LGBTQ news and entertainment
HBO’s big Liberace movie with Matt Damon and Michael Douglas debuts Sunday, May 26th, but Entertainment Weekly has an exclusive behind-the-scenes look in this week’s issue.
Behind the Candelabra is based on Thorson’s 1988 memoir about Liberace’s over-the-top world of palatial houses, extravagant clothes, and secret affairs. (Liberace never publicly came out as gay before dying of AIDS in 1987.) It’s a world that Douglas actually witnessed first-hand, since his father, actor Kirk Douglas, was once Liberace’s neighbor in Palm Springs. “I remember meeting him just in passing, in his convertible with the top down — his hair not moving,” says the actor, who also got advice from one of Liberace’s close friends, Debbie Reynolds, who plays his mother in the film. “She just told me, ‘[Your voice] can never be too nasal.’”
The movie is also Douglas’ first role since his cancer diagnosis in 2010, and the actor tells EW that beating the disease and returning to acting has been therapeutic for him. “It was great to get back,” he says. “It gave me a new appreciation for what I do, taking advantage of it.”
Seriously. When you’re a player at Manti’s level, do teams really care?
From ThinkProgress:
National Football League teams want to know the same thing of the projected first-round draft pick at the league’s annual scouting combine, according to NBC and Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio, who told radio host Dan Patrick that the issue of Te’o’s sexuality has become “the elephant in the room” for NFL teams interested in drafting him. CBSSports.com’s Mike Freeman has the transcript, part of which is here:
“On the field, you still have to account for what happened in the BCS National Championship Game against Alabama,” Florio told the Dan Patrick Show. “Here’s the elephant in the room for the teams and it shouldn’t matter, but we have to step aside from the rest of reality and walk into the unique industry that is the NFL. Teams want to know whether Manti Te’o is gay. They just want to know. They want to know because in an NFL locker room, it’s a different world. It shouldn’t be that way.” […]
Patrick interrupted Florio to ask: “You’re telling me that you’re hearing from teams who want to know this, but how do you ask it? Are they trying to find a finesse way to ask that question, or are they going to do investigative work on finding out if Manti Te’o is gay?”
Florio said: “It’s been described to me as the proverbial elephant in the room and I don’t think anyone knows how to solve this dilemma yet. It’s just that they want to know what they’re getting. They want to know what issues they may be dealing with down the road. We just assumed that at some point there would be an openly gay player in an NFL locker room and the team would have to work with the realities and make sure that everything’s fine.”
Manti, apparently, is not the only player to be asked about his sexuality, the HuffPost reports:
NFL prospect Nick Kasa was asked by scouts about his sexual orientation at the NFL Combine, the tight end said in a radio interview on Tuesday.
Kasa, a senior at the University of Colorado, is one of a few hundred players who participated this week in the NFL Scouting Combine, an annual showcase for NFL prospects in advance of April’s draft. Over the course of the Combine, participants submit themselves for a variety of physical and mental tests, as well as interviews with NFL teams. According to Kasa, it was during these interviews that the topic of his sexual preferences came up.
“[Teams] ask you like, ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’ Are you married?’ Do you like girls?’” Kasa told CJ and Kreckman of ESPN Radio Denver on Tuesday. “Those kinds of things, and you know it was just kind of weird. But they would ask you with a straight face, and it’s a pretty weird experience altogether.”
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told Outsports the league is investigating:
“Like all employers, our teams are expected to follow applicable federal, state and local employment laws. It is league policy to neither consider nor inquire about sexual orientation in the hiring process. In addition, there are specific protections in our collective bargaining agreement with the players that prohibit discrimination against any player, including on the basis of sexual orientation. We will look into the report on the questioning of Nick Kasa at the Scouting Combine. Any team or employee that inquires about impermissible subjects or makes an employment decision based on such factors is subject to league discipline.”
The UFC will see it’s first women’s fight tonight and one of the athletes in the event, Liz Carmouche, is also the only openly gay fighter in the sport.
Leading up to the fight, both Carmouche and UFC president Dana White are talking about the historic competition and about openly gay fighters.
White has spoken publicly in support of Carmouche coming out, and when asked if a fighter had a problem with a match with a gay fighter, this was his response: “Most of the guys that are in this sport are really good people. I honestly don’t see a situation where that would happen, but if it did, I’d fix it.”
Regarding inclusiveness in the sport, here was White’s statement: “If you’re an athlete in the UFC and you are gay, I could care less. You will not be treated any different.”
p.s. Can I say how handsome Dana White is? Just had to put that out there. And thanks, Dana, for being one of the good guys.
(source)
In anticipation of the third season premiere of her WE tv reality series, Joan Rivers opened up about kissing a woman for the first time in an appearance on HuffPost Live.
The third season of “Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best?” premieres Feb. 23 at 9 p.m.
Love the “twist” at the end….
Yay Amazon!
NY-ers are used to the kooks who rant and rave on subway rides. But this one rider had had enough.
I love that the subway car erupts into applause at the 1:33 mark – “I’m a man. And I’m a good man. And I’m a gay man and Jesus loves me. Jesus loves me!”
Bravo, man, bravo!
Excellent riff on the Dodge “So God Made A Farmer” Super Bowl ad.
I like this one more.
Thanks to Crew Magazine.
Hate group leader Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council appeared on CNN today to speak with Carol Costello about the full page ad his group ran in USA Today urging the Boy Scouts to retain their ban on gay scouts.
Said Sprigg: “The mere fact that someone openly identifies themselves as homosexual means that they are modeling for boys the acceptability of homosexual conduct. And parents who do not agree with that view have a right to protect their children form that… They have a right to protect their children from the potential risk of child sexual abuse at the hands of men who might be attracted to other males.”
Costello correctly quoted an American Psychological Association study that shows homosexuals are not any more likely to molest kids than straight men.
“Unless you’re condemning every single homosexual in the country as being a possible pedophile, that’s not fair!”
(source)
A northern Alabama high school teacher is being investigated after a student recorded him making derogatory statements about gays and First Lady Michelle Obama.
School district officials are investigating allegations that a Lauderdale County High School teacher made slurs in the presence of students regarding first lady Michelle Obama and gays.
Superintendent Jennifer Gray confirmed the investigation concerns the school’s head football coach, Bob Grisham, who also teaches driver’s education and psychology.
The investigation includes a 1-minute, 24-second audiotape of Grisham asking who knows who is behind the 600-calorie school lunch. “Fat butt Michelle Obama,” he said. “Look at her. She looks like she weighs 185 or 190. She’s overweight.”
Male voices interject comments during the discussion, at one point referring to Michelle Obama as a “fat gorilla.”
Later in the tape, Grisham referred to the U.S. as going in the “wrong direction” and tells the students they can “get pissed off at me or not. You can go tell the principal, call the superintendent and tell her. I don’t believe in queers. I don’t like queers, I don’t hate them as a person, but what they do is wrong and an abomination against God.”
The tape was reportedly recorded by a student Monday and took place on school campus during the school day.
Grisham told the TimesDaily on Wednesday afternoon he misspoke. “I misspoke in a debate-type situation,” he said. “I have no hatred toward anyone or any group. People that know my heart, they know that.”
Check out the audio recording above.