INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The already short-handed Indiana Pacers will play Oklahoma City on Wednesday night without forward JaKarr Sampson after the NBA announced he would serve a one-game suspension following his ejection during Monday’s loss to San Antonio.
Sampson received a flagrant two foul and automatic ejection early in the fourth quarter against the Spurs. The incident began as Sampson and San Antonio guard Patty Mills fought for a rebound, resulting in a shoving match. Sampson then confronted Mills and headbutted him before Spurs forward Rudy Gay shoved Sampson.
Mills and Gay both received technical fouls for their part in the altercation. The league fined Mills $25,000 and Gay $20,000.
Indiana has lost three in a row. Oklahoma City has lost 11 consecutive games.
For those who don’t know — and apparently some people really don’t — Elizabeth Olsen is the younger sister of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. The twins launched to fame at only six months old playing the shared role of Michelle Tanner on “Full House,” so Elizabeth grew up on set and in her sisters’ shadow. In a new interview with Glamour U.K., Elizabeth says she was hesitant to pursue acting at all.
Pacers forward JaKarr Sampson has been suspended for one game for an incident that occurred during Monday’s game against the Spurs, according to a press release.
Sampson got into an on-court altercation with Spurs guard Patty Mills, shoving him and then head-butting him (video link). He received a Flagrant 2 foul and an automatic ejection at the time.
Mills and Spurs teammate Rudy Gay, who each received technical fouls as a result of the incident, have been fined by the NBA, according to today’s announcement. Mills was docked $25K and Gay, who shoved Sampson, was hit with a $20K fine.
As Bobby Marks of ESPN notes (via Twitter), the financial impact on Sampson won’t be quite as significant as the fines the Spurs’ veterans received. He’ll lose just $12,985 during his one-game suspension — that’s 1/145th of his $1,882,867 salary for this season.
Sampson will serve his suspension on Wednesday night as the Pacers face the Thunder in Indiana. Myles Turner (toe) and Domantas Sabonis (back) will also be unavailable for that game, with Goga Bitadze (ankle) listed as questionable, so the Pacers will be quite shorthanded in the frontcourt.
This week read about the controversy about Lil Nas X’s music video and his “Satan Shoes,” GLAAD awarding many LGBT media and stars, and a show featuring queer women coming to an end.
Lil Nas X Keeps the Controversy Coming
With controversy over his “Montero” music video and now having to recall his “Satan Shoe” with Nike, Lil Nas X can’t seem to catch a break.
Lil Nas X has had to recall his new shoe with Nike, due to the backlash of its satanic marketing. Out.comsaid, “MSCHF [art collective] made the red and black shoes out of Nike Air Max 97s, adding pentagrams and filling the sole with red ink and ‘one drop of human blood.’”
Despite the backlash from conservatives the shoes sold out quickly.
The controversy seemed to be too much for Nike, who filed a lawsuit stopping the distribution of the “Satan Shoe,” along with a limited edition “Jesus Shoe.” According to Out.com, the shoes have stopped being shipped since April.
Some of the biggest groups of people who didn’t like the shoes, satanic vibe, were conservatives and Christians.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem posted in a tweet in retaliation to the shoe saying, “Our kids are being told that this kind of product is, not only okay, it’s ‘exclusive.’ But do you know what’s more exclusive? Their God-given eternal soul. We are in a fight for the soul of our nation. We need to fight hard. And we need to fight smart. We have to win.”
Lil Nas X fired back on Twitter: “Ur a whole governor and u on here tweeting about some damn shoes. do ur job!”
Since the controversy, Lil Nas X released a YouTube titled “Lil Nas X Apologizes for Satan Shoe” — but does he? In the first few seconds of the video, it seems like he is about to apologize, only to cut to his music video “Montero.”
GLAAD Awards Filled with LGBT Media and Stars
Sam Smith. Photo via Facebook.
The 32nd annual GLAAD awards were no match for “Schitt’s Creek” or Sam Smith.
The popular television series won various awards, one of them being outstanding comedy series. Smith was also given some attention in the outstanding music artists category according to Pink News.
“Schitt’s Creek” said in a recent Twitter post, “It is quite the honour to have won Outstanding Comedy Series at the #GLAADawards for the second year running!
Thank you for everything that you do, and for this wonderful accolade, @GLAAD!”
While “Schitt’s Creek” was out there pulling awards, Smith was right there next to them. Pink News said Smith was given the award by Katy Perry.
