CNN’s Anderson Cooper will join Wyclef Jean and George Clooney in hosting MTV Network’s “Hope for Haiti,” the global telethon.

Cooper will broadcast from Los Angeles, Jean in New York and Clooney in Los Angeles. They will be joined by performers including Jennifer Hudson, Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake, Bono, Bruce Springsteen and …

Tila Tequila has footballer arrested

Bisexual MTV star Tila Tequila accused NFL player Shawne Merriman of choking her.

Tila Tequila has footballer arrested

Bisexual MTV star Tila Tequila accused NFL player Shawne Merriman of choking her.

Homosexuals dispel myth of “progressive”

Each year in Germany, from the end of June through August, gay and lesbian rights’ activists celebrate the “Stonewall” uprising – named after a gay bar on Christopher Street in New York, where homosexuals fought back against police brutality in 1969.

Participants in the German parades known as “Christopher Street Day” join other activists around the world who take to the streets to demonstrate gay pride and demand greater freedoms.

Some of those freedoms would include expanded civil rights. In Germany, civil unions, for instance, have been permitted among same-sex couples since 2001, but full marriages are not. Homosexual couples therefore do not enjoy the same rights as married heterosexual couples when it comes to taxes, retirement, civil servant benefits, or adoption law.

For more on gay and lesbian rights and the community in Germany, click on the links below, or listen to this week’s “Living in Germany” program to hear a more personal account of a homosexual civil union.

DW-WORLD.DE

Audios and videos on the topic

Audio: Listen to this personal story on DW’s “Living in Germany” from July 13, 2009.

See Homosexuals dispel myth of “progressive” Germany Deutsche Welle

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Michael Jackson Memorial Confirmed For Staples Center July 7

LOS ANGELES — Organizers and representatives for the Jackson family have confirmed memorial services for Michael Jackson will take place Tuesday (July 7) inside the Staples Center. The announcement ended days of speculation about how the King of Pop would be memorialized.

Fans will be able to attend after registering for free tickets at StaplesCenter.com beginning Friday morning, and registration will run until Saturday evening at 6 p.m. On Sunday fans will be notified and receive information on how to pick up tickets on Monday. The registration process is elaborate and has caused the site to crash once already — but the Jackson family insisted on a process that was democratic and fair, taking into consideration the many fans expected to arrive in Los Angeles for the memorial.

“It was our wish to allow as many of Michael’s fans to be a part of the memorial, and we wish to thank everyone for their support and understanding at this difficult time,” the Jackson family said in a statement.

Only 17,500 tickets will be given away, with 11,000 entrants able to go inside the arena and the remaining 6,500 ushered just across the street to the Nokia Theater where the proceedings will be simulcast. There are no guarantees for fans who register online and only 8,750 people will be selected randomly by a computer-generated program. Each selected fan will receive two tickets and two wristbands.

No further details regarding the service were announced. At a press conference held outside of the Staples Center, Jackson family representative Ken Sunshine said the plans are still being developed. Sunshine said he hopes the ticket process is handed with “dignity” and that tickets not be resold or counterfeited.

See Michael Jackson Memorial Confirmed For Staples Center July 7

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Homosexuals Are “On Their Way to Hell” says Pat Robertson

Pat Robertson has dammned homosexuals to hell, claimed the majority of homosexuals were turned to that lifestyle due to an abusive relationship, and called homosexuality an “abomination of God”…all in one minute and 37 seconds.
Speaking on The 700 Club today, Robertson was responding to a question posed by a mother who was asking for help on “how to handle” her homosexual son: See Homosexuals Are “On Their Way to Hell” says Pat Robertson

