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ABC Family is continuing its push into the unscripted arena with a big swi What's Behind the Rise of Transgender TV The Disney-owned cable network has handed out a straight-to-series pickup for My Transparent Life, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The docuseries, from Ryan Seacrest Productions, centers on a teen named Ben who learns his parents are not only getting a divorce, but also that his father is becoming a woman. The series will intimately follow Ben, his family and friends as they support each other through the unexpected journey and watch Charlie slowly become Carly, as she experiences the...

Lee Albertorio felt like a man trapped in a woman’s body. After serving in the Air Force, he began taking hormones, which deepened his voice and made his physique more masculine. He changed his passport to reflect that he was male, and last year he decided to have a mastectomy, known as top surgery. But his insurance company told him the operation was cosmetic and refused to cover it, he said Wednesday. Now Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is warning insurance companies that they will no longer be allowed to deny gender reassignment surgery or other treatment to change a person’s...

A city ordinance in Fayetteville, Ark, dubbed the transgender bathroom bill because it allows biological males who claim they are females to use restroom facilities for women, was overturned on Tuesday, Dec. 9, largely because of the intense lobbying efforts of Michelle Duggar, the matriarch of the reality-TV show 19 Kids & Counting, carried by The Learning Channel.In Tuesday’s special election the rule, also called the Civil Rights Ordinance, was defeated: 7,523 votes to 7,040 votes, a 52% to 48% victory. In criticizing the ordinance, Mrs. Duggar had said that it affected “the safety of Northwest Arkansas women and children”...

I was probably 19 when I first came to Hollywood. Eddie Murphy brought me out to do Beverly Hills Cop II and he had a deal at Paramount, so I remember going through the gates of the Paramount lot. He's in a Rolls-Royce, and he's not just a star, he's the biggest star in the world. Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer's office was in the same building as Eddie's office, and they would come to work every day with matching cars. Some days it would be the Porsches, and the next day it would be Ferraris. I was like the...

Catholic professors and other faculty members at a prominent Wisconsin Catholic university are now being trained to report any school employees who voice their opposition to same-sex marriage as a form of harassment to the university's human resources office. Marquette University has begun requiring its employees to attend workplace anti-harassment training, where they are taught that it is imperative for them to quickly report faculty members who discuss openly their opposing view of same-sex marriage. As the Catholic News Agency reports, Marquette's anti-harassment training includes a comic-style story presentation where a fictional character named "Harassed Hans," who overhears his co-workers,...

WASHINGTON -- I should like to pose a question to the overnight press baron Chris Hughes, who owns the New Republic that he has rendered moribund with astounding speed and no class at all. My question is an old-fashioned one that might have circulated within the humanities faculty at universities two generations ago. "What," I would ask, "makes a book more authoritative and satisfying than a news report?" Most of the profs in their tweed jackets, and some pulling on their briar pipes, would answer that the author of a book has more time to write it than the author...

May I make two requests? Love me, but remember that you cannot be more merciful than God. It isn’t mercy to affirm same-sex acts as good. Don’t compromise truth; help me to live in harmony with it.Over thirty years have passed since same-sex attraction rushed up from deep within my twelve-year-old frame. This attraction was unbidden and unwanted, yet simultaneously forceful and compelling. As a Christian, the conflict between my sexuality and my faith would become the deepest and most intense of my life. Now in my forties, I’ve gone from being closeted to openly lesbian to celibate to heterosexually...

Today, the Secretary of the Air Force, Deborah Lee James, came out in support of lifting the military’s ban on transgender service. In an interview with USA Today, when asked about the current ban, she said, “From my point of view, anyone who is capable of accomplishing the job should be able to serve.” She also said the current ban “is likely to come under review in the next year or so.” The repeal of the discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy allowed lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals to serve in the military openly and honestly. However, while the...

Linky only per FR Rules. Sheesh...

The West, in its era under Christianity, has not known the phenomenon we call the homosexual movement until the 20th century. During the Christian era, whenever homosexuality was discussed, it was almost always considered an aberration imported from the Muslim orient—which there, it was always considered not just an acceptable practice but a norm and is why homosexuals tend to be more sympathetic towards Islam over Christianity. The proof to this is simple. All one has to do in order to understand Islamic history is to review ISIS and they will see is a microcosm of the times of Muhammad...