As part of their acceptance speech, they said, “Music has remained this constant force of unity throughout the world for people,” according to Pink News.
‘Wynonna Earp’ Season Four Ends
Image via Facebook.
It seems like “Wynonna Earp” has come to an end. After the season finale ended on April 9, the show is inevitably over. The campy show features several queer women.
According to EW, Syfy announced that the supernatural western’s current fourth season will be its last.
The show’s finale episodes began airing on March 5, with the final episode aired on April 9.
“Wynonna Earp” is known for its powerful message conveyed in the series. “Every once in a while a show comes along with a powerful message, [and] that show has been ‘Wynonna Earp,’” said NBCUniversal Entertainment Networks Chairman Frances Berwick, according to EW.
Out.com said that the staff is trying to find a network that would air it in hopes of bringing more content to fans.
“It feels heartbreaking to say goodbye, but like all things that are beautiful, sometimes they have to come to an end, and that’s what makes them special,” show creator Emily Andras told Out.com.
Under the proposed bathroom measure, a student or employee could sue in an effort to claim monetary damages “for all psychological, emotional, and physical harm suffered” if school officials allow a transgender person into the bathroom or locker room when others are in there, or if they require staying in the same sleeping quarters as a member of the opposite sex at birth, unless that person is a family member.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee lawmakers have passed a bill that would put public schools and districts at risk of civil lawsuits if they let transgender students or employees use multi-person bathrooms or locker rooms that do not reflect their gender at birth.
The state Senate voted 21-7 Wednesday in favor of the legislation, which needs at least one more vote before heading to Republican Gov. Bill Lee. The House passed a slightly different version earlier this week.
This action in Tennessee marks the furthest a “bathroom bill” has gotten in any state in years, according to the Human Rights Campaign. The topic drew national notoriety in North Carolina in 2016 when a law limiting transgender bathroom use sparked a wave of backlash, prompting cancelations of major events and some economic expansion plans.
“The distinctive nature of this bill is how far it’s gotten — it’s the furthest bathroom bill to advance so far this year and certainly the furthest any bathroom bill has advanced since 2015/2016,” said Wyatt Ronan, spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign.
Like other GOP-led statehouses focusing on culture wars this year, Tennessee lawmakers have advanced several LGTBQ-related measures that critics have slammed as discriminatory. Most notably, Gov. Lee signed a different proposal this year that bars transgender athletes from playing girls’ public high school or middle school sports.
Under the proposed bathroom measure, a student or employee could sue in an effort to claim monetary damages “for all psychological, emotional, and physical harm suffered” if school officials allow a transgender person into the bathroom or locker room when others are in there, or if they require staying in the same sleeping quarters as a member of the opposite sex at birth, unless that person is a family member.
The proposal also says schools must try to offer a bathroom or changing facility that is single-occupancy or that is for employees if a student or employee “desires greater privacy when using a multi-occupancy restroom or changing facility” designated for their sex at birth.
Republican Sen. Mike Bell, the bill sponsor, said a middle school in his district has run into an issue over bathroom use.
Democrats, meanwhile, said the bill targets transgender people’s civil rights and could open Tennessee up to lawsuits.
“Folks have been going to the bathroom in schools in Tennessee for generations without any help from this Legislature,” Democratic Senate Minority Leader Jeff Yarbro said. “And they don’t need any help from this Legislature now on this.”
The Nashville LGBT Chamber of Commerce has led a group of more than 180 businesses of various sizes, including ones as large as Amazon, in opposing the slate of Tennessee bills that target the LGBT community, calling them discriminatory.
Opponents of the bill, including business entities, point to North Carolina’s experience with the enactment of its 2016 version of a “bathroom bill,” which was signed by former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and, in part, required transgender people to use public bathrooms aligned with the gender on their birth certificate.
Several large corporations and sports leagues relocated events to other states or reconsidered expanding in North Carolina due to the law, which was partially repealed in 2017.
A federal judge eventually approved a consent decree in 2019 between Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and transgender plaintiffs that affirms their right to use restrooms matching their gender identity in many public buildings.
In addition to the Tennessee governor’s approval of restrictions on trans athletes, his office has indicated he plans to sign another recently passed bill that focuses on the LGBT community. That one would require school districts to alert parents 30 days in advance of any instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity and let them opt their student out. The requirement would not apply when a teacher is responding to a student’s question or referring to a historic figure or group.
