Reporting from Washington — The Justice Department on Wednesday asked a federal appeals court in San Francisco to quickly set aside a judge's order that bars enforcement of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, saying the judge's "extraordinary decision" went too far, too fast.

Teen Takes Life After School Attack

http://www.advocate.com/uploadedImag...lliamsx390.jpg

A 17-year-old high-school student took his own life October 13 — hours after being attacked by five classmates after school.

Terrel Williams, a student at Clover Park High School, was reportedly attacked by five classmates hours before his mother found his body hanging in a closet at their family's vacation home in Lakewood, Wash., according to LGBTQNation.

Cheryl Williams, the boy's mother, wrote on Twitter Wednesday, "My son meant the world, and high school bullies pushed him over the edge. I hope and pray, that no other child ever has to go through what he did. Bullying isn’t worth it. Why can’t people just be nice?"

Before taking his life, Williams wrote a note, saying that coming out and his relationship with his boyfriend, Daric Rawr, were some of the best things in his life. The couple would have celebrated their seventh anniversary together this Saturday, the same day as Williams's 18th birthday.

"I'm sorry to my immediate loved ones, but I feel suicide is the only way out," Williams wrote in a letter he left behind. "Today, was the record worst day of my life, some kids at school stole some of my stuff that I got from people I really cared about, and that really pushed me over the top, next to being shoved into a wall, and my ribs being broken."

According to LGBTQNation, Rawr said of Williams, “He loved life, but felt the need to take it, because [the bullying] didn’t stop ... respectful, whole-hearted people like Terrel, and the growing number of others, shouldn’t have to feel suicide is the answer, because bullies won’t stop.”

GOP congressional candidate Stephen Broden says violent overthrow of government is 'on the table'

WASHINGTON – Republican congressional candidate Stephen Broden stunned his party Thursday, saying he would not rule out violent overthrow of the government if elections did not produce a change in leadership.

In a rambling exchange during a TV interview, Broden, a South Dallas pastor, said a violent uprising "is not the first option," but it is "on the table." That drew a quick denunciation from the head of the Dallas County GOP, who called the remarks "inappropriate."

'Hang Them': Uganda Paper Publishes Photos Of Gays
 

http://media.npr.org/images/ap//AP_N...g?t=1287515700



http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=130672582

The Illusion of Privacy
 

More privacy headaches for Facebook: gay users outed to advertisers

By Jacqui Cheng

Facebook's privacy problems continue this week after researchers discovered that Facebook may inadvertently be outing gay users to its advertisers. Saikat Guha from Microsoft and Bin Cheng and Paul Francis from the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems set out to study the challenges in targeted advertising systems (PDF) online, but found that advertisers can ferret out gay users from straight users just by looking at who's clicking—even when that sexual orientation is hidden.

The team set up profiles for straight men, straight women, a gay man, and a lesbian to see how the ads differed between the different types of users. The ads did change for the gay and lesbian users, though the difference in the ads was much greater for the gay males (compared to the straight males) than gay females, "indicating that advertisers target more strongly to [gay males]" reads the paper.

This in itself isn't a huge cause for concern, but the researchers were disturbed by the fact that the text for the ads were sexual-orientation-neutral, even though they were measurably different. Half of the ads were exclusively shown to gay men, but the text associated with them was neutral, therefore not giving a clear indicator to those users that the ads they click were directly tied to their sexual orientation.

"The danger with such ads, unlike the gay bar ad where the target demographic is blatantly obvious, is that the user reading the ad text would have no idea that by clicking it he would reveal to the advertiser both his sexual-orientation and a unique identifier (cookie, IP address, or email address if he signs up on the advertiser’s site)," wrote the researchers.

If the advertiser in question also collects other data, such as Facebook ID, the info can be tied together without much thought, even if the user has not made that information public. As we saw earlier this week, Facebook IDs and other user info are running rampant across ad networks and third-party app developers, and the collection of such information (especially when tied to something as sensitive as sexual orientation) could spell disaster for a user who thinks he's being fastidious when keeping his profile private.

