Posts tagged ‘Rick Santorum’

September 1, 2011

News: Satanic Panic, Using ‘Sugar Daddies,’ Transgender Children, Bacteria Lurk in doctors’, nurses’ Nniforms

by Accidental Bear

Sex For Tuition: Gay Male College Students Using ‘Sugar Daddies’ To Pay Off Loan Debt

College Students Sugar Daddy Sugar Baby GayNEW YORK — Three years ago, during his junior year at New York University, Kirk met with a financial aid officer to plead a familiar case: his inability to manage the yearly payments on his $50,000 tuition bill. Once again, the school official reminded Kirk that in order to register for next semester’s courses, he needed to come up with another $8,000 — or risk expulsion. Kirk nearly divulged his secret to the loan officer, finally letting her know exactly what he had resorted to in a desperate attempt to finance his education. Midway through college, Kirk had begun turning tricks in order to pay for school.

Op-ed: The Culture of Satanic Panic

The superstition that helped convict three innocent men in West Memphis is the same concept still used against LGBT people — a phenomenon called Satanic panic. I’m not sureWEST MEMPHIS THREE X390 (W. MEMPHIS POLICE DEPT) | ADVOCATE.COM what it was that brought the name into my head. Maybe it was God. Maybe it was one of my synapses misfiring. For some reason, Rebecca Brown popped into my head not long ago. Brown wrote two books, He Came to Set the Captives Free and Prepare for War.  My mother insisted that I read both when I was in junior high school. The books told the story of Brown and her “associate,” Elaine, and their self-described journey through Satanism.

Five Things ‘Nightline’ Could Have Done Better In Its Special On Transgender Children

Last night, ABC’s Primetime Nightline ran an hour-long special on transgender identities, focusing in particular on the experiences of transgender young people. Overall, the special was positive and affirming, but it also fell into some journalistic traps and missed some important opportunities to highlight challenges the transgender community faces. Here are five critiques of last night’s special. 1. FALSE BALANCE: One of the five segments focused on an adult individual named Charles Kane, who transitioned to female and then back to male. Claiming that he regrets his transition, he had disparaging things to say about the transgender experience, including calling puberty blockers for young trans people “brainwashing.” His experiences are unfortunate, but not representative, and he has absolutely no expertise in transgender health to be critiquing other people’s transitions. His inclusion was unnecessary, irrelevant, and represented false balance .

Santorum Says Criticism Of His Views On Homosexuality Is ‘An Act Of Bigotry’

In an interview that aired on CNN last night, Piers Morgan pressed Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on his views opposing marriage equality, including his suggestion of agay “jihad” against him. Santorum tried to avoid answering whether he believes homosexuality is a sin, but confirmed that as a Catholic, he subscribes to the Catholic Church’s teachings that indeed it is a sin. Asked how he would respond if one of his sons came out, Santorum said he would be supportive of what he sees as a “very difficult and troubling time in their life,” going on to say he “knows a lot of gay people” and some of them continue to “struggle” even after coming out and “admitting” their identities.

SF CA: Lyon-Martin Health Services no taking trans patients

Lyon-Martin Health Services, the pioneering San Francisco clinic that has served women and transgender people for more than 30 years, will start accepting new patients today – eight months after it nearly closed due to financial problems. The clinic’s board of directors voted in late January to shut down the health center, but Lyon-Martin’s patients and supporters decided to put up a fight. They raised more than $500,000 within a matter of months while the clinic’s staff worked internally to stabilize operations, cut expenses and find additional revenue sources for the Market Street clinic.

 Arizona Mother, Blew Marijuana Smoke In Her Baby’s Mouth To Calm Her Down, Police Say

A 21-year-old mother was arrested by Gilbert, Az., Police on Saturday after she allegedly tried to calm her infant daughter by blowing marijuana smoke in the girl’s mouth. WitnessCallaway footage allegedly shows Jessica Callaway on Friday telling her 10-month-old to, “shut the f*** up before I kick you in the mouth,” as she repeatedly hits the baby to get her to stop crying, The Arizona Republic reported. Callaway, whose Facebook page is “loaded with postings about pot and parties,” according to ABC-15, told police that she was frustrated because she was “having trouble finding an outfit to wear out that night.”

Harmful bacteria could lurk in doctors’, nurses’ uniforms, study says

Doctor's white coatThink your doctor’s white coat is as clean as a whistle? It might not be. A study finds that dangerous germs could be lurking onnurses‘ and doctors’ uniforms. Researchers from Shaare Zedek Medical Centerin Jerusalem cultured three spots on the uniforms of 75 nurses and 60 physicians working in a 550-bed hospital. Potential pathogens (also known as infectious agents, or germs) were found on 63% of the uniforms, and antibiotic resistant bacteria were found on samples from 14% of nurses’ uniforms and 6% of doctor’s uniforms. Eight of those cultures grew methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, better known as MRSA.

