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A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official cited an “epidemic” of syphilis among homosexual men during an event Thursday by a lobbying group pushing for an increase in federal funding for sexually transmitted disease prevention from $157 million to $212 million. “We’re also seeing what we are calling pretty much an epidemic of syphilis among men who have sex with men – that really started in the early – 2000, 2002, but we’ve seen a dramatic increase since 2008,” Dr. Gail Bolan, director of CDC’s Division of STD Prevention, said at a briefing by the National Coalition of STD...

Scientists are stepping up efforts to identify a mysterious gooey substance polluting waters along the eastern edge of San Francisco Bay, coating hundreds of sea birds and killing scores of them, a state wildlife official said Tuesday. Initial field testing of the slime, first reported on Friday, came back negative for petroleum but authorities hope a more comprehensive laboratory analysis will provide some conclusive results, said Andrew Hughan, spokesman for the California Department of Fish & Wildlife. More than 100 birds, mostly ocean-going water fowl, have died after their feathers became soaked in the colorless, odorless goop, impairing their ability...

2 US men arrested on gay cruise in CaribbeanBy CARLISLE JNO BAPTISTE, Associated Press Wednesday, March 21, 2012 ROSEAU, Dominica (AP) - Two California men on a gay cruise of the Caribbean were arrested Wednesday in Dominica, where sex between two men is illegal. Police Constable John George said police boarded the cruise ship and arrested the two men on suspicion of indecent exposure and "buggery," a term equivalent to sodomy on the island. He identified the men as John Robert Hart, 41, and Dennis Jay Mayer, 43, but did not provide their hometowns. George said the men were seen...

American combat troops will get sensitivity training directly on the battlefield about the military’s new policy on gays instead of waiting until they return to home base in the United States, the senior enlisted man in Afghanistan said Thursday. The Pentagon is launching an extensive force-wide program to ease the process of integrating open homosexuals into the ranks, including into close-knit fighting units. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Marvin Hill, the top enlisted man in Afghanistan where 100,000 U.S. troops are deployed, said that the sessions on respecting gays’ rights will go right down to the forward operating bases, where troops...

Every day before he left for work, Richard Dennis would kiss his partner on the forehead as he slept, knowing each kiss could be their last. That's because Dennis' partner, Jair Izquierdo, was in the United States illegally and the pair's civil union wasn't recognized by the federal government. So the New York couple of more than five years lived their lives in constant fear that Izquierdo, a Peruvian citizen who had overstayed his visa, would be deported. Then, in October, it happened. Izquierdo, 33, was at his job as a cosmetician at a hair salon in New York's East...

The world is wickedly insane, and America is not far behind. I have watched for years as inch by inch our country has marched steadily toward immorality that would shock the Americans of only 60 years ago. Things that would never have been accepted in the mainstream then are ho-hum routine today, and the rallying cry of the immoral left is, “We must move into the 21st century like the rest of the world!” I’ll never buy that tripe, because I know that the foundation of truth and morality will never change, no matter what all the forces of hell...

Shock at conference on climate change and creativity Clerics in the South Pacific have fingered the key cause of climate change - homosexuals. The revelation came at a conference at the University of the South Pacific considering the implications of Climate Change and Creativity. Academics were apparently thrown off their consideration of "Arts in the Age of Global Warming" and "Ecology in Poetry / Poetry in Ecology" by reports of Church Ministers who maintained that climate change in Samoa are clearly attributable to to homosexuals. The revelation prompted one attendee USP student, Shaiza Janif, to opine: "We need to educate...

A growing number of Republicans are breaking with the party's traditional stance to publicly state their support for same-sex marriage, a shift strategists say stems as much from demographics as from the renewed focus on economics and the "tea party" movement. A solid majority of adults younger than 30 - about six in 10 - support the right of gay and lesbian couples to legally wed, according to a Washington Post poll in February. But even many older Americans and self-identified social conservatives have changed their view on an issue that just six years ago galvanized voters in support of...

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made it clear the Pentagon remains committed to scrapping the law that bans openly gay people from serving in the military. Gates’ confirmation comes days after he caused a stir in Congress and within the gay rights community when he told the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee to hold off on repealing the law until the Pentagon finishes its study. Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) had asked the defense chief to justify the purpose for the yearlong study, questioning if it was meant to determine whether the ban should be repealed or whether it...

As far as tailgate parties go, this one was a bit more swank than usual. Under purple tents, sommeliers from Barefoot Wine & Bubbly in Modesto poured their latest Pinot Noir while fans mingled and grooved to dance music. Guests were invited to play beanbag toss. Thursday marked the first time the Golden State Warriors basketball team hosted an LGBT night - adding the gay community to its long roster of diversity-themed games that include everything from Bollywood dancing on Indian culture night to horn-blowing rabbis on Jewish heritage night. "Generally in sports the gay issue is a touchy one,...

ALBANY — Angered by the defeat last year of a bill that would have allowed same-sex couples to marry, a group of well-financed gay rights advocates has started a political action committee to take aim at state senators who have opposed same-sex marriage. In total, the political action committee, called Fight Back New York, is prepared to raise and spend in the high six figures range in the State Senate races this year, according to people involved with the committee. Financing and organization will come, in part, from some of the most politically sophisticated and financially powerful gay rights advocates...

California Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chairman Ryan Sorba generated a media controversy when he was shown at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) denouncing the organizers for inviting a homosexual Republican group, GOProud, into the event as an official sponsor. In "controversial" remarks, Sorba said homosexuality was unnatural and that he welcomed more debate and discussion about the subject from his political adversaries. But what many people don't realize is that Sorba's "outburst" was provoked by a speaker who preceded him, Alexander McCobin of Students For Liberty (SFL). McCobin went out of his way to use valuable time from...

Department of Human Resource Management Commonwealth of Virginia Health Benefits Program [1 VAC 55 ‑ 20] Public Comment Forum On this Action: This action will amend section 1VAC 55 320(E) to include adults, other than spouses and incapacitated adult children, as participants in the Health Benefits Plan for State Employees NOIRA Stage - View the regulatory documents In Progress! Opened on 11/23/2009 and closes at 11:59pm on 12/23/2009 More about public comment forums Enter a comment

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....

Two states have legalized same-sex marriage in the past two weeks, but when it comes to public opinion, supporters of gay marriage are still a minority. That minority is on an upward trajectory though and Scott Barclay, political scientist at the State University of New York at Albany, explains why: newspapers. In the last two weeks, two states have legalized same-sex marriage. First, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that a law banning same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Then Vermont became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage through its legislature. When it comes to public opinion, supporters of gay marriage are...

I don't know what to say: If the makers of this video weren't intentionally looking to portray almost every stereotype about homosexuals ...

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...

WILKES-BARRE – Harlow Cuadra slumped in his chair when he heard the jury foreperson say “guilty,” convicting him for the brutal slaying of Bryan Kocis in January 2007. The verdict, which came after more than three hours of deliberation on Thursday, carries 12 convictions, including first-degree homicide. The jury will return today to determine whether Cuadra, 27, should be sentenced to death or spend the rest of his life in prison. Cuadra showed little emotion other than slumping in the chair. He appeared withdrawn and said nothing when escorted out of the Luzerne County Courthouse about an hour after the...

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...

BOSTON - Gay and bisexual men in Massachusetts continue to be the hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic with a significant percentage of new cases appearing among minority men. That’s according to a new report by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health that found while the state has had success battling the disease among injection drug users and heterosexual men and women, it has had less success among gay and bisexual men. More than half of HIV infections between 2004 and 2006 were among gay and bisexual men even though they make up less than 10 percent of the population.