California’s power grid operator is asking residents to conserve electricity Thursday evening, when a surge of air conditioning use amid sweltering temperatures could overtax the state’s power supply.
The statewide Flex Alert, a public appeal for power conservation, will start at 3 p.m. Thursday and last until 10 p.m., the California Independent System Operator said.
Temperatures in the mid-90s to low 100s are expected Thursday in the North Bay and extreme heat is also forecast for parts of Southern California.
If power levels drop too low, the operator may issue rolling power outages, as was done in mid-August, when record-breaking heat drove up energy use.
Californians are urged to turn off lights, unplug unused devices and avoid using large appliances during the Flex Alert period, the power operator said.
In 2017, Jon Hoadley came home one day to find his partner, Kris, sprawled on the bathroom floor.
“He was barely able to move, he had been throwing up for over 18 hours,” Hoadley, 37, told NBC News.
At the hospital, the couple received devastating news.
“The doctor comes in and says, ‘I think you have multiple sclerosis,’” he recalled the doctor telling Kris.
Hoadley said the constant headache of dealing with insurance companies and hospital bills since his partner’s diagnosis is a major reason he made affordable health care a priority in his campaign to represent Michigan’s 6th Congressional District.
Jon Hoadley with his husband, Kris, left.Trumpie Photography
“I’m not running to make history, I’m running to make change,” said Hoadley, a Democratic who, in addition to health care, is focusing his campaign on climate change and clean energy.
Hoadley, now in his third term as a state representative, is challenging Rep. Fred Upton, a moderate Republican who has represented the southwest Michigan district since 1986. Traditionally a conservative stronghold, the district voted for President Donald Trump in 2016. In this presidential election year, though, moderate voters have the potential swing the district, which sits on the Indiana border.
Hoadley, who grew up in South Dakota, has been an LGBTQ advocate since he was a student at Michigan State University, and he is a member of the Michigan Democrat’s LGBT and Allies Caucus. If elected, Hoadley would be Michigan’s fist openly gay member of Congress. He is one in a “rainbow” wave” of at least 850 LGBTQ people who have run for office this election cycle, up from 700 who ran in 2018, according to the Victory Fund, a group that trains, supports and advocates for LGBTQ candidates.
“This is a moment where we can show that we’re ready for some big change,” Hoadley said. “And, you know, at the end of the day, though, the fact that I would be the first LGBT member of Congress from Michigan, I think it’s an interesting footnote to history, but the thing that keeps me up at night is what’s on the line if we don’t make this historic change this year.”
“We absolutely need to get health care right,” he added. “We are in the middle of a global health pandemic and a health crisis.”
When it comes to health care, Hoadley said, it is “absolutely an issue that we need to be talking about in the LGBT community.”
“We need to be tracking the statistics, we need to be making sure there are strong protections from discrimination, and we need to make sure that we are funding appropriately interventions that will specifically help some of the challenges that our community faces more so than other communities,” he explained.
“It’s a reminder that though we’ve made progress, we have so much work to do,” he added.
In recent months, Hoadley has had to fight back controversy regarding his past. In August, the New York Post reported on 15-year-old blog posts Hoadley made when he was in college. In the since-deleted posts, Hoadley, according to the paper, “referred to women as ‘breeders,'” “discussed learning about crystal meth,” “described his sexual partners as ‘victims’” and “included a reference to a ‘four year old wearing a thong.'”
Hoadley, who publicly apologized for the posts in a Facebook videoon Aug. 10, accused the NRCC of purposely “twisting” the posts, which he described as “slang” and “jokes,” to “use homophobia to paint a powerful story that has been debunked long ago.”
“They’re trying to reach deep into these discriminatory stereotypes about gay men,” Hoadley added.
Last month, the LGBTQ Victory Fund condemned the attacks against Hoadley as homophobic.
Hoadley said he hopes voters in Michigan and beyond “realize how important their vote is this November.”
“There are so many people who will use the forces of cynicism, who will lie about the difference between the candidates on the ballot, who will tell lies through social media to distract,” he said, “and it is important that we stay focused, because we desperately need change in our country.”
With the presidential election a little more than a month away, a new poll finds 75 percent of LGBTQ voters are supporting Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
According to GLAAD’s State of LGBTQ Voters report, released Thursday, just 17 percent of the respondents said they were pulling the lever for President Donald Trump. Five percent said they plan to back another candidate and 2 percent remain undecided. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percent.
The poll, conducted by Pathfinder Opinion Research from Sept. 21-25, indicated 88 percent of the 800 LGBTQ respondents were registered voters.
