Anti-gay-marriage Sweet Cakes bakers raise over US$350,000

Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of now-defunct Sweet Cakes by Melissa have raised a record-breaking US$352,500 in two months via crowdfunding website Continue to Give.

This is the second fundraising effort created in support of the couple since an Oregon judge ruled in April that they must pay Rachel Bowman-Cryer and her wife, Laurel Bowman-Cryer, US$75,000 and US$60,000 in damages respectively for rejecting their cake order in 2013.

On July 2 the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) handed the couple a final order for the same amount.

In April 2015, the couple raised nearly US$110,000 in donations via GoFundMe before the campaign was shut down by the site.

The company said the campaign was disabled as they were found to be in violation of Oregon state law concerning discriminatory acts. It said at the time the Kleins will be allowed to withdraw the funds they have raised.

GoFundMe soon after changed their policy to include a ban on ‘claims of heinous crimes, violent, hateful, sexual or discriminatory acts’ to make it easier for the company to remove campaigns for Christian-owned business owners fighting discrimination charges after declining to provide services for gay weddings.

The Washington Times reports that the Kleins started their fundraising campaign on Continue to Give on May 5 after their GoFundMe page was disabled.

Jesse Wellhoefer, the founder of Continue to Give which bills itself as ‘a faith-based giving platform,’ told the Washington Times that the Kleins have already broken the three-year-old site’s record for highest total raised and is continuing to raise funds.

He added that while his company has received ‘lots’ of complaints about the crowdfunding campaign, he will continue to host the campaign on his website.

‘Our response has been, “Thank you for your concern, have a great day and God bless you,’” he said.

The Kleins are expected to appeal the labor commissioner’s July 2 decision to the Oregon Court of Appeals.

The post Anti-gay-marriage Sweet Cakes bakers raise over US$350,000 appeared first on Gay Star News.

Sylvia Tan

www.gaystarnews.com/article/anti-gay-marriage-sweet-cakes-bakers-raise-over-us350000/

California police lieutenant suspended over anti-gay-marriage letter

A high-ranking police lieutenant in California has been officially placed on paid administrative leave after a letter he wrote to a newspaper strongly condemning the US Supreme Court’s ruling to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide was published.

Lt Toby Will, who has served the city of Stockton for two decades, signed the letter with his rank and employer and confirmed with the newspaper editor that is how he wanted it to appear in print, according to media reports.

His letter, which appeared in the Stockton Record on Wednesday, began with a biblical passage that condemned homosexual behavior.

The letter continued: ‘Man’s rebellion, ungodliness, and unrighteousness in rejecting the truth in order that he may live according to the vile and sinful passions of his corrupt heart is going to be met with the wrath of God.’

A day after the letter was published, the newspaper reported that the letter has ‘received special attention’ as it was written by a ‘high-ranking officer with the Stockton Police Department’.

In his correspondence with the newspaper, Will said he is aware that the letter which is signed with his public position might ‘have a negative impact on an otherwise impeccable police career.’

He said, ‘I feel very strongly regarding this issue. Much (not all), but much of the media leaves the public with the sense that this recent turn of events is being embraced by the broader public, as well as most spheres of professional society. This is not the case; and I would just like to be one voice, as a lieutenant of a moderate sized police agency that makes it very clear that I operate from a biblical world view, not a pop-culture one.’

Police department spokesman Officer Joe Silva clarified on Wednesday that Will ‘does not speak for the Police Department, and regarding his use of his police position, it is under administrative review.’

Following the publication of the letter, Police Chief Eric Jones also made a call to the San Joaquin Pride Center ‘to reassure them that Will does not speak for the Police Department,’ the spokesperson said.

The centre has conducted LGBT sensitivity training for the police department.

Renee Hall, chairwoman of the Pride Center board of directors, expressed her dismay with the letter saying that while everyone has the right to express their beliefs, there is a ‘fine line, especially when you are a police officer.’

‘How can you be a police officer when you don’t believe in the law? How are you going to be able to do your job? Are my wife and my child going to feel comfortable calling the Stockton police knowing he is not wanting to help us?’

Hall’s wife and partner of 33 years Susan Eggman, who represents Stockton in the California Assembly and previously served on the Stockton City Council, was equally distressed by the letter.

‘I think Lt. Will has put the city of Stockton and the Stockton Police Department in a very uncomfortable position in that he insisted that his title be used and going on record that he does not believe in the law,’ she was quoted by the Record as saying.

‘It is doubly sad that he insisted to be identified with one of the best police departments in the state of California.’

‘I think he crossed the line when he started using language like vile and debauchery. As far as being representative of the city, as an LGBT person, if I see a letter like that signed by a public official, I would be appalled and I don’t know if I would want to spend my money in Stockton.’