August 9, 2011

Handpicked News: MARRIAGE IS LIKE WATER, NOT BEER, Progressives Are Funnier Than Conservatives, NEW DOCUMENTARY

by Accidental Bear

‘Daily Show’ Creator Lizz Winstead On Supporting Planned Parenthood, And Why Progressives Are Funnier Than Conservatives

On July 9, Daily Show creator, former Air America host, and comedian Lizz Winstead hit the road for a stand-up tour benefitting Planned Parenthood. She took a break from the show and finishing work on her forthcoming memoir to talk to me about what she’s learned about support for reproductive rights from her audiences; why conservative comedians aren’t very funny; how we can back up Planned Parenthood workers; and her dream television show in the post-Bridesmaids boom for women in comedy. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

SANTORUM: MARRIAGE IS LIKE WATER, NOT BEER | Rick Santorum turned more than a few eyebrows on Monday when he explained his opposition to same-sex marriage by holding up a napkin and observing that it was not a paper towel. On Friday, during a meeting with the Des Moines Register, Santorum relied on a similar metaphor to prove why society can’t “redefine” marriage: water is not beer. “It’s like saying this glass of water is a glass of beer. Well, you can call it a glass of beer, but it’s not a glass of beer. It’s a glass of water. And water is what water is. Marriage is what marriage is,” he said. Watch it:

NEW DOCUMENTARY FEATURES STORIES OF LGBTS ‘BREAKING THROUGH’ INTO POLITICS | A new feature length documentary called Breaking Throughlooks at the experiences of openly LGBT elected officials, including Houston mayor Annise Parker, Atlanta City Councilman Alex Wan, Fort Worth City Councilman Joel Burns, Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and others. Watch the trailer:

 

Hate Groups Target GLSEN For Pamphlet GLSEN Didn’t Publish The Family Research Council and MassResistance — both anti-gay hate groups — target GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian Straight Education Network) in a new scare-video. GLSEN is an organization that advocates for LGBT youth in schools, defending the formation of gay-straight alliances (GSAs) and advocating for anti-bullying policies. But FRC and MR are attacking GLSEN for a publication called the “Little Black Book,” describing it as “the most vile assault on teenagers ever concocted by homosexual activists”:

August 5, 2011

Handpicked News: 10 Things NPR Got Wrong, Bert And Ernie Shouldn’t Get Married, Right To Discriminate Against Gays, New Ape Overlords…

by Accidental Bear

Bert And Ernie Shouldn’t Get Married Some folks have gotten together a petition on Change.org calling on Sesame Street to have Bert and Ernie get married or for the show to add a transgender character. I’m not sure I have an opinion on the latter, but I’m pretty firmly against the idea that New York’s two most famous roommates should tie the knot.

Rick Santorum: Religious People Should HaveRight To Discriminate Against Gays

Rick Santorum doubled down on his opposition to same-sex marriage during an appearance in Iowa this morning, arguing that the courts have established a “super-right” of “sexual liberty” that trumps religious freedom. Santorum was meeting with the Register editorial board this morning. He said same-sex marriage jeopardizes religious liberty because the government may threaten license-holder such as marriage counselors who don’t treat gay couples.

Pawlenty To Sign NOM’s Anti-Gay Marriage Pledge

Ten Things NPR Got Wrong Defending The Falsely Balanced Ex-Gay Story

Last evening, National Public Radio’s ombudsman, Edward Schumacher-Matos, responded to criticism about Alix Spiegel’s story on ex-gay therapy that aired Monday morning. The nine-minute piece, which profiled ex-gay Rich Wyler and ex-gay survivor Peterson Toscano, had two major flaws. First, itcreated a false balance by suggesting that ex-gay therapy may be legitimate and is still up for debate. Second, it omitted the fact that Wyler makes his entire living perpetuating the false ideas of ex-gay therapy. Rather than admit the mistakes of the piece and apologize for the potential harm done by it, Schumacher-Matos, Spiegel, Spiegel’s editor, and NPR’s senior vice president all defended the piece, making only very small concessions about how it was reported. In doing so, they continued propagating false ideas about ex-gay therapy and the false balance of their reporting. Here are 10 problems with NPR’s response.

‘Rise’ Welcomes Earth’s New Ape Overlords  If proof were still needed that human beings are all but irrelevant to the Hollywood Super Monkey Brawl: Caesar (Andy Serkis) leads his army of apes in a revolt against the humans, who imprison his kind for use in drug experiments. The motion-captured CGI primates are all the creepier for walking too fine a line between reality and special effect.blockbuster, Rise of the Planet of the Apes provides it in spades. (And not just because one of its stars is Freida Pinto, an actress making a career of cardboard thespianism.) Constructed around the reliable premise that if you slather on the spectacle, audiences won’t notice the script’s idiocies — otherwise known as the Avatar effect — this so-called origin picture is no more than a narrative outline padded with moderately special effects, a teaser for the sequels that will surely follow.

Peanuts were a problem for 9 percent of households that reported someone with a food allergy or intolerance.

Americans Support Bans On Food Allergens In Public Places If some foods really don’t agree with you or someone you live with, you’ve got plenty of company. In the latest NPR-Thomson Reuters Health Poll, we asked people across the country about food allergies and intolerance. The bottom line: 1 in 5 households across the country has at least one person who is allergic or intolerant to at least one food. How do they know? Well, there are the obvious symptoms, such as itching, swelling of the tongue and wheezing in some cases. Nearly two-thirds of households — 64 percent — that reported a food issue said the allergy or intolerance had been diagnosed by a doctor.

 

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