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I guess gay people can't even enjoy fast food without being attacked these days.
The NYPD is investigating a crime against a gay couple that occurred during the early morning hours at a Staten Island White Castle this past Wednesday. Luis Vieira and Richard Vieira were harassed by a group of teenagers who called them gay slurs.
Silive picks it up from there:
"As they sat down to eat, three members of the group came in, Vieira said. As he looked at them, one approached the table and said, 'What the [expletive] are you looking at, fag?'”
"He responded, 'What the [expletive] are you looking at?' and after the two stared at each other for few seconds, the youth walked off. A few moments later, Vieira said, he felt a “bop in the back of the head.” He and his partner ran out, but retreated when they saw the youths swarming the parking lot."
"Vieira was asking a restaurant employee to call 911 when he realized Richard Vieira was no longer at his side. He found his partner outside, semiconscious and bleeding — he had been jumped and sucker-punched in the back of the head. 'I blotted him, brought him back to the White Castle,' Luis Vieira said. 'I had blood all over me. My partner had blood all over him.' A responding ambulance took Richard Vieira to Richmond University Medical Center, West Brighton, where he required stitches to close his wounds. He was later released. A police unit also responded, and after Luis Vieira made calls to several law enforcement agencies, a detective with the Hate Crimes Task Force reached out yesterday to the couple."
Luis Vieira, who was wearing a rainbow flag armband the night of the attack, insists that he and his partner were indeed targeted because they are gay.
Photo courtesy of Gothamist.
Posted 6:05 PM EST by Steve Pep in Crime, New York, News, Staten Island | Permalink
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OutFront Minnesota executive director Amy Johnson is stepping down after only a year and a half on the job .
Justin Timberlake goes for a quick summer run through the Village.
NYC Straight couple will wed in Connecticut to protest marriage inequality in their state. Bride-to-be says the fact that her lesbian friend couldn't marry was the impetus for the decision: “She and I both went to the same college, the same graduate school, we both work in museums, and are both in long-term, loving relationships and I could not figure out why my love for Scott was more worthy than her love for her partner. It just wasn’t right.”
Police arrest suspect in murder of Paulina Ibarra, a transgender woman who was murdered in Los Angeles last year.
Tigers could become extinct. Their numbers are down from 100,00 in 1900 to just 3,200.
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Singer Janelle Monáe on the gay rumors that have followed her lately: “The lesbian community has tried to claim me. But I only date androids. Nothing like an android — they don’t cheat on you.”
I really hope this doesn't become a fashion trend.
Who knew that Cristiano Ronaldo and Lance Bass were friends?
In case you were curious about who Jimmy Buffet blames for the BP oil spill: "To me it was more about eight years of bad policy before (Obama) got there that let this happen. It was Dracula running the blood bank in terms of oil and leases. I think that has more to do with it than how the president reacted to it."
The Houston Astros will hold a Pride at the Park Day dedicated to the LGBT community - essentially gay day put on by the baseball team.
The Vatican keeps losing money.
Posted 4:16 PM EST by Steve Pep in Baseball, Catholic Church, Comic Books, Crime, Cristiano Ronaldo, Fred Phelps, Gay Marriage, Houston, Janelle Monáe, Justin Timberlake, Lance Bass, Minnesota, Nature, Robert Pattinson, Transgender | Permalink
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State Senator Kim Reynolds may have accidentally revealed her support for civil unions in her state of Iowa. Reynolds, who is Republican candidate for Governor Terry Branstad's running mate, told the Iowa Independent the following: "I believe that the definition of marriage is between one man and one woman from a religious aspect. That is my belief. I have stated that. I have always believed that."
But then, in the same interview, Reynolds also revealed that she does indeed support some sort of of same-sex union recognized by the state. "We could take a look at civil unions. There are other options maybe that I would be in favor of looking at."
As you know, marriage equality in Iowa just celebrated its one-year anniversary earlier this year. According to KCCI, the Branstad campaign supports a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
Naturally, a spokesperson for the Branstad campaign is backpedaling, claiming that what Reynold meant to say was that she supported private civil union ceremonies, not ones that are authorized by the state.
According to one political analyst: "Certainly in the contemporary Republican party, the issue of gay marriage or anything having to do with it is the third rail of Republican politics. You do anything that indicates any kind of favorable attitude toward that and you're risking your political life."
Watch video of an uncomfortable and nervous Reynolds, whose voice and appearance give off major Sarah Palin vibes, discuss her thoughts on same-sex marriage, as well as abortion, AFTER THE JUMP.
