The National LGBTQ Task Force is welcoming the decision by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to stop using private prisons.
Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates announced the decision on Thursday in a memo that instructs officials to either decline to renew the contracts for private prison operators when they expire or “substantially reduce” the contracts’ scope, reports The Washington Post.
“The fact of the matter is that private prisons don’t compare favorably to Bureau of Prisons facilities in terms of safety or security or services, and now with the decline in the federal prison population, we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to do something about that,” Yates said.
Russell Roybal, deputy executive director, National LGBTQ Task Force welcoming the news said, “The decision by the Department of Justice to stop using private prisons is a significant breakthrough in the process of radically reforming our criminal justice system. Private prisons have been a complete failure—providing substandard services, overuse of solitary confinement and protective custody, and even more deplorable conditions in an already strained and broken system. A profit motive should never be involved in the decision of whether to incarcerate a human being,”
In the United States, two out of three (about 66 percent) of adults in prison and jail are people of color while only compromising one in three (about 33 percent) of the country’s adult population. In the country’s juvenile justice facilities one out of five are LGBTQ and gender non-conforming youth—and of those 85 percent are LGBTQ youth of color. Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of LGBTQ people in prison and jails report experiencing discrimination and verbal harassment report experiencing discrimination, verbal harassment, and physical assault by prison staff.
“Prisons in general are not safe for anyone, and are particularly unsafe for LGBTQ people, who face higher rates of physical and sexual harassment and abuse in incarceration. This is especially true for LGBTQ people of color, low-income LGBTQ people, and transgender and gender nonconforming people who are disproportionately represented in the criminal legal system, including in incarceration. As we work toward a criminal justice system that is more about justice than about needlessly criminalizing people — and we see incarceration levels decrease as a result — we also need to ensure that LGBTQ people have the services and support they need when they return to their communities. That’s why the National LGBTQ Task Force has been working with the Bureau of Prisons, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and others to make services and supports more easily available to members of our community who are returning home from incarceration,” said Roybal.
The National LGBTQ Task Force, through its Criminal and Economic Justice Project, advocates for criminal justice reform, including improving conditions for LGBTQ people who are incarcerated and releasing incarcerated people who are serving sentences in unsafe conditions. The advocacy organization has also been working with the Administration to reform the immigration system. The Department of Justice’s announcement will impact many people who are incarcerated for immigration-related offenses and are being held in DOJ facilities.
The title of this new (mostly) American dramedy from Spanish filmmaker J.C. Falcónis taken from FaceBook which frequently proffers up suggestions of new friends. In this instance it serves as means to tell Joe (Sean Mather) the protagonist, that he has been ‘catfished’ : the delightful term for someone who has been lured into a relationship by means of a fictional online persona. More of that later.
Joe and his three best friends are now in their late 30’s and are reaching a point in their lives when they each will be confronted with some major unexpected developments which will require change and making choices, and this story is essential how they respond and decide which path they should take.
Delia (Andrea Grano) and Rodrigo (Nacho San José) are married and have just discovered why Delia cannot conceive before Rodrigo gets a posted to Spain for his work for a few months. Nerdy Herbert (Mark Cirillo) has almost given up on having a boyfriend and after a trip to a Psychic he’s trying to do different things as she told him he’ll meet the love of his life in the most unexpected place. Joe meanwhile has been having a secret online relationship with Tom which so far has consisted of cyber-sex, and a very vivid explicit dream, as they have never met.
With Rodrigo out of the picture, the other three friends have a wild night of drinking and drugs after which Joe ends up in bed wth Delia his ex-girlfriend from the days when he was still straight. If that is not awkward enough, things get really complicated when Delia then finally gets pregnant, news that she knows will not go down too well with infertile Rodrigo.
With Joe finally discovering the truth about Tom, Delia having to choose between husband or baby, and Herbert getting a big promotion at work which means re-locating just after he has met and fallen for outdoorsy sporty Nicholas (Curt Hansen), decisions have to be made.
This is essentially a refreshing and easy-going feel-good boy-lit dramedy. With its predictable plot that holds no surprises at all, and which follows through with its very obvious intention in ensuring that there is a ‘happy ever after’ ending for all the characters involved. With an entertaining script (that could have been tightened in the second half) and it’s very likable and talented cast, this crowd-pleaser movie will appeal to most hopeless romantics. And especially anyone who has ever been catfished.
P.S. The tiny cameo role of Rodrigo’s mother is played by one of Almodovar ‘s favorite actresses Carmen Maura
Petaluma’s Mystic Theater has scheduled a September show by reggae artist Sizzla whose lyrics insight violence against the LGBTQI Community and who makes anti-gay statements during performances. He first emerged onto the Jamaican dancehall scene in the late ‘90s, and quickly became notorious for incorporating hateful lyrics into his songs.
The North Bay LGBTQI Community is in the process of alerting the local media to bring attention to the concert and Sizzla’s reputation. Many are emailing and calling the Mystic to express their concern and urge owners and management to cancel the Sizzla show. Members or the group have noted that they will organize a rally, if the concert is not canceled.
The Mystic has not returned written and phone requests for a comment.
