Smack!
John Travolta and wife Kelly Preston embraced and kissed Monday at the Los Angeles premiere of Oliver Stone's new film, Savages.
Travolta, 58, has recently been accused of groping male massage therapists and demanding sex.
GetEQUAL Florida, student group plan to protest Obama during his visit to South Beach on Tuesday
GetEQUAL Florida and Students Working for Equal Rights (S.W.E.R.) plan to protest President Barack Obama during his visit to South Beach on Tuesday afternoon.
The groups are angry that Obama hasn't signed an executive order ending workplace discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans.
Here's the news release:
LGBT and Allied Groups Protest Obama Fundraiser Over Lack of Executive Action for Equality
MIAMI, FL -- As preparations are underway for a star-studded
fundraiser for President Obama this evening in Miami Beach, activists are preparing to protest the event in order to call attention to the desperate need for executive action on workplace discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans.Since the transition process began following Election Day in 2008, LGBT advocates have been calling on President Obama to follow in the footsteps of past presidents by using executive action to stem the very real problem of discrimination in the workplace targeting LGBT Americans. Past presidents have used Executive Orders to ban discrimination among military contractors and federal contractors, leading the way for Congress to then tackle employment discrimination
at the federal level. Currently, there are no federal laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.Since 1974, legislation has been introduced to address LGBT workplace discrimination, but federal legislation has failed to move through Congress ever since then (www.getequal.org/endatimeline). In mid-April, the White House announced that President Obama would not be signing an Executive Order barring LGBT workplace discrimination "at
this time" (http://www.metroweekly.com/poliglot/2012/04/breaking-white-house-holds-high-level-meeting-with.html),
but activists and donors have continued to pressure the White House to reconsider that position -- especially now that the Obama Administration has announced administrative relief for young undocumented immigrants, many of whom also identify as LGBT.Today's protest of the Obama fundraiser includes advocates from the LGBT and the immigration movements who are concerned that the Obama Administration is not taking workplace discrimination seriously. Many of the activists involved are young people who are afraid that there will be no opportunity for them to find work without having to go back
into the closet; many others are LGBT undocumented youth who are thrilled with the Obama Administration's action on immigration a week ago but, once they receive work permits, want to know that they will not experience discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity."For me -- as a gay, undocumented young person -- the president's announcement about administrative relief for DREAMers is fantastic...but getting a work permit is just the first step for me," said Felipe Matos, field director for GetEQUAL. "Once I get a work permit, I need assurance that I won't be harassed or fired based on my sexual orientation -- and President Obama has a decision to make today about whether he will let me fully live the American dream. I hope President Obama is moved today to put his pen to paper and to sign
this Executive Order today.""As a young, undocumented immigrant to the United States, I dreamed of the day that I would be able to fully contribute to this country," said Esteban Roncacio, organizer with Students Working for Equal Rights (S.W.E.R.). "When President Obama announced his shift in immigration policy from the White House Rose Garden, my heart leapt -- but my LGBT friends are still not able to fully celebrate. I'm committed to working and organizing until everyone in this country has the opportunity to fully participate in and fully contribute to their American dream."
While a federal law that would protect LGBT workers from
discrimination across the country -- the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) -- languishes in Congress, President Obama could issue an Executive Order today to protect American workers from discrimination, following in the footsteps of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt (E.O. 8802), Dwight Eisenhower (E.O. 10479), and Lyndon Johnson (E.O.
11246). President Obama has been under pressure from LGBT advocates and donors for the past few months, who are demanding that he sign an Executive Order to protect employees of federal contractors from workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, which would both protect the 26 million Americans who work for federal contractors and ensure that taxpayer dollars are not
funding discrimination.
- Who: GetEQUAL Florida and Students Working for Equal Rights (S.W.E.R.)
- What: President Obama fundraiser
- Where: 1700 Washington Avenue, Miami Beach, FL 33139
- When: Tuesday at 5:30 PM
Oreo shows its rainbow colors to mark gay pride
Posted by Oreo to Facebook to celebrate gay pride: "JUNE 25 | PRIDE Made with creme colors that do not exist."
South Florida photographer David Vance releases signed copies of new 'Jungle Fever' book
South Florida photographer David Vance of Miami has released a new book, Jungle Fever, which he is selling through his website (signed), www.davidvanceprints.com, and Amazon.com.
Channing Tatum bares his soul in ‘Magic Mike,’ drawing on own past in story about male strippers
BY RENE RODRIGUEZ, RRODRIGUEZ@MIAMIHERALD.COM
Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh wants you to know that there is more to his new movie Magic Mike than the trailers and TV ads would have you believe.
“I really like the marketing campaign,” says the Oscar-winning director of Traffic, Ocean’s Eleven and Erin Brockovich. “I was the one who wanted to sell the movie like it’s fun, because it is mostly fun.
“It may not be exactly what people expect. But I don’t think the film is different in a way that’s antagonistic to the audience.”
Then, after a pause, Soderbergh addresses the elephant in the room.
“Look, this is not a movie that is exclusively aimed at women and gay men. To what extent are women going to be able to talk their boyfriends into going? I don’t know. But I don’t think guys will be sitting in the theater thinking, ‘This is torture.’ Ten minutes into the movie, they’ll realize they are not being excluded from this experience at all.”
Gad Beck, last known gay Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, dies in Berlin just before 89th birthday
Gad Beck, the last known gay Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, died on Sunday in Berlin six days before his 89th birthday, reports The Jerusalem Post.
