Video | Mariah Carey's 'All I Want for Christmas' sung by the Chicago Gay Hockey Association

New on YouTube:

Special Cover of Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas
This video comes with a special holiday message:http://chicagogayhockey.org/?p=5027

The players of the CGHA have a very special holiday message for you!

We want you to put aside your differences. And to spend some time getting closer to your family and friends. If you take a step back and look, you may surprise yourself with how much you have in common with people. The person next to you on the train could become your best friend. After all, aren't we all just looking for love? Don't forget to laugh a little. And sing a little. Happy Holidays y'all!

The Chicago Gay Hockey Association (CGHA) is Chicago's Official gay hockey organization. The CGHA is a registered 501c-3 organization. http://chicagogayhockey.org/ | @ChiGayHockey

Our mission is to provide a non-discriminatory environment within the hockey community. We encourage all people with a passion for ice hockey -- novice or pro, male or female, straight or gay -- to contact us and learn to skate, play on our team, volunteer for social events, come to the games, and join our organization.

Filmed by Glam Tie Media
http://glamtiemedia.com/ - @glamtiemedia

Produced and Directed by Stephen Leonard of Vicious Muse |http://www.viciousmuse.com
http://stephenleonardmusic.com/ - @stephen7leonard

Gallery | Goes Bear party benefits Latinos Salud (with Instagram video)

Miami-based Goes Bear held a party Friday night at Hard Rock Café in Bayside Marketplace to partly benefit Latinos Salud, the HIV prevention group based in Wilton Manors.

The event featured DJs Mark DeMarko and Alex Ramos.

Click here to view pictures from the party. Photos by STEVE ROTHAUS / Miami Herald Staff.

Cardinal Dolan of New York: Catholics 'outmarketed' on gay marriage; 'caricatured as being anti-gay'

ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK -- New York's Cardinal Timothy Dolan says the Roman Catholic Church has been "outmarketed" on the issue of gay marriage and has been "caricatured as being anti-gay."

Dolan discussed the church's positions opposing same-sex marriage and abortion in an interview with "Meet the Press" moderator David Gregory that will air Sunday on NBC.

Gregory noted that Illinois just became the latest U.S. state to legalize gay marriage and asked, "Regardless of the church teachings, do you think this is evolving in such a way that it's ultimately going to be legal everywhere?"

Or, he asked, will there be "a backlash" against gay marriage?

"I think I'd be a Pollyanna to say that there doesn't seem to be kind of a stampede to do this," Dolan said. "I regret that."

Asked why the church is losing the argument on gay marriage, Dolan responded, "Well, I think maybe we've been outmarketed sometimes. We've been caricatured as being anti-gay."

Click here to read more.

'Preferred' pronouns gain traction at US colleges

BY LISA LEFF

ASSOCIATED PRESS

OAKLAND, Calif. -- The weekly meetings of Mouthing Off!, a group for students at Mills College in Oakland, Calif., who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, always start the same way. Members take turns going around the room saying their names and the personal pronouns they want others to use when referring to them — she, he or something else.

It's an exercise that might seem superfluous given that Mills, a small and leafy liberal arts school historically referred to as the Vassar of the West, only admits women as undergraduates. Yet increasingly, the "shes" and "hers" that dominate the introductions are keeping third-person company with "they," "ze" and other neutral alternatives meant to convey a more generous notion of gender.

"Because I go to an all-women's college, a lot of people are like, 'If you don't identify as a woman, how did you get in?'" said sophomore Skylar Crownover, 19, who is president of Mouthing Off! and prefers to be mentioned as a singular they, but also answers to he. "I just tell them the application asks you to mark your sex and I did. It didn't ask me for my gender."

Click here to read more.

Gay rights office in Haiti attacked, reports Amnesty International

ASSOCIATED PRESS

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Amnesty International says the office of a gay rights group in Haiti has been ransacked and two of its members beaten.

It said Wednesday that three men carrying handguns and machetes raided the office of the Haitian rights organization Kouraj last week. Amnesty says the intruders said the center shouldn't be allowed to operate and aimed anti-gay remarks at the two activists who were tied and beaten.

The attackers also stole equipment, which included two laptops and files that contained sensitive information about the group's members.