Sizzla’s concert that was scheduled for September 23 at 1015 Folsom in San Francisco was recently cancelled after Shane Downing of www.hoodline.com questioned 1015’s owner Ira Sandler about the upcoming show. According to Downing, Sandler was: deeply apologetic about the booking. He explained that in late July, when the show was booked, he had just suffered a heart attack and a double bypass. “I’m a very hands-on owner, and I always vet artists who are potentially controversial,” he told Downing via email. The booking “slipped through the cracks” while he was taking care of his health.
The concert has been moved to Oakland and the new venue will honor tickets purchased for the San Francisco concert.
Two additional Sizzla concerts are scheduled for California in Santa Cruz and Inglewood. The month-long Sizzla 876 US Tour just kicked off on the east coast, winding its way west, including dates in Portland and Seattle, and ends with two stops in Texas.
In June the Sizzla concert that was scheduled as part of Belgium’s Reggae Geel Festival was cancelled after produces learned of a video shot in January at a Kingston, Jamaica concert in which Sizzla makes anti-gay statements. Reggae Geel has a policy that prohibits such comments made by artists and feel tolerance is of the highest importance.
During a 2013 performance at the annual Sting festival in Kingston, Jamaica, Sizzla spent more than a minute of his set attacking LGBT people, according to Buzzfeed.
“The rhyme that got Sizzla in hot water … began as a response to his critics,” Buzzfeed reported, “and ended with him screaming ‘battyman’ — Jamaican slang equivalent to ‘faggot’ — while jumping up and down.” Sizzla was banned from performing at the festival the following year.
On Tuesday, August 3 Eureka’s Times-Standard‘s website was dominated by a large picture of Sizzla under the headline, “Sizzla Confirmed for Reggae on the River.” The story, if you click through, joyously notes, “Grammy-nominated Sizzla Kalonji — one of reggae’s biggest stars — is finally returning to a U.S. stage after eight years of travel delays.”In reality, there were no travel delays. Back in 2008 Sizzla (born Miguel Orlando Collins) had his travel visa revoked following protests over the violently anti-gay lyrics in some of his songs. The controversy has followed him around the globe. In the past decade protests have led to concert cancelations in Canada and across Europe, and in 2004 the British government considered banning him from entering the U.K. (The point became moot after his scheduled tour there was canceled.)
During a 2002 Chicago performance, Sizzla openly bragged that he “kills queers,” and he urged the audience to kill “sodomites and queers” who “bring AIDS and disease upon people.”
The issue of so-called “murder music” isn’t merely an abstract matter of free speech. Human Rights Watch notes that in Jamaica LGBT people are regularly “taunted, threatened, fired from their jobs, thrown out of their homes or worse: beaten, stoned, raped or killed.”
A 2014 report from the group documented 56 cases of violence where victims said they were targeted for their real or perceived sexual identity. And the Southern Poverty Law Center notes that, according to Jamaica’s only LGBT rights group, 98 gay men and lesbians were attacked in that country during a single six-month period in 2007.
That very same year Sizzla was one of four controversial “murder music” performers to sign the Reggae Compassionate Act, in which the signatories promised to “respect and uphold the rights of all individuals to live without fear of hatred and violence due to their religion, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity or gender.”
But Sizzla just went right on espousing anti-gay sentiments. In 2010, for example, he effectively recanted his Compassionate Act promise with a song called “Nah Apologize,” the hook of which goes:
As the Times-Standard notes, this will be Sizzla’s first performance in the United States since his visa was revoked. (It was evidently reinstated earlier this year.) The local community is no stranger to the Murder Music controversy. In 2009 and 2010 concerts by fellow hate-mongers Buju Banton, Bounty Killer and Capleton were canceled following threats of protest.
The tensions eventually led to a community forum attended by local venue owners, concert promoters, LGBT groups and elected officials. The goal was to develop a local “no murder music” agreement, but a planned second meeting — and the agreement — never happened.
We heard about Sizzla from Todd Larsen of Queer Humboldt, who launched an awareness campaign in 2009, about Sizzla’s anti-LGBTQ statements when he saw that he had been booked for shows in Humboldt County, at Petaluma’s Mystic Theatre, and at 1015 Folsom.
“We’ve worked in the past to educate our community on the handful of murder music singers,” wrote Larsen. “Sizzla just snuck into the Reggae on the River [festival] up here [in Humboldt County], and we’ve engaged the sponsor to build in steps to avoid having murder music singers perform again.”
We urge members of the LGBTQI Community to protest the Sizzla concert at the Mystic Theatre by emailing the business at info@mystictheatre.com or by calling them at 707-765-2121.
Equality California announced today that it has endorsed Proposition 63, the “Safety for All” ballot initiative backed by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom. Following the shootings in June at an Orlando LGBT nightclub, a spike in homicides of LGBT people and an ongoing worldwide epidemic of murders of transgender women, Equality California has made enacting gun safety measures a key part of its program and advocacy work.
