Arizona Student Paper Apologizes for Violent, Homophobic Cartoon !

The editors of the Arizona Daily Wildcat, the student newspaper for the University of Arizona, have formally apologized for publishing a cartoon that seems to advocate violence against gay people. The apology says, "The Wildcat staff made a serious error in judgment in printing a cartoon that some readers felt was homophobic and inappropriate."

The four-panel comic, written by UA student D.C. Parsons and published Tuesday, features a father telling his young son, "If you ever tell me you're gay ... I will shoot you with my shotgun, roll you up in a carpet and throw you off of a bridge."

"Well I guess that's what they call a Fruit Roll-Up!" the child responds, before the two characters are seen laughing hysterically.

Reader response was harsh and swift, including the creation of a petition on Change.org calling for the cartoonist, editor in chief, and copy editor to be fired. The petition has more than 3,000 signatures. 

The student cartoonist also publicly apologized, stopping short of a full mea culpa.

"I would like to formally apologize to anyone who I may have offended in my comic 'etc.' on Tuesday. The comic was not intended to offend," wrote Parsons in a response posted on the Wildcat's website. "It was based on an experience from my childhood. My father is a devout conservative from a previous generation, and I believe he was simply distraught from the fact that I had learned (from The Simpsons) what homosexuality was at such a young age. I have always used humor as a coping mechanism, much like society does when addressing social taboos. … I do sincerely apologize and sympathize with anyone who may be offended by my comics (I am often similarly offended by 'Ralph and Chuck'), but keep in mind it is only a joke, and what's worse than a joke is a society that selectively ignores its problems."

Several commenters pointed out that what's actually worse than a vastly unfunny joke is a society that condemns LGBT people for who they are and makes light of the fact that they are so often victims of murder, suicide, and assault.

                                          -Thoughts from Celeste-                                     

Sometimes stories will come across my desk and I think "There is no way this has happened,how could some thing so shocking and bizarre be real" Well this is one of those times !  The disturbing comic was printed in a student paper at the University of Arizona. The comic was written by a student,however I do believe that all submissions to the paper has to be approved by the editor before being published. In my opinion the editor failed horribly. In the apology that was issued by the paper stated "The Wildcat staff made a serious error in judgment in printing a cartoon that some readers felt was homophobic and inappropriate."

Error in judgement,WOW.....that's an understatement ! As an institution of higher learning did they honestly not think people would be upset.The apologies issued seamed to be very cold and even less sincere. I urge readers to visit Change.org and sign the petition, this simply can not be allowed to happen and the University of Arizona needs to take responsibility and action !

