Anti-LGBTQ+ Actor-Writer Kirk Cameron Shocked at Libraries' Rejection

Good Morning America co-anchor Robin Roberts announced her 2023 plans to marry her longtime girlfriend, Amber Laign. 

Roderic O’Gorman, Ireland’s minister for children, equality, disability, integration, and youth, has promised to introduce legislation to ban conversion therapy. O’Gorman, who is gay, has described conversion therapy as exploitative and “a cruel process rooted in the promotion of shame,” the Irish Mirror reports.“Obviously, legislation takes time, but I think it’s possible we could have it passed by the end of the year,” he recently told the Mirror. “That’s certainly what I’d be working towards, but it could drift into 2024.” He would introduce the bill in the Dáil, the lower house of Ireland’s Parliament.“I have met people who have been subjected to conversion therapy,” he continued. “It doesn’t happen a lot in Ireland, but when it does happen, its impact can be really devastating on people.

Pornhub recently released its 2022 Year in Review, which allows users to know just who pleases themselves to what. This year, the porn platform got a lot more queer, with a notable increase in trans porn, which became the third most popular category in the U.S.

Marvel’s gay Captain America is set to make his grand return in Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty #8.

NEW YORK: Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty on Tuesday (Jan 3) to criminal charges that he cheated investors in his now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange and caused billions of dollars in losses in what prosecutors have called an epic fraud.

The newly named Chair of the City of Kansas City LGBTQ Commission is receiving a lot of attention for his recent appointment, including on Grindr.Justice Horn, 24, was named to the leadership post on Thursday after serving as vice chair for two years. On Monday, the out former collegiate wrestler posted a screenshot of a Grindr conversation purporting to congratulate him on the new gig on Twitter.“I do not and will not regret posting this because I’m young, single, and gay—but even the folks on Grindr are wishing me well on becoming Chair of the LGBTQ Commission.

U.S. Rep.-elect George Santos was not wearing a wedding ring when he showed up to be sworn in to Congress Tuesday, the New York Post is reporting.Santos, a gay Republican, has been caught in and admitted to multiple lies since defeating Robert Zimmerman, a gay Democrat, in the race to represent New York’s Third Congressional District, located on the north shore of Long Island.

Sarah Michelle Gellar has opened up about the possibility of appearing in a Buffy reboot.

Missouri is set to carry out the first execution of an out transgender person in the U.S.Amber McLaughlin, 49, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday. She received the death sentence for the murder of a former girlfriend, Beverly Guenther, in 2003.McLaughlin’s attorneys have asked Gov.

(CNN) -- The new House Republican majority faces a once-in-a-century fight to elect the next speaker after GOP leader Kevin McCarthy failed to lock down the votes needed to win in the first round of voting. The vote can now go to a second ballot, something that hasn't happened since 1923.The outcome of Tuesday's initial vote, taking place on the first day of the 118th Congress, is a major blow that throws into question whether McCarthy will be able to win the speaker's race, though the GOP leader has vowed to stay in the race even if he did not win on the first ballot.LIVE UPDATES: The latest on the new Congress and House speaker vote The new House Republican majority now faces the prospect of a contentious, drawn-out fight that threatens to deepen divides within the party with McCarthy's political career on the line.The fight has cast a long shadow over the incoming House Republican majority.

In August 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finished an investigation on an HIV outbreak in Kanawa County, West Virginia. The findings cited the county with “the most concerning HIV outbreak in the United States” and a warning that the reported diagnoses may only be “the tip of the iceberg.”Brooke Parker, a care coordinator for the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, has spent the last two years exploring the roads less traveled in the county with an effort to contain the HIV outbreak.

For the LGBTQIA+ community, attending Pride is one of the most important celebrations of the year. Our community comes together to express themselves unapologetically, backed by the love and support of the people who show up. But that's not all who shows up.

A federal appeals court has upheld a ban on transgender students at a Florida high school from using restrooms that fit their gender identity.The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 7-4 that the St.

A man and woman in the U.K. have been sentenced to jail for defrauding 80 victims, mostly gay men, they met on dating apps over a 16-year period.According to a report in MyLondon, Fredrick Diji, 37, received a prison sentence of eight years at Guildford Crown Court in South London on Friday, December 23, and his partner, probation officer Raquel Johnson, 43, was sentenced to three years and nine months.

George Santos, the gay Republican congressman-elect who has admitted to lying about significant parts of his public biography, arrived on Capitol Hill before noon on Tuesday and swiftly tried to outrun a scrum of reporters.Several dozen assembled reporters and photographers surrounded the incoming lawmaker, demanding answers to questions about his fitness for office. Santos, at one point led by an aide, seemed lost in the hallways of Congress as he tried to avoid answering questions from reporters.The politician appeared to be looking for his office but, at one point, walked into a dead-end in the basement of the Longworth House Office building, still surrounded by members of the media who were not letting down from trying to get the lawmaker to say something after weeks of avoiding their questions.Walking briskly — at times his head down, at other times smirking and grinning — Santos remained silent, except to say that he would be voting for Kevin McCarthy to be the next Speaker of the House.Shortly before noon, Santos was seen walking to the Capitol in advance of a noon vote to elect the next Speaker of the House.McCarthy has been trying to secure 218 votes to become the next Speaker.

