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Supreme Court Rules “Free Speech” More Important Than Safe Access to Abortions, Healthcare

Supreme Court Rules “Free Speech” More Important Than Safe Access to Abortions, Healthcare

Feature image via Fibonacci Blue/Flickr

The Supreme Court has struck down a Massachusetts law establishing a 35-foot “buffer zone” around abortion clinics, stating that it violated the free speech rights of the groups who often picket outside them. It also cast doubt on a prior Supreme Court decision, issued in 2000, upholding much smaller “floating buffer zones” in some states. Chief Justice…

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We Won A Thing! Indiana Judge Throws Out State’s Same-Sex Marriage Ban

We Won A Thing! Indiana Judge Throws Out State’s Same-Sex Marriage Ban

The train just keeps on rolling: This morning, a federal judge in Indiana determined that the state’s same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional, and couples in the state have already begun marrying.

Amy Sandler and Niki Quasney sued Indiana for recognition of their marriage, performed in Massachusetts last year. They were granted immediate relief so Quasney, who is terminally ill, could receive a…

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FIFA Claims “Zero Tolerance” On Discrimination; Citizens of World Cup Host Countries Might Disagree

FIFA Claims “Zero Tolerance” On Discrimination; Citizens of World Cup Host Countries Might Disagree

Feature image via Funcheap

On Thursday, June 19th, FIFA announced that it was opening a case against Mexico to investigatethe “improper conduct of spectators” a week earlier on June 13th, and on June 17th. The disciplinary proceedings began after allegations that Mexican spectators had used homophobic slurs during Mexico’s World Cup match against Cameroon and then later during the second match…

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Senate Delay Threatens Funding for Thousands of Untested Rape Kits

Senate Delay Threatens Funding for Thousands of Untested Rape Kits

Feature image via EndTheBacklog

It’s a problem of unknown magnitude — recent estimates place the number somewhere around 100,000 — but the consequences of the nationwide rape kit testing backlogare clear and appalling. While precincts with budget problems can’t afford the $1,200 price tag that comes with examining them, the attackers whose DNA they may contain walk free; the victims who told…

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Two Years Later, Shooter of Texas Teenage Lesbian Couple Arrested For Murder and Sexual Assault

Two Years Later, Shooter of Texas Teenage Lesbian Couple Arrested For Murder and Sexual Assault

You may remember the story of 19-year-old Mollie Judith Olgin and 18-year-old Mary Christine Chapa, a young lesbian couple who, in June 2012, were assaulted, shot and left for dead in Violet Andrews Park overlooking Corpus Christi Bay in Portland, Texas. Chapa survived the shooting but suffered a brain injury. Olgin did not. Friends described the couple, who had been dating for five months, as…

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Presbyterian Church Assembly Votes to Make Room for Marriage Equality in Their Congregation

Presbyterian Church Assembly Votes to Make Room for Marriage Equality in Their Congregation

Kaci and Holly Clark-Porter met as students at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas. When they decided to get married, they grieved at not being able to have their commitment ceremony in the school’s Shepard Chapel. After a landmark vote in the Presbyterian Church USA General Assembly Thursday, gay and lesbian couples may now be able to have such ceremonies in Shepard Chapel…

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South Carolina Punishes Universities for LGBT Reading List with Extra Dose of America

South Carolina Punishes Universities for LGBT Reading List with Extra Dose of America

Feature image via Think Progress

As a punishment for spending university resources on LGBT-themed reading material, two state-funded South Carolina schools are being required to teach about the United States founding documents. The University of South Carolina Upstate had the audacity to include Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic on its optional freshman reading list,…

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Alabama Court Enters 21st Century, Strikes Down State Ban on Gay Sex

Alabama Court Enters 21st Century, Strikes Down State Ban on Gay Sex

feature image via shutterstock.com

On Friday, a court in Alabama ruled unconstitutional part of a state “sexual misconduct” law effectively outlawing gay sex. The unanimous ruling, handed down Friday in a state appeals court, was the first in the state to address that law since Lawrence v. Texas the 2003 Supreme Court decision that found consensual sex bans in violation of the Constitution.

