Joe.My.God. LGBT News

Atlanta’s OutWrite Books is no more. The independent LGBT bookstore, located for the last 15 years at its iconic landmark in Midtown, held its “Last Tango” at the store last night featuring authors such as Franklin Abbott, Collin Kelley, Hollis Gillespie, Mose Hardin, Karen Head and Don Perryman. Owner Philip Rafshoon confirmed the store was closing today. He said there …

Today around 2:30pm I’ll be on Michelangelo Signorile’s SiriusXM show to talk about some of the latest LGBT-related news items. The gays are on channel 108 and you can listen live online if you sign up for a freebie account. What would be your top five gay news stories this week?

Giffords’ resignation letter had to be read by an occasionally sobbing DNC head Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Shultz. I watched this live this morning, you’ll probably need a tissue.

A coalition of major national HIV/AIDS advocacy groups is asking that the FDA approve the Gilead drug Truvada as a daily preventive or “pre-exposure prophylaxis” (PreP) against infection. Among the groups joining the demand are amfAR and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. Via press release: The PrEP sNDA for Truvada®meets criteria set out in FDA’s Manual of Policies and Procedures …

As I’ve noted here on several occasions, Brooklyn’s Hasidic communities have been increasing their attempts to impose religious law on their neighborhoods. We’ve seen demands that women sit at the back of public buses and we’ve seen street signs commanding women to step aside for approaching men. We’ve seen attempts to ban bike lanes so that “immodestly dressed” female bikers …

The New Hampshire legislature will consider a bill that would allow Christian businesses to refuse service to gay couples. Rep. Frank Sapareto says anybody that opposes his bill is “intolerant.” The bill would put an exemption in state marriage law. The proposed text says no person, including a business owner or employee, should be required to provide services, accommodations, advantages, …

A mouth swab for HIV has been found just as effective as a traditional blood screening. Researchers from McGill University in Montreal said that their saliva HIV test OraQuick HIV 1/2 was 99 percent accurate for HIV in high-risk populations and about 97 percent in low-risk populations. The oral test works by detecting whether HIV antibodies are present in a …

UPDATE: The player for this clip seems to be crashing some Chrome browsers so I’ve removed it. Hit the link for the song. St. Etienne releases their first new album since 2005 on March 3rd. You can download this great advance track for free by joining the band’s mailing list. You can really tell this is Kylie’s producer. Love it.