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MOVIES: Chris Evans as Captain America.
Gay stories: A survivor's account of an unbelievable hell called home.
Judges: Should we appoint them or elect them?
WATCH: And get out the Kleenex.
Lawyers and friends of Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei, the two former Rutgers students (they both withdrew from the school late last week) who filmed Tyler Clementi's intimate encounter with another man intimate before the freshman student took his own life, have announced that there was no sex or nudity involved in the webcam broadcast. They also claim that the video was only viewed from one computer: Wei's.
The Star-Ledger reports:
"I’m unaware of any evidence of sexual contact," said Rubin Sinins, Wei’s attorney. "The statute defining sexual contact refers to nudity and private parts, and, to my knowledge, nothing like that was seen. I’m also unaware of any evidence that any video was recorded, reproduced or disseminated in any way." Law enforcement officials declined to discuss the case because it is still under investigation. Prosecutors are considering whether to upgrade the charges against Ravi and Wei to bias crimes because Clementi was gay.
The article also includes accounts from friends of the duo: "She said, 'Dharun came in to my room and turned on my computer to web chatting. We watched for two minutes," said Sean Yan, 18, a longtime friend. Wei told friends she saw Clementi and a male visitor kissing. She described the visitor as 'kind of sketchy,' with ragged clothes and a scruffy beard, Yan said. Later on the night of Sept. 19, Ravi used his Twitter account to tell friends that he and Wei had seen his roommate 'making out with a dude.' The feed went out to Ravi’s nearly 150 Twitter followers."
Posted 6:31 PM EST by Steve Pep in Bullying, New Jersey, News | Permalink
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Ricky Martin shifts into PR gear for his new book which hits shelves later this week. On Wednesday morning he'll make an appearance on The View but, most notably, his interview with Oprah Winfrey will air the day before.
Lady Gaga dresses up as a little monster for Halloween.
Celebrities get in the Halloween spirit.
Stephen Fry claims to know straight women: "I feel sorry for straight men. The only reason women will have sex with them is that sex is the price they are willing to pay for a relationship with a man, which is what they want. Of course, a lot of women will deny this and say, 'Oh no, but I love sex, I love it!' But do they go around having it the way that gay men do?"
Julianne Moore on gay parents: "I really think a two-parent family is the goal. I think whether they are men or women, or a man and a woman it's all pretty good."
Hate crime: wig snatched off of Fargo drag performer JustNtyme's head after assailant calls him a "faggot."
Courage Campaign mounts drive against Texas television station for its homophobic newscast about marriage equality.
1,000 protest gay pride in Moscow.
Amazing photos of Mount Merapi erupting yesterday in Indonesia.
30,000 people in Taiwan celebrate gay pride.
Is this really a time traveller walking in front of Grauman’s Chinese theater during the premiere of the Charlie Chaplin movie, “The Circus?”
Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer's movie night.
The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs releases report on LGBT domestic partner violence in the United States: "The report found that LGBTQ domestic/intimate partner violence reports rose 15% since 2008 and is a pervasive social problem at a time when LGBTQ-specific programs were losing staff or closing altogether due to the economic crisis. In 2009, NCAVP documented 6 murders related to LGBTQ domestic/intimate partner violence, representing a 50% rise since 2007."
Watch the trailer for Out: The Glenn Burke Story, a documentary about the first openly gay MLB player.
Zach Galifianakis smoked during a live taping of Real Time with Bill Maher - and I don't mean a cigarette.
Posted 5:08 PM EST by Steve Pep in Anna Paquin, Baseball, Bill Maher, Crime, Gay Adoption, Halloween, Indonesia, Julianne Moore, Lady Gaga, Moscow, News, Ricky Martin, Stephen fry, Stephen Moyer, Taiwan, Volcanoes | Permalink
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Remember this? And this? Well it happened again yesterday, this time in Bridgeport, Connecticut where President Obama was in town to deliver a speech at the Democratic National Committee "Moving America Forward" rally. The group of protesters erupted in a chant of “Fund global AIDS! Fund global AIDS!”