Of them, 92 percent said they were “definitely or probably” voting in the presidential election — and over 80 percent said they felt more motivated to vote now than in any other recent election.
According to data from UCLA’s Williams Institute released last November, 1 in 5 LGBTQ Americans were not registered. But GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis says there’s been a surge in voter registration this year.
“LGBTQ voters are poised to make a deciding difference this election year,” Ellis said in a statement. “Our community understands how much is at stake in this election. We cannot sit this one out — our very lives are on the line.”
In a memo to GLAAD, Pathfinder confirmed that LGBTQ voters “represent a highly motivated, vital Democratic voting bloc.”
“Together we’ll pass the Equality Act, protect LGBTQ youth, expand access to health care, support LGBTQ workers, win full rights for transgender Americans, recommit to ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2025 [and] advance LGBT rights around the globe, not just at home.”
The results from the new report are similar to exit polls from the 2016 presidential election, which found 78 percent of LGBTQ voters backed Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate, compared to 14 percent who said they voted for Trump.
“Today’s poll demonstrates a monumental lead for Vice President Biden in the race for president,” Ellis said, “and is a direct response to the incessant and capricious attacks from the Trump Administration on LGBTQ Americans since day one.”
Despite a series of anti-LGBTQ measures — including banning transgender service members from the armed forces, supporting the right of adoption agencies to reject same-sex couples, and opposing workplace protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity — the Trump campaign has publicized the president as a friend to the community.
In August, Trump tweeted a campaign video made by Richard Grenell, the openly gay former acting director of national intelligence, calling the president “the strongest ally that gay Americans have ever had in the White House.”
Grenell is part of the Trump campaign’s Trump Pride advisory board, which promotes him as “the first president to begin his presidency in support of marriage equality.”
After declining to endorse Trump in 2016, the Log Cabin Republicans, a national LGBTQ conservative organization, endorsed the president for re-election and launched OUTSpoken, a multimedia campaign designed to give gay conservatives a platform during the race.
Earlier this month, Trump retweeted an article about a survey, conducted by the gay social network Hornet, that found 45 percent of gay male respondents planned to vote for him.
Hornet cautioned its survey was unscientific and shouldn’t be taken as predictive of voter response on Nov. 3. In GLAAD’s poll, likely voters who identified as gay men favored Biden over Trump 80 percent to 18. Gay women backed Biden 83 to 11, while non-cisgender voters supported the former vice president 72 to 18.
Still, Tuesday morning on Fox & Friends, the president’s son Eric Trump said the LGBT community “come[s] out in full force for my father every single day.”
He was responding to a New York Times opinion piece Monday about a lesbian who plans to vote for his father.
“I’m part of that community, and we love the man,” he added, leading some to speculate the president’s third eldest child had come out. He later clarified his remarks in an interview with the New York Post.
But 75 percent of the LGBTQ respondents in GLAAD’s poll said they held “somewhat or very” unfavorable opinions of Trump, while 57 percent said they had somewhat or very favorable opinions of Biden.
Ellis said the results “should put to rest the misinformation from the president’s team and other unreliable sources about his record and where critical LGBTQ voters stand in this election.”
We’re thrilled to introduce the gracious hosts of our virtual Gala, Peaches Christ and Marga Gomez.Join them on October 16 for Reunion: Making History, an evening of powerful performances, inspiring presentations and a heartfelt celebration of LGBTQ History Makers.
Make sure to get your tickets now for Reunion: Making History, for access to the live broadcast on October 16, as well as sneak peeks of early content along the way!
Peaches Christ is a filmmaker and cult leader living in San Francisco. Her infamous movie events are self-produced at the Castro Theatre and regularly draw over 1,000 attendees to each new production before they tour. Events have featured special guest stars John Waters, Cloris Leachman, Bruce Campbell, Barry Bostwick, Pam Grier and others. Peaches is the alter-ego of Joshua Grannell, the writer and director of the feature film All About Evil. This award-winning dark comedy gore film stars Natasha Lyonne, Thomas Dekker, Cassandra Peterson, Mink Stole and Peaches Christ herself. Peaches Christ has been featured in the films Milk, I Am Divine, Diary of a Teenage Girl, Mansfield 66/67, Scream Queen: My Nightmare on Elm Street, You Don’t Nomi and more. Her website is peacheschrist.com.