Orlando was a call to action and a reminder that ending gun violence must be a top priority for the LGBT community,” said Rick Zbur, executive director of Equality California. “But even before Orlando, gun safety was an LGBT issue, because LGBT people suffer disproportionately from gun violence. Proposition 63 will help close remaining loopholes in California’s gun safety laws and help ensure that no community has to suffer another Orlando, San Bernardino or Newtown.”
The announcement was made via Facebook Live and can be seen HERE.
Equality California joins Lt. Gov. Newsom and dozens of other key leaders and organizations in endorsing Proposition 63. These include initiative co-author The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the California Democratic Party, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, Speaker Emeritus of the Assembly Toni Atkins, Speaker Emeritus of the Assembly John Pérez, District Attorney Jeff Rosen, District Attorney Nancy O’Malley, District Attorney George Gascon, District Attorney Joyce Dudley, San Francisco Sheriff Vicki Hennessy, the cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Belvedere, Berkeley, Cupertino, East Palo Alto, Oakland, Tiburon and West Hollywood, SEIU, California Medical Association, California American College of Emergency Physicians, California American College of Physicians, California Federation of Teachers, California League of Women Voters, California Young Democrats, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, Courage Campaign, Emergency Response Doctors, Rabbis Against Gun Violence, Southern California Public Health Association, States United to Prevent Gun Violence, and Women Against Gun Violence.
“It is vital for our state to come together on this important issue, and I am so glad to have Equality California join the Proposition 63 campaign as an endorser and as a key leader in the LGBT community,” said Newsom. “More than 32,000 Americans are killed every year due to gun violence, and the LGBT community is disproportionately targeted. The result is the massacre we saw in Orlando. This is an epidemic that is preventable and with strong leaders and organizations coming together we can make our communities safe again.”
Proposition 63, representing the strongest set of gun laws that have been proposed in the state of California, will appear on the 2016 November California ballot with the following provisions:
Keeping Guns from Dangerous Criminals: Provides a clear firearms relinquishment process for those convicted of a felony or a violent misdemeanor, and clarifies the law to ensure that theft of a gun – of any value – is a felony, which prohibits the thief from owning firearms.
Reporting Lost or Stolen Guns and Ammunition: Requires firearms dealers to report lost or stolen ammunition. Requires gun owners to notify law enforcement if their firearm has been lost or stolen. California would join the city of Sacramento and 11 other states that require lost or stolen firearm reporting.
Shares Data with Federal System on Prohibited People: Assures effective background checks by mandating that California share data with the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System(NICS).
Treating Ammunition Sales Like Gun Sales: Requires licensing of ammunition vendors and requires firearms dealers to conduct background checks on employees by January 1, 2018. Requires point-of-sale background checks for ammunition purchases. If a person is convicted of a felony, a violent misdemeanor, has a restraining order or has been declared dangerously mentally ill, they will no longer be able to buy ammunition in California. California would be the first state to require background checks at point of sale.
Prohibiting Possession of Large-Capacity Military-Style Magazines: Outlaws possession of large-capacity magazines of 11 rounds or more and provides for their legal disposal. California would join New York, New Jersey, Hawaii and the District of Columbia in banning possession of these military-style clips.
The initiative also allows the legislature to amend provisions within the Safety for All Act: “This Act shall be broadly construed to accomplish its purposes. The provisions of this measure may be amended by a vote of 55 percent of the members of each house of the Legislature and signed by the Governor so long as such amendments are consistent with and further the intent of this Act.”
The full text of the initiative can be found at SafetyforAll.com.
###
Equality California is the nation’s largest statewide lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization dedicated to creating a fair and just society. Our mission is to achieve and maintain full and lasting equality, acceptance, and social justice for all people in our diverse LGBT communities, inside and outside of California. Our mission includes advancing the health and well-being of LGBT Californians through direct healthcare service advocacy and education. Through electoral, advocacy, education and mobilization programs, we strive to create a broad and diverse alliance of LGBT people, educators, government officials, communities of color and faith, labor, business, and social justice communities to achieve our goals. www.eqca.org
The Senate Committee Appropriations forwarded 10 bills authored by California State Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) to the full State Senate, advancing her efforts to bolster the earning power of working families and protect their public safety, regardless of immigration status.
The Senate’s committee on fiscal issues released from its suspense file bills that would make diapers more affordable for young families, provide California’s 400,000 farmworkers overtime after an 8-hour workday, require restaurant servers and bartenders undergo drunk driving prevention trainings, crack down on human trafficking by increasing penalties for purchasers of sex, eliminate gender bias in the state’s workers’ compensation system, improve workplace conditions through labor law education in nail salons, better protect janitors against sexual assault in workplace, notify parents about the identification of their children as English language learners, and prevent immigration deportations caused neglectful legal advice.
Under Assembly Bill 1708, California would, for the first time, treat the purchasing and selling of sex as different crimes, allowing for different penalties. This fundamental change allows a wide range of changes to be made which both improve protections for trafficking victims and create stronger deterrents for purchasers who sustain the market for sex trafficking. AB 1708 would also increase penalties for purchasers of sex who drive demand for exploitation, requiring a person who sought to procure or did procure sexual services to spend at least 72 hours in jail with flexible sentencing implementation, in addition to paying a minimum fine to fund victim services of $250 for purchasing sex with an adult to $1,000 for purchasing sex with a minor.