The newspaper printed several letters from readers in support as well as those who agreed with Will.

One reader wrote, ‘I resent this man with real authority insinuating his law enforcement position into this discussion.’

The post California police lieutenant suspended over anti-gay-marriage letter appeared first on Gay Star News.

Sylvia Tan

www.gaystarnews.com/article/california-police-lieutenant-suspended-over-anti-gay-marriage-letter/

Chelsea Manning Defense Fund Flooded With Donations

A legal defense fund for Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence worker sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking secret documents to WikiLeaks, has been flooded with donations, exceeding its goal with more than $125,000 in 48 hours.

“The level of grassroots support for this campaign has been truly impressive. Close to 1,100 donors in just 48 hours made their voices heard for Chelsea’s cause,” Trevor Timm, executive director of Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement. “It really shows how small donations can add up to something huge. Because of this success, we’re raising our goal to the full amount Chelsea Manning’s attorney has estimated will be needed to bring the case through oral arguments in the Army Court of Appeals. We’re confident, with your help, we can get there.”

Nancy Hollander, Manning’s attorney, said contributions to the crowdsourced fund are “beyond our wildest dreams.”

“We are grateful for this outpouring and continued support as we travel down this long road,” Hollander said.

Manning, 27, is imprisoned at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas for giving hundreds of thousands of government files to WikiLeaks, including information on U.S. operations in Guantánamo Bay and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Formerly Pfc. Bradley Manning, she will be eligible for parole in about 2020.

Manning began the process of transitioning to a woman last year, and was approved for a gender-reassignment hormone therapy in February. It was the first time the Defense Department has authorized such a treatment for an active service member, and followed a lawsuit pressing the military to allow Manning’s transition.

Manning and her legal team are pursuing an appeal of her conviction, with the hope of reducing her prison term. Prior to the fundraising campaign, Manning had collected about $40,000 in donations to cover legal fees.

First Look Media, the news organization created by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, announced the campaign on Wednesday, and pledged to match $60,000 in donations. According to the statement, $10,000 of the match will come from First Look’s prominent investigative journalist, Glenn Greenwald, who has led coverage of former National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden’s disclosures of government spying on ordinary citizens.

Greenwald explained the campaign in a post for First Look’s investigative news outfit, The Intercept:

“Whatever else one thinks of Manning, she should not face limits in her ability to pursue her legal rights with full zeal, nor should her already difficult circumstances be exacerbated by worries over how to pay legal fees,” he wrote. “Her actions redounded to the benefit of all of us, and it’s incumbent on those who are able to do what they can to help her defend her legal rights. It’s in our collective interest to ensure that whistleblowers are able to receive a full, vigorous defense of their rights, and that the government’s pernicious anti-transparency theories be contested.”

 The campaign continues to accept donations, which can be made here.

— 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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WATCH: Zoey Tur's Tense Exchange With Transphobic Brietbart Editor

After being called ‘sir’ on Thursday’s episode of Dr. Drew on Call, trans reporter Zoey Tur wasn’t having any more of conservative writer Ben Shapiro’s transphobia.

read more

Sunnivie Brydum

www.advocate.com/media/2015/07/17/watch-zoey-turs-tense-exchange-transphobic-brietbart-editor

Getting Married Past This Age Increases Your Risk Of Divorce, Research Suggests

 Want to get married and stay married? Don’t rush to get hitched when you’re young — but don’t wait too long, either. Once you’re past your early 30s, the risk of divorce starts to creep up again, according to new analysis. 

Nicholas Wolfinger, a sociologist at the University of Utah, looked at data from the National Survey of Family Growth and found that while the risk of divorce declines steadily from your teens into your late 20s — it starts to rise again somewhere in your 30s. 

Once you reach the age of 32, the odds of getting a divorce increase by 5 percent each year. 

As Wolfinger breaks it down on the Institute For Family Studies blog, “Those who tie the knot after their early thirties are now more likely to divorce than those who marry in their late 20s.” 

Wolfinger writes that it’s “no mystery” why those who marry as teens face a higher risk of divorce: most of us don’t have the coping skills or maturity to deal with marriage in our teens or early 20s, he suggests — and marrying young correlates with lower educational attainment, which increases the risk for divorce regardless of age. 

But why does waiting until you’re well into your 30s increase the odds? Shouldn’t you be better equipped to handle the stresses of marriage the older you get? 

The researcher isn’t entirely sure but suggests it might have something to do with what he calls the “selection effect”: those who wait to wed may be the type of people who just aren’t cut out for marriage. Ouch. 

