High school Students outed by Principal

ABC News reports that Memphis Hollis F. Price Middle College High School principal, Daphne Beasley (picture), fed up with public displays of affection in the hallways, allegedly displayed a list of couples — including some who are gay — in the school, publicly outing the boys and violating their privacy, according to one of the students involved. "I really feel that my personal privacy was invaded," said Nicholas, one of the young men who claims his sexuality was exposed without his approval by his principal, "I mean, Principal Beasley called my mother and outted me to my mother!" "It was actually frightening," Nicholas said of the incident, which occurred in Fall 2007, "to see a list with my name on it where not just other teachers could see but students as well."
The American Civil Liberties Union has threatened legal action against the school. "I really couldn't believe that a principal would have done something like this," said Christine Sun, the American Civil Liberties Union attorney handling the case after it was brought to her attention by Nicholas' mother.

Cayman Islands: a gay tourist questioned by police for having embraced his friend in public

A toursite gay American was arrested by police after the Cayman Islands have embraced his companion in public at the nightclub of the hotel where the couple resided.
Aaron Chandler, an American 23 years, vacationing with his partner has been warned by police as a first step following a complaint from customers attending the hotel complex where he lived. In case a kiss - chaste - exchanged by the two men in the hotel. Local police Respondent then ordered the man not to publicly embrace his friend.

Considering that his behavior was no different from other hotel guests, the couple has not complied. "Our attitude was little that can be described as obscene; holding hands or exchange a furtive kiss," explain the two men.
In the night following the warning, while a new kiss is exchanged in the disco of the hotel, qu'Aaron Chandler is arrested and taken to protesting the local police under the gaze dismay of many residents. He was released later without charge against him.

The situation seems all the more curious that homosexuality between consenting adults is legal in the Cayman Islands since December 2000. These islands are an overseas territory of the United Kingdom located in the Caribbean Sea. The Gay questioned nevertheless seen indicate that he could behave as he wished in his room, but it was unacceptable that two men kissing in public.

Aaron Chandler, who is a leading member of an organization of gay rights in the USA, sent a letter of protest to the tourist office on the island to protest against the way he was treated.

"I thought that the remark made to me was ridiculous and I did not take seriously that I risquais to be arrested for this," he wrote. "I do not see myself being me hide simply because some people are more homophobic than others," he concludes his letter.

Iraq: Saddam Hussein was afraid of contracting AIDS in prison

Saddam Hussein, the deposed Iraqi president hanged in 2006 for crimes against humanity, was afraid of contracting sexual diseases during his detention by U.S. forces, according to excerpts of writings from prison published Tuesday by an Arabic newspaper.
Saddam Hussein wrote that he had asked his prison guards not to spread their towels near hers, for fear of contracting "disease of young," said the daily Al-Hayat, quoting his diary.
"My main concern was to avoid contracting a sexual disease in a place like this, and AIDS," he wrote. "What can make Americans and other invaders (...) in a country (invading) a share of dangerous diseases?", He added.

Rome mayor said Gay Pride Parade is a sexual exhibition

Rome's newly elected right-wing mayor, former neo-fascist Gianni Alemanno, dismissed the Gay Pride event as a "sexual exhibition" and said the city would make sure the event did not offend anybody, Italian media reported Wednesday. "I respect homosexual people, I know a few and I am not saying this out of discrimination," said Alemanno. "But I fear that Gay Pride is something else, an act of sexual exhibition, and I am opposed to all form of exhibition, homosexual or heterosexual." Last year's Gay Parade in June drew tens of thousands of people and was organised by 50 or so associations and left-wing political parties. Now, as new mayor elected April 28, Alemanno announced Gay Pride would be up for debate at the municipal council so as to "find a formula that doesn't offend anyone." "We knew the Italian right, the worst in Europe, didn't like this demonstration," said left-wing former deputy Franco Grillini. He added: "For the right, a good homosexual is one who hides and does not defend his rights."

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abercrombie catalogue will not be sold to guys under 18

Here it comes again, another dumbly predictable, panicky little outcry from terrified parents' groups and petrified dads all aflutter over the recent sexed-up, "racy" Abercrombie & Fitch catalog, just in time to stuff your proverbial stocking.