Arizona governor Doug Ducey speaks during a rally for President Donald Trump (Ralph Freso/Getty)
The Republican governor of Arizona has vetoed a bill that could have allowed parents to stop their kids learning about LGBT people.
Doug Ducey on Tuesday (20 April) vetoed legislation that would have made the state’s sex education laws the strictest in the US when it comes to LGBT+ people.
Ducey said that the proposed law, SB 1456, was overly broad and vague and would have unintended consequences. He was also concerned that banning sex education before fifth grade would limit sexual abuse prevention teaching, putting vulnerable children at risk.
SB 1456 would have meant that schools had to notify parents in advance of any classes discussing sexuality, gender identity or gender expression, with those classes “opt-in” rather than “opt-out” – not limited to sex ed classes but also including teaching events such as the Stonewall uprising in history classes.
The bill would also have prohibited schools from providing sex ed classes which include information about AIDS and HIV without parents permission.
Arizona’s top elected schools official, superintendent of public instruction Kathy Hoffman, praised Ducey for the veto, saying he “made the right decision by vetoing SB1456 and I want to thank him for standing up to bigotry and intolerance”.
Hoffman added: “All students are welcome in Arizona’s public schools and today’s veto reaffirms that.”
SB 1456 passed through the state’s Republican-controlled House in a 31-28 party-line vote on 14 April, according to Tuscon.com. It had already passed through the Arizona Senate in March.
The bill received fierce opposition from Democrats who argued it would be harmful to LGBT+ students. The Arizona Democratic Party tweeted that the “extreme anti-LGBTQ bill” will “put young people in danger and effectively put a gag order on educators from teaching ANYTHING related to the LGBTQ community”. The party had called on governor Ducey to veto the bill.
Ducey’s veto is part of an executive order that will require schools to post sex ed curricula online and to provide extensive notice of school board meetings where sex ed is to be discussed. Those were parts of the proposed law.
“Arizona is and will remain a national leader in parental rights,” Ducey said in a statement. ”Too often, parents are left out of this process, and the importance is even greater when it comes to educating students about deeply personal matters like sex education.”
The Republican governor of Arizona has vetoed a bill that could have allowed parents to stop their kids learning about LGBT people.
Doug Ducey on Tuesday (20 April) vetoed legislation that would have made the state’s sex education laws the strictest in the US when it comes to LGBT+ people.
Ducey said that the proposed law, SB 1456, was overly broad and vague and would have unintended consequences. He was also concerned that banning sex education before fifth grade would limit sexual abuse prevention teaching, putting vulnerable children at risk.
SB 1456 would have meant that schools had to notify parents in advance of any classes discussing sexuality, gender identity or gender expression, with those classes “opt-in” rather than “opt-out” – not limited to sex ed classes but also including teaching events such as the Stonewall uprising in history classes.
The bill would also have prohibited schools from providing sex ed classes which include information about AIDS and HIV without parents permission.
Arizona’s top elected schools official, superintendent of public instruction Kathy Hoffman, praised Ducey for the veto, saying he “made the right decision by vetoing SB1456 and I want to thank him for standing up to bigotry and intolerance”.
Hoffman added: “All students are welcome in Arizona’s public schools and today’s veto reaffirms that.”
SB 1456 passed through the state’s Republican-controlled House in a 31-28 party-line vote on 14 April, according to Tuscon.com. It had already passed through the Arizona Senate in March.
The bill received fierce opposition from Democrats who argued it would be harmful to LGBT+ students. The Arizona Democratic Party tweeted that the “extreme anti-LGBTQ bill” will “put young people in danger and effectively put a gag order on educators from teaching ANYTHING related to the LGBTQ community”. The party had called on governor Ducey to veto the bill.
Ducey’s veto is part of an executive order that will require schools to post sex ed curricula online and to provide extensive notice of school board meetings where sex ed is to be discussed. Those were parts of the proposed law.
“Arizona is and will remain a national leader in parental rights,” Ducey said in a statement. ”Too often, parents are left out of this process, and the importance is even greater when it comes to educating students about deeply personal matters like sex education.”
Angry, young and desperate to express himself. This was how Jarek Kubiak felt when he left his Polish hometown of Lodz in 2006 to begin a new life as a gay man in the UK.
Living in London, Kubiak avoided Polish people because he wanted to forget his closeted life back home.
“I didn’t want to keep that Polishness in me,” he told DW.
In 2006, being gay in Poland was dangerous. Moving to the UK was Kubiak’s solution. He could now walk down the street without looking over his shoulder and stroll through parks with his boyfriend. He could kiss a man in public.
