Some might say this was inevitable: The Human Rights Campaign today endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. (Scroll down to take our poll as to who you’d like to see as the Democratic nominee.)
In a statement, HRC president Chad Griffin noted that “we are preparing to put the full force of the Human Rights Campaign behind a pro-equality candidate who will be our next champion in the White House,” adding that the organization will be “launching an unprecedented effort over the next nine months to register, organize, and mobilize the nation’s pro-equality majority for Hillary Clinton and other key supportive candidates on the ballot this year.”
He continues, “In the time since she became the very first First Lady to march in a pride parade, she has led on bills to protect LGBT workers from employment discrimination, advanced hate crimes legislation, pushed for greater HIV/AIDS prevention and funding, and worked to extend partner benefits. As Secretary of State, she did more to advance LGBT equality as a pillar of U.S. foreign policy than any other diplomat in history, giving a landmark speech to the United Nations declaring that ‘gay rights are human rights.’ She helped lead the United Nations to pass the first-ever U.N. resolution on the human rights of LGBT people, and created the Global Equality Fund to advance the rights of LGBT people around the globe.”
Immediately following the announcement, Clinton released a statement, thanking the organization that shares her initials.
“I’m honored to receive the endorsement of the Human Rights Campaign—the nation’s largest organization working to achieve full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans. Thanks to the Human Rights Campaign and millions of advocates across the country, we’ve made tremendous progress. But our work is far from over. Too many LGBT Americans still face discrimination — in employment, in housing, in education, in health care — because of who they are or who they love. And the stakes in this election couldn’t be higher. The Republican candidates for president have not only hurled hateful, insulting rhetoric about the LGBT community — they’ve made it clear that if elected, they will roll back the rights that so many have fought for.
“As President, I will continue to fight alongside the LGBT community to pass the Equality Act. I’ll support efforts to allow transgender personnel to serve openly, and I’ll end the dangerous practice of ‘conversion therapy’ on minors. I’ll expand access to HIV prevention and treatment, and confront the epidemic of violence facing the transgender community, especially transgender women of color. And I’ll continue the efforts I led as Secretary of State to advance the human rights of LGBT people around the world.
“I’m proud to stand with the Human Rights Campaign in this fight. Together, we can and will make our country—and our world—more just, fair, and equal for generations to come.”
"I love that you think I have more than one home," laughs Wilson Cruz, settling in at his New York apartment for what will ultimately become a wide-ranging, two-hour Zoom interview. "I am a journeyman actor who has been cobbling together a career for 30 years. That's what I am."
Truth is, Wilson Cruz is much more than that. This is the third time Cruz has been featured on a Metro Weekly cover, and he ensures that a conversation with him feels familiar, like time spent with a best friend. Talking with him is also somewhat of a unique event -- spirited, unbridled, utterly free of artifice. He is warm. He is welcoming. He is wise.
Maybe not exactly like Thirty, a feature loosely assembled from episodes of the eponymous VOD series created by Dontá Morrison and co-written with director Anthony Bawn. But films that likewise feature a gay Black couple as the center of the story, or of a circle of friends, come few and far between.
Undeniably the stories are out there, as is the audience, yet, as one Thirty character laments of the media landscape, "white boys get all the airtime."
Thirty lends its air time to the epic trials and tribulations of longtime couple Khalil (Bobby Musique Cooks), a Hollywood stylist, and Tyrin (Brandon Moten), an ad agency owner, and their young and restless friends, most of whom are Black and queer.
Pennsylvania's two Democratic senators pulled $1 million in funding for Philadelphia's William Way LGBT Community Center after it was revealed to have allowed a group that holds monthly BDSM, kink, and fetish parties for adults to use its facilities.
The anti-LGBTQ Libs of TikTok account criticized congressional funding for the William Way LGBT Community Center, noting that a kink-positive group known as The Aviary had used the center's facilities to host monthly events since 2015. The Aviary describes itself as "Philadelphia's friendliest and longest running kink and fetish party," and encourages "players of all skill types" to come to the monthly "all inclusive" social event on its Eventbrite page.
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