You know the one, that new A&F Christmas catalog that dared to go so far as to show actual young half-naked models laying around in half-naked splendor doing half-naked nothing much. Same as it ever was.

But wait -- nudity? Group sex? Orgies? Specific directions for gang masturbation techniques, all appearing in a mediocre clothing catalog aimed squarely at ineptly dressed Stanford undergrads who have free access to Dad's Visa? Whatever is the world coming to? And who, pray who, will save the children?

I mean, whatever happened to the innocent and tantalizing catalogs of yore, like the 4-inch-thick Sears tome with its countless pages of busty bra models who looked like your best friend's mom?

Whatever happened to fantasizing all the way through the panty selection in the JCPenney catalog? What happened to innocence and virtue in mail-order advertising?

Yeah, right. Softcore is, of course, where you find it. And one person's "offensive" is another's "barely naughty enough to arouse a Catholic priest." The hypocrisy of these parents is palpable. Bring me lots of photos of frumpy baby boomers happily munching $20 Harry & David pears so that I may rinse my poor singed eyeballs!

Meanwhile, Abercrombie is thrilled. The latest round of reactionary screeching is exactly the outcry they were counting on, as they yank the sexy catalog from the shelves just as the news of its raciness hits the media, thus resulting in an instant wave of interest among their target market: a.k.a., those youths who simply love it when parents get all pissy and fumy about interesting types of sex they no longer have.

Is Ambercrombie softcore porn? Is it really? Is it really all that much more dangerous or damaging to nubile young minds than, say, Pottery Barn Kids? Let us ponder. Let us compare.

Let us now gander at, say, the latest Williams-Sonoma catalog. Here is, quite simply, 160 pages of pure kitchen-fetish smut, raw and glossy and openly explicit, all gleaming $400 KitchenAid blenders and wickedly overpriced stainless steel All-Clad cookware and gorgeously photographed slabs of steaming gourmet meats being perfectly sliced with spotless $200 Wusthof knives. Mmm yeah, baby. Do it to me just like that.

And over here, it's the latest mail-order offering from Pottery Barn. Oh my yes. Page after page of softcore earth-toned lifestyle porn for those who can't afford actual designer furniture but who seem to have an undying fetish for picture frames and votive candles and faux-antique mass-produced hardwood rollaway desks.

And all that's missing from these shots is the girl in the Garnet Hill catalog sweater who will refuse to have sex with you on the Pottery Barn slipcovered sofa lest she wrinkle her J. Jill catalog skirt and knock the Crate & Barrel vanilla pillar candle over.

The Abercrombie catalog is, by the way, not sold to anyone under 18. It has a cover warning of "Mature content." No actual terrified oversheltered children were in any way harmed or exposed or even lightly tickled in the photographing or marketing of its pages.

No matter. Still, Michael Kieschnick, president of Working Assets and chairman of some scary-sounding overbearing thing called Dads and Daughters, thinks Abercrombie is trying to openly molest his young girl, who has, presumably, never even seen the catalog and is probably too young to buy it and if she is, in fact, over 18 and she's into happy yuppie group masturbation, well, it's really none of his damn business. Just a thought.

Still, Maryam Kubasek of the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families (hello, red flag of rigid sanctimony) apparently thinks the catalog is literally capable of stripping her young son naked and plying him with massage oil and anal beads and a nice Burntbridge Pond Striped Polo shirt with moose embroidery for $39.99. Oh the horror.

Oh hell, let's just spell it out: All major catalogs are softcore porn. Just because they lack nude postcoital models does not make them any less explicit or depraved.

All are unabashed fetishy lifestyle whores and all attempt to showcase their wares in impossibly perfect situations for impossibly perfect people with impossibly perfect teeth.

Of course sex and orgies and masturbation have nothing to do with selling yuppie clothes. This is what the parents groups pule.

