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Watch As Marie Osmond Is Transformed Into Madonna, Marilyn And Elizabeth Taylor
During her ’70s heyday, entertainer Marie Osmond was a paragon of wholesomeness while singing a string of popular pop songs, often with her teen idol brother Donny. Therefore, it’s little surprise she’s ready to demonstrate her sex appeal in her popular Las Vegas production The Donny and Marie Show. For “Showstopper” a new production number in the show at the Flamingo Hotel, Marie pays homage to a number of other icons with a decidedly more sensual reputation. The Mormon-raised Marie, who gets eternal props for being such a supportive mother to lesbian daughter Jessica, pays tribute to 24 other famous ladies, including “Vogue”-era Madonna, sultry sex symbol Marilyn Monroe and that eternal vixen Elizabeth Taylor.
Be amazed at Osmond’s transformation below.
Jeremy Kinser
Catholic Church Music Director Fired For Same-Sex Nuptials Speaks Out: VIDEO
After getting married to his partner, Minnesotan church music director Jamie Manzi-Moore [top right] was forced to resign from his congregation in St. Victoria, MN. He’s on his honeymoon, and hasn’t commented on the firing — until now.
Speaking with CBS Minnesota, Manzi-Moore is unequivocal that “Archbishop Nienstedt was the person requesting [his] resignation.”
The Archbishop has claimed that the church reached out to him for advice, but Manzi-Moore tells another story. He says that after coming out to his community, his church’s Father White reached out to the Archbishop, telling him the church wanted to keep Manzi-Moore on staff, regardless of his sexuality. Manzi-Moore says Archbishop Nienstedt never responded to this request.
While Manzi-Moore says he felt “heartbroken” when he heard the news of his firing from the church, and he does not have another job lined up, he was not exactly surprised by the news — his comments sound more resigned than angry:
I have known ever since going to work for the Catholic Church that this could be a possibility at some point in time […] It might take me a while to quote unquote, ‘come back.’ But I was born and raised Catholic and I love the Catholic faith.
Watch a CBS Minnesota report on the story, AFTER THE JUMP…
It bears repeating that Archbishop Nienstedt has a history of anti-gay remarks and recently refused to leave his post despite allegations of sexual misconduct and covering up the sexual abuse of children.
Jake Folsom
www.towleroad.com/2014/09/gay-church-employee-responds-to-church-on-firing.html
Hundreds Rally in Philadelphia in Support of Hate-Crimes Legislation
Hundreds gathered in Love Park despite the rain to demonstrate the need for hate-crimes law revisions.
Jorge Rodriguez-Jimenez
www.advocate.com/crime/2014/09/26/hundreds-rally-philadelphia-support-hate-crimes-legislation
That's Just Not Fair
“Well, that’s just not fair!” cries the indignant 8-year-old. “Fairness has nothing to with it!” says one of his dads. It’s a dialogue that occurs at least once a day in our house, especially around bedtime. As soon as our youngest son can talk, I’m sure we’ll hear it in stereo. Ah, the concept of fairness! To most Americans, it’s sacrosanct. Corruption, bribery and gross institutional inequality, commonplace in the developing world, are mostly newsworthy aberrations to us, albeit with some significant pockets of resistance. (Remember, I live near Chicago.) To most of us, fairness is something we seek in every aspect of our dealings with others, sometimes even with our children.
A few words of advice: If you choose to build your same-gender-parented family through adoption or foster-to-adoption, fairness is a concept with which you will have a tortured relationship. It’s not just the arbitrary and personal occurrences of unfairness that creep up. All the “isms” of the world, which are usually kept to corners of our ordered world, come out swinging. Gross examples of sexism, heterosexism, racism, classism, elitism and their numerous cousins abound.
Between both our sons’ adoptions, I can’t count the number of times we uttered, “Well, that’s just not fair.” Such as when a birth mom chooses the heterosexual couple that just finished their application after your two-year wait. Or when an estranged maternal grandmother suddenly asserts her point of view as you pace anxiously in the hospital waiting to meet a newborn. Or when the birth mom with whom you’ve corresponded for weeks abruptly stops communicating. (All of this happened to us during our placements.)
We became familiar with the all the unfairness on the other side as well. How social agencies seem to favor some birth mothers over others, how our healthcare industry miserably fails to serve the poor, how so-called faith families abandon their own when an unplanned pregnancy happens, and how men (who are biologically 50% responsible for each pregnancy) often seem unconcerned with the actual responsibility of that pregnancy. (All of which happened to our birth mothers during our placements.) The silent and persistent answer to all these questions was “fairness has nothing to do with it.”
During our last placement, we became aware of the unfairness of “urban food deserts” when we searched for a few comfort foods requested by our birth mom. After striking out at tiny bodega after tiny bodega, we found an overpriced and understocked grocery store in a blighted part of town, which featured aisle after aisle of processed, low quality foods and a produce section that could easily fit in our bedroom. Remembering that she had no car, we wondered how she managed to buy groceries. Prior to that, our grocery store grievances had centered around the lack of parking and finding local organic produce in winter. No, it seemed that fairness has nothing to do with it.