TERRY MEEUWSEN (co-host): This is Theresa. This is difficult. She says, “How should we, as parents of a homosexual son, handle the ongoing challenges facing us, such as staying true to our faith and following the commandment to ‘love your neighbor as yourself’? This is very difficult for us.”
ROBERTSON: Well, first of all, he’s not your neighbor. He’s your son; that’s a different thing. You owe him, you know, advice and counsel and guidance. You’re his parent. First of all, you didn’t say how old he is. Secondly, I am not at all persuaded that so-called homosexuals are homosexuals because of biological problems. There may be a very few, but there are so many that have been made homosexuals because of a coach or a guidance counselor or some other male figure who has abused them and they think there’s something wrong with their sexuality. So you need to get deep into why he is what he is, instead of just saying, “Well, he’s a homosexual so how do I handle him, and how do I be Christian?” Well, I think you ought to tell him, “Listen, son, you know, here’s what the Bible says about this, and it’s called an abomination before God, so I’ve got to tell you the truth because I love you.” That’s what I think. All right, what else?
MEEUWSEN: And then you do that — you love him.
ROBERTSON: You love him. Of course you love him. And you accept him. You love him, but at the same time, you can’t let him just go, you know, he’ll wind up –
MEEUWSEN: Without knowing truth, yeah.
ROBERTSON: Well, I mean, if somebody’s on their way to hell, they’ll — I mean, you’ve got to love them to rescue them.
Instead of calling her son an “abomination of God” as Robertson would suggest, maybe “Theresa” should love and appreciate her son, regardless of his sexual orientation.

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Global video mashup for International Day Against Homophobia & Transphobia 2009 hits the Internet

359 people from 48 countries take part in massive global web video project to mark the IDAHO 2009

A global project to create a public awareness video for the International Day Against Homophobia & Transphobia (IDAHO) on May 17 has attracted the participation of 359 people from 48 countries across six continents around the world. The groundbreaking project is a joint undertaking of the Paris-based IDAHO Committee and the social network Gays.com, attracting 50,000 people to its website within a month.

Said Louis-Georges Tin, founder of the IDAHO committee, “We are overwhelmed and, at the same time, humbled by this torrent of enthusiastic support that has poured in from all four corners of the world since we kickstarted the video project in April. People have made the effort to go to such places as the Statue of Liberty, the Great Wall of China, the Sydney Opera House, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Merlion, the Petronas Twin Towers and the Eiffel Tower to shoot their video, contributing to the spectacular visual feast you see in the mashup.”

In April, members of the global LGBT community were invited to step out in front of the camera and in their own language introduce themselves, state where they are from and how proud they are to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. The result is a video that sends the powerful message that LGBT individuals are present in every country, every society and every corner of the world. Participants submitted videos in all of the world’s key languages, including Afrikaans, Arabic, Cantonese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tamil and even American Sign Language.

In addition to the groundswell of support from local communities from around the globe, renowned celebrities, activists, politicians and web personalities have also participated in the project. These include (in alphabetical order):

Ali Hili: Gay Iraqi activist now living in exile in London and founder of the Iraqi-LGBT group
ANT: Host of VH1 reality series Celebrity Fit Club and U.S. of ANT on MTV’s LOGO channel
Lizzy the Lezzy: Animated lesbian standup comedy character with a cult following on Youtube
Michael Buckley: Celebrity host of the entertainment show What the Buck, the 5th most subscribed comedy channel of all time on Youtube
Michael Kauch: German member of parliament and coordinator of the gay and lesbian policy for the Free Democratic Party
Stephen Williams: British Liberal Democrat member of parliament for Bristol West

Said Kenneth Tan, spokesperson for Gays.com, “Much has been said about Stonewall 2.0 and netroots activism since the Proposition 8 vote against gay marriage in California. This project was made possible only by the Internet, and we believe there are a limitless number of opportunities for the LGBT community to harness the power of the Internet to educate, raise awareness, promote equality, and to debunk myths. We have been honoured to partner with the IDAHO Committee in the execution of such an amazing project.”

Prior to the launch of the video, Gays.com announced that it experienced a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack which began at approximately 3.50am Hong Kong time on May 15, 2009, causing the entire website to be inaccessible.

A distributed denial of service attack occurs when a multitude of systems attempt to flood the bandwidth or resources of a targeted system with illegitimate website requests. The flood of traffic by these requests cause the Internet bandwidth of the attacked site to be consumed to such an extent that the website is inaccessible to other legitimate users.

Said Kenneth Tan, Gays.com spokesperson, “The timing of this DDoS attack on Gays.com is by no means a coincidence. We have been working for weeks on this high profile video campaign together with the Committee for the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. The final product of this campaign, a public awareness video, was going to be launched on the campaign site at http://gays.com/idaho on Sunday. This is a well-timed, well-orchestrated assault by a large botnet with tens of thousands of PCs sending requests to our site. Engineers with our Internet Service Provider remarked they have never seen an attack of this intensity before. We deplore these unscrupulous actions by an organised group to harrass, intimidate and silence us for what we are doing.”