Beginning in 2019, AB 1066 would gradually phase in standards for farmworker overtime lowering the current 10-hour day level to the standard 8-hour day, and establishing for the first time a 40-hour standard workweek, over a four-year period. Beginning in 2019, the phase-in would be by annual half-hour-per-day increments until reaching eight hours, and annual five-hour-per-week increments until reaching 40 hours. Both final standards would be achieved in 2022. AB 1066 additionally authorizes the Governor to temporarily suspend a scheduled phase-in of overtime at any time until full implementation of phase-in overtime requirements or January 1, 2022, whichever comes first, if the Governor suspends minimum wage increases based on economic conditions.
AB 492 would offer a monthly $50 supplement per child age 2 or younger to parents enrolled in CalWORKs who also qualify for the childcare benefit. The monthly supplement would only be used on diaper purchases, helping address a major barrier to parents seeking to enter and remain in the workforce by making childcare more accessible.
The financial relief from the state’s current diaper tax found in AB 717 could save California families up to $100 per child annually, roughly equivalent to the cost of a month’s worth of diapers for infants and toddlers. Despite being a critical necessity for all young children, the state’s sales tax applies to diapers while exempting food and prescription health products. The exemption would sunset January 1, 2022.
AB 1643 would ban gender bias in California’s workers compensation system by making the impairment rating for injuries resulting from work-related breast cancer equivalent to the rating for prostate cancer. The bill also prevents doctors from taking pregnancy, menopause, osteoporosis, carpal tunnel syndrome, or psychiatric disability impairment caused by any of these conditions into account when making an apportionment decision for injuries.
AB 2121 would make responsible beverage training mandatory statewide for anyone serving alcoholic beverages. The Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control would authorize an accreditation agency to accredit responsible beverage training providers. Educating beverage servers in bars and restaurants is a key part to reducing drunk driving fatalities. Although the ABC currently has a free and voluntary program, existing training programs in California are not mandatory at the state level.
Under AB 1978, the California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) would create sexual harassment prevention training materials and require employers to post and display a notice with information regarding the laws. DIR would also create a contractor registry which will add transparency and increase accountability, similar to garment manufacturers/contractors, farm labor contractors, and the car washing and polishing industry.
AB 813 would provide California criminal courts with a vehicle to review challenges to a conviction’s legal validity after custody has expired, potentially saving undocumented Californians from being deported if conviction of a minor crime was made when a defendant’s attorney failed to advise the defendant on the immigration consequences of their guilty plea.
AB 2025 would take several steps to educate nail salon owners on existing workplace laws in California. It will strengthen the existing licensure application process for owners to ensure education about basic labor laws relevant to their establishments, with the goal of improving voluntary compliance. It will also include workers’ rights as a subject area in the curriculum for licensed nail salon workers and require that written materials for salon workers and owners be available in English, Spanish and Vietnamese.
AB 491 would provide parents with a notification letter explaining the identification process for English learner students with their child’s initial Home Language Survey when enrolling in school. It will also guarantee parents receive vital information relating to their child’s status as a long-term English learner or at-risk English learner in their child’s annual English learner progress notification letter. Currently there is no state or federal requirement to notify parents regarding their children who are long-term English learners or who are at risk of becoming long-term English learners.
All aforementioned bills are eligible to be taken up on the Senate floor next week.
A gold medal-winning Brazilian judo champion has come out publicly as gay in an interview during the Rio Olympics.
Rafaela Silva, who won the country’s first gold medal at Rio 2016, came out publicly in the interview with Globo Sports after winning her medal.
She hit the headlines when winning the first medal for Brazil at the 2016 games, after failing to secure a medal at London 2012, but none mentioned her sexual orientation.
Outsports reports that two journalists have confirmed that Silva is in a relationship with Thamara Cezar, and that Silva had not spoken about her relationship in interviews about her medal, but that she regularly posts photos of the pair together on Instagram.
The account is full of pictures of the couple and messages like “you do not exist without me.”
In the interview with Globo Sports, Silva discusses that Cezar is her press agent and social media manager as well as her girlfriend, and that the couple have three “kids”, their dogs.
The Olympian also thanks Cezar for being the for her during her training.
“She was there every day and knew how I was feeling, when I was sick when I wasn’t,” Silva said. “Everything I needed, she was there to do it, so she is also very important in this victory.”
Silva rose from Rio’s City of God slum and faced racism on her rise to becoming an Olympian.
UK-based gay men’s health charity GMFA yesterday released statistics regarding condom use and attitudes towards HIV among gay and bisexual men.
To me, the figures – for a country were PrEP treatment is not widely available – were shocking. Four out of ten said that the majority of sex that they had was unprotected.
Some of those who answered said that they had decided to do away with condoms because they were in long-term, monogamous relationships (or presumably what they hoped was monogamous).
Forty-two per cent said they are not worried about HIV
Of the single, HIV-negative men who mostly or only have condomless sex, 42% said they are not worried about HIV and 43% said they are not worried about other STIs.