Facebook Outs Gays to public

AUSTIN, Texas—Bobbi Duncan desperately wanted her father not to know she is lesbian. Facebook told him anyway.
One evening last fall, the president of the Queer Chorus, a choir group she had recently joined, inadvertently exposed Ms. Duncan's sexuality to her nearly 200 Facebook friends, including her father, by adding her to a Facebook Inc. discussion group. That night, Ms. Duncan's father left vitriolic messages on her phone, demanding she renounce same-sex relationships, she says, and threatening to sever family ties.
The 22-year-old cried all night on a friend's couch. "I felt like someone had hit me in the stomach with a bat," she says.
Soon, she learned that another choir member, Taylor McCormick, had been outed the very same way, upsetting his world as well.
The president of the chorus, a student organization at the University of Texas campus here, had added Ms. Duncan and Mr. McCormick to the choir's Facebook group. The president didn't know the software would automatically tell their Facebook friends that they were now members of the chorus.
The two students were casualties of a privacy loophole on Facebook—the fact that anyone can be added to a group by a friend without their approval. As a result, the two lost control over their secrets, even though both were sophisticated users who had attempted to use Facebook's privacy settings to shield some of their activities from their parents.
"Our hearts go out to these young people," says Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes. "Their unfortunate experience reminds us that we must continue our work to empower and educate users about our robust privacy controls."
In the era of social networks like Facebook and Google Inc.'s Google+, companies that catalog people's activities for a profit routinely share, store and broadcast everyday details of people's lives. This creates a challenge for individuals navigating the personal-data economy: how to keep anything private in an era when it is difficult to predict where your information will end up.
Many people have been stung by accidentally revealing secrets online that were easier kept in the past. In Quebec, Canada, in 2009, Nathalie Blanchard lost her disability-insurance benefits for depression after she posted photos on Facebook showing her having fun at the beach and at a nightclub with male exotic dancers. After seeing the photos, her insurer, Manulife Financial, hired a private investigator and asked a doctor to re-evaluate her diagnosis, according to Ms. Blanchard's lawyer.
Ms. Blanchard didn't realize her photos were visible to the public, according to the lawyer, who added that depressed people often try to disguise their illness to family and friends. Ms. Blanchard sued to have her benefits reinstated. The matter was settled out of court.
A Manulife spokeswoman declined to discuss the case, saying "we would not deny or terminate a valid claim solely based on information published on websites such as Facebook."
Losing control online is more than a technology problem—it's a sociological turning point. For much of human history, personal information spread slowly, person-to-person if at all.
The Facebook era, however, makes it possible to disclose private matters to wide populations, intentionally or not. Personal worlds that previously could be partitioned—work, family, friendships, matters of sexuality—become harder to keep apart. One solution staying off Facebook, has become harder to do as it reaches a billion people around the world.
Facebook is committed to the principle of one identity for its users. It has shut down accounts of people who use pseudonyms and multiple accounts, including those of dissidents and protesters in China and Egypt. The company says its commitment to "real names" makes the site safer for users. It is also at the core of the service they sell to advertisers, namely, access to the real you.
Closeted gays and lesbians face particular challenges in controlling their images online, given that friends, family and enemies have the ability to expose them.
In Austin, Ms. Duncan and Mr. McCormick, 21, deliberately tried to stay in the closet with their parents, even as they stepped out on campus. Ms. Duncan's parents home-schooled her and raised her in Newton, N.C., where the family attended a fundamentalist church. Now a linguistics student, she told her best friend in the summer of 2011 that she might be gay.
As she struggled with her sexuality, she adjusted her Facebook privacy settings to hide any hint of it from her father, whom she had helped sign up for Facebook. "Once I had my Facebook settings set, I knew—or thought I knew—there wasn't any problem," she says.
Mr. McCormick, studying to become a pharmacist, came out in July 2011 to his mother in his hometown of Blanco, Texas, but not to his father, whom Mr. McCormick describes as a member of a conservative church that teaches homosexuality is sin.
He set Facebook controls for what he calls a "privacy lockdown" on posts that his father, in San Antonio, could see. "We have the one big secret when we're young," he says. "I knew not everyone was going to be accepting."
UT Austin was more accepting. As many university campuses have for years, it offered a safe space for young people to come out without parents knowing. Last fall, Ms. Duncan and Mr. McCormick attended the first rehearsal for the Queer Chorus, a group for gay, lesbian and transgender students and their allies. "This is a great place to find yourself as a queer person," says the chorus's then-president, Christopher Acosta. The group is known for renditions of pop songs in which it sometimes changes the gender of pronouns. Ms. Duncan agreed to play piano and sing alto. Mr. McCormick, who has a slight frame, surprised the chorus with his deep bass.
At the rehearsal, on Sept. 8, Mr. Acosta asked if any members weren't on the chorus's Facebook group, where rehearsals would be planned. Mr. McCormick and Ms. Duncan said they weren't.
That night, Mr. Acosta turned on his MacBook Pro and added the two new members to the chorus Facebook group. Facebook, then and now, offers three options for this sort of group: "secret" (membership and discussions hidden to nonmembers), "closed" (anybody can see the group and its members, but only members see posts), and "open" (membership and content both public).
Mr. Acosta had chosen open. "I was so gung-ho about the chorus being unashamedly loud and proud," he says.
But there was a trade-off he says he didn't know about. When he added Ms. Duncan, which didn't require her prior online consent, Facebook posted a note to her all friends, including her father, telling them that she had joined the Queer Chorus.
When Mr. Acosta pushed the button, Facebook allowed him to override the intent of the individual privacy settings Ms. Duncan and Mr. McCormick had used to hide posts from their fathers. Facebook's online help center explains that open groups, as well as closed groups, are visible to the public and will publish notification to users' friends. But Facebook doesn't allow users to approve before a friend adds them to a group, or to hide their addition from friends.
After being contacted by The Wall Street Journal, Facebook adjusted the language in its online Help Center to explain situations, like the one that arose with Queer Chorus, in which friends can see that people have joined groups.
Facebook also added a link to this new explanation directly from the screen where users create groups.
"I was figuring out the rules by trial and error," says Mr. Acosta.