Obama countered them:
“Let me just say this — these folks have been — you’ve been appearing at every rally we’ve been doing,” Obama said. “And we’re funding global AIDS. And the other side is not. So I don't know why you think this is a useful strategy to take.” “I think it would make a lot more sense for you guys to go to the folks who aren’t interested in funding global AIDS and chant at that rally, because we’re trying to focus on figuring out how to finance the things that you want financed, all right?
After a few minutes, the protesters were escorted out of the rally by police. Watch video of the incident, wherein Obama seems to get more than just a little annoyed by the interruption, AFTER THE JUMP.
Continue reading "Watch: Obama Heckled By AIDS Activists At Rally "
Posted 2:03 PM EST by Steve Pep in AIDS/HIV, Barack Obama | Permalink
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One of the bombs found in two cargo planes last week was addressed to a small synagogue in Chicago that caters to the LGBT community.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports:
We are somewhat alarmed and somewhat disturbed," said Lilli Kornblum, co-president of Or Chadash, a North Side congregation of about 100 members. Or Chadash shares space with Emanuel Congregation at a synagogue on North Sheridan Road. Emanuel's rabbi said Saturday that he had been informed that more than two synagogues were targeted.
Rabbi Michael Zedek said he was told by a person of "considerable importance and reliability in the larger and Jewish community that there were four synagogues targeted, not two."
"He wanted to be assured that our security plan was in place," Zedek said of his source. "He told me, 'I've got good news and I've got bad news. The good news is Emanuel Congregation was not part of the four. The bad news is Or Chadash is.'"
Most peculiarly, the synagogue's website had recently been visited a number of times by someone from Egypt. Said Zede: "What I was told this morning by the person who keeps our website current is that when she was checking to see how many hits we'd been getting recently, and this is before what occurred on Friday, to her surprise we had 83 hits from an address in Cairo, Egypt. It does assume a greater interest in light of what happened.''
Meanwhile, US officials announced today that a woman in Yemen has been arrested in connection with the bombs.
Posted 1:01 PM EST by Steve Pep | Permalink
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Jon Hamm did a stellar job hosting Saturday Night Live last night but it was his kiss with Jason Sudeikis that saved the C.H.I.P.S. parody, easily one of the weakest sketches on the show. Watch that clip as well as some funny highlights like the Vincent Price (with JFK and Judy Garland) skit and an Andy Samberg short starring Rihanna. All three are AFTER THE JUMP.
Continue reading "Jon Hamm and Jason Sudeikis Lock Lips On A Hog"
Posted 12:02 PM EST by Steve Pep in Jon Hamm, Rihanna, Saturday Night Live | Permalink
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43-year-old William Lynch was arrested by police in Santa Clara, California on Friday for the May 10, 2010 attack on Jesuit Priest Jerold Lindner.
The AP reports on the attack and the decades-long anger that apparently led up to it:
During a confrontation at the Jesuits’ Sacred Heart retirement home in Los Gatos, Calif., Mr. Lynch repeatedly punched Father Lindner in the face and body after the priest said he did not recognize him, said Sgt. Rick Sung, a spokesman for the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department. Mr. Lynch and his younger brother settled with the Jesuits of the California Province, a Roman Catholic religious order, for $625,000 in 1998 after accusing Father Lindner of abusing them in 1975 during weekend camping trips in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Mr. Harris said the boys, who were 7 and 5 at the time, were raped and forced to have oral sex with each other while Father Lindner watched. Father Lindner, 65, has been accused of abuse by nearly a dozen people, including his sister and nieces and nephews.
Investigators connected Mr. Lynch to the attack using phone records, Sergeant Sung said. A half-hour before the episode, a caller identifying himself as Eric called the home and said someone would arrive shortly to inform Father Lindner of a family member’s death. Father Lindner was able to drive himself to the hospital after the attack. He did not return a call left on his answering machine. He has previously denied abusing the Lynch boys and has not been criminally charged. The abuse falls outside the statute of limitations.
The attack was foreshadowed in an interview Lynch conducted with the LA Times in 2002 in which he told the newspaper: “Many times I thought of driving down to L.A. and confronting Father Jerry. I wanted to exorcise all of the rage and anger and bitterness he put into me. You can’t put into words what this guy did to me. He stole my innocence and destroyed my life.”
Posted 8:52 AM EST by Steve Pep in Religion | Permalink
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