Just over half said that current HIV campaigns don’t speak to them.
As someone who has worried about HIV ever since I first had sex, I find it hard to understand this cavalier attitude.
‘It’s far from a death sentence,’ said 24-year-old Lorne from Cardiff in the survey. ‘I’d prefer to have HIV than diabetes.’
Lorne is single and says he’s had condomless sex with 30 guys in the past year.
‘I endeavor not to decline someone based on their HIV status.’
Not declining sex with someone for being HIV positive is commendable, but that’s where my agreement with Lorne’s attitude ends. This probably highlights not only a gay generational gap, but also the mixed messages that gay men are being asked to process when it comes to HIV awareness.
I’m older than Lorne. I started having sex in the 80s and remember the UK government’s first, scary, tombstone-heavy adverts around HIV awareness. The blunt message was simple; wear a condom or die.
Thankfully, Lorne’s correct in one aspect; HIV is no longer a death sentence. The earlier you get diagnosed, the better your chances of living a long and healthy life.
‘The paranoia that some people have around sex with guys who are HIV is misinformed and outdated’
The main barrier to getting tested is the stigma that exists around being HIV. Some people would still prefer not to know until something goes wrong. Or they simply don’t understand that they have put themselves at risk.
‘I presume most who have HIV are on treatment so are safe,’ said another of those surveyed.
Because of this, sexual health charities have spent great effort in tackling the stigma around HIV. Again, I applaud this: the paranoia that some people have around sex with guys who are HIV positive is misinformed and deeply outdated.
But has this now left us in a Catch 22 situation?
Have we gone so far in de-stigmatizing HIV that a significant number of younger gay men believe it’s no big deal?
On the one hand, we want gay men to protect themselves when they have sex, but on the other, some sexual health charities have highlighted the fact that those who are diagnosed and on medication may live slightly longer lives.
This is not because of any special health benefits from the antiretroviral medication, but simply because they’re more likely to be having regular check-ups with a doctor every 3-6 months and may quicker find out if there’s anything wrong with their health (men being notoriously slow to contact their GP if they think there’s something amiss).
We’re warned that if you’re on treatment you’ll have to take a daily pill for the rest of your life.
Taking a daily pill is an inconvenience but a relatively minor one. In fact, given that Muscle Marys proudly post photos on social media of all the vitamins and other supplements they take each morning, I can’t imagine the thought of adding another to the mix is a huge dissuasion.
The recent, pan-European PARTNER study examined sero-discordant couples (where one was HIV positive and one was negative). The positive partner was on treatment and had an undetectable viral load. Each couple had abandoned condom use.
Of nearly a 1,000 couples studied over a two-year period there was not one incidence of HIV transmission from one partner to the other.
This is great news. To me, it means it is tantalizingly within our reach to halt the spread of HIV if we can convince everyone to get tested and – if they’re negative – to continue to get tested regularly. But just as we’re frustratingly close, many gay men seem to think it’s OK to abandon safer sexual health practices.
Grindr is still heavily populated with men who only want to have sex with you if you’re ‘disease-free’
Besides encouraging people to test, what exactly is the message we should be sending out to them?
Well, we could start by highlighting the fact that, despite some of those surveyed, Grindr is still heavily populated with men who only want to have sex with you if you’re ‘disease-free’.
We could highlight the side effects of the antiretroviral drugs and the rise of untreatable, so-called super-gonorrhea and hepatitis.
GMFA think that more needs to be done to bolster the self-esteem of gay men; to encourage them want to protect their health. Again, I’m not disagreeing. We need to arm them with a response to have in their mind when that really hot guy they’ve dreamed of shagging says he doesn’t like using condoms.
We need to remind them of the importance of getting tested regularly; to not rely on the results of a test they – or their sexual partners – had seven months ago.
Looking at the weapons we now have to halt the spread of HIV – condoms, antiretroviral medication, PEP and PrEP – I can optimistically imagine a HIV-free future for generations to come; but only if we don’t drop the baton so close to the finish line. – Read more at: http://scl.io/oi8ReFV6#gs.Rf5mKkM
In this election cycle, as many wonder how Donald Trump came to be Donald Trump, at least part of the answer lies in one of his early mentors and close confidantes: the widely reviled, closeted gay hatchet man of the right wing, Roy Cohn.
Cohn has been dead since 1986, but the disgraced McCarthyist lawyer — immortalized in Tony Kushner’s acclaimed Angels in America, the musical and miniseries — lives on in the Republican presidential nominee in both style and substance, according to those who’ve studied the two men and their relationship.
“You can see parallels with Trump,” Andy Humm, a veteran New York City activist who cohosts the Gay USA TV show, told The Advocate. “Trump never apologizes; Trump never admits to a mistake.” That was Cohn’s style too, said Humm, noting that Trump exhibited these tendencies before he met Cohn, but they intensified under Cohn’s influence. Humm, by the way, calls Cohn “one of the vilest human beings who ever lived.”