It…

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Fixing Your Summer Caffeination Situation With Iced Tea, Simple Syrups and Drink Recipes

Fixing Your Summer Caffeination Situation With Iced Tea, Simple Syrups and Drink Recipes

Summer as an adult is such a mean trick. For most of your life up to this point, summertime was break time, when you could do whatever you want all day and sleep past noon. Then suddenly you’re an adult and your boss doesn’t care that you’ve basically been programmed to laze around when the days get long and hot, or that you stayed up until three rewatching Orange is the New Blackand IM-ing with…

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Obama Will Finally Sign Executive Order for LGBT Workplace Protection, ENDA Still Nowhere in Sight

Obama Will Finally Sign Executive Order for LGBT Workplace Protection, ENDA Still Nowhere in Sight

Despite the Obama administration’s general trend of ‘evolution’ on LGBT issues — the repeal of DOMA, Obama’s support of marriage equality, inclusivity for trans students under Title IX, Medicare’s coverage of gender confirmation surgery — there’s always been one issue they’ve refused to move on. For several years, there’s been pressure on the White House to sign an executive order for LGBT…

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Ubisoft Can’t Have Female Characters Because “Women Are Too Difficult To Animate;” One Million Eyes Are Rolled

Ubisoft Can’t Have Female Characters Because “Women Are Too Difficult To Animate;” One Million Eyes Are Rolled

The annual E3 conference, announcing news and debuting game footage and trailers from new and upcoming video games, is currently going on and a lot of the news so far has been great. We have some great steps forward in the representation of both women and queer people (and queer women). One of the bigger games that was highlighted was the next installment in the super popular Assassin’s Creed series, called Assassin’s Creed Unity, coming out in October. Unlike many other companies, who seem to be accepting the call to make their games more diverse, Assassin’s Creed is digging its heels in and holding on to its white male protagonist.

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Kids Detained in AZ Provides Window Into Totally F*cked US Immigration System

Kids Detained in AZ Provides Window Into Totally F*cked US Immigration System

The issue of immigrant children being detained in immigrant detention centers is not exactly a new story. But this past week, an influx of children from Central America who were detained while trying to cross into the U.S. has drawn new attention to the extreme and inhuman treatment undocumented immigrants face from U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

via AZ Central

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Laverne Cox Returns to “Katie”, Shows How to Do a “Teachable Moment” Right

Laverne Cox Returns to “Katie”, Shows How to Do a “Teachable Moment” Right

Today Orange is the New Black star and transgender activist Laverne Cox returned to Katie, the daytime talk show hosted by Katie Couric, for the first time since her infamous January appearance where she and transgender model and activist Carmen Carrerahad to put up with a barrage of questions about what surgeries they had had and what their genitals were like. Cox and Carrera were able to turn…

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Trans Woman Held Captive In Horrific Louisiana Human Trafficking Case

Trans Woman Held Captive In Horrific Louisiana Human Trafficking Case

Louisiana police are reporting that in an unbelievably extreme and horrifying act of violence, three people in Natchitoches Parish spent years holding a trans woman hostage and enslaving her, as well as torturing and sexually assaulting her. The captive woman escaped from her torturers on May 31, and on June 4th, David Rodriguez, Jr; Christina Marie Harper; and Ambre Lomas were arrested on counts…

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Lesbian Rapper Siya Comes to Your TV on Reality Show about Women Rappers

Lesbian Rapper Siya Comes to Your TV on Reality Show about Women Rappers

Brooklyn emcee Siya joins the ranks of upcoming women rappers featured on the reality show Sisterhood of Hip Hop. Grammy award-winning rapper T.I. is the executive producer of the program which will follow Bia, Brianna Perry, Diamond (of Crime Mob), Nyemiah Supreme and Siya as the women strive to create successful solo careers. Sisterhood of Hip Hopwill issue a teaser episode on July 22nd and air…

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