Joe.My.God. LGBT News

This doesn’t seem very surprising: Same-sex marriage has been the law of the land for nearly two years — and in some states for even longer — but researchers can already detect positive health outcomes among couples who have tied the knot, a University of Washington study finds. For years, studies have linked marriage with happiness among heterosexual couples. But …

CNN reports: Amid increasing tension with North Korea, Vice President Mike Pence will travel to South Korea Saturday, on a scheduled trip as part of his first official visit to the Asia-Pacific region. The trip comes at a critical moment for the Trump administration and US allies, after escalated posturing from North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un and growing concerns …

Clip recap: Gay men are being rounded up and killed in Chechnya, and US officials seem to be turning a blind eye. A European court just ruled against the mandatory sterilization of trans citizens but the practice will continue indefinitely. And same-sex couples just won new protections for adoption, and for housing in a case that could completely change how …

The Guardian reports: Few rules have been bent, manipulated and outright broken quite like the Eurovision song contest’s ban on “lyrics, speeches [or] gestures of a political or similar nature”. Over the six decades of the competition there have been peace, war and the fall of the Berlin Wall – but this year politics has gripped Eurovision in a more …

The Asbury Park Press reports: New Jersey governor hopeful Phil Murphy told LGBT leaders in Asbury Park Thursday that having a Democrat in office would help defend gains made by the community. While speaking at the headquarters of Garden State Equality, the state’s largest LGBT advocacy and education organization, Murphy said that President Donald Trump’s election had been “worse than …

The Associated Press reports: President Donald Trump’s tweets are adding fuel to a “vicious cycle” of tensions on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea’s vice foreign minister told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Friday. The official added that if the U.S. shows any sign of “reckless” military aggression, Pyongyang is ready to launch a pre-emptive strike of its own. …

The Guardian reports: Up to 36 suspected Islamic State militants were killed in Afghanistan when the US dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat, the Afghan defence ministry said on Friday. To target what the military described as a “tunnel complex” used by the Isis’s Afghanistan affiliate, the US for the first time used what the military colloquially …

Raving Trump surrogate Jeffrey Lord has long been the craziest person on CNN and yesterday he really stepped up his game by repeatedly comparing Trump to Martin Luther King. The Washington Post reports: In appearances on three shows and in an column for CNN’s website, Lord dug in his heels to defend the Trump-King comparison, twisting himself into a rhetorical …

1.4M views overnight. CBS reports: It wouldn’t be a celebration of 40 years of “Star Wars” without a touching Carrie Fisher tribute. And that’s exactly what happened at the Star Wars Celebration in Orlando, Florida, which also included a surprise Harrison Ford appearance, a John Williams performance and jokes about George Lucas’ dialogue. Attendees were treated to that and more …

From the opening to a fascinating Politico piece: When Steve Bannon vacated a home in Florida in 2015, his landlord complained that an entire Jacuzzi had apparently been coated in acid. After conservative media star Dana Loesch left Bannon’s employ at Breitbart News in 2012, she filed a suit against the website, alleging a plot to “sabotage” her career. When …