Even those who have a (somewhat) better opinion of Cohn see the parallels. “I hear Roy in the things [Trump] says quite clearly,” Peter Fraser, who was Cohn’s lover at the end of his life and met Trump several times, told The New York Times earlier this year. “That bravado, and if you say it aggressively and loudly enough, it’s the truth — that’s the way Roy used to operate to a degree, and Donald was certainly his apprentice.”
Dinner companions and party buddies, Trump and Cohn were infamous partners in crime in the New York of the 1970s and ’80s. Cohn, “a Jewish anti-Semite and a homosexual homophobe” (in the words of Politico), was also a trusted legal adviser to Trump and his father, Fred, for many years. Donald Trump still speaks warmly of Cohn today.
“I actually got a kick out of him,” Trump told The Washington Post recently. “Some people didn’t like him, and some people were offended by him. I mean, they would literally leave a dinner. I had one evening where three or four people got up from a table and left the table because they couldn’t stand the mention of his name.”
“But with all of that being said, he did a very good job for me as a lawyer,” Trump continued. “I get a kick out of winning, and Roy would win.”
The Post interview was part of the research for a new book, Trump Revealed, written by Post reporters Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher in collaboration with more than two dozen of the paper’s writers, researchers, and editors. It will be out August 23.
But Trump is already revealing his debt to Cohn. The candidate’s call to bar Muslims from immigrating to the United States until their loyalties can be determined has eerie echoes of the most notorious era of Cohn’s career — the 1950s, when as a prosecutor he helped send Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair after their conviction for espionage (some observers still contend that Ethel, at least, was innocent), and then aided U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s hunt for communists in the U.S. government, Hollywood, academia, and elsewhere.
“In the Cold War, we had an ideological screening test” for immigrants, Trump said in a foreign policy speech in Ohio Monday. “The time is overdue to develop a new screening test for the threats we face today.”
The screening Trump proposed includes assuring that Muslim immigrants do not believe in the death penalty for homosexuality, which some deeply conservative Muslims believe is mandated by the religious code known as Sharia law, and which is the punishment prescribed in some countries. Many LGBT activists, however, were quick to call out Trump’s remarks as disingenuous, given that he does not appear concerned that some far-right Christians support the execution of gay people, and that the Republican Party platform is intensely anti-LGBT.
Additionally, Trump’s depiction of all Muslims as potential terrorists is reminiscent of McCarthyism. McCarthy and Cohn accused many people who were simply left-wing of being communists, and assumed all communists were involved in subversive activity. Some of their targets had never joined the U.S. Communist Party, some had repudiated it, and at any rate, not all party members wished to help the Soviet Union bring down the U.S. government. Nevertheless, many of the accused saw their careers destroyed.
In 1954 the Senate censured McCarthy for his wildest allegations, in addition to other improprieties, and he died in disgrace in 1957. Cohn moved on in his career but remained a loyal supporter of the senator. “I never worked for a better man or a greater cause,” Cohn wrote in his posthumously published, and selective, autobiography.
Cohn’s career took him back to his native New York City, where he practiced law for “a client list that ran the gamut from the disreputable to the quasi-reputable,” as the Times notes, until he was disbarred shortly before his death for numerous violations of legal ethics. He represented such famous and infamous clients as mobster Anthony Salerno, New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, and socialite Claus von Bulow (although not in either of Von Bulow’s trials for the attempted murder of his wife, Sunny von Bulow).
But according to many accounts, Trump was one of Cohn’s favorite clients. They met in 1973, when Trump and his father were facing a suit from the U.S. Department of Justice, alleging that they refused to rent apartments to blacks at the many New York properties they owned or managed. Cohn advised the Trumps to fight back and contended the Justice Department “did not file a lawsuit” but “slapped together a piece of paper for use as a press release.” The Trumps eventually reached a settlement with the DOJ, agreeing not to engage in racial discrimination but never admitting they had.
Cohn and Donald Trump continued a close personal and professional relationship up to Cohn’s death at age 59 from AIDS complications. (To the end, Cohn refused to publicly acknowledge being gay, and he even worked against gay causes, such as a civil rights ordinance in New York City.) Early on, Cohn had pegged Trump as a promising young man, saying, “This kid is going to own New York someday,” according to the Times. The lawyer assisted Trump in many of his real estate ventures and in his prenuptial agreement with first wife Ivana Zelnickova. Cohn’s lobbying of Reagan administration officials in the 1980s may have been a key factor in the appointment of Maryanne Barry, Trump’s sister, to a federal judgeship — although even those who cite Barry’s connections note that she has formidable skills. Trump and Cohn dined together often, hobnobbed at Studio 54, and talked on the phone constantly.
Perhaps most important for Trump’s political career, Cohn introduced him to Republican activist and conspiracy theorist Roger Stone. Stone is a frequent Trump surrogate on the campaign trail, and over the years he has made statements even more outlandish than Trump’s — accusing the Clinton and Bush families of multiple murders, and using racist and sexist slurs most publications would not print, such as the n word and the c word.
But Cohn himself made a deep impression on Trump. “I just look at him and see Roy,” veteran political journalist Wayne Barrett told the Post of Trump. “Both of them are attack dogs.”