Added Tan, “Our technical staff are now working round the clock to restore services to legitimate users. In the meanwhile, we are going through our access logs, gathering information through various mechanisms and connecting the dots to identify the origin of the attacks. We will be working with law enforcement officials to bring the cyberterrorists to justice.”

The video “IDAHO 2009: One Voice, One Message, Heard Around the World” is now accessible at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2Rp8ep_ezE

The Committee for the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO) is a network of activists, present in over 50 countries, who seek to promote the idea of an international day against homophobia and transphobia. This day has been recognized officially by a number of governments around the world and provides an opportunity for the LGBT movement across the world to unite in a powerful demonstration of collective visibility.

Gays.com was designed for members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community as the world’s first LGBT social networking website that designed for real people with real names an real world connections. The site aims to build an authentic social environment that helps people maintain their relationships with people they actually know. Launched in May 2008, Gays.com is headquartered in Hong Kong with a development team spread between Shanghai, China and Bielefeld, Germany.

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‘Milk’ Oscar Winner: My Emotional Voyage Home to High School

Editor’s Note: On May 9th, Academy Award-winning “Milk” screenwriter Dustin Lance Black returned to his high school in North Salinas, CA, as part of Live Out Loud’s Homecoming Project. Aiming to inspire a new generation of role models, the program brings lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) leaders back to their high schools to share their personal stories with today’s students. In this exclusive submission to the MTV Movies Blog, Black tells us about his first time returning to the school since that powerful Oscar night speech, when he had spoken of his struggles as a gay teenager.
by Dustin Lance Black
My palms got a little sweaty as I turned off East Alvin Drive in Salinas, and onto Kip Drive.
For the first time in 17 years, I saw the entrance to my old high school, the same one where I was once called “gay” by my peers. And it wasn’t said as a compliment — it was said with hate, anger, and on one occasion I was honestly afraid of getting my butt whipped.
So, I did what so many kids still do — I tried to vanish. I didn’t get great grades, I didn’t excel, I shrunk and hid, and I did my best to disappear at lunch. High school is tough for almost everyone, but for LGBT kids, it can be truly frightening. And as much as I know that I’m all grown up now, and that I can stand up for myself, I still got a little knot in my stomach as we pulled up to the front doors of North Salinas High and the camera crews closed in.
Before my speech, I hung out in a back room waiting to be announced, but I could hear the crowd inside the gym. It sounded big. Then I heard them play my Oscar speech, and if you haven’t heard it yet, it’s pretty clear that I’m a gay guy fighting for the LGBT kids out there. The room got very quiet; I got a little nervous. But when the Principal called my name and I came through those doors, I was greeted by a standing ovation from the over 1000 students who chose to show up. That was my first clue that something had changed at North High. See ‘Milk’ Oscar Winner: My Emotional Voyage Home to High School
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Same-Sex Marriage Approved In Maine: What It Means For One Couple …

With Maine becoming the fifth state in the union to approve same-sex marriage, our former Jaime McLeod, a member of MTV’s Street Team ‘08, wrote a blog for us about what the ruling means to her …
Five years ago, my partner and I stood up in front of our families, our friends and our God, and pledged to walk together and care for one another, no matter what life brings. Though it wasn’t legally binding, we meant it, and we still mean it today.
In 89 days, we will finally be able to make the vows we made to one another official. It won’t change the way we see our relationship. It won’t change the way those who love us see our relationship. And, for that matter, it won’t change the way those who hate us see our relationship. As some of my gay friends keep pointing out, gay marriage won’t cure homophobia. It won’t cure AIDS. It won’t keep queer kids from getting bullied in school. But it’s a step. It ensures that the relationship my partner and I have worked so hard on for the last eight years doesn’t receive fewer protections under the law than the drunken Vegas wedding of a pop starlet to some guy she hardly knows. It means our friends won’t have to go through a ridiculously difficult legal process so that their kids can have two legal parents. And it means that a majority of legislators in my state were willing to stand up and acknowledge that same-sex relationships are just as valid as heterosexual ones.
Thank you, Maine State Legislature, and Gov. Baldacci, for doing the right thing and affirming the rights of all Mainers. You’re all invited to my second wedding! See Same-Sex Marriage Approved In Maine: What It Means For One Couple …
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