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas — Fayetteville residents have repealed a rule that would have extended housing, job and public accommodation protections against discrimination of gays. The Fayetteville City Council had OK'd the anti-discrimination ordinance in August that went beyond state and federal laws. On Tuesday, voters in the northwest Arkansas city voted to repeal the measure. If voters upheld the proposed city law, it would have been the first of its kind in Arkansas.

The normally liberal Daily Beast published an article about The New Republic owner Chris Hughes that is chock full of criticism of the Facebook multi-millionaire However, what is most surprising is that the article by James Kirchick also takes the mainstream media to task for its lavish praise of Hughes before attacking him for what they view as the destruction of The New Republic. You sort of get the idea that the Daily Beast story is going to come up somewhat short of praise just from the very title, The Rise and Fall of Chris Hughes and Sean Eldridge, America’s...

A FDA panel has declined to support lifting the lifetime ban on men who have sex with men (MSM) from donating blood.The ban, which has been in place for over 30 years, has grown increasingly controversial in light of groups such as the American Red Cross and the American Medical Association joining homosexual activists in saying the ban is based upon unscientific discrimination. However, supporters of the policy say keeping it in place is based on sound science and risk assessment, given that a majority of HIV/AIDS carriers are MSM, and the number of MSM who use condoms to prevent...

Chris Hughes and Sean Eldridge have always been entitled brats. And now the media finally noticed. How swiftly things change. In just the past two months, one half of this pair managed to single-handedly destroy a storied journalistic institution, while the other suffered a crushing electoral defeat in New York’s 19th Congressional District. Last week, the 31-year-old Hughes forced the resignations of both the editor and literary editor of The New Republic, whose 100th anniversary he presided over last month at a star-studded gala in Washington, D.C. In protest of the magazine’s newly ensconced CEO’s plan to transform TNR into...

Students at one northern California high school are learning more than just the birds and the bees. Along with local area groups, some parents are irate that their children’s sex ed class at Acalanes High School in Lafayette is being taught by employees of Planned Parenthood without their prior knowledge. They are also fuming over the methods and materials being used, including a checklist that asks students if they are “ready for sex” and another worksheet that describes how to give and obtain consent, as well as a diagram that uses a "genderbread" person for lessons in gender identity. “[Parents]...

A lawsuit is moving forward against a Washington State florist who refused to supply floral arrangements for a same-sex wedding ceremony based on her religious objection, which could put her at risk of serious financial loss and the loss of her business. Baronelle Stutzman, who owns and operates Arlene's Flowers in Richland, Washington, is being sued by the Washington State attorney general's office for refusing to supply flowers for a same-sex couple's wedding ceremony. Instead, she referred the couple to another nearby florist who could supply flowers for their wedding. The attorney general's office filed its lawsuit against Stutzman in...

Milwaukee, Wis., Dec 9, 2014 / 04:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- An anti-harassment training presentation at a Catholic college encourages employees to report critics of “gay marriage” – and could reflect recent federal decisions that the belief in marriage as a union of a man and a woman is discriminatory. Part of the employee anti-harassment training at the Wisconsin-based Marquette University includes a presentation with a comic strip-style story about a fictional employee named “Harassed Hans,” a man in a wheelchair. The training encourages Hans to report to the university human resources his co-workers Becky and Maria who “have been talking...

Unlike his predecessor, left-wing New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will not commit to rejecting a bill that would allow non-citizens to vote in city elections. In January, City Council member Council Daniel Dromm will reportedly introduce legislation that would grant non-citizens voting rights in local elections, hoping that the bill will have a better chance of passing now that former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who opposed the bill, is no longer in office. “The legislation I’ve seen so far, I think, has a number of challenges and issues that have to be addressed, so I was not...

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio signed into law a measure that creates a municipal identification card that can now be used by illegal immigrants to access government services, rent an apartment and open a bank account. “Today we’re living up to our highest ideals, and today we’re saying that no one should be left out,” said City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, calling the signing of the bill into law an “historic” moment, the New York Daily News reported. Ms. Mark-Viverito, along with fellow council members Carlos Menchaca and Daniel Dromm — all Democrats — said the new ID...

That was a big wide smile on Bill de Blasio’s face the other night, and why not? He sure as hell earned one. He was the only Democrat in a cluttered primary field to recognize—and then to capitalize on—the lesson Barack Obama taught the nation in 2008: That is, it is no longer necessary to do important things to win high office; it is only necessary to talk about doing important things. Obama rode that insight into the White House, and de Blasio—bless his progressive heart—is at the cusp of the New York City mayoralty. … (W)hat de Blasio really...