“Cohn just pushed through things — if he wanted something, he got it,” Susan Bell, who was Cohn’s secretary for many years, told Politico. “I think Donald had a lot of that in him, but he picked up a lot of that from Cohn.”
Just pushing through, however, won’t win Trump the presidency. But if he wins, Cohn would be pleased, Fraser, who now lives in New Zealand, said in his Times interview. “Having trained or mentored someone who became president, that would have been quite exciting for Roy,” he said.
One of my favorite memories growing up was piling in the car and heading down to Chicago. When you’re five, that hour drive seems an eternity, but it was always worth it. Chicago was always a big world to me, full of great food, fun and family. A place where you could always find something exciting around the corner. As I grew older I realized that it had even more to offer then hot dogs, skyscrapers and Cubs games.
On Chicago’s greatness…
I love Chicago because it’s so unapologetically Midwestern. As someone who grew up in the Midwest, but has lived on the East and West coasts (DC & LA), I have some insight as to how people see the world and approach life. Chicagoans combine that earnest Midwestern essence with big city know-how. You’re just as likely to stumble into a conversation about architecture or a fight about baseball. Guys are easy to talk to, friendly, unpretentious, and usually up for a good time. Oh, and there’s a ton of bears (and I don’t mean the football team). Everywhere. So I like that. A lot.
On Market Days…
It’s hard to ignore the sheer force of Market Days. The largest street festival in the Midwest, it boasts over 300,000 attendees over two days. It’s non-stop fun with drinks, music, food, and shopping. And street food is one of my most favorite things in the world. So that makes me happy. But on any given day, there’s little that beats hanging with friends at Hollywood Beach (the un-official gay beach), people watching and pretending that the water is warm enough to swim in.
On the queer ‘hoods…
I start in Andersonville. Although traditionally Chicago’s gay epicenter is Boystown (next to Wrigley Field), I like people watching. Andersonville is a hotbed of gay folks, just living their everyday life. To get started, I’d stroll down Clark Street in the middle of the day and just take it in. It’s very casual — folks in Andersonville love their neighborhood — so they walk a little slower, and are open to whatever may come their way. You’ll find plenty of options to eat and drink (including the popular gay burger chain Hamburger Mary’s), as well as a plethora of eligible, handsome Midwesterners willing to strike up a conversation.
On nightlife...
When night falls, there’s no place better than Boystown. Head to Halstead and see what all the fuss is about. Here’s where you’ll find the nightlife really hopping. Sidetrack and Roscoe’s are staples of Chicago gay life, so check them out. You’ll have no trouble finding fun, friendly people willing to show you a good time. Of course, the music scene is great. I’ve played a variety of venues, from rock clubs to coffeehouses to gay bars. My following tends to be primarily gay. I love playing at Jackhammer, a dance/dive bar on Clark Street, a little bit north of where you’d expect the gay action to be. Friendly staff, fun patrons and even a basement fetish bar (The Hole) where things are, how do I say this, get a little more jacked…
On celebrity…
Usually people come up to me and tell me that they love my work. I’m very humbled by that. Then it’s sometimes followed by a lean in and a “you’re much cuter in person”… Or is it “shorter?” My hearing isn’t so great sometimes…
On causes…
There’s an amazing nonprofit Broadway Youth Center at the Howard Brown Clinic that provides medical care and social services. Many of its clients are homeless, and in addition to providing HIV/STI tests and health services, they provide a safe space in order to help connect kids with housing, employment and other everyday needs that many of us take for granted.
On celebrating…
I love Greek town. So if it were up to me, I’d head over to The Parthenon. I love the Parthenon because it’s got that typical Chicago vibe, it’s tasty, REALLY filling, and super reasonably priced. My favorite is the Flaming Saganaki. The waiter brings out a flaming block of cheese over to your table — it’s quite a production. They serve family style as well, so it’s great for big parties. Afterwards I’d walk on over to little Italy and get an Italian Ice at Mario’s Italian Lemonade (only open in the summer).
On carefree moments…
I’m the kind of guy that would most prefer hosting a bunch of people over at the house to celebrate. There is not much that makes me happier than having people over and making sure they have plenty to drink, plenty to eat, and a lot to laugh about. That’s probably because I come from a big Italian Chicago family. And for that kind of celebration, you need some great, cheap, unhealthy food in large quantities. Luckily, Chicago has a wealth of that.
On the perfect night out…
My night would start with music. You can usually catch an awesome rock/songwriter show at Metro, but if you want a taste of some old school Chicago blues, hop on over to Buddy Guy’s Legends. Now there’s always going to be arguments as to who makes the best Chicago deep dish pizza, but I love Giordano’s. After the show I’ll order a small cheese deep dish. For some reason, I prefer the proportion of cheese in the small — once the pie gets larger, it starts to lose it for me. Same with toppings: They just get in the way of the massive quantities of cheese I want so badly to enjoy. After all that cheese settles I’d head up to Boystown for some dancing and socializing at Sidetrack or Jackhammer. When at last my legs get tired, I love to head over to Lake Michigan and unwind. It’s really relaxing just talking with friends while the waves crash at your feet.
