Tag: Mississippi

Carlton Smith hopes to make history this November by being elected to the Mississippi State Senate. If he does, he would become the first out LGBTQ person ever seated to the state legislature, as well as the first Black representative in his district’s history. “Knowing what it’s like to be marginalized from an early age has made me a stronger and a bolder person,” 55-year-old Smith, who grew up in the small town of Holly Springs, Mississippi (pop. 7,621), tells...

His loved ones say 28-year-old Trevor Gray isn't actually gay, but "it wouldn't matter if he were." A 28-year-old man in Mississippi was brutally beaten up because his assailants thought he was gay. According to the Mississippi Clarion Ledger, Trevor Gray, who’d recently moved back to his home region of Wayne County, went out to a local bar in hopes of making new friends last week. His Friday night took a turn for the worse when two fellow patrons—Landon McCaa, 32,...

Michael Aycox is making history as the first openly gay candidate ever to run in a Mississippi congressional race. He’s currently one of two Democrats on the ballot in the June primary for Mississippi’s 3rd congressional district seat. The 30-year-old Navy veteran lives in Newton, Mississippi with his husband, Mario, who he married in 2013 and who is currently serving in the Florida Air National Guard. Aycox says he was inspired to run for office after being diagnosed with thyroid cancer...

Some 2,500 people attended Starkville, Mississippi's inaugural Pride celebration. Thousands marched through the streets of Starkville, Mississippi, on Saturday for the town’s first-ever LGBT Pride parade. Making the event all the more poignant is that it almost didn’t happen. https://instagram.com/p/BguY20dlaaH/?utm_source=ig_embed Despite widespread support, including from Mayor Lynn Spruill, the Starkville Board of Aldermen voted 4-3 last month to deny organizers a special permit to host the parade. The event posed no security or logistical problems, but council members gave no reason for...

It sounds like the setup for an off-color joke: A boy comes out to his mother, who then calls a gay bar asking advice as to what she should do. But such was the situation this week when a mother rang up a Mississippi gay bar called well, Sipps, asking the bartender what she should say to her newly-out son. The bartender that night was a certain Kara Cowley, who picked up the phone, and here’s how the convo went (via...

A Mississippi funeral home is accused of refusing to transport and cremate a gay man’s body. Widower Jack Zawadski, 82, lost his partner of 52 years and yet he says his suffering didn’t end there. He claims a funeral home in Picayune, Mississippi refused him service. “I felt as if all the air had been knocked out of me,’ said Zawadski, who has since filed a discrimination lawsuit against Picayune Funeral Home. Zawadski and his partner, Robert Huskey, had lived in...

While a large number of artists boycott North Carolina for its "religious freedom" anti-LGBT bill, out singer Lance Bass wants to show his support in another way. The ex 'N Sync member wants to organize a concert in Mississippi to spread a message of love. “I think if we calmly talk about it, people will understand how wrong it is and that it is discrimination,” Bass said. Lance wants to  fight hate with love  “trying to bring people who are boycotting the...

“This is not politics, this is human rights.” Ellen DeGeneres set the jokes aside Wednesday (well, mostly) during a powerful monologue against Mississippi’s anti-LGBT law. DeGeneres used her opening to discuss the topic of Mississippi’s “Religious Liberty” bill, which was signed into law last week by the state’s governor and allows people with religious objections to deny LGBT people marriage, adoption and foster care services, fire or refuse to employ them, and decline to rent or sell them property. “I’m not a...