“When I left, I thought that the situation for gay, queer and LGBT+ people in Poland would only get better,” Kubiak said.
Jarek Kubiak, in blue shorts, celebrates with friends at London Pride, 2019
LGBT+ rights in Poland remain largely unrecognized by the state and the community has no protection from hate crimes or discrimination.
That means, even when Kubiak suffered physical homophobic abuse in the UK, which saw him hospitalized for two days, the police protected him and sought justice under the law. Kubiak believes this would not happen in Poland.
“In the UK, I feel like I am seen and in Poland I feel like I need to hide,” he said.
Polish Rainbow UK at London Pride, 2018
‘Protect Our Twins’ campaign
Kubiak is the co-founder of Polish Rainbow UK, the country’s longest running Polish LGBT+ support group.
He is also a consultant on a new campaign to pressure UK councils to champion LGBT+ rights and confront their twin towns in Poland who have established themselves as ‘LGBT-free zones.‘
Called ‘Protect Our Twins,’ the campaign was started by the Liberal Democrat party in March 2021.
There are roughly 100 municipalities in Poland that have signed charters and passed declarations against LGBT+ ideologies, promoting traditional heterosexual relationships and warning against the immorality of LGBT+ ideology. The areas that have passed such edicts are widely termed ‘LGBT-free zones.’
LGBT+ people in Poland remain largely unprotected under the law
UK towns with Polish twins include Lincoln and Radomsko, Amersham and Krynica-Zdroj, Blackburn and Tarnow, along with dozens more. ‘Protect Our Twins’ wants these UK towns to speak up for LGBT+ people in Poland and pressure their partner towns to reconsider their policies.
Gareth Lewis Shelton, chair of the LGBT+ Liberal Democrats, is clear the campaign is not a threat from UK towns but a sign of solidarity.
“Geography shouldn’t be a barrier to justice and it shouldn’t be a barrier to your rights,” he told DW. “It’s about recognizing the innate dignity and worth that everybody has.”
Via a digital map produced by Atlas Nienawisci, a campaign group based in Poland that has been tracking the establishment of these resolutions since December 2019, it’s possible to see the location of each zone.
Speaking from Krakow, Atlas Nienawisci’s founder Kamil Maczuga says the anti-LGBT+ declarations cover 12.2 million Poles, which is around a third of the population.
“For us, international pressure is important to know we are not fighting alone.” Maczuga told DW.
Roughly 100 municipalities in Poland have passed resolutions widely described as ‘LGBT-free zones’
Ordo Iuris Institute is a conservative legal organization responsible for creating some of these zones by passing declarations they call ‘The Charter of the Rights of Family.’ They deny that ‘LGBT-free zones’ exist as the charter never mentions the acronym. Instead, they say the charter defends the Polish constitution, promoting “family, marriage, parenthood and motherhood,” and the “protection of children against demoralization.”
Asked to clarify the meaning of ‘demoralization,’ the vice president of the Ordo Iuris Institute, Tymoteusz Zych, told DW: “There are many controversial programs of sexual education that are criticsed by scholars and scientists for interfering in the sexuality of children in the wrong way.”
“Kids should learn about sexuality and the body,” he said. “But it is the way it is being done that must be sensitive.”
Adamantly denying that there are any ‘LGBT-free zones’ in Poland, Zych said international campaigns are part of a fake news conspiracy.
“I want to make it clear, I think no worse harm can be done to Polish LGBT+ communities than to spread fake news from abroad,” he said.
“Their activities are about slandering their own country. They think people from the Polish countryside will remain idle but they are not going to remain idle when they are slandered,” Zych said.
Conservative organizations in Poland say their charters are simply defending family values
International solidarity
The UK campaign is not happening in isolation and using twins towns to raise awareness about LGBT+ rights in Poland has been used before.
In February 2020, French councilors from Saint-Jean-de-Braye voted to end their partnership with the Polish town of Tuchow over anti-LGBT+ resolutions. In August 2020, the mayor of Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital city, urged his counterpart in Krakow to confirm opposition to homophobia.
The European Parliament has also confronted ‘LGBT-free zones,’ passing a resolution declaring itself an ‘LGBTIQ Freedom Zone.’ That followed the bloc’s decision to withhold funds from six towns that declared themselves ‘LGBT-free zones.’ After this decision, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted, “I will continue to push for a union of equality.”