A few hours later, Ms. Duncan's father began leaving her angry voice mails, according to Ms. Duncan and a friend who was present.
"No no no no no no no," Ms. Duncan recalls telling a friend. "I have him hidden from my updates, but he saw this," she said. "He saw it."
Ms. Duncan's father didn't respond to requests for comment for this article.
Her father called repeatedly that night, she says, and when they spoke, he threatened to stop paying her car insurance. He told her to go on Facebook and renounce the chorus and gay lifestyles.
On his Facebook page, he wrote two days later: "To all you queers. Go back to your holes and wait for GOD," according to text provided by Ms. Duncan. "Hell awaits you pervert. Good luck singing there."
Ms. Duncan says she fell into depression for weeks. "I couldn't function," she says. "I would be in class and not hear a word anyone was saying."
Mr. McCormick's mother phoned him the night his name joined the Queer Chorus group. "She said, 'S—has hit the fan…Your dad has found out.' I asked how," Mr. McCormick recalled, "and she said it was all over Facebook."
His father didn't talk to his son for three weeks, the younger Mr. McCormick says. "He just dropped off the face of my earth."
Mr. McCormick's father declined to participate in this article.
Privacy critics including the American Civil Liberties Union say Facebook has slowly shifted the defaults on its software to reveal more information about people to the public and to Facebook's corporate partners.
"Users are often unaware of the extent to which their information is available," says Chris Conley, technology and civil-liberties attorney at the ACLU of Northern California. "And if sensitive info is released, it is often impossible to put the cat back in the bag."
Facebook executives say that they have added increasingly more privacy controls, because that encourages people to share. "It is all about making it easier to share with exactly who you want and never be surprised about who sees something," said Chris Cox, Facebook's vice president of product, in an interview in August 2011 as the site unveiled new privacy controls. Facebook declined to make Mr. Cox available for this article.
Still, privacy advocates say control loopholes remain where friends can disclose information about other users. Facebook users, for example, can't take down photos of them posted by others.
A greater concern, they say, is that many people don't know how to use Facebook's privacy controls. A survey conducted in the spring of 2011 for the Pew Research Center found that U.S. social-network users were becoming more active in controlling their online identities by taking steps like deleting comments posted by others. Still, about half reported some difficulty in managing privacy controls.
This past September, the National Football League pulled referee Brian Stropolo from a game between the New Orleans Saints and the Carolina Panthers after ESPN found a photo of Mr. Stropolo wearing a Saints jacket and cap that he had posted on Facebook.
It remains unclear whether the photo was intended to be public or private.
An NFL spokesman said, "I don't believe you will see him back on the field." The NFL declined to make Mr. Stropolo available.
Privacy researchers say that increasing privacy settings may actually produce what they call an "illusion of control" for social-network users. In a series of experiments in 2010, Carnegie Mellon University Associate Professor Alessandro Acquisti found that offering people more privacy settings generated "some form of overconfidence that, paradoxically, makes people overshare more," he says.
Allison Palmer, vice president of campaigns and programs at the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, says her organization is helping Facebook to develop resources for gay users to help them understand how best to maintain safety and privacy on the site.
"Facebook is one of the few tech companies to make this a priority," she says.
Mr. Acosta, the choir president, says he should have been sensitive to the risk of online outings. His parents learned he was gay when, in high school, he sent an email saying so that accidentally landed in his father's in-box.
Today, he says, his parents accept his sexuality. So before creating his Facebook group, he didn't think about the likelihood of less-accepting parents on Facebook.
"I didn't put myself in that mind-set," he says. "I do take some responsibility."
Some young gay people do, in fact, choose Facebook as a forum for their official comings-out, when they change their Facebook settings to publicly say, "Interested In: Men" or "Interested In: Women." For many young Americans, sexuality can be confidential but no longer a shameful subject. Sites like Facebook give them an opportunity  to claim their sexuality and find community.
For gays, social media "offers both resources and risks," says C.J. Pascoe, a Colorado College sociology professor who studies the role of new media in teen sexuality. "In a physical space, you can be in charge of the audiences around you. But in an online space, you have to be prepared for the reality that, at any given moment, they could converge without your control."
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has long posited that the capability to share information will change how we groom our identities. "The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly," he said in an interview for David Kirkpatrick's 2010 book, "The Facebook Effect." Facebook users have "one identity," he said.
Facebook declined to make Mr. Zuckerberg available.
Days after their outings, Ms. Duncan and Mr. McCormick met at the campus gender-and-sexuality center, which provides counseling. On a couch, they swapped tales. "I remember I was miserable and said, 'Facebook decided to tell my dad that I was gay,' " she says. "He looked at me and said, 'Oh really, you too?'"
Mr. McCormick's mother, Monica McCormick, meanwhile, was worried how the Facebook disclosure might affect her business selling insurance. "Every kid in this town now knows," she says. "I am sure that I have lost clients, but they are not going to tell you why. That is living in a small town."
Mr. McCormick and his father eventually talked about his sexuality over an awkward lunch at a burger joint and haven't discussed it much since. But Mr. McCormick feels more open and proud about his sexuality. He changed his Facebook profile to "Interested In: Men."
After Ms. Duncan's Sept. 8 outing, she went through long periods of not speaking with her father.
For a while, Ms. Duncan's mother moved into her daughter's apartment with her. "I wanted to be with her," says her mother, who is also named Bobbi. "This was something that I thought her father had crossed the line over, and I could not agree with him."
Speaking of Mr. Duncan, she says: "The big deal for him was that it was posted and that all his friends and all his family saw it."
The younger Ms. Duncan says she tried to build bridges with her father around the year-end holidays. But the arguments persisted.
"I finally realized I don't need this problem in my life anymore," she says. "I don't think he is evil, he is just incredibly misguided."
She stopped returning her dad's calls in May.
She and Mr. McCormick remain in the chorus. Mr. Acosta changed the Facebook group to "secret" and the chorus established online-privacy guidelines.
Today, Ms. Duncan has her first girlfriend. "I am in a really good place," she says, but wouldn't want anybody to have her experience. "I blame Facebook," she says. "It shouldn't be somebody else's choice what people see of me."


