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A recent performance by singer and performer Uché has ignited a firestorm of criticism after a video surfaced of him singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” with a controversial twist. In place of the time-honored closing line, “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” Uché deliberately changed the words to “land of the free, home of the gays.” The moment, which was captured and shared on TikTok during Pride Month, has prompted widespread backlash from Americans who see the alteration as a blatant sign of disrespect toward a cherished national symbol. The video, posted to Uché’s TikTok account...

SAN FRANCISCO — Pride Month festivities drew to a close Monday with one final Pride Parade that was closely followed by a Disinfectant Parade. Street sweepers, janitors, and crime scene cleaners, all clad in HAZMAT suits, were joined by a marching band that played loud trumpets to mask the noise of the heavy cleaning equipment. "Ugh, gross," said a marcher in the disinfectant marching parade as he trudged through piles of unspeakably filthy and highly infectious parade trash. "I mean, yay pride!" As the parade progressed, the rainbow-colored motif of Pride was replaced with the vibrant blue of barbicide...

The founder of a Pride group, who raped an 'extremely vulnerable' boy who he met on Grindr, has been jailed for 13 years. Stephen Ireland, 42, who co-founded Pride in Surrey in 2018, raped the child at the flat he shared with his then partner and co-defendant David Sutton, 27, in Addlestone on April 19, 2024. Ireland had arranged for the 12-year-old boy, referred to in court as Child A, to meet him at his flat after messaging on dating app Grindr, the court heard. The boy, who had been reported missing at the time, told police they had sex...

Around 10,000 people gathered in and around the Lancaster County Convention Center on Saturday for the 17th annual Lancaster Pride Festival, the largest gathering in the festival’s history and the first to be attended by a Pennsylvania governor. Fifty-six years to the day since the Stonewall uprising in New York City renewed the gay rights movement in America and 10 years since the United States Supreme Court established marriage equality, Gov. Josh Shapiro joined local elected officials and festival organizers onstage to celebrate Lancaster’s LGBTQ+ community. Sights from Lancaster Pride Festival 2025 [photos] “Here in Pennsylvania, we fight for equality...

Gov. Josh Shapiro will be joining Pennsylvania’s LGBTQ community and their supporters at Lancaster Pride Festival on Saturday. His announcement came the same day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that parents must be allowed a provision to opt out their children from class when course material conflicts with their religious beliefs. The suit over LGBTQ book characters was the latest in a series of legal actions, state and federal legislation, presidential executive orders and funding threats targeting the rights of LGBTQ people. In Pennsylvania the major hospitals that provide gender affirming care to trans people of all ages, abruptly dropped...

The transgender flags that usually adorn the Stonewall National Monument in New York City during Pride Month are missing this year. As CBS News New York's Dave Carlin reports, some New Yorkers are taking matters into their own hands.

I've never been 'proud' to be gay. Despite being openly gay, happily married, a parent, a public figure. The truth is, I'm proud of my accomplishments. The things I fought for. My career. My family. My grit. Not the things I am by default. Being gay isn't a merit badge — it's a fact of my existence. And that's why I've always had a complicated relationship with Pride Month. When I was a teenager in the '90s, being gay meant living with shame, not pride. It meant keeping your truth under wraps to avoid being bullied, rejected, or worse. Back...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Navy to take the rare step of renaming a ship, one that bears the name of a gay rights icon, documents and sources show. Military.com reviewed a memorandum from the Office of the Secretary of the Navy -- the official who holds the power to name Navy ships -- that showed the sea service had come up with rollout plans for the renaming of the oiler ship USNS Harvey Milk. A defense official confirmed that the Navy was making preparations to strip the ship of its name but noted that Navy Secretary John...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Navy to take the rare step of renaming a ship, one that bears the name of a gay rights icon, documents and sources show. Military.com reviewed a memorandum from the Office of the Secretary of the Navy -- the official who holds the power to name Navy ships -- that showed the sea service had come up with rollout plans for the renaming of the oiler ship USNS Harvey Milk. A defense official confirmed that the Navy was making preparations to strip the ship of its name but noted that Navy Secretary John...

BOISE, Idaho — The Pride Season Kickoff, initially scheduled for June 6, has been canceled due to insufficient attendance, despite strong online enthusiasm. The event was intended to enhance LGBTQ+ visibility and community connection in June, serving as a precursor to the main Boise Pride celebration in September. Organizers expressed their commitment to expanding Pride in Boise, emphasizing the need for active community participation to bring new events to life. "We know the desire for more Pride programming is real—we hear it constantly," they said. However, they noted that early community buy-in is crucial for the success of events outside...