Alongside the UK campaign, the global LGBT+ charity All Out has gathered over 75,000 signatures for a petition promoting twin towns as a potential pressure point to Polish municipalities ignoring LGBT+ rights.
UK’s unique influence
Politically, the UK has a close relationship with Poland on various issues, including support for NATO and a belief in trans-Atlanticism. But most significantly, the UK has become a second home to a large Polish migrant community with more than 77,500 Poles currently living there, the second-largest migrant group living in the UK behind Indians.
So, although the two countries differ greatly on LGBT+ rights, the UK and Poland do have lots in common.
Aleks Szczerbiak, a professor of politics and contemporary European studies at the University of Sussex, says that because bilateral relations with the UK are so important to Poland there’s potential for Britain to influence Polish LGBT+ policy in the future.
“I think that the Polish government are very keen to create close relations with the UK and I think that there is scope for soft power leverage on these kinds of issues,” he told DW.
Back in London, Jarek Kubiak is convinced that, in the end, Polish LGBT+ people will benefit from campaigns that display international solidarity like ‘Protect Our Twins.’ When he last visited Poland in 2019, he said the LGBT+ activists he met were exhausted and ready to give up.
“They were like: ‘We’re done. We’re tired,'” Kubiak said. “So whenever we do something outside of Poland they say it gives us energy to go on.”
Although Kubiak still loves Poland, after living in the UK for almost 15 years, he has also become weary with his country’s inability to accept LGBT+ people.
“Poland is like a mother that you will love no matter what,” he said. “But I really wish Poland would just get over itself and get on with the program.”
It all started with a fight for rebounding position. It has ended with the league suspending Indiana’s JaKarr Sampson one game without pay and fining San Antonio’s Patty MillsRudy Gay for the incident.
The NBA announced the punishments on Wednesday. Sampson has been suspended one game without pay for headbutting Mills; he will miss the Pacers’ game Wednesday against the Thunder. The NBA fined Mills $25,000 for his role and Gay $20,000 for being the third man in and shoving Sampson.
The incident started early in the fourth quarter (the video is above). On the possession before the altercation, Mills had tried to step in front of Sampson for rebounding position and Sampson shoved Mills in the back (it was all moot, Aaron Holiday made the shot).
When they went to the other end, Mills was making a move through the lane and made some contact with Sampson, letting him know he wasn’t backing down from the shove at the other end. Sampson responded with a headbutt and a shove, and soon it was a scuffle. Gay jumped in to protect his teammate and shoved Sampson.
Sampson was ejected when it happened. Mills and Gay both were given technical fouls on the play.
NEW YORK, April 21, 2021 – Indiana Pacers forward JaKarr Sampson has been suspended one game without pay for headbutting San Antonio Spurs guard Patty Mills, and Mills and Spurs forward Rudy Gay have each been fined for their roles in an on-court altercation, it was announced today by Kiki VanDeWeghe, Executive Vice President, Basketball Operations.
The incident began when Sampson and Mills were battling for rebounding position. It continued to the next possession when Mills made contact with Sampson and Sampson shoved Mills. Sampson then furthered the altercation by aggressively confronting and headbutting Mills. Sampson’s actions resulted in a Flagrant Foul 2 and an automatic ejection.
Mills received a technical foul and has been fined $25,000 for his role in the altercation. Gay also received a technical foul and has been fined $20,000 for escalating the incident by shoving Sampson.
The incident occurred with 9:32 remaining in the fourth quarter of the Spurs’ 109-94 win over the Pacers on April 19 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
Sampson will serve his suspension tonight when Indiana faces the Oklahoma City Thunder at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
Olly Alexander, Peppermint and Pabllo Vittar will contribute to the book.
Olly Alexander, Pabllo Vittar and Drag Race royalty Peppermint are among the queer voices contributing to a new LGBT+ book.
Entitled We Can Do Better Than This, it will feature 35 prominent LGBT+ voices who will share their stories and visions for the future.
The book, which is now available to pre-order here hopes to be a “passionate call to action, a practical roadmap for the future and an important manifesto for how every person can start to do better”.
It will also create a guide to understanding the crucial issues facing LGBT+ people today as the book highlights the UK to USA and Russia to Bangladesh and beyond.
This will all take place through a series of stories and provocative new arguments on safety and visibility, dating and gender and care and community through each of the 35 voices.
Other names who will contribute to the book include JW Anderson, Beth Ditto, Mykki Blanco, Owen Jones, Shon Faye, Amrou Al-Kadhi, Riyadh Khalaf and Shura.