                                       -Thoughts from Celeste-

Dear Friends,

When I read about this,I was completely blown away for many reasons. Like myself (facebook.com/celeste.devereux.7 ) many,if not all of you have a facebook page. The PR team @ Facebook boast 250 million users actively have profiles. As of October 1, 2012 the United States had a total resident population of 314,585,000, so with some simple math that means that only 64,585,000 of U.S. population does not have an account on Facebook. With this in mind I began to wonder how many of those accounts might belong to people that are Gay,Lesbian,Bi,or Transsexual. Many studies and Institutions suggest that 3.8% of American population(around 9 Million) are LGBT folks like us,however I believe that statistic is SEVERELY wrong ! If any company or corporation was to lose 9 Million people it could possible destroy that company. LGBT people have an extremely difficult time coming out to their family and friends and for many this can cause thoughts and attempts at suicide or even worst. Why would any person or company ever think that outing any LGBT people would be a good thing. Recently I have had trouble with Facebook.com and "THE TEAM" at facebook seemed very unwilling to resolve the issue which continued for almost a week. Personally I believe that facebook is due for a much needed "FACELIFT" before 250 million people end up joining Myspace ......AGAIN !

As a final word, I urge People not posting personal information and if any site,group,app etc. ask for any that user should decline immediately and file a report. Facebook has never had a proven track record,and honestly I don't think it ever will ! Mark Zuckerberg should consider the site user and completely redo Facebook and their policies and procedures.