“They delay marriage, often because they can’t find anyone willing to marry them,” Wolfinger explains in his blog. “When they do tie the knot, their marriages are automatically at high risk for divorce. More generally, perhaps people who marry later face a pool of potential spouses that has been winnowed down to exclude the individuals most predisposed to succeed at matrimony” 

The Huffington Post reached out to Wolfinger for comment but he did not reply by the time of publication. 

For those of you suddenly feeling like you just. can’t. win regardless of when you decide to marry, take heart: This is just a statistical analysis based on general trends and may not reflect your personal experience. And overall, the divorce rate in the U.S. continues to drop from its peak in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Phew. 

For more on Wolfinger’s analysis, head here. 

 Keep in touch! Check out HuffPost Divorce on Facebook.

— 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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David Thorpe confronts his ‘gay voice’ in his new film Do I Sound Gay?

David Thorpe wondered if other gay men were as distressed about the way they talk as he was.

So in his new documentary, Do I Sound Gay?, he asked some very famous ones including actor George Takei, designer Tim Gunn, author David Sedaris, newsman Don Lemon and columnist Dan Savage to weigh in.

Comic Margaret Cho also shares some insights in the film which opened Friday (17 July) in Los Angeles., Atlanta, Philadelphia and Denver.

‘Sometimes a voice is just a voice and sometimes it’s a symbol of something much bigger,’ Thorpe told the audience after a sell-out screening at the Outfest Film Festival in Los Angeles this week.

Thorpe shares in the film his life-long struggle with ‘gay voice’ – something you can’t quite define but you know it when you hear it.

He examines the questions ‘Do gay men who talk like gay men do it naturally or it is learned?’ and ‘Why are so may gay men so hung up on not sounding gay?’

One of the reasons is survival and how sounding gay as a boy or a teen can lead to bullying, says Savage who founded It Gets Better Project.

Thorpe said that while growing up, ‘if something sounds gay it’s like the worse thing ever. It’s associated with a lot of shame and a lot of stigma. … It’s amazing to me how many of my gay friends had speech therapy as kids.’

When he came out in college, he believes he got a lot less self-conscious: ‘I wanted to look gay and sound gay. I was so excited to be out of the closet.’

But later he began to wonder: ‘How did I get this gay voice stuck on me? Is it my real voice or this voice I reached for after I came out?’

In the film, he works with two different noted speech therapists in an attempt to see if he could change his voice to make it sound ‘less gay.’

In the end he learns that the real issue is this: ‘Coming to terms with my voice is coming to terms with myself.’

To find out where the film is screening, go to DoISoundGay.com

The post David Thorpe confronts his ‘gay voice’ in his new film Do I Sound Gay? appeared first on Gay Star News.

Greg Hernandez

www.gaystarnews.com/article/david-thorpe-confronts-his-gay-voice-in-his-new-film-do-i-sound-gay/

Kentucky Bill Would Allow Clerks to Deny Marriage Licenses to Same-Sex Couples

The proposed legislation aims to ‘protect religious freedoms’ of state government officials.

read more

Daniel Reynolds

www.advocate.com/politics/2015/07/17/kentucky-bill-would-allow-clerks-deny-marriage-licenses-same-sex-couples

The Building Blocks of Erotic Intimacy
Sex addiction is a coping mechanism, much like compulsive eating, gambling or drinking, that works to either augment the addict’s pleasure or numb his or her pain. It’s a defense against overwhelming feelings that the addict cannot regulate, feelings that have their roots in childhood, when primary caregivers proved unreliable at best, and abusive at worst. Having failed to attach in a healthy way within these initial relationships, the addict now struggles to form bonds with others, either due to fear of abandonment, fear of enmeshment or fear of harm. The result of these fears, regardless of their particular flavor, is a phobia of intimacy that pervades the sex addict’s life. In response, he or she turns to relationship substitutes that also function as brain chemistry-altering drugs — porn, affairs, prostitutes, promiscuity. Thus sex addiction is a complex and highly sophisticated “solution” to the addict’s emotional problems. It is not dismantled easily.

What’s needed is an understanding of the building blocks of intimacy, which when worked on individually and as a whole, will gradually allow the addict to learn a new style of relating to others. The goal is for the addict is to learn to securely attach to healthy partners and experience the joy of intimacy, which once tasted, can be so powerful it incinerates all illusions that sexual acting out can ever fulfill the deep inner longing for connection that all humans have in common.

One of the most important building blocks is transparency. This means allowing ourselves to be seen and known authentically, no matter the consequences. To a sex addict, this can be horrifying. The shame involved in coming clean about the addiction is enough to send the addict right back to the sex club. But transparency is not just about disclosing secrets or divulging details to a partner. It’s about letting other people know when we’re hurting; lettings others in on our humor; sharing our talents; and even just being “boring” when we’re tired or need down time. Transparency is like the clean oxygen needed for relationships to breathe, and it begins in the safety of a therapeutic setting where addicts can risk being themselves, perhaps for the first time ever.