Then again, this is complete B.S. -- sex has absolutely everything to do with selling clothes, because just under the surface of it all, clothes are only silly shallow vanity-based things we adorn ourselves with for no other reason than to appear attractive and interesting to the world and to our lovers and families and friends and really hot waitresses. We want to look cute. And sexy. Or at least presentable. Because we want to get laid.

And if you say this is not the reason you buy clothes, you are either lying your ass off or you are sadly disinterested in physical appearances, or you are past the age or the marriage status where you care about sex or fashion or how those jeans make your ass look, and therefore you are not even on Abercrombie's radar.

Should we now talk of the upscale decorator porn of the Gump's catalog? What about the weird overpriced parenting porn of Hanna Anderssen? The uber-cheesy gay Eurostud porn of International Male?

Or what of the super-rich diamond-encrusted ultra-slick porn of the Neiman Marcus catalog, packed with all those untouchable preening fur-clad mistresses descending the steps of your new Lear jet? Why are uptight parents' groups not horrified at this raunchy display?

It's all the same. It's all manufactured desire and imitation lust and a boatload of tasty crap you don't really need but they make you crave madly, the way a 14-year-old schoolgirl pines for Orlando Bloom in a blond wig.

Note to scrunchy parents: I'd be far, far more worried about what, say, Kraft is selling to your kids in all those millions of boxes of toxic and openly poisonous Kraft Lunchables than about some quasi-sexy yuppie-fashion catalog they never even see. But that's just me.

Oh, but here. Here is the safe, saccharine J. Crew catalog, all bland white former sorority girls and carefully emasculated boys and a smattering of safe black persons, all with incredibly clean teeth and nifty haircuts and big happy smiles playfully tossing snowballs at each other in their new J. Crew scarves, only $29.99. Oh yes, that's much better.

And here we have the L.L. Bean catalog, featuring those exact same J. Crew models about 10 years later, doing the exact same smiley snowbound activities, only with more gray hair and a higher credit limit and less sexual activity and lots more monogrammed luggage. How disturbing. I feel sort of violated just looking at it.


Abercrombie sex video on their website here

Interracial Gay Kiss on TV

Spring means romance, also for gay characters on TV; First Luke kissed Noah on As The World Turns, then two gay soldiers lip locked on Grey's Anatomy, and soon there will be an interracial gay kiss on ABC Family's college drama Greek.

One of the central cast members Calvin (Paul James) and his new love interest, Michael (Max Greenfield) - who is introduced this coming Monday - will share an on-screen kiss in the May 26th episode, "A Tale of Two Parties"

Here's the episode description, and below, a picture from the episode:

With all of the party restrictions lifted, Kappa Tau and Omega Chi throw competing parties to celebrate. Calvin (Paul James) is nervous about inviting Michael (Max Greenfield) to the party with all of his fraternity brothers around, while Michael feels uncomfortable partying with the students he is the TA at school for. Both are feeling a bit uneasy and a conversation between the two leads to a first kiss.

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Gay rights group to train activists in Lauderdale

The Human Rights Campaign gay rights group plans to hold a "Camp Equality" boot camp today and Sunday.

The idea, the organization said, is to train people to work on political campaigns and defeat ballot measures such as the proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage.

The organization, which worked in 2006 to help Ron Klein defeat then-U.S. Rep. Clay Shaw, R-Fort Lauderdale, said it again would target key races.

The camp will end by 3 p.m. Sunday, according to the Web site of the Human Rights Campaign.

separate bathrooms for gay students at school?

TREASURE VALLEY — Homosexual and heterosexual students should have separate bathrooms and showers in Idaho schools, a Wilder Republican running for the Idaho House said Friday.

Walt Bayes, who gained notoriety two years ago by going on an anti-abortion hunger strike that lasted 59 days, said he wasn’t sure how the issue could be handled other than providing different facilities for gay and straight students in schools.
Also on agenda

Some of Walt Bayes’ other platforms:

• Make the supplying of pornography to juveniles by any person, official, librarian or institution a criminal offense.

• Require written permission from parents or guardian before supplying any sex education, contraceptive or abortion.

• The state shall pay equal money for equal education to all schools: public, private or home. “Give home and private schools money and they will run the unions out of town,” Bayes said.