Marga Gomez is a GLAAD Award winner and one of the first out lesbians in stand-up comedy. Robin Williams called her “Amazing…a lesbian Lenny Bruce.” Armistead Maupin called her “astonishing.” Gomez’s comedy has been featured on HBO, LOGO, Showtime, Comedy Central and PBS. She has been a guest on leading comedy podcasts, including Marc Maron’s WTF and Kevin Allison’s Risk. Her comic style has been described as “deliciously cheeky and incendiary” by the New York Times and “salaciously surreal” by the San Francisco Chronicle. She is also the author/performer of 13 solo plays which have been presented off-Broadway, nationally and internationally. Gomez can be seen in season two of the Netflix series Sense8. Her website is margagomez.com.
Interested in becoming a Sponsor or a Virtual Table Captain? Click on the buttons below to learn more about how you can get involved and help us raise funds to continue preserving and sharing our irreplaceable history.
Chicago’s LGBTQ neighborhood is dropping its longtime nickname, “Boystown,” following a petition started by a local activist claiming the moniker lacks inclusivity and promotes bigotry.
“The Castro, Greenwich Village, West Hollywood, and many more. LGBTQ neighborhoods exist for all intersections of queer identity. Chicago’s is the only gendered nickname,” said the petition, which was addressed to the Northalsted Business Alliance.
Last week, the alliance announced that it would no longer use the nickname in its marketing campaigns when referring to the neighborhood, which sits on the city’s North Side. Instead, it will revert to the name Northalsted.
“While a personal identifier cannot encompass the full diversity of our town, the name Northalsted, signifies the place, its entire community & history, inclusively,” the alliance said in a statement.
In a survey conducted by the alliance, which had nearly 8,000 respondents, 58 percent favored keeping the “Boystown” moniker, and 80 percent said they did not feel unwelcome by the nickname.
“While an overall majority neither were offended by the name nor want it changed, those identifying as Lesbian, Transgender, non-binary and queer largely do favor a name change,” the statement said. “To acknowledge and welcome all members of the LGBTQ+ community, the chamber will discontinue using the name Boystown in marketing and revert to the long standing name Northalsted.”
The Boystown nickname has been in use since the 1980s to represent what the alliance said has historically been a safe place for LGBTQ people. In 1997, then-Mayor Richard Daley officially recognized the neighborhood as a gay village, the first such designation in the country, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
A man in New York City is believed to have been violently hacked to death with a machete during a Grindr hook-up.
Juan Alonso, 50, has been charged with murder, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon after police were called to an apartment in the Bronx on Sunday evening.
Alonso’s flatmate had returned home to discover the victim’s naked body and Alonso, machete in hand, standing over him, police say.
The victim, whose name is not yet public, is believed to have met the alleged killer on Grindr.
A police spokesperson said that officials “are investigating whether there was a dispute over not liking certain sex activities and it escalated”.
Alonso has been hospitalised for a psychiatric evaluation, according to reports.
Building superintendent John Gonzalez told the New York Daily News the victim was “cut up” and left “on the floor in pieces”.
He added: “I asked [Alonso] what happened when they were putting him in the squad car.
“He said he was trying to defend himself. He said he was in the bed sleeping — and when he woke up, there was someone was on top of him trying to rape him… he was out of it.”
Gonzalez added: “He was a good guy. I always talked to him. He always was calm. He didn’t look like the type of guy who would do something like that.”
A Republican has urged other conservatives to back Amy Coney Barrett as the new Supreme Court justice so that LGBT+ rights “will no longer see the light of day”.
Brian Brown, head of the anti-gay National Organisation for Marriage, told his followers that it is “absolutely imperative” that Barrett be appointed to the Supreme Court in an email.×
Brown, who once compared himself to Jesus and has fought to reverse progress on LGBT+ rights, told followers that they must launch an “unprecedented effort to ensure that this justice confirmed without delay”.
“I’m asking you to make a sacrificial financial gift to [National Organisation for Marriage] right now so that we can immediately deploy a comprehensive pressure campaign aimed at holding Republican Senate votes to confirm president Trump’s pick to the Supreme Court,” Brown wrote, according to an email published by JMG.
“This is a moment that could pay decades of dividends for all the issues we care about,” he added.ADVERTISING
“We’ve never had a bigger opportunity to advance our cause. Will you be with us at this historic moment?”
Republican Brian Brown wants Amy Coney Barrett appointed to the Supreme Court so they can roll back LGBT+ rights.
Brown went on to claim that the left “has gone absolutely berserk” since Trump announced the staunchly anti-LGBT+ Roman Catholic as his nominee to the Supreme Court, following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
“This is the Supreme Court nomination that could finally bring us a reversal of Roe v Wade and usher in a pro-life majority on the court,” he added.
“It could pave the way for the restoration of marriage to our laws and scrapping the illegitimate, anti-constitutional imposition of same-sex ‘marriage’ on the nation.