Eleven years ago, I interviewed Beck, who wrote a memoir, An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin. From Nov. 17, 2001:
BY STEVE ROTHAUS, srothaus@MiamiHerald.com
Sixty years later, Beck still calls it "the darkest hour of my life." He says it's important for him to tell his story, however painful.
So two years ago, the retired educator wrote an autobiography, An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin. And that year as well, he was one of a handful of known gay Holocaust survivors to appear in a film documentary called Paragraph 175, which will be screened Sunday at Temple Israel in Miami.
Paragraph 175 was an 1871 section in the German criminal code that strictly prohibited anal intercourse, German historian Lothar Machtan said.
In 1935, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis rewrote Paragraph 175 to outlaw all forms of male homosexuality. Lesbians were excluded from the law.
"That was the basis for the prosecution, persecution, harassment - even the killing of homosexuals - by the Third Reich, " said Machtan, author of a controversial new book called The Hidden Hitler, which alleges with no proof that Hitler himself was gay.
Between 1933 and 1945, German police arrested an estimated 100,000 men as homosexuals, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
About 50,000 of those men were sentenced by German courts to regular prisons; between 5,000 and 15,000 were interned in concentration camps.
PINK TRIANGLES
Forced to wear pink triangles signifying their homosexuality, these men were among the most-abused prisoners in the concentration camps, according to the Holocaust museum.
No one knows how many gay men died in the camps.
Gad Beck was born in 1923 in Berlin to a Jewish father and a Christian mother.
Early on, Beck became aware of his homosexuality.
"At the age of 12, it was clear to me I was in love with a boyfriend, " Beck said last week from his home in Berlin. But, he added, "in the time I was a young boy, there was no way you could speak of it."
At 15, Beck met and fell in love with Manfred Lewin, a 16-year-old Jew. Three years later, Lewin and his family were jailed by the Nazis.
Because Beck's mother wasn't Jewish, the Germans didn't intern him. He joined and became a leader in the Jewish underground in Germany.
VISIT TO JAIL
One day, Beck stole a German soldier's uniform and sneaked into the jail where Lewin was being held. He pleaded with Lewin to escape.
"He said to me, 'Look, this is impossible to understand. No Gad, I can never be free. I'm with my whole family.' He went back, " Beck said.
"We had prepared a life together. . . . Three weeks after this meeting, he was going to Auschwitz with his whole family, " said Beck, who never saw Lewin again.
After World War II ended, Beck searched for Lewin and discovered that he and his family perished in Auschwitz.
[Before Lewin's arrest, he gave Gad Beck a handwritten diary about their life together. The book, with English translation, can be viewed online at the museum's website, www.ushmm.org/doyou rememberwhen/co/co.htm]
In 1947, Beck helped organize the emigration of Jewish survivors to Palestine. He lived in Israel until 1979, when he returned to Berlin.
In 60 years, much has changed for gay men in Germany. In 1994, after the two Germanys reunited, the law was abolished.
Earlier this year, the German congress voted to allow gay civil unions.
And last month, Klaus Wowereit was elected mayor of Berlin.
During the campaign in June, Wowereit announced: "I'm gay and that's a good thing."
In Germany and around the world, that has become a cult phrase among gay men and women.
NORMALIZATION
"There has been a very positive change and a trend toward 'normalization, ' " said Marc Fest, 35, a gay businessman born in West Germany and now living in Miami Beach.
Although Fest grew up hearing about Paragraph 175, he knew little about the gay men who died during World War II.
"The first time I heard there were gay people in the concentration camps was not in school, " Fest said. "We were fed an extraordinary amount of information about what happened in the Third Reich. Every year in history class, we were looking at a different aspect and a different angle about those events.
"The first thing I remember, I saw a reference to that was when I moved to Berlin to go to the university in 1989. I remember at a subway station I saw a new memorial, a pink triangle made of marble at a subway station in the gay district of West Berlin."
The inscription: "Beaten to death, silenced to death - to the homosexual Nazi victims."
North Miami Councilman Scott Galvin: 'WPBT2 Aligns with Anti-Gay Pastor' to stop strip club
North Miami is debating whether to allow a fully-nude bar to open next door to WPBT-Channel 2 on "Sesame Street," Northeast 20th Avenue near 151st Street.
Channel 2 is partnering with local pastor Jack Hakimian to stop the city from allowing the club. Hakimian has set up a website, www.nostripclub.org, and he and WPBT have distributed leaflets asking residents to "take action" against the club. The matter will be discussed 7 p.m. Tuesday at the North Miami city council meeting.
North Miami Councilman Scott Galvin supports the club, telling NBC 6 that it would help the local economy. See the following video:
View more videos at: http://nbcmiami.com.
View more videos at: http://nbcmiami.com.
Galvin, a gay man, is angry Channel 2 has partnered with Hakimian, who preaches that gays "can repent, they can through the spirit of God subdue their tendencies":
Hakimian has also posted a church video, Let's Give Equal Rights To Pedophiles!:
Video | Drag queen Alexis Couture as Lucy Ricardo at 2012 Stonewall Summer Pride in Wilton Manors
- Gallery | Stonewall Summer Pride 2012 festival in Wilton Manors
- South Florida drag queens to hold court at Stonewall Summer Pride in Wilton Manors
Drag queen Alexis Couture performs as Lucy Ricardo of I Love Lucy on June 24, 2012, at Stonewall Summer Pride festival in Wilton Manors, FL.
Video by STEVE ROTHAUS / Miami Herald Staff
