Top National News

Gay dem moves to uproot Gardner

Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, who bills himself as a “pro-LGBTQ Republican” despite opposing marriage equality, voting against payments to gay and lesbian partners of Social Security recipients and veterans, and rates a 12 of 100 on the HRC’s Congressional Scorecard, is being opposed by Dan Baer, an openly gay Democrat and former ambassador. Baer received the endorsement of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, pulled in a Buttigieg-like $1.35 million, the largest ever initial fundraising total for an openly LGBTQ congressional candidate. If elected, Baer would become the first modern openly gay man in the U.S. Senate since Sen. Rufus King, aka Aunt Fancy, who was reputedly former president James Buchanan’s squeeze.

No Pulse activity, made it up

What was Elizabeth McCarthy thinking? She’s an out candidate for the Florida legislature and claimed to be a doctor who treated Pulse Nightclub shooting victims at a hospital ER. Good story, but she made the whole thing up. Turns out she’s not an MD. “It is a false statement. I just made it up,” McCarthy said, according to the Florida Department of Health. She was, really, the legislative

John Waters loves Baltimore

Baltimore native and filmmaker, John Waters defended the city of his birth after tweets and comments about the city’s congressman, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD). The icon said to the tweeterin-chief, “Give me the rats and roaches of Baltimore any day over the lies and racism of your Washington.” Waters said on TV, “I lived in that neighborhood for 17 years. I made Hairspray when I lived there. And rats and roaches, you know, Baltimore, we work with what we got and we make it better.”

Greek bishop says “gays created”

The Most Reverend Metropolitan Neophytos of Morfou of the Church of Cyprus got it half right when he said “gay people are created” before birth. He says the gay person is created in the womb if a man performs anal sex on a straight pregnant woman, and “she enjoys it.” He postulates that if she enjoys anal sex, “a desire is created, which is then transmitted to the unborn child.”

Marriage censure fails

A Republican Congressman representing conservative House District 5 in Virginia was threatened with censure by the local party for officiating a same-sex wedding. The toothless censure got only four votes out of dozens of members attending a hastily called leadership meeting. The congressman told the Washington Post, “My real belief is that government shouldn’t be involved in marriage at all, but if it is, everybody has to be treated equally before the law.”

Mayor Pete, it’s not enough

The Advocate published a “Dear Mayor Pete” letter to Pete Buttigieg beseeching him to be a little gayer. Banging on about the Stonewall uprising 50 years ago, Carson Jones (son of Alabama Senator Doug Jones and an out gay person), wants Mayor Pete to do more than introduce and embrace his husband at campaign events, speak to the Victory fund about the travails of “coming” out, and discussing on national TV his struggle being gay in the uber macho US Army. Jones said Mayor Pete let him and “the community down” in the debates by answering the questions in a rational, calm, funny and some would say eloquent manner. Jones wants the mayor to “fight” identity politics by emphasizing his identity as a gay man.

Canadian PM cruises Vancouver gay bar

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau started Pride week in Vancouver, BC by popping into popular, crowded gay bar, Fountainhead Pub, for a beer and to shake hands. He mingled and posed for selfies with the happy-hour crowd. He is reputed to be the first Canadian PM to patronize a gay bar, though his father Pierre was a wellknown pub crawler, haunting discos in NYC while visiting the UN as then Canadian PM, in the 1960s and 70s.

Grindr ok’d to go public

Looks like you won’t have to worry about the ChiComs fishing your Grindr profile for much longer. Grindr’s Chinese owners said it would revive plans for an initial public offering since a U.S. national security panel dropped its opposition to the plan. It was thought CFIUS opposed the sale because it meant the company would have to house its data in China and would be left open to cyber-pilfering by the Chinese government. The company said it will pursue either an IPO or a sale, and cease to be a Chinese company. Grindr says users should not see any change in the company’s operations.

First gay candidate for leader in Islamic majority country

A Tunisian attorney and founder of a gay advocacy group has announced his candidacy for the presidency of that Islam dominated country. Mounir Baatour practices in the country’s highest court and is a leader of a fringe political party. In a tradition apparently based on Mormonism, it is legal to be a homo in Tunisia, but participation in homosexual sex is grounds for imprisonment. Baatour has served 20 years in jail for sodomy. His presidential bid is a long shot as only seven percent of Tunisians approve homosexuality — the lowest approval in all of North Africa’s Islamic countries.

Wash DC park stings 26

In a counterpoint to the celebration of 50 years after the NYPD caused a riot by harassing gay men, the US National Park Service has started running stings in Washington DC’s Meridian Hill Park. Officers pose as willing consensual sex partners then bust men who take them up on their entrapment. Twenty-six men have been arrested. A defense attorney for some of the men decry the police tactics and suggests a racial aspect as the park is called Malcom X park by locals and attracts African-American park goers.