Haiti's small gay and lesbian community has long remained largely underground because of a strong social stigma that sparks fears of physical violence and loss of employment.

Those negative sentiments spilled into the streets this summer when thousands joined in an anti-gay demonstration.

Federal appeals court orders review in gay Russian's asylum case

BY SUDHIN THANAWALA

ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court has ordered immigration officials to review their decision not to grant asylum to a gay man who said he was attacked for his sexual orientation in 2002 and 2003 in his native Russia and feared he would be persecuted if forced to return there.

The U.S. Department of Justice's Board of Immigration Appeals was wrong when it concluded that the man had failed to show that government officials in Russia were either unwilling or unable to control his attackers, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday.

The man was only identified as "John Doe" in the opinion.

"The government failed to present any evidence to rebut Doe's undisputed testimony that he suffered serious assaults at the hands of individuals on account of his homosexuality or to show that the Russian government was able and willing to control non-governmental actors who attack homosexuals," the court said.

Click here to read more.

Former Miami Beach Mayor Neisen Kasdin praises diverse voters who elected new commission

Letter to the Editor from former Miami Beach Mayor Neisen O. Kasdin:

The Nov. 22 editorial, New day on the Beach, said that the most talked-about result of the elections is the absence of Hispanics in City Hall. The Herald is again listening to the echo chamber of the Editorial Board, those who lost the election and their supporters.

The election was about reform and cleaning up the corruption and mismanagement of recent years — that’s what was on the minds of Beach residents.

Over half the city is Hispanic, that means many, if not a majority, of Hispanic voters voted to elect the current Commission. In Miami Beach, Hispanics, Anglos, blacks, Christians, Jews, straight people, lesbians and gays looked past ethnic, religious, racial and gender identity and voted for whom they deemed the most qualified. The Herald should laud this thoughtful post- ethnic approach to government, instead of fanning the flames of ethnic division.

Gallery | White Martini opens 2013 White Party Week

White Party Week 2013 is officially underway in South Florida. White Martini, the first official event, was held Wednesday night at Mova Lounge off Lincoln Road in Miami Beach.

Click here to read more about this year's White Party Week, which benefits Care Resource, South Florida's largest HIV/AIDS organization.

Click here to view more pictures from White Martini. Photos by STEVE ROTHAUS / Miami Herald Staff.

Lesbian couple's wedding a first for Illinois

BY SOPHIA TAREEN

ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHICAGO -- In a short ceremony inside their Chicago apartment, two beaming brides made Illinois history Wednesday as they became the first gay couple to wed under the state's new law legalizing same-sex marriage.

The law approved last week doesn't go into effect until June, but one of the women — Vernita Gray — is terminally ill with cancer, so she and her partner of five years, Patricia Ewert, were granted an expedited marriage license by a federal judge's order.

The two made it official Wednesday in front of more than 20 friends at their high-rise home on the city's North Side. A Cook County judge officiated, and a close friend who deemed himself the "flower girl" tossed red rose petals and the couple kissed several times.

They were pronounced wife and wife.

"So happy, so incredibly happy," Ewert told The Associated Press after the wedding. "We feel so blessed to have this honor bestowed upon us. I love my partner, my wife now, more every single day."

Click here to read more.

Report raises concerns about solitary detention for gay, transgender immigrants

BY JAYNA OMAYE

MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON -- Many gay, lesbian and transgender immigrants held in U.S. detention centers, who may be vulnerable to abuse by guards and other detainees, are placed in solitary confinement to protect them, but the isolation can cause psychological problems, according to a new report by the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

“Solitary confinement is considered a form of torture,” said Sharita Gruberg, a policy analyst at the center, which released the report Monday addressing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender immigrant abuses in U.S. immigrant detention facilities. “When (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) does this to prevent people from being sexually assaulted, it puts them at risk of other forms of trauma.”

Some LGBT immigrants also face physical, sexual and verbal abuse from detention facility guards while in solitary, which defeats the purpose of isolating vulnerable populations, said Gruberg, who wrote the report.

The report found about 200 reports of sexual, mental and physical abuse involving LGBT detainees by guards and other immigrants at all federal facilities from 2008 to 2013.

Click here to read more.