Free Republic

A Bay Area lawmaker is warning that San Francisco is "veering toward a public health mess" over monkeypox, citing a Wednesday announcement from the San Francisco Department of Public Health that said the agency is running low on monkeypox vaccines and will shutter its clinic at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital until more supply arrives.

June is Pride Month, a ripe time to reflect on one of the most startling facts about our sexual culture today: Condom use is all but disappearing among large numbers of gay men. Many rightly attribute the condom’s decline to the rise of PrEP — an acronym for pre-exposure prophylaxis, a two-drug cocktail that inoculates a person from contracting H.I.V. But another crucial component is the fading memory of the AIDS crisis that once defined what it meant to be gay. After tracking the sexual practices of 17,000 gay and bisexual Australian men from 2014 to 2017, a team of...

Sally Field has no qualms about being her son’s personal matchmaker — and has her sights set on this year’s most popular Olympic figure skater, Adam Rippon! On Friday, February 16, Sam Greisman, the Mrs. Doubtfire actress’ 30-year-old son, shared a screenshot of their conversation in which they were talking about Team USA’s Rippon. “Sam… he’s insanely pretty. Find a way..” she advised during their chat. Alongside the tweet, Greisman wrote, “Just some really helpful advice from my mom on how to deal with my Olympic crush.

A passenger aboard a recent Jet2 flight from Spain to England saw something no traveler ever wants to see on a plane: a beer in the cockpit. Steve Lewis, of Northamptonshire, England, says he was “shocked” upon landing at Birmingham airport and seeing a can of Stella Artois sitting between the pilots. “The plane had landed and the seatbelt light came on. I stood up to get my suitcase and as I did the cockpit door opened and I noticed the can,” said Lewis, according to The Metro. “I turned to my partner Steven, who didn’t believe me at first,...

More than 9 in 10 new HIV cases among young men and boys ages 13 to 24 in the U.S. occur among homosexuals and bisexuals, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The April 25 CDC report, “HIV Among Gay and Bisexual Men,” offers stark evidence of the extreme health risks associated with male homosexual sex, in particular receptive anal sex. Below are some of its findings: — Gay and bisexual men aged 13 to 24 accounted for an estimated 92 percent of new HIV diagnoses among all men in their age group...

(RNS) Lighten up, Ash Wednesday.A New York-based advocacy group called Parity is asking Christians who favor LGBT equality  — “queer positive Christians,” in their parlance — to show their support by wearing “glitter ash” on their foreheads to mark Ash Wednesday (March 1).Ash Wednesday kicks off the six-week somber season called Lent that leads to Easter, and is usually marked in churches with the color purple. Traditionally, plain gray ashes, blessed by a minister or priest, are smeared on the foreheads of Christians to symbolize repentance.“This is a way for queer Christians and queer-positive persons of faith to say ‘We are here,'”...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has launched a smoking prevention campaign aimed at young adult lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) persons who are occasional users of tobacco. Young adult LGBT persons are nearly twice as likely to use tobacco as other young adults, said Mitch Zeller, JD, director, Center for Tobacco Products (CTP), FDA, during a press briefing to announce the campaign, called This Free Life. Of the more than 2 million LGBT persons aged 18 to 24 years in the United States, more than 800,000 are occasional or so-called social smokers, according to Dr Zeller. "Unfortunately,...

Jason Langlois and Will Bladh are in the early stages of making plans for their summer 2017 wedding, and they don’t want their excitement pierced by the pain of being rejected by a venue, florist and photographer who have a legal right in Utah to refuse to serve a gay couple. That’s why they joined several hundred people Sunday at a gay and lesbian wedding expo in Salt Lake City aimed at connecting couples with businesses who want to make it known they’re open to doing same-sex weddings. […] Utah is one of 29 states where it is legal for...