We Can Do Better Than This will see 35 LGBT+ voices share their stories and visions for the future. (Foyles.co.uk)
The synopsis reads: “We talk about achieving ‘LGBTQ+ equality’, but around the world, LGBTQ+ people are still suffering discrimination and extreme violence. How do we solve this urgent problem, allowing queer people everywhere the opportunity to thrive?
“In We Can Do Better Than This, 35 voices explore this question and they map new global frontiers in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights.”
Each contributor will discuss a different topic, with Olly Alexander championing inclusive sex education in schools, singer Beth Ditto calling for a revolution in representation, rapper Mykki Blanco setting out a vision to end HIV stigma and journalist Owen Jones demanding improved LGBT+ mental health services.
Other confirmed writings include drag star Pabllo Vittar pleading for the end of hate murders and performance artist Travis Alabanza imagining a world without gender policing, while it will be edited by journalist and author Amelia Abraham.
We Can Do Better Than This: 35 Voices on the Future of LGBTQ+ Rights is due for release on 3 June and can pre-ordered for £12.99 from foyles.co.uk.
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Amy and Stephanie Mudd drove an hour from their home in Glasgow, Kentucky, to the city of Radcliff on April 3 to meet with an accountant at Aries Tax Service.
Mudd said her mother-in-law, who lives in the area, recommended the business because it offers a $55 flat fee to file taxes electronically.
When they got there, they saw a sign on the door that listed 10 things customers should have with them if they want the business to e-file their tax return. But the last item on the list stopped them from opening the door. It read, “Homosexual marriage not recognized.”
Stephanie Mudd said the first emotion she felt was anger that businesses can still turn away same-sex couples.
“It just kind of makes your heart fall into your stomach,” Amy Mudd said.
Aries Tax Service.
The couple took a photo of the sign and left.
“We wanted to bring attention to it, so that he knows that that’s not OK,” Amy Mudd said. “Nowadays, you’re providing a public service, and it’s federal taxes, and in the United States, it’s OK for us to be married.”
Kenneth Randall, owner of Aries Tax Service, said the issue “is a matter of personal conviction.”
“I put it to any reasonable person: ‘If you have a matter that’s a central conviction for you, are you willing to stand up for it?’” he said. “I am.”
He added that there are other tax preparers in the area that same-sex couples could use and that he’s protected by federal law.
There’s no federal law that explicitly allows people, based on their personal beliefs, to turn away same-sex couples or other classes of people, but there’s also no federal or Kentucky state law that protects LGBTQ people from discrimination in public accommodations, such as businesses.
Legal advocates say situations like the Mudds’ are on the rise as conservative religious organizations, such as the Alliance Defending Freedom, have been building campaigns and lawsuits for years to challenge civil rights laws.
“They want to get legal rulings that there are religious and free speech rights to violate these laws,” said Jennifer Pizer, law and policy director at Lambda Legal, a national LGBTQ legal organization. “We have seen a significant rise and a very troubling rise in these cases, and it’s not an accident.”
For years, same-sex couples have been turned away by business owners who don’t want to provide wedding-related services, citing their religious or moral beliefs. In 2018, the Supreme Court narrowly ruled in favor of Jack Phillips, a Christian baker who refused to make a cake for a gay couple’s wedding. The court ruled on a technicality — avoiding the issue of whether a business owner, due to their religious beliefs, could refuse to serve a same-sex couple.
Earlier this month, the ADF filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York arguing that the state’s nondiscrimination law unconstitutionally prohibits wedding photographer Emilee Carpenter “from adopting an editorial policy consistent with her beliefs about marriage.”
The complaint says Carpenter “is already willing to work with clients no matter who they are, including those in the LGBT community” but that the state goes too far by requiring that she “celebrate” same-sex marriage in images on her website.
The ADF also argues that part of the state law limiting statements that certain customers are “unwelcome, objectionable or not accepted, desired, or solicited” interferes with Carpenter’s free speech, because it doesn’t allow her to express her views about same-sex marriage on her website.
Pizer said the New York case represents an area of law that is unsettled, specifically as it relates to people who work in artistic fields like photography.
For the most part, courts have upheld nondiscrimination laws, but in the instances they haven’t, they often rule on technicalities or rule that the laws violate the freedom of expression of creative professionals, Pizer said. For instance, in September 2019, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that the state’s nondiscrimination law violated the free speech of two artists who create custom wedding invitations by compelling them to promote same-sex weddings.