Come one, come all! Step right up and get your ticket to vote on the greatest show in DFW!

You better start those mothertucking engines because the 15th season of RuPaul’s Drag Race is almost here.

Ireland’s integration minister Roderic O’Gorman has promised to introduce legislation banning the “exploitative” practice of so-called ‘conversion therapy’ by 2024.

A gay former meteorologist for a top New York City television station, whom management fired for appearing in nude live streams during his private time, has broken his silence.On Monday, Erick Adame took to Instagram to address the scandal from last September, when he announced that he was fired from Spectrum’s NY1 station because he had appeared in sexually explicit, consensual videos on an adult website. Somebody had sent his employer and mother clips of him appearing on the site. In the video, Adame reportedly mentioned working for NY1.“That news also gave what I can only call sexual predators the idea that I wanted to be exploited and humiliated as if it were something I enjoyed,” Adame said in his  Instagram video.He explained that since September, many people have gone out of their way to seek out images and videos of him.“I want to be absolutely clear about something tonight,” he said. “I never wanted any of those images or videos to ever be recorded or kept or saved or shared in any way.

(CNN) -- Robin Roberts is taking a big step in 2023.During a conversation with author and motivational speaker Gabby Bernstein about setting intentions for the new year, Roberts went public with her plan to marry longtime partner, Amber Laign.The "Good Morning America" co-anchor initially said she was "hesitating because I haven't said it out loud yet" about sharing her intention."I'm saying 'yes' to marriage," Roberts then continued. "We're getting married this year."She and Laign have been together since 2005 and Roberts told Bernstein, "It was something we had talked about but we had put it off.

Drag Race finalist Gottmik has revealed that she would “love” to compete on a season of All Stars at some point in the future.

NEW YORK: Sam Bankman-Fried is expected on Tuesday (Jan 3) to enter a plea of not guilty to criminal charges that he cheated investors in his now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange.

Seth Forbes first became estranged from one side of her family at 13. By 27, she was estranged from the other.

New research shows that Twitter users have used the antigay slur “groomer” more frequently since Elon Musk took over the platform.A study by Media Matters and GLAAD released this week found that Twitter users retweeted nine prominent anti-LGBTQ+ accounts 1,200 percent more when they used the “groomer” slur in their tweets after Musk’s October 27 takeover compared with the month before.The accounts also showed an increase of over 1,100 percent in tweets from right-wing media accounts containing the word. The study looked at prominent far-right influencers, including Tim Pool, Jack Posobiec, Jake Shield, Jaimee Michell’s Gays Against Groomers, Blaire White, Allie Beth Stuckey, Seth Dillon, Andy Ngo, and Mike Cernovic.Chaya Raichik’s Libs of TikTok mentions of groomer language grew from about 2,000 to almost 14,000, according to the report.In addition, the study found that mentions of prominent LGBTQ+ accounts in tweets with “groomer” in them increased during that time, with one account rising by more than 225,000 percent after Musk acquired Twitter.The Anti-Defamation League also explored how hateful rhetoric and harassment spread on Twitter. The ADL found that these provocateurs depend on networked harassment to spread hate.

The Los Angeles restaurant manager who admonished gay actor Drew Droege and his male date for showing affection in public has been fired.Droege and his date were at the El Compadre restaurant in the Echo Park neighborhood Monday evening and had exchanged a few kisses when the manager told them it was a family establishment and such behavior wasn’t allowed. Droege posted about the incident on social media, and the restaurant’s parent company issued an apology on Instagram, said it welcomed the LGBTQ+ community, and promised to investigate the matter.The company deleted that post, but Wednesday afternoon it put up another saying the manager had been fired.

Major movie studios are dropping the ball on LGBTQ+ representation in films, according to LGBTQ+ group GLAAD.The organization’s tenth annual Studio Responsibility Index saw the percentage of LGBTQ-inclusive films, including racial diversity and screen time, drop. The study measures the proportion of LGBTQ+ characters in films released by seven of the highest-grossing film studios in the world. They are Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, The Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Bros. GLAAD found that 16 of the 77 films theatrically released by major studios in 2021 contained LGBTQ+ characters.