• Wolves should be killed wherever they endanger livestock, game, pets or people. Bayes said he shot a wolf that was chasing his deer. “To me it was legal because the (Idaho) Constitutional says I have a right to protect my property,” Bayes said. He said officials decided not to prosecute him.


The topic came up after Bayes mentioned it in his campaign literature, where he wrote, “It is absolutely wrong to force any student to share the same bathrooms and showers with homosexual teachers or students.”

Bayes is a 70-year-old retired blue-collar worker and farmer. None of the three Republicans running in the Tuesday, May 27 primary against him agrees with his position.

“I don’t think it’s worth commenting on,” District 11 House Seat B incumbent Rep. Carlos Bilbao of Emmett said. “I don’t know where he’s coming off on all this.”

Bayes said that when he was 18 it would have been “an absolute catastrophe” for him to have showered with girls. But he said he wasn’t completely sure how the issue of homosexuals and heterosexuals using the same facilities in schools should be addressed.

“I don’t really have an answer for it, but we’re going to have to do something if there’s going to be a considerable number of our people who are going to go that way (homosexual),” Bayes said. “We’re going to (need) some kind of separation.”

Bayes said his main goal as a candidate is to stop abortion by having the fetus defined as a person from the moment of conception.

One of Bayes’ opponents, Steve Coyle of Star, said he did not see the need for separate facilities for gays and straights in schools. Another candidate in the race, Jeff Justus of Meridian, said the proposal was not needed.

“We have a lot more important issues than that,” Justus said.

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Paula Fought For Gay Idols Danny and David

In a new interview, Paula Abdul talks about her gay best friends and how she fought for gay American Idol contestants Danny Noriega and David Hernandez.

Abdul tells NewNowNext about Danny Noriega and David Hernandez:

I pushed for them and fought... There's a reason why there was never, ever a debate or argument during the Green Mile show. We were still debating, and I was being yelled at - we were going overtime - because I fought so hard for Danny and David. And I stood my ground. I said, This kid is needed – especially Danny- because he is very open about being gay. He tried out the year before, and I fought...

Because for a lot of people, the two most vulnerable places to be are in front of a mirror or behind a microphone – and both are areas of my life I've had great success. So I've watched people who are afraid of being who they are. Like with Danny Noriega, it was so important for television, for young kids to see: Here's a young guy, who's very smart, very witty and beyond talented, and I wanted so bad for him to go far in this competition. I needed him, I wanted him so bad to make the top 12. It would have changed even more so...

She also says she helped George Michael during his pre-out days:

Do you know how many people I've embraced and fought for them being at peace with themselves? I mean, I worked with George Michael on the most coveted Faith tour. You can't get bigger than that. And I was so understanding and so supportive of the fact that it's really difficult living a ... not living your life truthfully, for fear that people won't accept you.

And it wasn't until years afterwards that he came out - and he had the courage to walk up to me when I was eating dinner with Mike Ovitz at the Ivy - and he came up to me and said, I want to apologize; you're one of the most talented people, and I treated you not so great. And that's because ... I was living a lie of who I was.

And he gave me the biggest hug. And I said, For that my dear, I love you more than ever.

Abdul says her four closest friends are all gay:

My whole life ... [she starts to cry again.] has been surrounded by marvelous, wonderful gay people. My best friend Jimmy right now is living with me, and he's one of the most magnificent singers in the world. I don't think anyone sings better than him.

Let's see, my four closest friends - they're my best friends - are three gay guys and one gay woman ... my whole life, my extended family has been a family of wonderful gay people.

I've grown up in the business, behind-the-scenes, as a dancer choreographer - not so much as a dancer, but as a choreographer. And I've lost so many wonderful, dear, dear people that I trained and that toured with me. It's been a world that I feel very, very close to. I feel that, in many ways, I'm more understood by the gay community than I am anywhere else.

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Should Indian actors play gay roles?

The refusal of some of the top actors to play a gay character in Madhur Bhandarkar's forthcoming Fashion raises a strong question - Are our actors too careful about their 'safe' image to take up challenging roles such as these? Is it high time they moved out from their formulaic cocoon to address larger social issues through their art?

