released on bail to the court of public opinion last week — though details about the two male assailants are scarce, Kathryn Knott became the center of a media firestorm in the weeks following the crime. She is the daughter of Chalfont, Pennsylvania Police Chief Karl Knott, has a well documented homophobic past, and was fired from her job at Lansdale Hospital in Lansdale, Pennsylvania for violating physician-patient privileged policies.
Skeptics have questioned her involvement in the beating, but an affidavit made available after the trio’s Tuesday court date shows that both victims and a witness identified her and her two male co-assailants as the group who brutally attacked them.
According to that document, made available by Philly mag:
Both complainants positively identified Philip Williams through photo arrays. Williams was identified by Complainant #2 as punching him. Williams was identified by Complainant #1 as being part of the group and being one of the “main aggressors”.
Another member of the group, Kathryn Knott, was positively identified by Complainant #1, after viewing a photo array, as calling them “faggots”. Complainant #2 identified Kathryn Knott from the video as screaming “faggots” at both complainants and striking Complainant #2 in the face. A witness at the scene who was interviewed by detectives further positively identified Kathryn Knott from a photo array as striking Complainant #2.
All three assailants are maintaining their innocence and claiming they fought in self-defense. Scarpello added that “there certainly is another side to this case…and it’s going to come to light,” as if there were anything the victims could have said that justified a vicious gang assault like this.
For more information on the assault, check out our previous coverage.
Queerty Editor
NEWS: Gay Square Dancing, SCOTUS, Jared Leto, Ebola
NEWS: Gay Square Dancing, SCOTUS, Jared Leto, Ebola
A how-to-guide to make sure you don’t miss Ben Affleck’s member in Gone Girl.
According to GLAAD, television has increased its depiction of gay, lesbian and bisexual characters: “In the 2014-15 season, the study by GLAAD said that 3.9 percent of 813 characters regularly seen on prime-time network scripted series will be lesbian, gay or bisexual, a total of 32 characters.That represents an increase over last year’s 3.3 percent, but is down from the 4.4 percent record high for LGBT depictions on network series in 2012.”
New study says women prefer gay male porn to “porn for women.”
Zac Efron gets into a tickle war with Wes Bentley.
Novelist Ken Follett on gay characters in his works: “These gay characters are there because this is the world I live in,” Follett said in an interview with The Daily Beast. “I live in a world in which there are gay people, and to leave them out would seem odd, just as it would seem odd to write a story in which there were no people of color, or all the heroes were men and no women were heroes. It’s just not the world I live in.”
Gay square dancing convention headed to New Jersey.
35,000 walrus converge on Alaska beach as sea ice retreats.
Drama reported behind the scenes of The View between Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O’Donnell.
Andrew Sullivan wonders, “Is The HIV Divide Now Over?”: “What are your options today as a gay man with a sex life in America? You live in a community where a deadly virus has killed hundreds of thousands and is still resilient in the gay male world as a whole. It has no external or visible symptoms most of the time. Many people have no idea they have it. But the virus can be permanently suppressed to a point where it cannot be measured in your bloodstream and to a point where an HIV-positive man cannot transmit the virus to another person. And someone who is HIV-negative can also have access to a daily pill that, if taken conscientiously, all but wipes out the chance of getting infected.
SCOTUS: Still “no announcement Tuesday on whether [the Court] will take up a case seeking marriage equality at its first conference of the term, making such a declaration unlikely until the beginning of next week at the earliest.” However, there are orders coming tomorrow at 9:30 AM EDT that could include a grant or a denial in the same-sex marriage cases before the Court.
Happy LGBT History Month!
Secret Service Director Julia Pierson resigns following security lapse scandals.
Court rebuffs Kansas GOP on issue of Democratic candidate in Senate race.
Andy Rooney’s grandson, Benjamin Fishel, marries partner: “Andrew Siman Brady and Benjamin Leo Fishel were married Saturday just off Pilot Knob, N.Y., on Lake George. Paul E. Boivin, a Progressive Universal Life minister, officiated aboard the Morgan, a cruise vessel that he captains.” Grandfather Andy Rooney came under fire in 1990 for comments he made that were perceived as disparaging towards the gay community: “‘There was some recognition in 1989 of the fact that many of the ills which kill us are self-induced. Too much alcohol, too much food, drugs, homosexual unions, cigarettes. They’re all known to lead quite often to premature death.”
Jared Leto shows off ripped side-torso.
Will Apple launch a gold iPad this month?
Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton smoulder and look Biblical in trailer for Exodus: Gods and Kings.
Clark Gable / Carole Lombard estate is for sale sale in Palm Springs.
Eruption of Mount Ontake in Japan was fueled by steam not magma.
Doctors say Tracy Morgan may never perform again as a result of the injuries he sustained from an accident in June.
With the first confirmed case of Ebola in the United States, the CDC is now trying to discern whether anyone else has been infected: “A CDC team is in Dallas helping to find the people that the patient may have come into contact with, said [CDC Director Dr. Thomas] Frieden. Once those people are identified, they will be monitored for 21 days — taking their temperatures twice a day — in cooperation with local and state health officials, Frieden said Wednesday.”
Sean Mandell
www.towleroad.com/2014/10/news-gay-square-dancing-scotus-jared-leto-ebola.html