Pizer said using free speech rights to justify discrimination “represents a dramatic shift from what the law has been for a long time.”
“Why would you think that a video of a couple’s wedding would be the message of the person holding the camera?” she said. “If the law changes in that way, then it’s hard to see where there’s a limiting principle, and it means that civil rights laws, at best, have a big hole in them and maybe, at worst, have very little effect at all.”
The free speech argument could also represent a potential challenge to the Equality Act, proposed federal legislation that would protect LGBTQ people in many areas. The measure passed the House in February but has not yet been voted on in the Senate.
Pizer said that, because Kenneth Randall is an accountant and not a creative professional, she doesn’t think an argument related to free speech would apply if there were a federal or state nondiscrimination law in Kentucky.
But Randall said he refuses to file taxes for same-sex couples because it would require him to express recognition of their marriage. Randall also sells insurance, and he said he has both sold insurance to and filed taxes for single gay people. But if a same-sex couple asked him to sell them insurance, he would only do it if he could put them down as single, he said.
“I don’t hate a particular individual. It’s a stand on a particular institution that I find wrong,” he said, adding that he’s been harassed and threatened since local news outlets published stories about his sign. “If people are willing to accept that, fine. If they are not willing to accept it, there’s plenty of other places to go for insurance.”
Pizer said the idea that people can receive services elsewhere “ignores a core purpose of civil rights laws.” She said the lunch counter sit-ins held by Black college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960 to protest racial segregation weren’t about whether they could “get a sandwich.”
“It was about whether they were being treated the same as other people,” she said.
In the absence of a federal measure like the Equality Act or a statewide nondiscrimination law, the Mudds and couples like them don’t have any options for legal recourse, Pizer said, and businesses can — and do — continue to refuse to serve them.
In North Carolina, which also doesn’t have a statewide anti-discrimination law protecting LGBTQ people, at least two wedding venues made national news within the span of four months for refusing to host events for same-sex couples.
But the issue extends far past weddings. Some states, like Arkansas, have passed legislation that allows medical providers to refuse to serve LGBTQ people if it conflicts with their religious or moral beliefs. The Supreme Court will also soon decide a case that could allow private religious adoption agencies that receive federal funds to reject same-sex couples.
Pizer said growing acceptance of LGBTQ people has pressured some religious people “to stop doing types of discrimination that they’ve done for a long time.” That pressure has made them uncomfortable and it has made them feel victimized, in some cases, she said, and they’re fighting back.
“Being encouraged to treat everyone according to the golden rule is not being victimized and it’s not being excluded and it’s not being discriminated against,” she said. “When we’re operating in the public marketplace, being asked to stop discriminating is not to suffer discrimination yourself. It’s to be invited to play by the same rules that everybody else is expected to play by.”
As for the Mudds, they said they wouldn’t pursue legal action even if they could, but they wanted to make a statement about Randall’s choice to refuse same-sex couples.
“I understand that there’s freedom in this country, and that is what we were founded on,” Amy Mudd said. “And I understand that as a private practice, I guess he is allowed to do that … but to provide a service to the public and deny such a huge population is bad business.”
Stephanie Mudd added, “If we’re talking about morals, that’s quite the opposite of morals. People often hide behind their religion to justify their hate, and that is what is so frustrating.”
Ryan Murphy has said Ewan McGregor was “the only choice” to play fashion designer and Studio 54 icon Roy ‘Halston’ Frowick in a new Netflix series.
Halston, the mononymous fashion designer who rose to fame in the 1970s, was one of the defining faces of New York’s Studio 54. He was often photographed in the famous nightclub with high-profile friends, such as Liza Minnelli and Andy Warhol.
His story is told in Ryan Murphy’s new Netflix series Halston, which is set to hit the streaming platform in May.
The television mogul opened up about the decision to cast Ewan McGregor as the designer in a Voguediscussion with Tom Ford.
Ford confessed that he originally thought McGregor was “completely wrong” to play Halston, but he was surprised to see that the Scottish actor “got it so right”.
Murphy replied: “He was, to us, the only choice. The thing that Ewan got about Halston was that Halston had a vision in his mind of who he wanted to be in life. He was self-created.”
Ewan McGregor ‘connected to the pain of Halston’
The Glee creator said Halston was often asked why he spoke the way he did when he was from Indiana.
“In his mind, it was not affect – it was natural. I think Ewan got that. Ewan really connected to the pain of Halston and the longing of Halston, and how confusing it is to have to be an artist and a businessman at the same time.”