Then, in the blink of an eye, it all changed when our sons were placed in our arms for the first time. All of the unfairness we encountered seemed to disappear. As the English poet Robert Browning wrote, “God’s in His heaven / All’s right with the world.” Like the pain of childbirth, you begin to forget and settle into the new “unfairness” of sleepless nights, the outrageous cost of diapers and the inequalities of preschool entrance procedures. It’s a joyous forgetfulness.
But we strive to remind ourselves that pain and loss are only pointless if we don’t learn from them. We remind ourselves of those unfair moments, those we felt ourselves and those we felt for others, so that the memories become parts our family’s adoption stories. Like contrasting notes that balance a complex dish, our sons’ adoption stories will be richer if we keep those unfair moments in them. No story worth telling is completely devoid of sad moments.
As our sons grow up and learn to tell the stories on their own, we hope they will sense the injustices we experienced to become their dads. By truthfully talking about those challenges we will help our sons understand the beautifully complex and imperfect world in which we live. Maybe they will carry those experiences and seek to make the world they inherit more fair for everyone. Maybe they will look back and appreciate their adoption stories more genuinely and take nothing for granted. Maybe…
But for now, bedtime is bedtime and fairness has nothing to do with it.
This post originally appeared GaysWithKids.
“Modern Man Manners” with Steven Petrow
Journalist and author Steven Petrow has been busy the last few months.
HRC.org
www.hrc.org/blog/entry/modern-man-manners-with-steven-petrow?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed
Frankie Grande Says He “Fell In Love” With Straight Costar On Big Brother
Big Brother 16‘s token gay Frankie Grande may not have won the $500,000 prize on Wednesday’s finale, but according to him, he walked away from the season with something much more valuable: the love of a straight man.
Frankie first caught America’s attention as the brother of pop star Ariana Grande, and he first caught ours as one of the more insufferable houseguests we’ve ever seen. Thankfully, his time on the show changed —gasp — the way we thought about him.
With the help of straight-and-beautiful houseguests Cody Calafiore, Caleb Reynolds, and especially Zach Rance, Frankie helped Big Brother 16 become the most gay-friendly season in the franchise’s U.S. history, and in turn, one of the most unforgettable and entertaining.
His relationship with Zach received showmance status early on, and their physical intimacy captivated us until Zach’s premature departure from the house.
“I’m not gay,” Zach famously once said, “but the bond that Frankie and I have is so genuine and sincere that I truly feel like he is my boyfriend.”
Now that the season is over and houseguests are free to interact with the public and the media, Frankie told People in an exit interview that he “fell in love” with Zach this summer, and that he’d say ‘yes’ if Zach ever proposed:
The Zankie reality show should happen as soon as possible. I am just now seeing some of the footage and there is no doubt that we love each other. I felt it in the house but I didn’t realize how ridiculous it looks to everyone else because [we look like] we are a couple. It’s very strange. It’s unbelievable. I love Zach so much. I’ve already told him the answer is “yes” if he proposes. [laughs]
Get it, Frankie. The show may be over, but we’ll forever be #TeamZankie.
Check out the rest of Frankie’s interview over at People, and check out the very best of Zankie below:
Matthew Tharrett
South Africa LGBT-Friendly Mosque May Close Down Barely A Week After Opening – VIDEO
South Africa’s first gay-friendly mosque could be shut down barely a week after it opened because it has violated municipal by-laws by not having any parking spaces, reports AFK Insider.
According to Taj Hargey, the director of the “forward thinking” organization Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford and Imam of the university’s Islamic Congregation, the Open Mosque in Wynberg, a Cape Town suburb – which opened last Friday – welcomes all genders, religions and sexual orientations. The mosque also allows women to lead prayers.
Hargey said that he has received many positive responses to the mosque but confirmed that he has also received “a lot of death threats.”
The Muslim Judicial Council, an umbrella organization of the South African Islamic clergy, condemned the mosque, stating that Hargey’s establishment cannot be considered a true mosque given that it does not adhere to both the Qur’aan and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad.
However, Hargey told the BBC that although his “autonomous and independent” mosque has been targeted by the City Council using “ridiculous bylaws,” he “will not be threatened by them or anyone else.”
Protesting outside the mosque, Imam Bilal Ghorieb said that his argument against the mosque is personal and “not part of the religion[‘s] understanding, my understanding, a selfish understanding.”
Elsabeth Muirhead said that, as a Unitarian, she went to the opening to support the mosque’s message of “tolerance, interfaith dialog and equality with women.”
Watch a report on the opening of the Open mosque, AFTER THE JUMP…
Jim Redmond
www.towleroad.com/2014/09/south-africa-lgbt-friendly-mosque-to-close-down-video.html
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