“It will mean that religious liberty will be restored to its rightful place as a foundational constitutional right, and that the fake ‘rights’ that are constantly demanded by the left – including special rules for homosexuals and the so-called transgendered – will no longer see the light of day.”
Brown said “LGBT extremists” will do “everything in their power to block” Barrett’s confirmation as a Supreme Court justice.
“It’s imperative that we be on the front lines fighting for control of the Supreme Court by demanding that Republicans support president Trump’s nominee.”
The Roman Catholic Supreme Court nominee has expressed her opposition to same-sex marriage in the past.
Trump officially announced Barrett as his nominee to the Supreme Court on Saturday (26 September).https://lockerdome.com/lad/13296932562903654?pubid=ld-5883-3439&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinknews.co.uk&rid=www.pinknews.co.uk&width=572
LGBT+ organisations and advocates have expressed concern over the nomination because of Barrett’s anti-gay beliefs, as well as her membership of a religious group that declares that husbands are the leaders of their wives.
In 2015, Barrett signed a letter to the Ordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family, declaring support for “the Church’s teachings… on the meaning of human sexuality, the significance of sexual difference and the complementarity of men and women; on openness to life… and on marriage and family founded on the indissoluble commitment of a man and a woman”.
In 2017, Barrett was grilled by Democratic senators during her confirmation hearing to become a United States circuit judge on whether her staunch Catholic beliefs would affect her judgement on issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion.
Senator Dianne Feinstein told Barrett: “The dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for for years in this country.”
At the time, 27 LGBT+ rights groups opposed Barrett’s confirmation in an open letter, expressing concern that “her religiously-infused moral beliefs would inform her judicial decision-making”.
During her Sept. 18 appearance on pastor Todd Coconato’s “Bombshell” podcast , right-wing former Rep. Michele Bachmann frantically warned that if Joe Biden is elected president, he will make it a priority to pass the Equality Act and strip Christian conservatives of their rights.
If passed, the Equality Act would expand federal civil rights laws to include protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. However, Bachmann warned that not allowing Christians to discriminate on such grounds would amount to unconstitutional discrimination against Christians.
“Joe Biden has said the very first thing he would do as president of the United States is to put in place the Equality Act,” Bachmann said. “It’s really the Inequality Act, because the Equality Act would add the words ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and ’65. And that would completely upend the Civil Rights Act, which was meant to give equality to Blacks in all areas of life in the United States, which was a good thing. This actually, in my perspective, harms all people because it really is about punishing. It gives special rights to certain people who practice certain behaviors. It’s about giving rights to feelings, not to immutable physical characteristics.”
“Even worse,” she added, “we’re all going to lose rights. Those who believe in a biblical standard, we will be punished. We will no longer be able to verbally or practice life in the way that we used to practice life because we’ll be punished for what the Bible says. If we speak what the Bible says, we’ll be punished.”
More than 340,000 people have signed a petition demanding the EU fight back against the rising homophobic hate in Poland’s “LGBT-free” zones.
The petition was launched by the global equality movement All Out and delivered to EU commissioner for equality, Helena Dalli, on Tuesday (September 22).×
It urges her to denounce the discriminatory policies and pass legislation on hate crimes to protect the Polish LGBT+ community.
“LGBT+ people in Poland are under attack,” it reads, describing the spread of “LGBT-free zones” and aggressive “nationalist hooligans and far-right groups” at Pride.
“We call on you to condemn these acts of violence and discrimination and to urge Polish authorities to protect the LGBT+ community and to pass legislation on hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”
Dalli met with activists from All Out, Lambda Warszawa and Kampania Przeciwko Homofobii (Campaign Against Homophobia) as she accepted the petition earlier this week.
“No place for humanity free zones in the EU or anywhere around the world,” she declared on Twitter after their meeting, echoing the words of European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in her first state of the union speech.https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=PinkNews&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1308359353905360899&lang=en-gb&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinknews.co.uk%2F2020%2F09%2F24%2Fpoland-lgbt-free-zone-petition-all-out-eu-intervene-helena-dalli-homophobic-hate%2F&siteScreenName=PinkNews&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px
“Hate and violence against LGBT+ people in Poland have reached a boiling point,” said Matt Beard, executive director of All Out.
He and his fellow activist Marcin Rodzinka, co-chair of KPH, called on the commission to “immediately” trigger infringement procedure against Poland, acting under Article 7(1) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU).
“LGBT+ [people] in Poland still have some hope left and the EU cannot leave them alone. Where the human rights are violated, we need to see a clear opposition and strong action,” Rodzinka added.