In October and November, the Health and Human Services Department issued nearly $110 million in federal funding for nonprofit Vibrant Emotional Health. The money is meant for the nonprofit’s 988 hotline that focuses on suicide prevention in marginalized groups, including LGBTQ+ communities.In 2022, the Trevor Project released a study stating 45 percent of LGBTQ youth seriously considered suicide, while 14 percent attempted it; 43 percent of people surveyed also shared a fear of not being taken seriously.The 988 hotline, launched in July, recently rolled out LGBTQ+ specialized call services, and more are on the way.On the other hand, more conservative states like Tennessee, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Iowa have released legislations deemed “anti-transgender,” with “anti-LGBTQ bills” in place in over half of U.S.

At a Wednesday House Oversight Committee hearing on anti-LGBTQ+ hate, Republican lawmakers demonstrated that instead of listening to the community's concerns, they would continue to use that community as pawns while arguing that "both sides" are responsible for bias-related violence.Rather than engaging with the powerful testimony from survivors of the Club Q and Pulse Nightclub mass shooting victims and LGBTQ+ rights advocates who were called to testify about the exponential rise in anti-LGBTQ hatred and violence, Republicans deflected from the topic of the hearing, instead trying to paint Democrats as the party of crime. Failing to address the topic at hand, in his introduction, U.S. Rep.

In the final hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform helmed by outgoing chair New York U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney on Wednesday, lawmakers heard powerful testimony about the increase in anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and hate across America.Michael Anderson survived the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs.

The hate crime mass shooting during a drag show at Club Q, a Colorado Springs nightclub that catered to LGBTQ people and their friends and families, left five people dead, 25 people injured, and a suspect with 305 criminal charges. Club Q co-owner Matthew Haynes testified before Congress Wednesday, telling lawmakers that LGBTQ people are being “slaughtered and dehumanized,” as he read a few excerpts from what he says are the “hundreds” of messages of hate he received in the wake of the attack.

A gay actor who was on a date at a Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles is receiving an outpouring of support online after experiencing a homophobic episode with a manager at the establishment.On Monday evening, Drew Droege was enjoying the company of his date while the couple was dining and having drinks before a show the pair was planning to see. The two men had enjoyed dinner and drinks and were expressing their affection for one another when, according to Droege, the manager of El Compadre in Echo Park approached the couple.“We had our arms around each other and kissed a few times,” Droege wrote in a Facebook post.

The State Board of Education in Florida will meet on Wednesday to discuss school district compliance with the state’s new Parents’ Bill of Rights.Last month the state’s Department of Education sent letters to 10 districts statewide asking them to confirm they had updated their policies and guides to comply with new rules passed by the board in October. Many of the issues cited in the individual letters dealt with LGBTQ+ student privacy, and the use of bathroom and locker facilities by transgender students.Jacob Oliva, senior chancellor of the Florida Department of Education, wrote letters to select school districts in November citing specific examples where existing district policies and publications did not comply with the new rules.

In front of a crowd of nearly 3,000 people, President Joe Biden (D) signed the Respect for Marriage Act, a law which officially repealed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the 1996 law that forbade the federal government from legally recognizing same-sex marriages.

The highest court in Barbados has struck down the country’s colonial-era laws that criminalized same-sex sexual relations. The Barbados High Court issued an oral ruling that declared the laws unconstitutional.

A man in Nebraska has been arrested on charges of making terroristic threats against the LGBTQ+ community.Michael Nicewonder, 34, allegedly made a bomb threat against Lincoln LGBTQ+ bar Das Haus in December 2021 and threatened two gay Pride events in Lincoln and Kearney in May of this year, the Lincoln Journal Star reports.Police began investigating him this spring.Using the pseudonym "Michael Lewis," Nicewonder ran a Facebook account from which authorities seized more than 2170 pages of records, according to court records. After becoming aware of his communications, police began investigating Nicewonder in May. During their investigation, authorities swept the bar, looking for explosives, but they discovered none.Nicewonder, a twice-convicted sex offender, appears to have a grievance with the local LGBTQ+ community.The Journal Star reports that he had indicated that he was barred from going to Pride events and participating in a pageant at the bar because of his registration status."You have shunned away a man, a drag queen, from the community for being labeled as a sex offender," he allegedly wrote to the Kearney PFLAG chapter's Facebook account. Nicewonder was convicted of sex crimes involving children in Nebraska in 2013 and 2020, the state's sex offender registry shows. "I've been performing in drag since having this label," Nicewonder allegedly wrote on the Facebook page.

(CNN) — Twitter's former head of trust and safety has fled his home due to an escalation in threats resulting from Elon Musk's campaign of criticism against him, a person familiar with the matter told CNN on Monday.Yoel Roth, who resigned from the social media company in November, has in recent weeks faced a storm of attacks and threats of violence following the release of the so-called "Twitter Files" — internal Twitter communications that new owner Musk has released through journalists including Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss.Roth's position involved him working on sensitive issues including the suspension of then-President Donald Trump's account in 2021. On Monday, Weiss posted a series of screenshots purported to show internal Twitter documents where Roth and others discussed whether to ban Trump's account, with some employees questioning if the former president's tweets violated the platform's policies.While Musk had initially been publicly supportive of Roth, that soon changed after he left the company.Roth has since been the subject of criticism and threats following the release of the Twitter Files.

