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Jack Phillips maintains he would 'serve everybody that comes in my shop,' but that he wouldn't 'create cakes for every message.' The baker at the center of a Supreme Court ruling that he cannot be forced to make a cake for a same-sex wedding told “Today” on Tuesday that he doesn’t “discriminate” against anybody and that he simply doesn't want to bake cakes “for every message” — saying that he would also refuse to create a dessert that insulted the LGBTQ community. Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cake in Denver, had argued that his cakes are works of art and...

The Supreme Court has ruled on the Masterpiece Cake case — and on the surface, it would appear to be a loss for L.G.B.T.Q. Americans. The justices ruled 7 to 2 that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission violated the religious freedom of a baker, Jack Phillips, when it sanctioned him for refusing to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, Charlie Craig and David Mullins, in 2012. “The commission’s hostility was inconsistent with the First Amendment’s guarantee that our laws be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.

Christian soccer star Jaelene Hinkle has confirmed that she withdrew from the United States Women's National Team last year to "be obedient" to God after the team announced it would wear LGBT Pride jerseys in international matches. As reported last June, the then 24-year-old Hinkle withdrew from the U.S. roster over "personal reasons" after she was called on to play international exhibition games against Sweden and Norway. Her withdrawal came two weeks after it was announced that both the U.S. men's and women's national teams would wear rainbow-colored jerseys in support of LGBT pride month. It was speculated at the...

California-funded travel to the state of Oklahoma has been banned, starting June 22, because of a new Oklahoma law that allows adoption agencies to deny placement services to same-sex parents, state officials announced on Friday.

An Oregon business has filed a complaint against a church that prohibited it from hosting an LGBT event in a building owned by the church, claiming that the fallout from that decision has harmed the company. In 2015, Ambridge Event Center, which once rented out a space owned by Holy Rosary Church for various events, was compelled to reject an LGBT group's request to hold an event on the property due to the church's "morals clause." In a lawsuit filed last week in Multnomah County Circuit Court in Oregon, Ambridge alleged that the church's rules against them hosting the LGBT...

It was supposed to be one of the biggest political showdowns in Kentucky this fall: Kim Davis, the clerk of Rowan County, running against David Ermold, the gay man she denied a marriage license to three years ago. That moment, caught on camera, set off a red-hot culture war over the summer of 2015 in this quiet corner of Appalachia. Since Mr. Ermold announced he was running for county clerk in December, he raised more than $200,000 from around the country and drew supporters far and wide. This was a campaign, he said in an interview before the primary, for...

Transgender people are being encouraged to become Church of England vicars as bishops launch a diversity drive. Bishops in the diocese of Lichfield have issued new guidance to parishioners and clergy reminding them that LGBT people "can be called to roles of leadership and service in the local church". The guidance, titled "welcoming and honouring LGBT+ people", warns that the church's reputation as being unwelcoming towards gay and transgender people is stopping young people attending. "We very much hope that they, like everyone else, feel encouraged to serve on PCCs, or as churchwardens and worship leaders, for instance, and are...

A drug-fueled sex fad called "chemsex" was linked to increased risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among men who have sex with men (MSM), researchers found. Gay, bisexual or other MSM who disclosed use of chemsex were more likely to be newly diagnosed with HIV infection, acute bacterial and rectal STIs, and hepatitis C, reported Mark Pakianathan, MBChB, of Wandsworth Integrated Sexual Health at The Courtyard Clinic in London, and colleagues.

In the United States, the percentage of adults identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender has increased to 4.5 percent, according to a year-long survey, which also shows that the biggest increase has been among millennials. Gallup's daily tracking in 2017 has found that more than 11 million adults now identify as LGBT in the country, which is 4.5 percent of the population — up from 4.1 percent in 2016 and 3.5 percent in 2012. The increase is driven primarily by the millennials, meaning those born between 1980 and 1999, as those from this group who identify as LGBT rose...

Reports that Pope Francis told a sex-abuse victim that God made him gay have drawn headlines this week, with many observers inferring a new level of acceptance of homosexuality, which the catechism of the Catholic Church describes as “objectively disordered.” The Vatican spokesman declined to confirm or deny the statement, citing a policy of not commenting on the pope’s private conversations. But no aspect of Pope Francis’ five-year reign has been better known or more controversial than his conciliatory approach to gay people, most famously expressed in his 2013 words about gay priests: “Who am I to judge?”

