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I have a sensitive, inconvenient, and undoubtedly politically incorrect question: Why aren’t there more gay people? I ask because there’s something confusing about our “culture war.” Given the prominence of the issue, you would expect homosexuality to be rampant in America. When asked to estimate how many gay people there are, most people guess that it’s on the order of 20% to 25% of the population. But yet another study has been released by the CDC giving a more scientific estimate, and it finds that almost 97 percent of Americans describe themselves as straight — the actual number who describes...

One thing that you can say for ISIS, the Middle-East terrorist army, is that it doesn’t have a recruitment problem. Young men are streaming to Syria and Iraq from all over the world to join the cause. And they come not just from the Muslim world, but also from England, France, Sweden, Australia, and the U.S.Perhaps hoping to put a dent in the appeal of ISIS, some Western newspapers have made much of the expensive stolen watch visible on the wrist of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi during his first public appearance at the Grand Mosque in Mosul. According to...

Earth, I love you. I always have. You and your elemental inhabitants are the most beautiful beings that I have ever seen, met, felt and experienced. You are the most beautiful life experiment in this universe. You are music to my ears and soul. And your green! The sound of the leaves in the wind. The scents. The sunrise and sunset. The moon. The humming of the bees, the rushing of the waves. The infinite moments of sensory ecstasy and blissful encounters with other beings. Discovering woman-identification has been a constant dance of fire and joy. *** Alexis linked to...

A bleeding woman, who police say was stabbed in the stomach by her knife-wielding lover, frantically searched for her dogs as her Lawrence home went up in flames early yesterday. Yohanna Estrella, 34, was arrested after she stabbed her partner with a knife about 6 a.m. yesterday and set fire to her couch, a blaze that gutted much of the two-story apartment building on Haverhill Street, Lawrence police said.

First Lady Michelle Obama has agreed to sponsor a future submarine named after her home state that will be staffed by an all-female crew. The White House has announced that Mrs Obama has accepted an invitation to be the backer of the USS Illinois, a Virginia-class submarine being built in Groton, Connecticut, and Newport News, Virginia. The new nuclear-powered boat is expected to join the fleet in late 2015.

BOISE — Same-sex couples could flood county courthouses Friday morning, seeking to exercise a newly declared right to marry in Idaho. A Tuesday evening ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge Candy Dale striking down Idaho’s 2006 constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage takes effect at 9 a.m. Friday. Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2014/05/13/3183291/judge-rules-idaho-gay-marriage.html?sp=/99/1687/&ihp=1#storylink=cpy

ROCK HILL (SC)— Police arrested a Rock Hill woman who they say rammed her car into the side of an apartment complex building after an argument with her girlfriend before she left and went to the hospital on Tuesday, according to a Rock Hill police report. Officers were sent to the Paces River apartment complex at about 10 p.m. after receiving calls about an accident, the report states. A tenant told officers he overheard two people arguing in the parking lot before there was a loud crash. When he walked out of the complex’s gym, he noticed the corner of...

A prominent advocate for transgender and women’s rights in the tech world has been charged with raping her wife, The San Francisco Examiner has learned. Dana McCallum, a senior engineer at Twitter who speaks and writes about women’s and transgender rights and technology issues, was arrested Jan. 26 and booked into County Jail on suspicion of five felonies, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

Lena Dunham feels a very strong connection to the gay community. So strong, in fact, that when she realized she was attracted to men it came as a "huge disappointment." Dunham shared her views on her lesbian sister and sexual attraction during an appearance at the Point Honors Gala at the New York Public Library Monday....

A black Muslim man suspected of murdering his lesbian daughter and her girlfriend. Her sexuality offended his Muslim sensibilities.

