Subject: GLBT Issues

• Go West Young Man

  January 31, 2007

• Reggae Artists Sign Anti-Homophobia Pact

  June 15, 2007

• Beach Mayoral Candidate Blasts "Adam and Steve"

  July 2, 2007

• Reggae and Homophobia Clash Again

  August 24, 2007

• Ex-Gay to Pay

  September 10, 2007

• Gay Marriage Amendment Debate Gets Noisy

  September 19, 2007

• A Crawl for Gay Rights

  March 17, 2008

• Over The Weekend - Gay Rights Crawl and Latin Flavored Festival

  March 17, 2008

• iTunes Tells Buju Banton to "Boom Bye Bye"

  April 22, 2008

• Gay-Friendly Cuba?

  July 8, 2008

• Time To Revoke to the Gay Adoption Ban

  September 10, 2008

• Homophobe Media Whizzes Not Doing So Great

  September 12, 2008

• The Homophobe Amendment Will Leave Pie In All Our Faces

  October 8, 2008

• Amendment 2 Battle May Get Florida Election Commission Involved

  October 21, 2008

• Florida Voters Favor Civil Unions, But Want to Ban Them Anyway

  October 23, 2008

• Cyber Attacks on Say No 2 Website

  October 31, 2008

• Bill Clinton Makes Last-Minute Push Against Amendment 2

  November 3, 2008

• Election Night: Save Dade's Amendment 2 Party

  November 5, 2008

• Next Step In Gay Marraige Fight: Waiting Game For The Obama Supreme Court

  November 5, 2008

• All the Gay-Lovers in Tallahassee Were Re-Elected

  November 6, 2008

• Protest Amendment 2, But Leave The Racism Out of It

  November 11, 2008

• State Uses Bad Science To Back Its Bad Gay Adoption Ban

  Florida is the only state in the union with laws that specifically single out gay people from adopting, and again that ban is being challenged as a gay Man who has been the foster parent of two sons since 2004 petitions for adoption. Now, are you ready for the huge friggin' list of respected organizations that support gay adoption? Hold on because it's long: the American Psychological Association, the Child Welfare League of America, the American Bar Association, the American Psychiatric Associ

  November 17, 2008

• Gay Marriage Is Only Half the Fight

  image via Join the Impact While we were out spending the weekend looking at women in $5 million bras and engaging in other usually unspeakable acts, better people were protesting for equal marriage rights outside Miami City Hall. We're not in a position to talk down to anyone, and we wouldn't anyway, but we'd just like to remind everyone to use these moments of protest and media attention to also advocate for a host of other issues effecting the GLBT community and society as a whole. The people

  November 17, 2008

• Hate Never Pays

  Focus on the Family spent millions battling gay marriage this election cycle, and is believed to be the single biggest donor to Amendment 2 sponsors Florida4Marraige (Homophobe in Chief John Stemberger was awarded the "Family Champion Award" by the group, and has close ties to leader James Dobson). They also spent more than half a million dollars in California in support of Prop. 8. Turns out they could have put that money to more practical use, like paying employes. All in all, 202 jobs will

  November 17, 2008

• "Sorry, I Can't Come Into Work Today, I'm Gay"

  Oh the proud history of Facebook-spread protest boycotts. Never forget the great Facebook strike of October, or those twenty times everyone was going to not purchase gas for a day. The latest to pop up in our news feed was "A Day With Out A Gay." "LGBT workers, business owners, consumers and taxpayers contribute over $700 billion to the U.S. economy each year and should not be treated as second class citizens." OMG, the Gays paid for the bailout! So now they are going to "call in Gay" for the

  November 19, 2008

• Gay Adoption Ruling More a Victory for the Kids

  In Miami, Save Dade aims to protect gay people from discrimination. So you'd think, on a day like today, the group would tally one point for themselves on the old civil rights scoreboard. A Miami-Dade Court ruled there's "no rational basis" for prohibiting gay adoption this morning and, yeah, at least temporarily, this is a loooong overdue symbol of hope for devoted gay parents. But today isn't about waving rainbow flags or patting GLBT activists on the back, says Save Dade Director CJ Ortuño.