Continue reading "Candidate For Lt. Governor in Iowa: "We Could Take A Look At Civil Unions""
Posted 2:02 PM EST by Steve Pep in Gay Marriage, Iowa | Permalink
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You may remember this attack last year in which a gay man, Joe Holladay, was brutally attacked in the upper east side by a group of men, one of whom used the word "faggot." The next day, two other gay men were also attacked in the city by someone who also used the f-word. One of those men required a metal plate to be installed in his head. 20-year-old Driton Nicaj was arrested for his involvement in the both of those attacks and, though he faced multiple felony and hate crime charges, made a deal with the DA for 45 day in prison and three years probation. According to Gay City News, Nicaj was released last month for good behavior after serving just 21 days.
Holladay is speaking out: “It makes me sick to my stomach. It’s not justice. I didn’t expect him to go away for years. I certainly didn’t expect it to end up being 45 days.”
The judge involved in the case claimed that Nicaj's use of the word "faggot" was “just typical trash-talking" and that "the most natural inference that can be drawn from defendant’s alleged statement is that he was motivated by anger."
Posted 12:17 PM EST by Steve Pep in Crime, New York | Permalink
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Two studies have been released today, both of which relate to homosexuality in the animal world.
After researchers in South Korea deleted a gene from a female mouse, said mouse immediately went off with other female mice.
AOL News explains what this might mean:
"We speculate that these behavioral changes are likely to be related to a neuro-developmental change in pre-optic area of the female mutant brain, becoming similar to that of a normal male," Professor Chankyu Park, of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, told UPI.
In particular, removing the gene exposes the brain to extra estrogen, which is responsible for masculinity in mice. In humans, testosterone does similar things.
And in the journal Nature, a study about evolution, parenting and birds:
"Biologists had thought that homosexuality is disadvantageous on an evolutionary level because it distracts animals from pursuing sexual encounters that could result in offspring. Yet more than 130 species of birds participate in homosexual activity — and sometimes a lot of it. In the Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis), for example, up to 31% of pairs are female–female in some populations, and up to 20% of pairings in graylag geese (Anser anser) are male–male. Scientists have struggled to explain such patterns."
"But homosexuality may not be costly for birds that have plenty of mating opportunities because of lower parenting demands, says Geoff MacFarlane, an ecologist at the University of Newcastle in Callaghan, Australia. The less effort that females or males put into parental care, the more they participate in homosexual activities, according to a survey of the literature his team published this week in the journal Animal Behaviour."
Some gay birds make the best parents. Remember these two?
Posted 11:25 AM EST by Steve Pep in Gay Animals, Nature | Permalink
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The University of Illinois has fired one of its professors after a complaint from a student who claims that the teacher spewed hate speech. Ken Howell, who made it clear that he himself was Catholic, taught "Catholicism and Modern Catholic Thought" at the public institution.
It was an e-mail Howell sent to his students about Natural Moral Law (NML) that led to the administration's decision to let him go. The anonymous student who complained wrote to them with this criticism: "Teaching a student about the tenets of a religion is one thing. Declaring that homosexual acts violate the natural laws
of man is another."
According to school officials, "The e-mails sent by Dr. Howell violate university standards of inclusivity, which would then entitle us to have him discontinue his teaching arrangement with us."
A portion of Howell's e-mail:
"NML says that Morality must be a response to REALITY. In other words, sexual acts are only appropriate for people who are complementary, not the same. How do we know this? By looking at REALITY. Men and women are complementary in their anatomy, physiology, and psychology. Men and women are not interchangeable. So, a moral sexual act has to be between persons that are fitted for that act. Consent is important but there is more than consent needed."
And another excerpt where Howell expresses his belief that gay sex is "injurious" to the human body:
"To the best of my knowledge, in a sexual relationship between two men, one of them tends to act as the 'woman' while the other acts as the 'man.' In this scenario, homosexual men have been known to engage in certain types of actions for which their bodies are not fitted. I don't want to be too graphic so I won't go into details but a physician has told me that these acts are deleterious to the health of one or possibly both of the men. Yet, if the morality of the act is judged only by mutual consent, then there are clearly homosexual acts which are injurious to their health but which are consented to. Why are they injurious? Because they violate the meaning, structure, and (sometimes) health of the human body."
Howell went on to write that "Catholics don't arrive at their moral conclusions based on their religion. They do so based on a thorough understanding of natural reality."
The Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal defense organization, will apparently represent Howell.
Posted 10:34 AM EST by Steve Pep in Catholic Church, Illinois, Religion | Permalink
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