<p>SALINAS, Calif. –  Three starving children -- including one who was chained to the floor to prevent her from getting food -- were found last month in the squalid home of a Northern California couple, authorities said.</p> <p>All three -- two boys and a girl -- were taken into protective custody, and one was hospitalized, Monterey County Sheriff Scott Miller said Friday.</p>

Deputies responding to a Salinas, Calif., home on March 14 to investigate child neglect allegations found three starved and abused children, one chained to the floor. During the investigation, deputies found very little food in the house, which they described as “cluttered and dirty.” The deputies found three children - an 8-year-old girl, a 5-year-old boy and a 3-year-old boy - who they said exhibited signs of physical and emotional abuse. The suspects, Eraca Dawn Craig, 31, and Christian Jessica Deanda, 44, were arrested for numerous child abuse-related cases.

As long as the kids are away, teachers can play, a panel of judges said Thursday, ruling that educators shouldn’t be fired for having sex with one another — even in their classrooms. The Manhattan appellate judges said foreign-language teachers Alini Brito, 34, and Cindy Mauro, 38, were treated too harshly when they were dismissed for engaging in a topless classroom tryst inside Brooklyn’s James Madison HS in 2009.

Two Baltimore women are being held without bail after being charged with torturing and sexually assaulting another woman in Reservoir Hill, police said. According to a police charging document, a 23-year-old woman told police that a longtime friend, Shameka Davis, 29, invited her to an apartment on Lennox St. on Jan. 23. At the apartment, the woman said Davis tied her to a chair and duct tape was placed over her mouth, and a knit hat was pulled down over her eyes, police said.

A man who provided sperm to a lesbian couple in response to an online ad is the father of a child born to one of the women and must pay child support, a Kansas judge ruled Wednesday

<p>Topeka resident William Marotta had argued that he had waived his parental rights and didn’t intend to be a father.</p> <p>Shawnee County District Judge Mary Mattivi rejected that claim, saying the parties didn’t involve a licensed physician. “The parties failed to perform to statutory requirement of the Kansas Parentage Act in not enlisting a licensed physician in the artificial insemination process, and the parties’ self-designation of (Marotta) as a sperm donor is insufficient to relieve (Marotta) of parental right and responsibilities to the child,” Mattivi wrote.</p>

The Bible's account of the night Jesus was born is noted for some well-known characters at the Bethlehem manger, including the baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph and some shepherds following the instructions of an angel. The famous wise men were not present, as they showed up later when Jesus was a young child in a house. And as far as the New Testament indicates, there weren't any lesbians there either. Now a Christian church in America's heartland is helping redefine the story, as its most-recent living Nativity scene in December featured two women instead of a man and a women starring...

The lesbian "rock opera" Jesus Has Two Mommies will show this Christmas season at the Somerville Theatre near Boston, MA. Jesus Has Two Mommies dares to distort the sacred mysteries of Christmas, showing Jesus born to two lesbians, Mary and Josephine. Among blasphemous mockeries of God, the virgin birth, and the Holy Family, Jesus Has Two Mommies portrays Mary and Josephine's affair at a lesbian bar, the "real Christmas story."According to press reports: "Luckily the trio is up to the challenge. The trio consisted of God... Jesus and the angel Gay-briel. ...Blessing Faith [Faith Soloway, the author] with a Psalm...

Although Mayor Annise Parker has vowed that she and her longtime partner, Kathy Hubbard, will not wed until gay marriage is legal in Texas, in recent interviews the mayor has softened her stance. "The world is changing so fast, maybe I won't wait that long," Parker said last week in a year-end interview with CultureMap when asked when she would marry. "I'm no longer worried that (gay marriage in Texas) is not going to happen in my lifetime. After the Supreme Court ruling and the number of states that now have equal marriage, it's coming." Since then CultureMap has learned...

SEATTLE-Gay weddings made up 17 percent of marriages in Washington this past year, the first year gay marriages were legal in the state, state officials reported Wednesday. About 7,071 same-sex couples got married in Washington between December 6, 2012, and the most recent complete month of data, September 2013. There were 42,408 total marriages in the state during that time, according to the Washington State Department of Health. So far, most of Washington state's same-sex marriages, 62 percent, were between two women....