Leigh Wambsganss, Patriot Mobile’s Vice President of Government and Public Affairs and Executive Director of Patriot Mobile Action, the far-right wing political action committee of the Christian conservative mobile phone service provider, has spent decades in the conservative media echo chamber, and now she’s getting even more attention, from The New York Times.

The LGBTQ+ community and their allies in Virginia’s capital city are upset about an anti-LGBTQ+ billboard.The billboard looks like a Pride flag with text in front of it.“LGBTQ. What did Jesus Say? What does the Bible really say?” it reads.The sign includes a link to a website containing anti-LGBTQ+ and bigoted material.

As Democrat’s control of the House of Representatives comes to a close, members are using their remaining time to shine a light on important issues plaguing the country. This week, the House Oversight Committee will explore the rise in anti-LGBTQ+ hate in the country.On Wednesday, the committee will hear from survivors of gun violence in LGBTQ+ spaces, most recently at Club Q in Colorado Springs.NBC News reports that the committee will listen to testimony from Club Q bartender Michael Anderson, patron James Slaugh, and co-owner Matthew Haynes.

On Saturday morning, CNN host Michael Smerconish put the head of a rightwing group hostile to the rights of the LGBTQ community on the spot as she whined that she and her colleagues were refused service at a Virginia restaurant over their views — while at the same defending the rights of Christian businesspeople refusing to work with same-sex couples.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the Respect for Marriage Act, which protects same-sex and interracial marriages at the federal level and requires states to recognize those marriages if they were legal at the time they were entered into. The legislation comes after far right Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas called for cases to overturn rulings that made constitutional contraception, same-sex intimacy, and same-sex marriage.

(CNN) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed into law a bill that expands a ban on so-called LGBTQ "propaganda" in Russia, making it illegal for anyone to promote same-sex relationships or suggest that non-heterosexual orientations are "normal."The ban was rubber-stamped by Putin just days after a harsh new "foreign agents" law came into effect, as the Kremlin cracks down on free speech and human rights as its military operation in Ukraine falters.The new laws significantly broaden the scope of a 2013 law which banned the dissemination of LGBTQ-related information to minors. The new iteration extends the ban on promoting such information to adults as well.The new laws make it illegal to promote or "praise" LGBTQ relationships, publicly express non-heterosexual orientations or suggest that they are "normal."The package of amendments signed by Putin include heavier penalties for anyone promoting "non-traditional sexual relations and/or preferences," as well as pedophilia and gender transition.

(CNN) -- As the Supreme Court gathered for more than two hours on Monday to discuss whether a graphic designer can refuse to do business with same-sex couples, the justices somehow strayed into dueling hypotheticals concerning Black and White Santas and dating websites.Hypotheticals are nothing new at the high court as the justices probe how cases before the court could impact different challenges down the road.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch appeared angry and even hostile at several points throughout Monday’s oral arguments in a case brought by a Colorado right-wing evangelical Christian website designer who is suing the state because she wants to be able to discriminate against same-sex couples who are getting married.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday will hear arguments in yet another Colorado case of a right wing Christian business owner who claims their work is artistic expression which entitles them to discriminate against LGBTQ people who want to use their product for a same-sex marriage. And once again conservatives on the nation’s highest court are being asked to, and could move towards striking down another decades-old ruling in favor of the far Christian right.

In the wake of the Colorado Springs hate crime mass shooting last month at an gay nightclub’s drag show event that left five people dead, the anti-LGBTQ slur “groomer” and other anti-LGBTQ hate speech posts on Twitter skyrocketed, “peaking at 885% over their highest level before the shooting,” NBC News reports.

At 2:00 PM ET on Wednesday the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security published its latest terrorism threat report, and for the first time LGBTQI+ people were listed as “targets of potential violence,” which DHS warned could be “lethal.”  Barely hours later, MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace shared the news with Chasten Buttigieg, who was so stunned for several seconds he was speechless.

Stanford University has apologized for a skit performed by its band at Saturday’s football game against Brigham Young University (BYU) at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto.The band, officially known as the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band (LSJUMB), performed a halftime skit entitled “gay chicken” that featured two women getting married and kissing, and using terms common in marriages performed by the Mormon church.BYU is ran by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While the university repealed a ban on homosexuality a couple of years ago, the school still prohibits same-sex dating. “The Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band (LSJUMB) has a long history of lighthearted and satirical halftime performances,” the Stanford Athletic Department said in a statement to local KSL Sports and BYU student newspaper Universe.