National

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Kevin Spacey accuser Anthony Rapp details ‘frightening’ alleged sexual assault as trial continues

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Anthony Rapp testified in federal court about an “incredibly frightening” encounter, in which Kevin Spacey allegedly climbed on top of him when he was a teen.  Rapp, who is suing Spacey for $40 million in a civil trial over alleged sexual misconduct, described to the court on Friday (7 October) how he first became acquainted with Spacey as a teenager on the New York City theatre scene. He testified that Spacey invited him to a party at the actor’s loft in 1986 when Rapp was 14 and the disgraced actor was 26. Rapp, now 50, told jurors he decided to go because he […]

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Lawmaker complaint forces Tennessee pride festival indoors

The drag show at a Tennessee pride festival will go on Saturday — but not in the way organizers had planned it.  After weeks of criticism, online threats from far-right groups and a legal complaint, the Jackson Pride Committee and the city of Jackson, which sits about 70 miles northeast of Memphis in Madison County, reached a compromise with state Republican representatives and community members who had complained about the pride festival’s drag show. The annual pride festival was supposed to be held in the city’s public Conger Park, as it was in 2019 and 2021, but now it will […]

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MTG Boasts Of “Better Chance” To Overturn Obergefell, Declares “The Bible Tells Us” Marriage Is Not For Gays

Once shunned as a political pariah for her extremist rhetoric, the Georgia congresswoman who spent her first term in the House stripped of institutional power by Democrats is being celebrated by Republicans and welcomed into the GOP fold. If Republicans win the House majority in the November election, Greene is poised to become an influential player shaping the GOP agenda, an agitator with clout. This is the outlook for the Republican Party in the Trump era, the normalizing of once fringe figures into the highest ranks of political power. It’s a sign of the GOP’s rightward drift that Greene’s association […]

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This free-speech case could help the Supreme Court wreck LGBTQ rights for decades

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The Supreme Court has agreed to hear 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, a case that could determine the future of LGBTQ rights nationwide. The case involves Lorie Smith, a Christian woman in Colorado who makes wedding announcement websites. Smith wanted to post a message on her professional website stating that she wouldn’t make websites for same-sex marriages because it would be against her faith. ADVERTISING When she found out that such a notice would violate Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws, she preemptively sued her state’s government, saying that the laws violated her First Amendment right to free speech. Her lawsuit sought to block enforcement […]

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Judge awards $4.5 million to Black gay man who was beaten so brutally he lost vision in one eye

Almost a decade after a Black gay man was beaten so severely that he lost sight in one eye, a judge has awarded him $4.5 million for the pain and suffering caused. “It’s been nine years,” the victim, Taj Patterson, told The New York Daily News. “A lot of back and forth. A lot of legal scenarios I didn’t understand. It was a long process.” ADVERTISING In 2013, Patterson was walking in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, when he was attacked by a dozen men who were part of an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood watch group. The men accused Patterson of vandalizing cars, even though they had not filed […]

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My mom lost custody of me because she was gay. This organization helped hundreds of women like her.

In 1970, Sandy Schuster, mother of four, and Madeline Isaacson, mother of two, met at a Pentecostal church in Seattle. They fell in love and subsequently left their husbands to live together with their kids. The church forced them out, and in 1972, their husbands sued for full custody of the children. They nearly won. Determined to support Schuster and Isaacson, Seattle activists founded the Lesbian Mothers’ National Defense Fund (LMNDF). It became one of the first U.S. organizations to offer support and legal advice to lesbians grappling with child custody issues. Thanks to LMNDF’s work, Schuster and Isaacson retained […]

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LGBTQ+ Rights Are on the Docket as Supreme Court Starts New Term

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The U.S. Supreme Court began its new term Monday, which is shaping to be historical.  Notably, associate justice Ketanji Brown Jackson will have heard her first arguments as the court’s first Black woman. But this term comes as the court has its lowest approval rating ever, with Gallup reporting a historically low approval rate of 40 percent in the wake of last term’s Dobbs decision which overturned Roe vs. Wade and took with it decades of precedent with the stripping of reproductive rights from Americans. This term will bring major controversies over affirmative action, voting, religion, free speech, and gay rights. The court will decide whether LGBTQ+ people are protected from […]

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New York judge rules in favor of polyamorous relationships

New York City’s eviction court – the venue of a landmark same-sex relationship decision long before Obergefell v Hodges – is now the source of a legal opinion that comes down clearly on the side of polyamorous unions. The decision came in the case of West 49th St., LLC v. O’Neill, decided by New York Civil Court Judge Karen May Bacdayan, concluded that polyamorous relationships are entitled to the same sort of legal protection given to two-person relationships. The case revolves around three individuals. Scott Anderson and Markyus O’Neill lived together in a New York City apartment. Anderson held the lease, but was […]

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LGBTQ people are protesting in Harlem as Columbia University tries to buy their neighborhood

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Last Thursday activists, residents and students protested Columbia University’s aggressive expansion into Harlem in Manhattan, New York outside the university steps. The neighborhood is integral to the Black, Latinx, and LGBTQ culture we honor today. The protest, organized by The United Front Against Displacement (UFAD), a tenant organization fighting gentrification throughout US cities, criticized the university’s partnership with the city to continue the privatization of the New York Housing Authority (NYCHA) and the national war on housing in general. NYC’s reality is common among the country’s 50 largest cities, which the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development’s latest Annual Homeless […]

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Nazis and Proud Boys stage anti-LGBTQ+ protest outside church’s drag bingo fundraiser

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A group of Proud Boys, fascists, and anti-LGBTQ+ protestors attempted to disrupt a Drag bingo fundraiser in a tense altercation. A group of people reportedly affiliated with various far-right groups, including the Proud Boys, protested at the First Christian Church in Katy, Texas on Saturday (24 September), as a sponsored family drag bingo charity event was taking place. The sold-out show aimed to raise money for LGBTQ+ nonprofit Transparent Closet, which aims to provide clothing for “trans and exploring teens, youth, and young adults” but was quickly overwhelmed by anti-LGBTQ+ protestors. The protests were reportedly planned by self-described “Christian fascist”Kelly Neidert, who was […]

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