Over Half of Native Trans People Have Attempted Suicide

As Native Americans celebrated Indigenous Peoples Day last week (the reclaiming of Columbus Day that's taken root in recent years), the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and National Center for Transgender Equality released the fourth and final piece in a series of reports designed to specifically shine a light on the experiences of transgender people of color. Injustice at Every Turn: A Look at American Indian and Alaskan Native Respondents in the National Transgender Discrimination Survey measured transgender people's experiences of discrimination and showed that the combination of anti-transgender with structural and individual racism meant that transgender people of color experience particularly devastating levels of discrimination.
Among the startling results:
• American Indian and Alaskan Native transgender and gender non-conforming people often live in extreme poverty with 23% reporting a household income of less than $10,000 a year. This compares to a rate of 15% for transgender people of all races. It is about three times the general American Indian and Alaskan Native population rate (8%), and nearly six times the general U.S. population rate (4%).
• American Indian and Alaskan Native transgender and gender non-conforming people were affected by HIV in devastating numbers: 3.24% reported being HIV positive and an additional 8.53% reported that they did not know their status. This compares to rates of 2.64% for transgender respondents of all races, and 0.60% of the general U.S. population.

• Fifty-six percent (56%) of American Indian and Alaskan Native transgender respondents reported having attempted suicide compared to 41% of all study respondents.

Model Admits He Killed Boyfriend and Wore His Testicles on His Wrists

Lawyers for Renato Seabra, the hunky Portuguese model currently on trial for stomping his boyfriend to death in New York, offered some unusual defense theories during the trial's opening statements. According to the New York Daily News, attorney Rubin Sinins alleges that Seabra, 21, was so "tortured" by his romance with much older, renown journalist and LGBT activist Carlos Castro that he beat and stomped the man to death, castrated him with a corkscrew, and then wore the victim's testicles like bracelets on his wrists to "harness" their power and extract the "virus" of homosexuality as ordered by God.
“He put one on each wrist," Sinins said. "He did this for his protection. He could also harness the power. He wandered the streets of Manhattan, touching people, because he had the power to cure people from AIDS, because he had the power to cure them."
Sinins agued that the model had a sudden psychotic break, which explains why he confessed to police. "He wanted to explain why he killed Mr. Castro, because he thought what he had done was right."
While Seabra's team is pushing for a not guilty by reason of insanity verdict (which would mean he'd go to a psychiatric facility instead of prison), the prosecution certainly isn't buying it.
Assistant District Attorney Maxine Rosenthal insinuated that Seabra was a golddigger who "wanted to pursue a career in modeling. He want to be famous and make money. He also wanted nice things — clothes, electronics, gifts for his family. He wanted to eat in nice restaurants. When Carlos Castro showed up in Renato Seabra's life, he saw a means to an end and he got on board."
Castro allegedly flew the young man to the U.S. from Portugal to meet with model agents in New York and their initial weeks in New York seemed idyllic to friends, according to the Daily News. But Castro's friends testified that the two began to fight after Seabra was caught hooking up with women and telling Castro that he was no longer gay, according to the Daily News' Janon Fisher. Castro reportedly booked his lover an early flight home that night. Rosenthal said that was clear indication that the fling was over.
After a marathon fight that followed, Rosenthal said that Seabra beat Castro with a computer monitor because the man was dumping him: "He knew he was beating, stomping, and mutilating Carlos Castro. And he knew it was wrong."

GMA's Sam Champion Comes Out, Reveals Wedding Plans

Good Morning America weatherman Sam Champion has come out as gay and announced plans to marry his partner.

Champion came out in a New York Times story published online today on the wedding of journalist Thomas Roberts and pharmaceutical executive Patrick Abner last weekend.

Champion, one of about 170 guests at the New York City ceremony, “took a turn on the dance floor with his partner, the photographer Rubem Robierb,” the Times reports. Champion turned to a reporter and said, “We’re getting married New Year’s Eve in Miami,” but Robierb added, “We’ll do it here officially, and then have a party in Miami.”
Champion is the first cohost of a network morning program to announce he is gay, notes the Times’ Media Decoder blog. He is likely to discuss his wedding plans on GMA Monday.