On the perfect Sunday afternoon…
I was raised a die-hard Cubs fan, so I’d start with a day game at Wrigley. It’s one of those things that’s a must in Chicago. Nothing beats sitting at the Cubs game, eating, drinking a beer, and watching the Cubs lose (less often this year!), but knowing that everyone around you still loves them just the same. Afterwards I’d hop up to Andersonville and tape a podcast with the guys at Feast of Fun. There’s few people that can make me laugh more than Marc and Fausto. Now that I have my homies in tow, we can head over to the uber gay Cheetah Gym (essentially a gay bar with workout equipment) for a quick workout, before grabbing some sandwiches and drinks and heading to Millennium Park for a picnic, then a stroll along the lake.
Now I know what you’re going to say. There’s no way you can do that in one Sunday afternoon. Sure, maybe, but my perfect Sunday afternoon in Chicago would last a very long time…
Tom Goss is an unabashed romantic, known for his expressive and personal songs about love and longing. A self-taught musician and songwriter, Tom has performed to tens of thousands in the United States and Europe, and has been heard on ABC, HBO and several independent films. Tom has performed over 1,000 shows, in 100 cities and 5 countries.
His newest single and music video, “Son of a Preacher Man,” garnered world-wide attention, generating over 130,000 views in it’s first week of release. His previous videos have accumulated over 5 million views.
The first nationwide study to ask high school students about their sexuality found that gay, lesbian and bisexual teenagers were at far greater risk for depression, bullying and many types of violence than their straight peers.
“I found the numbers heartbreaking,” said Dr. Jonathan Mermin, a senior official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which includes a division that administered the survey.
The survey documents what smaller studies have suggested for years, but it is significant because it is the first time the federal government’s biennial Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the gold standard of adolescent health data collection, looked at sexual identity. The survey found that about 8 percent of the high school population described themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual, which would be about 1.3 million students.
These adolescents were three times more likely than straight students to have been raped. They skipped school far more often because they did not feel safe; at least a third had been bullied on school property. And they were twice as likely as heterosexual students to have been threatened or injured with a weapon on school property.
More than 40 percent of these students reported that they had seriously considered suicide, and 29 percent had made attempts to do so in the year before they took the survey. The percentage of those who used illegal drugs was many times greater than their heterosexual peers. While 1.3 percent of straight students said they had used heroin, for example, 6 percent of the gay, lesbian and bisexual students reported having done so.
“Nations are judged by the health and well-being of their children,” said Dr. Mermin, who is the director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention at the C.D.C. “Many would find these levels of physical and sexual violence unacceptable and something we should act on quickly.”
These comparisons have emerged because the federal survey, which looks at more than 100 health behaviors, included two new questions last year. It asked how students identified themselves sexually, and also the sex of those with whom they had “sexual contact” — leaving students to define that term.
While transgender youth have increasingly appeared on the national radar, most recently in debates about school bathroom access, this survey did not include an option for teenagers to identify themselves as transgender. But that possibility may be coming. The C.D.C. and other federal health agencies are developing a question on gender identity to reliably count transgender teenagers which, a spokeswoman said, might be ready for a pilot test in 2017.
Some 15,600 students across the country, ages 14 to 17, took the survey. The population who identified as a sexual minority is in line with estimates from other state or local surveys, and with national studies of young adults. While the figures paint a portrait of loneliness and discrimination that is longstanding and sadly familiar, they are important because they now establish a national databank.
Dr. Debra Houry, an emergency medicine physician who directs the C.D.C.’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, said the numbers argued for more comprehensive intervention and prevention programs. She praised programs like Green Dot, which trains students how to support a victim of bullying or a physical altercation. Other programs teach coping skills to vulnerable students. As the data suggests, she said, these students need better access to mental health care, and support from families, schools and communities.
The report does not delve into why these students are at such risk for so many types of harm.
Dr. Elizabeth Miller, the chief of adolescent and young adult medicine at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said, “The intensity of homophobic attitudes and acceptance of gay-related victimization, as well as the ongoing silence around adolescent sexuality, marginalizes a whole group of young people.”
And such marginalization, added Dr. Miller, who writes extensively about dating and sexual violence, “increases their vulnerability to exploitative and violent relationships.”
Dr. Miller also pointed out that the report implicitly underscores the fluidity of adolescent sexual identity. When asked to identify themselves sexually in the survey, 3.2 percent of students chose “not sure.” Among students who said they had “sexual contact” with only people of the same sex or with both sexes, 25 percent identified as heterosexual and 13.6 percent said they were not sure of their sexual identity. Among students who had sexual contact only with someone of the opposite sex, 2.8 percent nonetheless described themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual.
Dr. Miller, who is also a professor of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, said that self-acceptance can begin at home. “We have to start conversations early with young people about healthy sexuality, attraction, relationships, intimacy and how to explore those feelings in as safe and respectful a way as possible,” she said.
Any survey has limitations. In this one, the respondents were students in school and so the research would not have captured dropouts or others who were not attending, a disproportionate percentage of whom are lesbian, gay and bisexual.
How students interpreted “sexual contact” or why some defined themselves as “not sure” could also be open to interpretation.