Another major building block of intimacy is vulnerability. Through years of acting out, the sex addict has built of a brick wall of “toughness,” an emotional invincibility that is evidenced in the callous objectifying of others and the ability to stay emotionally detached from partners. Learning to accept that we can be hurt, that we most likely will be hurt from time and time, and that we can be hurt and still be okay is the key to moving towards healthy bonds. To even acknowledge how deeply we can be wounded by a cold look, an unreturned email or a rejected invitation can be daunting, but once viewed in the context of our shared humanity, it becomes easier for the addict to understand how normal their responses are, and to cope with the disappointment in ways that are loving and respectful towards oneself, rather than destructive.

There are many more building blocks and cornerstones of intimacy, and each one is like a key that can open the door to freedom for the sex addict. Throughout the journey, it is essential to having a kind and supportive guide in the form of a therapist or counselor, for this work can unearth traumas too great to be handled on one’s own. Support groups are also invaluable during this stage of recovery, where addicts can share their progress and ultimately begin to grasp that they are not alone.

— 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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After severe backlash, Gawker takes down post outing media executive

Gawker has taken down a controversial article that outed a magazine executive and accused him of attempting to hire a gay porn star for sex.

The website, whose founder and managing editor Nick Denton is an openly gay man, was widely attacked for posting the article which involves a Condé Nast executive who is married to a woman and has children.

‘It is a decision I regret,’ Denton wrote in a post Friday (17 July).

Gay Star News has chosen to keep anonymous of the executive whose only connection to the public eye is having a brother who was a former official in the Obama administration.

Denton acknowledged the criticism of the piece from readers has been intense and some of the site’s own writers ‘are equally appalled.’

‘Gawker is no longer the insolent blog that began in 2003,’ he writes. ‘It does important and interesting journalism about politicians, celebrities and other major public figures. This story … does not rise to the level that our flagship site should be publishing.’

Jordan Sargent, who wrote the story, posted screenshots of text messages and photos of the two agreeing to meet for sex until the porn star realized the man’s brother could help him out with a discrimination lawsuit against his landlord. Realizing what could happen, the executive then backed out of the deal. The porn star then went to Gawker and was given anonymity.

Writes Denton: ‘It is the first time we have removed a significant news story for any reason other than factual error or legal settlement.

‘Every story is a judgment call. As we go forward, we will hew to our mission of reporting and publishing important stories that our competitors are too timid, or self-consciously upright, to pursue. There will always be stories that critics attack as inappropriate or unjustified; and we will no doubt again offend the sensibilities of some industries or interest groups.’

The post After severe backlash, Gawker takes down post outing media executive appeared first on Gay Star News.

Greg Hernandez

www.gaystarnews.com/article/after-severe-backlash-gawker-takes-down-post-outing-media-executive/

Guess What? You Can No Longer Be Fired For Being Gay Anywhere In America.

After last month’s historic move to nationally recognize same-sex marriages, the next battlegrounds for gay rights in America are housing and employment protections.

Now it seems a major step has been taken on the latter, potentially putting to rest for good the ability to fire an employee based on his or her sexual orientation. That’s huge!

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, created to enforce and implement the 1964 Civil Rights Act, ruled this week that workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation is illegal.

The ruling states that employers who discriminate against LGBT workers are violating Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination “based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.”

It’s a new interpretation of the law with wide-reaching potential.

In the past, courts have ruled that Title VII doesn’t apply to sexual orientation because it isn’t explicitly mentioned, but the new interpretation accounts for LGBT discrimination under the umbrella of sex discrimination.

“Sexual orientation discrimination is sex discrimination because it necessarily entails treating an employee less favorably because of the employee’s sex,” the EEOC concluded.

It’s similar to how racial discrimination extends to relationships. Just as a man can’t be fired for dating a woman of a different race, the same man can’t be fired for dating a person of the same sex.

Oddly enough, Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the dissent in the marriage equality case, hinted at this same logic during sessions considering whether or not to take the case.

“If Sue loves Joe and Tom loves Joe, Sue can marry him and Tom can’t,” Roberts argued in April. “And the difference is based upon their different sex. Why isn’t that a straightforward question of sexual discrimination?”

What remains unclear is how this new interpretation will affect current efforts to pass legislation specific to protecting LGBT employees.

Of course, these new guidelines only help if you can prove you were fired for being gay. But it’s a cause for celebration nonetheless.

Dan Tracer

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