Caitlyn Jenner lashed out at President Trump in a recent interview, claiming that the president “has been, for all LGBT issues, the worst president we have ever had.” The former Olympian and reality television star was an outspoken supporter of Trump in 2016. However, in a profile published with Broadly on Tuesday, Jenner claimed that she might not support the president in 2020. “I want him to know politically I am disappointed, obviously,” Jenner said of Trump’s policies regarding LGBT issues. “I don’t want our community to go backwards. Just leave us alone, that’s all we want. Then maybe later...

s Trump won primary after primary in 2016, a rattled John Brennan started claiming to colleagues at the CIA that Estonia’s intelligence agency had alerted him to an intercepted phone call suggesting Putin was pouring money into the Trump campaign. The tip was bogus, but Brennan bit on it with opportunistic relish. Out of Brennan’s alarmist chatter about the bogus tip came an extraordinary leak to the BBC: that Brennan had used it, along with later half-baked tips from British intelligence, as the justification to form a multi-agency spy operation (given the Orwellian designation of an “inter-agency taskforce”) on the...

Tufts University is offering a course this fall examining “queer spatial aesthetics” and “queer world-making” in places like “bathhouses, nightclubs, [and] cruising grounds.” According to the course syllabus, “Queer Space: Explorations in Art and Architecture” will address questions such as: “What is ‘queer space’? How have works of art and architecture shaped queer understandings and experiences of space?”

Earlier this month, a male-to-female transgender filed a $50,000 human rights complaint after a Muslim woman refused to perform a Brazilian wax on his genitals. The unnamed transgender person has repeatedly claimed that he called inquiring about a leg wax, but the owner of Mad Wax, the waxing studio based in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, insisted the request clearly indicated his interest in a genital wax. "She never once asked for a leg wax [from] us," Mad Wax manager, president, and CEO Jason Carruthers told PJ Media. "She said, 'Women have penises and women have balls and if your staff is...

People promoting “hostility” towards a religion or the transgendered online could get much harsher sentences, of up to six years in jail, especial if they have a large online audience according to new proposals. The Sentencing Council for England and Wales has drafted changes to public order offences, including anyone perceived as targeting online a “protected characteristics” including “race; sex; disability; age; sexual orientation; religion or belief; pregnancy and maternity; and gender reassignment.” The most severe punishments will be handed to those “in a position of trust, authority or influence and abuses their position to stir up hatred,” such as...

A.G. Schneiderman Announces Agreement with the Boy Scouts Of America to Allow Openly Gay Leaders Agreement Ensures That The Boy Scouts Provide Equal Opportunity For Gay Employees NationwideSchneiderman: Today’s Announcement Is A Watershed Moment For The Boy Scouts Of America NEW YORK – Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced a settlement with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) to end its policy of excluding openly gay adults from serving as leaders in the organization. As part of the settlement, the BSA has agreed to eliminate the standard nationally, develop guidelines for implementing its new leadership standard, and ensure compliance...

“It wasn’t my performance,” Herbst said. “It was me.” Jess Herbst thought she had a good shot of becoming the first openly transgender mayor to be elected in Texas on Saturday. She’d already served in the post for two years — a first in its own right — after the sudden death of the town’s former mayor. And she’d done things like re-establish the planning and zoning board and push for more law enforcement funding in the North Texas town of New Hope, population roughly 700. But after a bruising campaign, she lost, coming in third in a contest of...

Your genitals determine your biological SEX -- which is male or female. What determines gender [masculine, feminine, neutral] is culture. So in some cultures, a skirt is feminine while in others it is masculine.#YouMightBeALiberal if the Divine was fallible in making you, but you are infallible in what you think you should be. Sex is biological and gender is cultural. There is no such thing, for example, as "neutral sex" -- even if you get your male junk cut off. Then you are an emasculated male. The Left tries to make them interchangeable to so they can blur the...

10-year-old drag superstar 'Desmond Is Amazing' is in fact, amazing. The New York City drag kid is inspiring others left and right with his positive attitude to 'be yourself always no matter what anyone says'. At only 10 years old, Desmond has immersed himself with a handful of LGBTQ youth advocacy projects and is making one thing clear: Desmond Is Amazing is the future and we're here for it.

Three-quarters of California’s state assembly supported a bill that has striking implications for American citizens’ first freedoms, in that state and nationally. It is ostensibly a ban on gay and transgender “conversion therapy,” but the bill’s vague and sweeping text could affect essentially every institution of every religion that affirms sexual complementarity.We’re talking churches, schools, religious charities, summer camps — every forum that involves a financial transaction could be banned from allowing any discussion of basic doctrines of sexuality that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, among others, have held for thousands of years. We’re talking core doctrines of religions adhered...