His sexual orientation was well known to his colleagues and competitors, Media Decoder reports, but he had never acknowledged it publicly. “He exuberantly showed off his engagement ring to colleagues the day after becoming engaged and brought Mr. Robierb to parties with fellow co-hosts,” the blog reported.

Champion issued a statement on the ABC News website today saying, “We are thrilled and so excited and thank everyone for their good wishes.” Meanwhile, GLAAD president Herndon Graddick noted, “Sam has been a good friend and longtime supporter of GLAAD, and I wish him and Rubem the absolute best.”

63 former Catholic priests: We support Ref. 74

A group of 63 former Catholic priests, with a total of more than 800 years of clerical service, will announce Thursday their support for Referendum 74, which would make Washington the seventh state in America to support same-sex marriage.
They will take issue with the state’s four Roman Catholic bishops, who are campaigning against marriage equality with pastoral letters, policy statements and videos.
Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain has issued both a pastoral letter and a video, and supplied material to pass out in parishes. Bishop Joseph Tyson of Yakima on Sunday claimed that Referendum 74 “jeopardizes freedom rather than expands it” and “endangers our religious liberty and the right of conscience.”
“We are uneasy with the aggressive efforts of Catholic bishops to oppose R-74 and want to support the 71 percent of Catholics (Public Religious Research Institute) who support civil marriage for gays as a valid Catholic position,” the former priests said in a statement late Monday.
The former priests are all married, and belong to three Seattle parishes.
“This is the first public action we’ve taken: We are used to fun and games within the Church, but this (opposition) is such a violation of church-state separation,” said Pat Callahan, formerly a priest for 15 years, said Monday.
The former priests are following in the footsteps of a group of retired and resigned priests in Minnesota, who have taken on Minneapolis-St. Paul Archbishop John Nienstedt.
Minnesota is voting on a state constitutional amendment that would enshrine marriage as between a man and a woman. Nienstedt has warned active priests to keep silent if they have reservations. The Church has poured more than $1 million into the campaign for the amendment.
But retired and former priests, not subject to ecclesiastical retaliation, have spoken out in opposition to the amendment.
Already in Washington, two prominent Catholic laypersons have championed the cause of marriage equality, Gov. Christine Gregoire and State Sen. Ed Murray, chief sponsor of same-sex marriage legislation in the Washington State Senate. Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Catholic, has backed Maryland’s marriage equality law.
“Our approach is not going to be getting into a big peeing match with the Bishops, but there are so many good-willed Catholics in the laity, that it’s time for us to give some witness,” Callahan said.
The former priests will deliver their statement at 10 a.m. on Thursday at St. Clement of Rome Episcopal Church, a parish of Anglo-Catholic tradition in Seattle’s Mt. Baker neighborhood. The statement will come hours after a Bellevue appearance by former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, a longstanding, often-intemperate opponent of gay rights legislation and same-sex marriage.

Pflugerville ISD to Offer Same-Sex Partner Benefits

The Pflugerville school district says it will offer insurance benefits to same-sex couples in domestic partnerships.
Chuck Smith with the gay rights group Equality Texas says this may be the first school district in the state to adopt the policy.
“I think they’re doing it for the same reasons that for-profit businesses do it,” Smith said. “They’re doing it in order to be competitive in the marketplace and attract good teachers.”
Pflugerville Superintendent Charles Dupre says that was part of the equation, but says it the decision to extend benefits to the partners of same-sex employees came out of discussions about workplace diversity.
“We can talk about being inclusive and talk about valuing people, but if you have people in your organization who feel like you have practices that are discriminatory, then why don’t you make some of these changes that will make me feel included?” Dupre said.
The new policy takes effect Jan. 1.

About Pflugerville ISD

Pflugerville Independent School District is preparing Each Child for Their Future in Our World. These phrases, highlighted in the District logo, offer a daily reminder of the District’s commitment to provide every student with quality educational experiences, which will prepare them to be productive members of the global community.

Founded in 1902, Pflugerville ISD is a fast growing district located in Northeast Travis County. The District encompasses approximately ninety-five square miles and includes all or part of six municipalities including Pflugerville, Austin,Coupland, Hutto, Manor and Round Rock. It serves approximately 23,000 students in 19 elementary schools, five middle schools, three traditional high schools and two alternative schools.