Halston, directed by Danial Minahan, is set to debut on Netflix next month, with Rory Culkin set to play Joel Schumacher and Krysta Rodriguez taking on the role of Liza Minnelli.
Elsewhere in the interview, Murphy reflected on the freedom that comes with making television shows for streaming platforms. The result, he said, was that they were able to make a series that was “really accurate” with Halston.
“Television has changed a lot, particularly in the streaming world,” Murphy said. “I used to spend half my career fighting with standards-and-practices about ‘Why can’t I show this? Why can’t I do this?’ It was always about sex, too – it was never about violence.
“But we never had a single note about any of the sexuality or the depiction of drug abuse – to me, they went hand in hand with the piece. So we were able not make something that was, I felt, really accurate.”
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The year 2020 was a journey for the members of VYNYL. The Denver-based pop group found itself hamstrung after its first national tour was shut down mid-pandemic. The bandmates decided to think about the direction their music was headed.
“When it all went down, it kind of really showed us where we were in terms of our internal dynamic,” vocalist John Tyler says. “It allowed us to take a look at what we’d learned on that tour so far.”
Tyler says that the band used the downtime to write, and the group has a new EP with a fresh musical direction to show for it: The World Is on Fire and I’m Lonely, which was released on April 9.
Members of VYNYL are style-conscious lads, and for this, they sometimes get heckled by jerks who think VYNYL is a boy band. That actually happened recently in Fort Collins, where they were playing a music festival. They didn’t let it bother them.
Despite the band’s cheery appearance, VYNYL’s music is actually quite sad and pensive in places, and nothing like that vapid boy-band music that tends to plague the airwaves every ten years or so.
And the bandmates are used to not really fitting in with the Denver music scene at large anyway. Only guitarist Hunter Heurich is from Colorado. Bassist Andrew Cole is from South Africa originally, and Tyler hails from “the middle of bumfuck nowhere, North Carolina,” as he puts it. They do feel like they have found their place and their fan base, however.
“Our audience has really stuck with us through the pandemic,” Heurich says. “It’s really powerful, honestly, and it surprised us.”
On the new album, Cole says the band intentionally juxtaposed sad, introspective lyrics with some optimism. “It’s a pretty common theme of life,” Tyler says. “It’s a lot of shit, a lot of hard times, but it’s also a lot of beauty, and finding that beauty in those difficult moments is what allows us to keep pushing forward.”
He adds that the writing process was therapy for the band as it tried to make it through the waking nightmare that was 2020.
“We went against our own natural tendencies to fight for something we believed in,” he says. “The reason this band has lasted so long is persistence.”
The bandmates strove for a rawer sound on their latest EP. They recorded the tracks at the Blasting Room in Fort Collins, and they used more live instrumentation than on previous outings. Tyler describes the songs as the band’s “Van Gogh cutting his ear off.”
That’s one way to put it.
“We pushed ourselves instrumentally and lyrically and melodically,” he says. “The overall vibe of how the world was going, it inspired us to really let ourselves go for it and let it loose.”
He adds that he wants to see the band potentially reinvent itself every time it goes into the studio. While the group’s usual pop sound is accessible, 2020 didn’t exactly feel like the time for happy pop music.
“It was a time to rage against the machine, in a sense,” Heurich says. “It just felt very visceral.”
The band shot a video for the single “Heart//Break” and used a filter to make it look like a worn-out VHS recording. The effect gives the video a color palette that is dreamy, almost nightmarish.
“We had an idea for it to be a bad-trip scenario,” Tyler says. “We were juxtaposing heartbreak to a bad dream or a bad trip. When you come out of a bad relationship and you kind of get out of that fog, you kind of look back on a chunk of time that’s like a dream state. You don’t remember a lot of it. “
Now that we are seeing the light at the end of the COVID tunnel — that is, if the light doesn’t happen to be a train barreling toward us, as a friend of mine says — VYNYL wants to pick up the tour where it left off.
“It seems like right before the lockdowns started happening, we got the taste,” Heurich says. “Now we want to take the bite.”
Tyler says he would like to resume touring, but he sees 2021 as a time to rebuild the sense of community that was lost during the pandemic and the lockdowns.
“There’s been a lot of camaraderie and a lot of people helping each other out,” he notes. “But I also can’t help feel disconnected from a lot of my friends that I have played music with, and I haven’t seen them in six to eight months.”
Check out VYNYL’S website for more information. The World Is on Fire and I’m Lonely is now available.
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