Facebook's official policy is that any data collected by advertisers must be anonymized, but given this week's discoveries regarding Facebook IDs, it's pretty clear that there isn't anyone making sure the policies are enforced until after the fact. This is one area that two Congressmen focused on in their recent letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, but it's unlikely that any major changes to how Facebook handles its advertisers will come anytime in the near future.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...dvertisers.ars

Florida Attorney General Will Not Appeal Adoption Ban
 

fantastic!

Ex-Companion Details ‘Real’ Thomas

WASHINGTON — Lillian McEwen is not one of the women whose name is generally associated with Justice Clarence Thomas and his contentious confirmation hearings for a Supreme Court seat.

But now, at age 65 and retired from a long legal career, with nothing to lose and a book to sell, Ms. McEwen is ready for that to change.

This week’s news that his wife, Virginia, had left voice mail for Anita Hill, asking her to apologize for “what you did with my husband” at the confirmation hearings, gave Ms. McEwen an unexpected opportunity to talk about Justice Thomas, the man she was romantically involved with for “six or seven years” in the 1980s. The phone call, she said in an interview Friday, makes sense to her.

For Ms. Thomas, she said, the accusation of sexual harassment made by Ms. Hill “still has to be a mystery, that he is still angry about this and upset about it after all these years, and I can understand that she would want to know why, and solve a problem if she could — I mean, acting as a loyal wife.”

But Ms. McEwen said she knew a different Clarence Thomas, one whom she recognized in the 1991 testimony of Ms. Hill, who claimed that he had repeatedly made inappropriate sexual comments to her at work, including descriptions of pornographic films.

Ms. McEwen said that pornography for Justice Thomas was “just a part of his personality structure.” She said he kept a stack of pornographic magazines, “frequented a store on Dupont Circle that catered to his needs,” and allowed his interest in pornography to bleed into his professional relationships.

ARGH! I don't give a flip about the porn in terms of individual freedoms, but, this jerk is on the Supreme Court and Anita Hill was smeared all over during and after those hearings. And pornography and professional relationships.... WTF??????

Just when you thought it was safe to go to the gym.

http://gayrights.change.org/blog/vie...iticians?me=nl

Don't ask, don't tell' divides secretaries, commanders
 

Subject: GovExec Story:

'Don't ask, don't tell' divides secretaries, commanders.

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1010/102210cd2.htm

Go to the link above to read the entire story and to the Vet's and familes and children of Please COMMENT.

'Don't ask, don't tell' divides secretaries, commanders
By Sara Sorcher CongressDaily October 22, 2010

The three service secretaries now with the power to discharge any openly gay officer under the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy have all voiced their support for a repeal of the controversial policy in the past, putting them at odds with the senior military commanders.

"It's the first time in the 20 years I've spent studying the military that there has been a split between the Defense Secretary and the Secretary of the Joint Chiefs [who have voiced support of legislative repeal] and the other chiefs," said professor David Segal, director of the University of Maryland's Center for Research on Military Organization.

A directive from Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday limited discharges under the policy to an elite team of five: the Air Force, Army, and Navy Secretaries in conjunction with the Pentagon's legal counsel and the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.

Justice Elena Kagan's first vote is against an execution
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,5707237.story

http://biggaynews.com/young-gay-hiva...s-suicide/6390

http://blogs.alternet.org/antbern/20...-man-cut-down/

A 26-year-old gay youth activist who worked with HIV/AIDS charities in New York and graduated from the Harvey Milk High School committed suicide over the weekend. Rod 2.0 spoke with friends and colleagues of gay youth activist and HIV peer educator Joseph Jefferson. “Joseph was truly a sweetheart,” a friend who asked to remain nameless said. “Extremely bright and impassioned about social justice causes… It’s such a loss.” On Saturday, Jefferson posted on his Facebook page: “I could not bear the burden of living as a gay man of color in a world grown cold and hateful towards those of us who live and love differently than the so-called ’social mainstream.’”

Good for her. Too bad the blood thirsty majority on the Court went ahead and allowed the state to commit murder.

This part makes me question the judges sanity. Not Kagan.


A judge had put the execution on hold because she said she was "left to speculate" whether this drug was safe for its intended use.

"Safe for it's intended use", which is death. Do people even think any more?