Or, are they justified in shying away from setting examples that make a point, because in the end, every artist has a right to 'protect' himself from controversy? But when these very stars are ready to face tough criticism of their performances head on, why is it that choosing an untrodden path as far as roles are concerned scares them?

"What are they scared of? Even Hollywood actors like Richard Gere have played sensitive gay roles. I would tell them to come ahead and take up the challenge to set an example", urges Anjali Gopalan, founder and Executive Director of Naz foundation, an NGO involved in GLBT awareness and rights. "It's stupid to have this kind of a discriminating outlook while deciding what role to play", agrees sociologist Dr Urmi Mala Sarkar.

If Shahrukh can crack a light-hearted joke on a television show when being asked what he would do if he discovered he woke up in the morning to find a certain male director sleeping next to him, why can't he approach the deeper subject in his films with greater seriousness?

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Barack Obama: where he is now

Barack Obama is now just 169 delegates away from winning the Democratic nomination. It's within sight.

This is a decisive moment in this race.

Barack has already won more votes, more delegates, and more than twice as many states as Senator Clinton, whose path to the nomination has grown extremely narrow. But these loans show that her campaign will continue to contest the remaining primaries vigorously.

We need to show that the voices of more than 1.5 million ordinary people donating whatever they can afford are more powerful than one person giving more than $11 million to their own campaign.

A message from Barack Obama after winning yesterday

Friend --

We just won a decisive victory in North Carolina thanks to people like you.

Indiana remains too close to call. But what is clear is that we did much better than all the pundits predicted, despite Republicans changing parties to support Senator Clinton, believing she would be easier for Senator McCain to defeat.

Here's where we stand.

As of Tuesday morning, we needed just 273 delegates to clinch the nomination. When the votes are fully counted Wednesday morning, we will have gained more than a third of them in a single day.

We have a clear path to victory. But now is the time for each one of us to step up and do what we can to close out this primary.



Barack

Fashion for super heroes

The "Met" celebrates the influence of "superhero" comic about fashion

NEW YORK, May 6, 2008 (AFP) - The metamorphosis of the body by the clothing is a constant ambition creators, and an exhibition retraces from Wednesday, May 7 at the Metropolitan Museum in New York the influence of "super-hero" comic books and movies on contemporary fashion.



Moschino autumn-winter 2007/2008 (compared to Superman)
Jean Paul Gaultier haute couture spring-summer 2003 (compared to Spiderman)
Photos: Chris Moore


The 20th century saw the emergence of generations of designers who, to varying degrees, have been inspired by Superman, Spiderman and Captain America, the ideal of justice to the body and eternal youth, who perform feats when they leave their identities are banal and costumes that make them fly, spin, dive and conquer the enemy.

In the lobby of the museum on 5th Avenue, visitors are greeted by Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, three sculptures unpainted stucco, a wink to the "real" marble statues qu'abrîte the establishment .

The showroom, surprising for architecture very austere "Met" is made up of corridors lined with mirrors, a realization of Nathan Crowley, designer of Hollywood who is the particular design of "Batman begins" and "The Dark Knight" which leaves next summer.

On wax mannequins, some sixty models created by the fashion stars like Thierry Mugler and Pierre Cardin in 80 years, John Galliano, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Hussein Chalayan and Alexander McQueen later, show how the Inspiration has come often urban American hero.

Some clothes are well-known as corset-moto by Thierry Mugler for its collection spring-summer 1992, equipped with mirrors and handlebar, or combinations sports hood of Jean-Paul Gaultier's collection for autumn-winter 1995-1996. Others were seen in movies like Superman costume worn by Christopher Reeve in 1978.

"It was much harder to find in my collections of models to explain," exclaimed the Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani, sponsor of the exhibition which will last until 1 September.




"Muscle Suit" Eiko Ishioka for the ski speed (compared to Flash)
Thierry Mugler autumn-winter 1996/1997 (compared to Catwoman) - Photo: Patrice Stable


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