When corporations got rid of their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, many also axed their commitments to LGBTQ+ Pride Month. Even before Donald Trump's executive orders terminating all DEI positions in the federal government, dozens of major companies had already abandoned their practices. Many made their decisions after conservatives online specifically targeted them for their policies and threatened boycotts, with failed filmmaker turned failed congressional candidate Robby Starbuck taking credit for spearheading the movement. This withdrawal didn't just encompass inclusive work environments and hiring practices, or participation in the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index — in abandoning DEI, companies...

Around 1,000 people gathered Saturday morning at Santa Cruz Main Beach to spell out the word “Resist!” The event, organized by Indivisible Santa Cruz County, aimed to protest the Trump administration and celebrate Santa Cruz Pride’s 50th anniversary.

Pride month celebrations at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will not be permitted this June, leadership told agents and directors Thursday. “I’ve received several questions about the FBI’s stance on Pride Month and what related activities FBI divisions and employees should or should not participate in,” FBI Assistant Director for Public Affairs Ben Williamson said in an email to assistant directors in charge and special agents in charge on Thursday morning. “So, I want to take the opportunity to make FBI leadership’s expectations clear: There should be no official FBI actions, events, or messaging regarding Pride Month.” The email...

CV NEWS FEED // A day after CatholicVote reported that The Hill had published a column identifying a flag of the Sacred Heart of Jesus as “a symbol associated with the Christian right wing, specifically used to protest Pride,” the publication erased that claim from the column without noting the change. The practice of editing out controversial passages without acknowledging the correction in an editorial note is commonly known as “stealth-editing.”Nick Robertson originally wrote in his column: “The Sacred Heart of Jesus flag is a symbol associated with the Christian right wing, specifically used to protest Pride.”As of mid-afternoon the...

By all accounts, LGBT Pride Month 2025 will be conspicuously low-key. Appalled by Trump’s electoral victory and alarmed by the signal voters (a.k.a. consumers) sent, major corporations that once supported Pride events have scrambled for the exits as quickly as if someone had pulled the fire alarm. These developments bring relief to normal Americans, who feel as if the playground bully astride their chests finally dismounted and fled. But, for a cadre of die-hard activists, such public retreat from progressivism’s excesses represents an existential threat that must be thwarted.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church has released the advance edition of its 2025 Annual Statistical Report, detailing 2024 membership reports. Published by the General Conference’s (GC) Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research, the report presents division-level data on baptisms, attendance, and overall membership. As of December 31, 2024, global church membership reached 23,684,237—an increase from 22,785,195 in 2023, representing a net gain of 899,042 members. The East-Central Africa Division reported the greatest increase with over 446,000 baptisms and professions of faith, pushing its membership to more than 5.7 million. The Southern Asia Division and Inter-American Division also posted strong numbers, with...

She can finally have some pride in her job! Former President Joe Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has landed a new gig out of the White House as a grand marshal of NYC Pride Parade. Jean-Pierre, who became the first openly gay spokesperson to hold press briefings for a US president, will be among those to head the Big Apple’s famed annual parade in June, CBS reported. “It goes back to that trail-blazing career that she’s had in politics and representing the community at the highest microphone that exists,” NYC Pride spokesperson Chris Piedmont said of Jean-Pierre. Jean-Pierre, 50 —...

Idaho’s chief lawyer has asked the city of Boise to comply with a new law that limits what flags may be flown by government buildings and warned that the state may try to withhold sales tax revenues if the city refuses. Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador wrote a letter to Boise Mayor Lauren McLean on Tuesday requesting that she take down the prohibited flags outside city hall — as of Wednesday morning, the city displayed a Pride flag and a flag honoring organ and tissue donors, along with an American flag, city of Boise flag, state of Idaho flag and...

Why You Can No Longer Rely on LGBTQ+ Best Lists to Find an LGBTQ-Friendly College – And What You Can Do Instead ________________________ Over the past several years, we've seen a devastating rollback of protections and resources for LGBTQ+ people across the United States—currently under the Trump administration and previously in states actively pushing anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. These actions haven't just been symbolic. They've led to real consequences: the defunding, silencing, or outright closure of LGBTQ+ resource centers, the censorship of inclusive curricula, and the gutting of DEI offices on college campuses.

A lawmaker in Washington on Thursday likened legislation aimed at banning transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports in the state to racial segregation in the United States, arguing that those across the aisle are "making a lot of the same arguments today." Washington Democratic state Rep. Kristine Reeves spoke during an executive session of the House Education Committee on Thursday morning where members of the committee introduced SB 5123, a bill that aimed to expand protections for students, including gender expression and gender identity. "I recall a time in our country’s history not that long ago … where people...