  Jim Alcorn/Special to The Record   When "Something Rotten!" actor Aaron Kaburick and stage manager Patrick Wetzel aren't at Broadway's St. James Theatre or their Manhattan residence, chances are they're enjoying their log cabin on West Milford's Pinecliff Lake. From the neon lights of Broadway and their work on the new musical "Something Rotten!" to the serenity of West Milford's Pinecliff Lake, where the only illumination comes from the stars, two Manhattan renters couldn't come up with a more different setting for their first home.  But that is what Aaron Kaburick and Patrick Wetzel wanted in a getaway home. ...

Friday marked a major milestone for same-sex marriage in the U.S. – and ice cream maker Ben & Jerry's is among those celebrating the landmark Supreme Court decision. The beloved brand's classic Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream has a new name to honor marriage equality. Relabeled "I Dough, I Dough," the carton depicts interlocking wedding bands, a red heart, rainbow flag and two cows with their tails linked. "With this ruling, the SCOTUS recognizes the bond of love and commitment between two people, and protects the fundamental rights and freedoms that come with it," Ben & Jerry's said in...

Researchers say that rising rates of syphilis along HIV among young gay men suggests risky sexual behaviour was to blame.. Public messages and campaigns about the dangers of unsafe sex do not appear to be getting through to men who have sex with men, the researchers say – particularly the young ones.

7 protesters ousted from Fort Worth City Council meeting By DEANNA BOYD dboyd@star-telegram.com FORT WORTH -- Seven protesters were removed from Tuesday night's City Council meeting after they repeatedly demanded to be moved up on the agenda to speak about last month's police raid at the Rainbow Lounge. "Hear us now! Hear us now!" five men chanted in a hallway outside City Council chambers. The men, believed to be members of Queer LiberAction, a Dallas-based gay rights group, were led out of the building by city marshals. Inside the meeting, the group's founder, Blake Wilkinson, repeatedly interrupted Mayor Mike Moncrief....

As I wrote last week, I firmly felt that the court even taking the case was akin to putting themselves in a position of authority ABOVE the constitution. In taking on the case they were essentially putting themselves in position to say that their authority outranked the document by which the entire legal system in the state of California is organized, operated, and established. They ruled in the only way they possibly could to save face and not create absolute tyrannical legal chaos and anarchy. For if they HAD taken out the scissors and claimed that a part of the...

I've spoken to an Amazon.com employee who works closely with the systems involved in the glitch. The employee asked me not to share his name because of company policies on talking with the media. On Sunday afternoon at least 20 Amazon.com employees were paged alerting them that items, possibly many, were incorrectly being flagged as adult. The employees also received links to the Twitter discussion AmazonFail. Thousands of people were angry that gay-themed books had disappeared from Amazon's sales rankings and search algorithms. The number of Tweets on Sunday afternoon that had the term "AmazonFail" surpassed even those with the...

Midtown lounge denies it discriminated against homosexual customers left waiting outside in the rain Owners of a Midtown lounge and the organizers of Houston’s first “guerrilla gay bar” met Monday to try to mend fences after a botched weekend event left both sides feeling mistreated. The “guerrilla gay bar” event was planned as an impromptu mixer of the city’s gay and straight communities at the Union Bar on Bagby. Instead of mingling with the bar’s typically straight customers, however, about 100 gays and lesbians were left standing out in the rain on Friday. Some who waited said it felt like...

Tuesday February 24, 2009 Homosexual Republican Group Calls Pro-Family Activists "Domestic Terrorists" By Kathleen GilbertATLANTA, Georgia, February 24, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A homosexualist Republican group is lobbying GOP chairman Michael Steele to turn a deaf ear to pro-family activists, who the group leader labeled in a letter "Anti-American" and "domestic terrorists." James Ensley, President of the Georgia Log Cabin Republicans (LCR), made the comments after the pro-family group, Americans for Truth, petitioned Steele to work to return the GOP to its conservative roots and protect true marriage."I want to urge you not to allow small biggoted [sic], anti-American and anti-Christian fringe...