PISD has a rich history of more than 100 years, with a tradition of excellence that continues today through a strong vision for the future. Even as the District grows and the demographics change towards that of an urban district, PISD has maintained a small town feel with a focus on supportive relationships. The District is widely recognized as a destination for families who are seeking a family oriented community in which to raise children and a place where their children can receive a quality education that will prepare them for the future.

Maryland NAACP Releases Radio Ad for Marriage Equality

The NAACP of Maryland launched a radio ad Tuesday that features NAACP chairman emeritus Julian Bond urging voters to support Question 6, the referendum to uphold the new marriage equality law, because approving the measure “is the right thing to do.”

“I know a little something about fighting for what’s right and just,” says Bond in the ad, which will air in the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore markets, according to The Washington Post. “Maryland’s gay and lesbian families share the same values, and they should share in the right to marry,” he says.
Bond and the NAACP, whose national board endorsed marriage equality after President Barack Obama did, speak to the important African-American constituency in the solidly Democratic state. Blacks make up about one quarter of voters in Maryland, and while recent polling indicates that more than half of likely African-American voters support marriage equality, opponents are still trying to reach black voters through churches.
In the one-minute ad, Bond says the referendum is not an issue of religion but civil rights. Radio ads in North Carolina used a similar message in the weeks before voters ultimately passed a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and similar unions by a wide margin.
“I believe people of faith understand this isn’t about any one religious belief — it’s about protecting the civil right to make a lifelong commitment to the person you love,” says Bond.
The ad arrives as the campaign enters its final four heated weeks. Marriage equality opponents released their first TV ad on Monday with a focus on the “thousands of years” of marriage between men and women, and claims about marriage’s effect on the well-being of children. Advocates will begin to air ads Wednesday.

Keith Patron Charged WIth Hate Crime For West Third Street McDonald's Attack

GREENWICH VILLAGE — The alleged hate crime attacker who slashed a 22-year-old transgender woman at the West 3rd Street McDonald's last week is under arrest, police said.
Keith Patron, 44, turned himself in at a Bronx precinct Monday, saying he recognized himself in the video released by cops, police said. He is expected to be charged with assault as a hate crime after allegedly yelling anti-gay epithets at the victim and another transgender patron when they tried to enter the woman's bathroom at the fast food chain on Sept. 19.
"You're going to the wrong bathroom," Patron told the women, according to sources. The man then threatened to "f--- them up."
The women left the McDonald's, but the more than 300-pound man followed them outside and allegedly took a swing at one of them.
One of them punched back at him and then kneed him in the groin, sources said.
That's when Patron pulled out a razor blade and repeatedly slashed the woman in the elbow, face, back and neck, according to police.
The woman was rushed to Bellevue Hospital after the attack, where she received stiches.
The West 3rd Street McDonald's has long been troubled by fights and wild behavior. Former McDonald's worker Rayon McIntosh was arrested in 2011 after beating two woman with a aluminum rod after they jumped over the counter to confront him. He was later cleared of felony assault charges. McDonald's franchise owners previously defended their store, saying the incident took place outside. They said they are cooperating with police.

Sally Field's Amazing Speech About Her Gay Son

Sally Field accepted the Human Rights Campaign's Ally for Equality Award in Washington, D.C., and shared her experiences being a mom to a gay son. Sally Field, beloved for her roles in films like Places in the Heart, Steel Magnolias, and Norma Rae, talked about being the proud mom to a gay son as she accepted the Human Rights Campaign's Ally for Equality Award on Saturday in Washington, D.C.
The actress discussed how her youngest son Sam, who introduced his mother at the event, was different from his two older brothers and how she supported Sam on his journey to come out, which he did at age 20.
"Nature made Sam, it wasn't a choice," Field said.

After sharing her own experiences with Sam, Field said it was unacceptable for parents to toss LGBT kids out of their homes or hearts. She also thanked the audience and said, "You all have fought for him as surely as you were one of his parents. You've changed and are changing the lives of little boys and girls who realized somewhere along the way they're just different from their other brothers and sisters. And so the fuck what." Watch the entire speech below.