  November 25, 2008

• Wait, So Registered Child Abusers Had More Adoption Rights Than Gays?

  Riptide was going to write you up a nice "The Florida Supreme Court for Dummies" post, but in its research found itself caught up in tangents. Our interest was spurred in part by yesterday's overturning of the gay adoption ban by a Miami judge (as well as by future Crist appointments). The issue will likely find itself before the Florida Supreme Court. But the court has taken up the issue before in James W. Cox vs. Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (HRS) back

  November 26, 2008

• Gay Adoption: Wingnuts Respond

  Trying to find an underlying ideological thread between anti-gay mouthpieces is futile. The only thing that unites them is hate. Take evangelical conservative Frank Turek's column on Town Hall today. It's a bunch of wack shit the crosses over into offensive, but basically he comes to the conclusion that "there should be no legal class of 'gay' or 'straight,' just a legal class called 'person.'" So taking his theory on its face, there shouldn't be any laws that explicitly discriminate against hom

  November 26, 2008

• Dade Gets Shout-Out in Milk

  In movies, Miami gets a bad rap. It's always cocaine smuggler this, and mafia murderer that. It's like come on, Hollywood. You're making us look bad.  So when Riptide heard Dade County got a cameo in Gus Van Sant's new film Milk, we bought some trans fat-soaked popcorn and got comfortable next to two cute, twinkish, super-excited gay dudes this past weekend. The flick, which tells the story of the martyred gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, was spliced with actual footage from the

  December 2, 2008

• 10 People Who Totally Should Be Giving Obama's Invocation

  Barack Obama was supposed to be the most recklessly liberal President of all time. What happened? Now he's got Rick Warren, this anti-Gay religious hack giving the invocation at his inauguration and every one is pissed. It's not too late to ditch him, Barry. This guy is like the Sarah Palin of pastors -- you only chose him because he appeals to the right wingers, but he has a history of saying stupid shit and he'll drag your numbers down faster than an anchor. Instead Obama we have taken the lib

  December 19, 2008

• Mickey Rourke Campaigns for the Oscar by Calling Sean Penn a Homophobe

  The Daily Beast obtained text messages by our favorite local comeback kid Mickey Rourke trashing Sean Penn's performance in Milk and calling him a homophobe. It's ironic that Rourke is freely castigating people as homophobes when he was the one caught on tape calling a reporter a faggot just a few months ago. But it's not surprising. Rourke knows he'll be the best actor runner up for his role in The Wrestler in the awards show race, and spreading the idea that Sean Penn is a homophobe may be the

  December 30, 2008

• Q&A With South Florida Real World: Brooklyn Cast

  Last night, Real World: Brooklyn made queer TV history, thanks to the first ever transgender cast member, a South Florida male-to-female named Katelyn Cusanelli. The introspective, self-proclaimed computer geek, who went to McPhatter Technical School in Davie and Palm Beach Community College talked to Riptide yesterday about hormone therapy, "escaping" from South Florida, and what it's like to have a camera shoved in your face 24 hours a day.A second GLBT cast member, JD Ordonez -- a gay Miami

  January 8, 2009

• Obama Takes Our Gay Bishop Advice!

  Remember that hullabaloo over Barack Obama inviting not-so-gay-friendly Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration? Riptide helpfully stepped in and offered suggestions for less controversial, more gay-friendly religious folks whom Obama should have invited, including Reverend Lovejoy, Reverend Run, Blackface Jesus, and openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson. Well, la-di-da, look who'll be leading a separate (and not even really equal) prayer service at the inauguration. Gene Robinson! He'

  January 14, 2009

• Floridians Favor Some Sort of Legal Recognition for Gay Couples, Despite Banning Marriage in the Constitution

  It was pretty evident to anyone with basic reading comprehension skills that the part of Amendment 2 that read, "no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized," would ban civil unions in the Florida Constitution. Florida voters passed that Amendment at a rate of 62 percent. Ironically, according to a new Quinnipiac poll, Floridians favor some sort of substantial legal recognition of gay relationships by 62 percent; 27 per

