Tag: LGBT

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Madonna presents Anderson Cooper with the GLAAD Vito Russo Award

Madonna, dressed in a Boy Scouts uniform, presented Anderson Cooper with the Vito Russo Award at the GLAAD Awards last night. Above is her entire 12 minute introduction speech.

The Vito Russo Award is presented to an openly LGBT media professional who has made a significant difference in promoting equality.

From Anderson’s acceptance speech:

As a gay person, it’s important for me to remember that all of us come from a community whose stories have for too long been forgotten and ignored, a community whose lives have for too long been ridiculed or misrepresented, a community that in spite of all that has found ways to love and to laugh and to care about one another, a community that has found ways to stand tall and stand up and make ourselves visible.

I know that I’m only able to be on this stage because of generations of gay people who have come before and some of their names are known, but so many have lived and died in silence… There lives never even acknowledged, their love hidden in the shadows, hands furtively held in the dark…

I’ve had many blessings in my life and being gay is certainly one of the greatest blessings. It has allowed me to love and be loved; it has allowed me to open my head and open my heart in ways that I never could have predicted. The ability to love one another, The ability to love another person is one of God’s greatest gifts and I thank God every day for enabling me to give and share love with people in my life, with my family, my friends, and my partner Benjamin.

Boy Culture’s Matthew Rettenmund shot video of Anderson Cooper accepting the award.

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Out professional boxer Orlando Cruz wins 2nd match since coming out

Featherweight pro boxer Orlando Cruz has won his second match since coming out.

From Blabbeando:

During the fight he wore a multicolor boxing kilt with Puerto Rican flags on both sides. One of the flags was red, white and blue, the other flag’s stripes reflected the color of the rainbow as a sign of gay pride. This is the second fight he wins after becoming the first active professional boxer to ever come out as a gay man back in October.

As in the last fight, his mother was at the side of the boxing ring shouting encouragement throughout the fight. The venue was filled to capacity and attendees seemed to be overwhelmingly on Cruz’s side throughout the fight.

After the match, Cruz tweeted: “To my work team, Puerto Rico, the LGBT community, my people from Quintana and my family: Thanks for being there and being part of my life. I love you and carry you with me.”

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I’ve loved you since you were born – Dad

How sweet and wonderful is this?

A letter posted on the Facebook page of FCKH8 is going viral today.  Here’s the text of the note:

Nate,

I overheard your phone conversation with Mike last night about your plans to come out to me. The only thing I need you to plan is to bring home OJ and bread after class. We are out, like you now.

I’ve known you were gay since you were six, I’ve love you since you were born.

– Dad

P.S. Your mom and I think you and Mike make a cute couple.
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President Clinton writes op-ed urging SCOTUS to strike down DOMA

Former President Bill Clinton, who signed DOMA into law, has written an op-ed urging the US Supreme Court to overturn the discriminatory law.

President Clinton writes, in part:

Americans have been at this sort of a crossroads often enough to recognize the right path. We understand that, while our laws may at times lag behind our best natures, in the end they catch up to our core values. One hundred fifty years ago, in the midst of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln concluded a message to Congress by posing the very question we face today: “It is not ‘Can any of us imagine better?’ but ‘Can we all do better?’ ”

The answer is of course and always yes. In that spirit, I join with the Obama administration, the petitioner Edith Windsor, and the many other dedicated men and women who have engaged in this struggle for decades in urging the Supreme Court to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act.

Read the entire op-ed at Washington Post.

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Mexican Supreme Court: Anti-gay expressions not protected by free speech

The First Chamber of the Mexican Supreme Court of Justice has ruled that anti-gay epithets are not protected speech under the Freedom of Expression.

From Blabbeando:

In this sense, the First Chamber determined that homophobic expressions or – in other words the frequent allegations that homosexuality is not a valid option but an inferior condition – constitute discriminatory statements even if they are expressed jokingly, since they can be used to encourage, promote and justify intolerance against gays.

For this reason, the Chamber determined that the terms used in this specific case – made up of the words “maricones” and “puñal” – were offensive. These are expressions which are certainly deeply rooted in the language of Mexican society but the truth is that the practices of a majority of participants of a society cannot trump violations of basic rights.

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Fort Worth: Mother walks in on son having sex, beats him until he bleeds

My own hometown of Fort Worth has a bit of a scandal going on due to a mother walking in on her son having sex.

Apparently, the woman’s cousin was performing oral sex on her son when she walked in.  But instead of beating the older man, she took an electrical cord and beat her son to the point that he bled and had bruises.

From CBS-DFW:

“My cousin at the time he was 18. My son he was 15 and I had walked in the room on [my cousin] giving oral sex to my son and I started whooping my son, and I’m the one who got in trouble as a result of me whooping him,” she said. “When I walked in I saw my son, it was just disgusting to me, the way he was looking and my cousin was looking, and my cousin immediately ran out the door. And I’m just like what the?!? You know, is you serious? So that was my reaction because it disgusted me.”

“The police department told me that it was consensual, but they was committing a homosexual act in my house and we are totally against that. So I whooped my son and about three or four months later they came and arrested me for abuse,” she recalled.

The boy’s grandmother alerted the police to the incident.  But things get worse from there.  Apparently, the officer who showed up told the mother he would have done worse, and might have even shot the son.

Ah, my people.

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City councilman faces backlash for sending email alert: “Bryan is gay”

Seriously dumb.

Councilman Matt Staniszewski, of Washington, Pennsylvania, has been reprimanded for sending out an “email alert” through the city’s emergency email alert system that said “Alert: This is a test. Bryan is gay.”

When Mayor Brenda Davis – who questioned why the councilman even had the codes to send an email on the system – addressed the councilman about the issue, he apparently responded that “gay means happy.”

He then went on to admonish the mayor saying “It’s offensive and unprofessional for the mayor to automatically assume one definition of the word when there are multiple definitions.”

Riiiiiight. That’s really what he meant. And now the Mayor is the one in the wrong?

Not thinking so pal.

Watch Jimmy Kimmel goof on the gay.

Here’s a pic of the councilman, who I hear is very gay, which means “very happy” – right?

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Texas: Lesbian vicously attacked for defending bullyed 4 year old

A Texas lesbian was the victim of a brutal attack that came when she attempted to stop older children from bullying her girlfriend’s four year-old son at a local playground.

The victim says the assault began when the parent of another child realized that she is a lesbian. Thus far police are refusing to consider the attack to have been a hate crime.

Scarber is grateful simply to be alive. She said she was attacked at an elementary school playground for protecting a bullied four-year-old boy. The scuffle between children, however, quickly escalated into violence among adults, Scarber worries, because she is a lesbian.

“She was just helping him, defending him from a big kid, and this is what happened to her,” said Scarber’s girlfriend and the boy’s mother, Hillary Causey.

SeabournThe couple had taken Causey’s son, Jaxon, to the playground at Mesquite’s Seabourn Elementary on Feb. 17. Shortly after arriving at 2:30 p.m., though, the couple said some older children began pushing Jaxon around.

“Sondra said, ‘Can you please keep your hands off of him, he’s only four,’” Causey said.

The father became enraged, she said, when he realized Scarber, who wears baggy clothes and has short hair, is a woman, and that the two are lesbians. Friends since the third grade, Scarber and Causey have been girlfriends for three years. They’re raising Causey’s young son together.

“When he walked up thinking it was father and mom with the kid, he wasn’t as angry,” said Causey, 26, “but then when he figured out it was a female, he got like super pissed, and I don’t know why.”

She said the man punched and kicked Scarber repeatedly, hurling homophobic slurs at her while she lay on the ground, unconscious.

(via WFAA)