Tag Archives: Gay City News

New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has signed onto a letter which demands that sponsors of the Sochi Olympics issue a denouncement of Russia’s anti-gay pogrom. Andy Humm reports at Gay City News: Ten major Olympic sponsors from Coke to Dow Chemical –– none of which has acceded to calls that they speak out forcefully against Russia’s laws making it …

The Empire State Pride Agenda has let go its executive director, Ross Levi. Paul Schindler reports at Gay City News: Barely eight months after New York State’s gay rights movement won its biggest victory ever, with the enactment of marriage equality, the Empire State Pride Agenda, the state’s LGBT lobby, has fired its executive director, Ross Levi. The action came …

Over at Gay City News, Duncan Osborne examines a curious aspect of the alleged assault on GOProud’s Taylor Garrett, who claims he was beaten because he’s a conservative Christian who’s friendly with Ann Coulter. According to Dallas Police Department reports, officers were called to 2800 Knight Street in Dallas, where the assault happened, at roughly 10:20 pm. Garrett was attending …

Gay City News reports: With six days to go in the State Senate legislative calendar before the June 20 scheduled adjournment, leading New York marriage advocates and their ace-in-the-hole Albany ally, Andrew Cuomo, are pushing forward with what everyone involved insists is an unprecedentedly unified front –– one they say has held firm since the earliest days of the new …

Gay City News reports that five New York state senators who voted against same-sex marriage in 2009 are now “taking no public position” on the issue. Obviously, this could possibly bode well for the upcoming vote promised by Gov. Cuomo. At least six changed votes would be needed for the bill to pass. According to statements on the record (to …

Gay City News reports today that according to a portion of latest documents revealed via Wikileaks, the Pentagon knew about the murders of gay men in Iraq for more than a year before news outlets reported them. Via Duncan Osborne: “The male was shot (___) times in the chest, and a note was discovered on the body stating that the …

Hosted once again by Law & Order’s BD Wong, this year’s Anti-Violence Project Courage Awards honorees are the Paul Rapoport Foundation, Gay City News journalist Duncan Osborne, and Village Voice columnist Steven Thrasher. Get tickets here. AVP executive director Sharon Stapel raves about Thrasher to the Village Voice: “Your work at the Village Voice, particularly your coverage of proposed state …

This week Gay City News launches a four-part series from Michael Luongo in which he examines “what changed and what didn’t” since he last investigated gay life in Iraq in 2007. Here’s an excerpt from the first installment: This visit would be full of stark contrasts. It was as if there were two different Baghdads — at least. I would …

Currently only three* gay nightclubs in NYC have the necessary cabaret license that allows dancing: Chelsea’s medium-sized Splash, the basement room of the Monster in the West Village, and Escuelita, the Hell’s Kitchen drag and Latin club. This week, the highly anticipated reopening of the legendary Roxy was finally (and probably, permanently) shot down when the backers of a new …

Twelve gay men are awaiting execution in Iran for the “crime” of homosexuality. Gay City News’ Doug Ireland reports: Ten young Iranian men, including eight teenagers, are currently awaiting execution for sodomy, and two more are being re-tried on the same capital charge. And, in an exclusive interview with Gay City News, an Iranian student gay rights activist confirmed for …

In his confession to the decapitation murder of gay teen Jorge Mercado, Juan Martinez Matos (left) claimed that Mercado had been dressed as a woman in an area known for prostitution, driving him, he claimed, to murder Mercado in “gay panic” once he discovered Mercado’s true gender. But according to Puerto Rican activist Pedro Julio Serrano, those close to Mercado …

Over at Gay City News, Paul Schindler has written an inside look at the negotiations to get the state senate to agree to a marriage equality vote before the end of the year. The Empire State Pride Agenda’s Alan Van Capelle and openly gay Sen. Thomas Duane remain optimistic that “the votes are there.” “For the very first time, we …

NY Gov. David Paterson appeared on the local news last night and with great gravitas announced that a major breakthrough had been made with the NY Senate regarding marriage equality. An agreement had been reached that the Senate would debate and vote on marriage equality at an unspecified date to occur before the end of the end. I was thinking, …

Last night I attended the Empire State Pride Agenda’s annual dinner, a massive and swank affair held in sprawling ballroom where activists mingled with Gov. Paterson, Mayor Bloomberg, Sen. Chuck Schumer, emcee Margaret Cho, Alan Cumming, Cheyenne Jackson, and Anne Hathaway (who brought her openly gay brother and smokin’ hot father – who is an LGBT activist/ally in his own …

Saying Mayor Bloomberg’s actions on gay marriage “are at sharp odds with his words,” NYC’s sole remaining LGBT newsweekly, Gay City News, has endorsed City Comptroller Bill Thompson for mayor. One of the reasons for the snub of Bloomberg is his support for upstate Republicans who may have blocked progress on marraige equality. In 2005, at the same time the …

Andy Humm at Gay City News has published his story about Saturday’s rally in Queens for gay bashing victim Jack Price. Here’s what the counter-protesters had to say. An interracial group of about 20 of Danny Rodriguez’s supporters boldly demonstrated across the street from the rally with signs and chants insisting that he did not commit a hate crime, though …

Well, this has got to be the strangest story of the year. Dwan Prince, 31, has sent an apology to the man whose 2005 attack in Brooklyn left Prince partially paralyzed, telling him that it was Prince’s own flirtatious behavior that brought on the assault and that thanks to the beating, he is no longer gay. Duncan Osborne at Gay …

If you’re still trying to figure what the hell has been going on in Albany this week (and who isn’t), Gay City News editor Paul Schindler has posted an excellent and very detailed breakdown of this still chaotic situation. Late yesterday, Schindler got openly gay state Sen. Thomas Duane (left, at podium) to finally comment on the widespread speculation that …

A 18 year-old Brooklyn man was found guilty of second-degree murder yesterday for stabbing a 20 year-old gay man to death after calling him a “faggot” and accusing him of coming on to him. Duncan Osborne at Gay City News covered the trial, which nearly ended in a hung jury due to the poor credibility of witnesses. Following a roughly …

Tomorrow at noon there will be a protest at Mayor Bloomberg’s Upper East Side home over the NYPD’s practice of falsely arresting gay men for prostitution at the city’s adult bookstores. Duncan Osbourne at Gay City News has been following this story for months; I first mentioned his coverage here in late October. Basically, the cops are sending hot young …