  January 22, 2009

• Queer in Miami? Fear Not: There Are Three Places You Can Pee

  When it comes to breaking the law in Miami, no place is sacred. The greasy claw of crime will dig its fingernails in anywhere. Churches and synagogues? Be damned. Schools and hospitals? Fair game. That apparently doesn't stop at the bathroom door. Our classy city's latest claim to fame: The least queer-friendly, most hate crime-prone public restrooms. According to safe2pee.org -- a site that maps secure spots for transgender folks to tinkle -- Miami has the fewest safe toilets of all major U

  January 28, 2009

• Shocking: Gay Travelers Aren't Down with Florida

  The good state of Florida wants gay people to know something: You sure as hell can't adopt here, but we've been counting on your child-free-in-a-recession vacation dollars. (Expensive SoFla hotel? Check. Poolside margarita? Check. Civil rights? Umm, about that...) Along with insanely wealthy folks, gay people are up there with the biggest travel spenders. In the U.S., gay people dish out about $70 billion per year -- or 5 percent of the nation's total money spent on tourism. But for as hard

  February 17, 2009

• The Same People Who Brought You Amendment Two Gear Up For Gay Adoption Fight

  It's been a long time since we've heard from the folks at the Liberty Council, the religious right wing organization that played a huge role in Amendment Two -- the ban that threatens any recognition of homosexual commitment in Florida. Wonder what they're up to? Oh, doing everything in their power to uphold Florida's gay adoption ban, of course. They're filing an amicus brief in support of the ban in advance of the impending supreme court showdown over the gay marriage ban that Miami-Dade judge

  March 5, 2009

• Support Gay Pride: Eat, Drink and Be Merry

  April 9, 2009

• Famous Numbers Person Predicts Florida Could Have Gay Marriage by 2013

  Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com correctly predicted the outcome of the presidential election, and because of that, he can find the answer to everything with a few clicks of his calculator. Except for the Oscars; he sure got those wrong. Sorry, Mickey. Now Silver is trying to predict the years when each state could successfully fend off a voter initiative to ban gay marriage. Based on the number of voters who cite religion as a very important part of their lives, he's created a model: The mo

  April 9, 2009

• If Looks Could Kill

  Back-alley plastic surgery sent Donnie Hendrix to jail. Finally, she talks.

  March 5, 2009

• I Want My Gay TV

  MTV's Real World breaks barriers with two South Floridians.

  January 8, 2009

• A Tale of Two Movies

  After decades in development hell, how Gus Van Sant finally got Milk.

  November 20, 2008

• Letters from the Issue of November 20, 2008

  "I would never tell them to their face that I voted yes on Amendment 2 in Florida to avoid the inevitable fallout."

  November 20, 2008

• Ban on Gay Marriage Got the Black Vote

  Amendement 2 oppresses another minority.

  November 13, 2008

• Miami Loses

  Residents passed the amendment to ban gay marriage.

  November 6, 2008

• Miami Loses

  Of course, Tuesday's presidential result made history. And we celebrated. But all is not well.

  October 30, 2008

• Gay Hate in Miami Beach

  A condo association rejects a dream tenant and his partner.

  October 16, 2008

• The Mother of All Galas

  Gay choirs swarm Miami this week.

  July 17, 2008

• It’s Not Just Cocktails

  This year’s Winter Party is about more than booty-shakin’.

  February 28, 2008

• Gay Pride Parade Attracts Copious Happy People, One Homophobe

  There were a thousand little reasons to cheer -- or laugh or cry -- at the first Miami Beach Gay Pride Parade this past Saturday. To name a few: A sweet-faced elderly couple carried a sign that read "George and Peter. Together 65 years." Then there was the tight-bodied pack of beautiful women in bikinis gyrating to house music on a giant papier-mâché cheeseburger float. Not to mention the appearance from Miami Beach City Commissioner Victor Diaz, who openly snuggled with a windswept blond fe

  April 20, 2009