Sweet.
From SOCRUSH, an LGBT group of people that want to help community members live longer and healthier by encouraging them to live smokefree.
Ab Fab blooper reel
These ladies crack me up. Even when they don’t mean to. Enjoy.
Romantic italian commercial for John Saint-Denis candles
This is how to sell candles.
And how about the sexy leading man of the video, Peter Calandra?
From the YouTube page: After a difficult day, Paolo rushed from the American offices in Torino, climbing up the hills to Montgenevre just over the French border. Phone dead, car stopping and starting, navigating road construction, he was going to be late for their anniversary dinner at their Palazzo.
http://www.johnsaint-denis.com
Starring Peter Calandra (https://www.facebook.com/PeterVCalandra)
Executive Producer: John Saint-Denis
Director: Nino Mancuso
Producer: Brian Rodda
Kansas Pastor Curtis Knapp calls for government to round up and kill gays
The leader of the New Hope Baptist Church in Seneca, pastor Curtis Knapp, told parishioners that the government should round up LGBT people and kill them, according to audio posted by the Good As You blog.
“‘Oh, so you’re saying we should go out and start killing them?'” the pastor asked rhetorically. “No, I’m saying the government should. They won’t, but they should.”
He later explained to CNN that gays have nothing to fear from him, although he did say he believed gays should be rounded up by the federal government and killed.
This comes on the heels of a call for LGBT concentration camps from pastor Charles Worley in North Carolina. That sermon followed one by another North Carolina pastor named Sean Harris, who laughed at the idea anyone could be transgender and suggested cracking the wrists of a son who acts effeminate — a statement he later claimed was some kind of joke.
Also making the rounds today is a cell phone video of a child being cheered on by his Indiana church while singing, “Ain’t no homo going to make it to heaven.”
The Human Rights Campaign quickly denounced the comments and the string of others like it, saying extremists were “hijacking” religion.
“These are extreme and brutal messages that do not represent the beliefs of most people of faith,” said Sharon Groves, HRC’s director of religion and faith. “People like Charles Worley and the parishioners of Apostolic Truth in Indiana are falsely perpetuating the word of God and stand to do real damage to religious institutions in the process.”
(source)
JC Penney features same-sex couple dads in new ad
JCPenney has just launched a Fathers’ Day advertisement featuring a gay couple with their children, noting that the ad portrays “real-life dads Todd Koch and Cooper Smith with their children, Claire and Mason.”
The copy reads:
First Pals: What makes Dad so cool? He’s the swim coach, tent maker, best friend, bike fixer and hug giver — all rolled into one. Or two.
The ad builds on the department store’s recent decisions to stand with the LGBT community. In February, when JCPenney came under fire from the anti-gay group One Million Moms for bringing on the openly-gay comedian Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesperson, the store stood behind its partnership with Ellen.
JCPenney’s CEO said that “Ellen represents the values of our company” — and with this kind of pro-equality advertising, JCPenney is continuing to reinforce its progressive values.
(source)
NC Pastor Charles “Concentration Camp” Worley avoids the press
After his inflammatory remarks saying gays and lesbians should be put behind electrified fences until they die out, Pastor Charles Worley is avoiding any contact with the press or addressing his remarks.
Gay marriage opponents in WA state say they have signatures for ballot measure
Gay marriage opponents looking to overturn that state’s marriage equality law claim they have collected enough signatures to get their measure on this November’s ballot:
Joseph Backholm, with Preserve Marriage Washington, said that the campaign for Referendum 74 has at least 150,000 signatures on hand. Backers of R-74 need to turn in 120,577 valid voter signatures by next Wednesday in order to qualify for the ballot. The secretary of state’s office recommends that campaigns submit about 150,000 signatures in order to provide a cushion for invalid or duplicate signatures.”
As we saw this morning, though, most Washington voters want to keep the equality law in place, and the pro-LGBT group Washington United for Marriage is ready for a campaign fight.
“We always expected [opponents] to reach the number,” said group spokesman Zach Silk “We’ve been preparing our campaign to talk to voters. We believe at the end of the day they’ll side with us to uphold the law.”
Silk also says his group has about $714,000 in the bank to maintain same-sex marriage. Preserve Marriage, in contrast, only has about $43,000.
(source)
Federal Appeals Court overturns key provision of DOMA
In what will without a doubt be a landmark decision, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston today ruled that key pieces of the Defense of Marriage Act, that 90s-era law prohibiting the federal government from extending marriage benefits to same-sex couples, violates the Constitution.
The case, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, hinges on whether the government has a rational reason for discriminating against gay couples. The court clearly thinks not, because “moral disapproval” should not be the basis of laws.
The appeals court agreed with a lower court judge who ruled in 2010 that the law is unconstitutional because it interferes with the right of a state to define marriage and denies married gay couples federal benefits given to heterosexual married couples, including the ability to file joint tax returns. The court didn’t rule on the law’s other provision, which said states without same-sex marriage cannot be forced to recognize gay unions performed in other states.
Metro Weekly provides a portion of the ruling:
[M]any Americans believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and most Americans live in states where that is the law today. One virtue of federalism is that it permits this diversity of governance based on local choice, but this applies as well to the states that have chosen to legalize same-sex marriage. Under current Supreme Court authority, Congress’ denial of federal benefits to same-sex couples lawfully married in Massachusetts has not been adequately supported by any permissible federal interest.
Here is a PDF of the decision.
(source)
Joe Manganiello in Men’s Health UK
Just to help you get over hump day, here’s a few pictures from Joe Manganiello’s photo shoot for Men’s Health UK. I don’t know about you but I’m definitely inclined to go buy the magazine now.
And don’t worry, “Magic Mike” movie will be here soon. This is just to tide you over until we get to enjoy Joe as “Big Dick Richie” in the upcoming Soderbergh film.
Click the pics to see larger view. And isn’t that what we all want? A larger view…
Fox and Friends runs anti-Obama campaign ad as “journalism”
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
Note that Fox & Friends isn’t playing a campaign ad or a YouTube spot from an outside political action committee.
Nor does this come from the production company of one of its opinion-program hosts. The video starts with “Fox and Friends Presents” on the screen, making this an explicit argument from the news channel itself. This is a four minute video – not a casual comment thrown around here or there.
Should a news organization produce and publish attack ads like this? If anyone wanted to look for evidence that the overall Fox News organization intends to campaign against Obama rather than cover the campaign, this video would be difficult to refute as evidence for that claim.
While the video attempts to make an argument against another four years of President Obama, that shouldn’t be the job of news-reporting organizations.
And the remarkable thing was the the hosts on the couch for this show had the audacity to present it as journalism and congratulate the producer who put it together.