Tag Archives: Fort Lauderdale

Coral Ridge Congregants: You’re Not Anti-Gay Enough, We’re Outta Here

Ever since the viciously anti-gay Dr. D. James Kennedy died and was replaced by the not-as-bad-so-far Rev. Tullian Tchividjian, some congregants at the Fort Lauderdale-based Coral Ridge Ministries mega-church have been chafing in their pews. Tchividjian, you see, wants to ease Coral Ridge out of political issues such as homosexuality and focus on worship. After Tchividjian, who is Billy Graham’s …

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Gay FL Cop Charged With Sex Crimes

UPDATE: Father Tony points out that despite the wording of the below Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel story, Bleiweiss’ arrest report (PDF) makes it very clear that he was the one performing the oral sex, not his victims. The arrest report reads like a very, very bad porn script and may be NSFW. Openly gay Broward County sheriff’s deputy Jonathan Bleiwiess, 29, …

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Jesus, Tear Down This Sign

Christianists in Fort Lauderdale are so angry about a billboard promoting atheism that they are calling on the city and/or Jebus to tear it down. After seeing the billboard, Team of Life community activist Essie “Big Mama” Reed brought her students out to protest it Wednesday afternoon. “Nothing else matters, but that sign needs to come down. In the name …

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Fort Lauderdale Opens Nation’s Largest LGBT Circulating Library

Today the Stonewall Library and Archives had its official opening in Fort Lauderdale. Via press release: Stonewall Library & Archives (SLA), the largest independent circulating library of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) materials in the US, officially opened its new facility in downtown Fort Lauderdale today with a cadre of city and county elected officials and dignitaries on hand. …

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Divine’s Mother, Frances Milstead, 88

Frances Milstead, the mother of drag legend Divine, died two weeks ago in Fort Lauderdale at the age of 88. Although she was estranged from her son at the beginning of his drag fame, upon learning of his new career Frances became Divine’s biggest fan – attending his movie premieres and penning the 2001 memoir My Son Divine. Up until …

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Anti-Gay Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle Replaced By Gay-Friendly Jack Seiler

The long and horrible 18-year reign of Fort Lauderdale’s virulently anti-gay Mayor Jim “Robo-Potty” Naugle ended yesterday when he was term-limited out of office. Replacing Naugle will be former Florida state Rep. Jack Seiler (D), 46, (left) who easily beat two openly gay candidates, businessman Earl Rynerson and lawyer Dean Trantalis. Seilor was opposed by the gay political group Dolphin …

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Ashes

Fort Lauderdale, April 1993 On a sunny morning in 1993, my 13 year old cat Boris jumped into my lap, stretched luxuriously, curled into a ball, and went to sleep forever. It wasn’t totally out of the blue, he’d been suffering from urinary blockages, a chronic problem with neutered males. He’d been in a coma once, with a little kitty …

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Tea Room Naugle Is Back

Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim “Tea Room” Naugle, who made national headlines last year when he insisted that gay men were running wild in the public restrooms of the city’s beach, is now leading a group of Democrats supporting the push to put anti-gay marriage wording into the Florida state constitution. A ballot measure to ban gay marriage has already won …

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Morning View – Lauderdale Beach Erosion

My mom sent us this photo of the erosion of Fort Lauderdale’s gay beach over the weekend. A combination of high winds and high tides caused by a storm off of North Carolina sent waves crashing over the seawall along A1A and washed away lifeguard towers. Beach erosion in southern Broward County is a continuous problem as the proliferation of …

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Remembering Fort Lauderdale’s Glory Days

For 25 years my Orlando pal Tony Hayden has chronicled his life on videotape. Over the last few years Tony has published his stories on his award-winning website in what he calls his “ME-ality Series. Today he published a five-part series on his coming to terms with his gayness via his discovery of Fort Lauderdale’s now-legendary early ’80s beach/bar/boys culture. …

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Ft. Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle Loves To Talk About T-Room Sex

Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle once again hammered the straw man issue of dirty, restroom trolling queers yesterday at the same time that he allowed that a “responsible homosexual” could be mayor of the city. Naugle will be term-limited out of office next year and two openly gay men have announced their mayoral candidacies. Many in Fort Lauderdale’s gay community …

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Paging Auntie Em

Check out this incredible shot of a tornado touching down in Iowa as caught by local woman Lori Mehman. Somehow nobody was killed. And down in Fort Lauderdale our own Father Tony caught a gorgeous shot of a waterspout just off the coast.

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Guest Post: Father Tony

Father Tony here, guest blogging for Joe from Fort Lauderdale. Dear Joe, No, of course you didn’t call too early this morning. In fact, C and I have been up for hours and have been at the Euro Café on East Sunrise Boulevard, hard by the drawbridge on the Galleria mall side of the Intracoastal. Here, the French proprietress who …

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Naugle Gets Booted From
Fort Lauderdale’s City Magazine

After he once again ranted about gay sex in city’s parks, this time in a column in the city’s official monthly magazine, the Fort Lauderdale City Commission has voted to delete Mayor Jim Naugle’s regular column. Instead, a group column from the entire commission will appear. City Commissioner Cindi Hutchinson brought up the column at Tuesday’s city meeting, and her …

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Winter Party 2008 Slideshow

Father Tony has created a cute little video slideshow of our weekend at the Winter Party, in which I only look slightly hammered most of the time. Good editing. There’s some bare butts in this thing, so it’s possibly NSFW. Featured are our visits to Surfcomber’s pool party, the Aussiebum fashion show on Lincoln Road, the leather dance at Fort …

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Morning View – Floridian Diner

I stopped by the Floridian Diner on Fort Lauderdale’s Las Olas Boulevard, site of last week’s brutal gay-bashing. Despite the $5000 reward offered by the Floridian’s owner, police still have no suspects.

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Morning View – Hugh Taylor Birch Park

Father Tony’s place overlooks Hugh Taylor Birch Park, home to gigantic hawks and a huge colony of raccoons that have been trained by tourists to come up to you to beg for Kibbles and Bits.

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Morning View – Fort Lauderdale

Ah, Fort Lauderdale. This is the view from Father Tony’s 17th-floor pied-a-terre overlooking the ocean and the Intracoastal. I’m posting from Java Boys in Wilton Manor’s all-gay shopping center, where the neighboring tenants are Gay Mart, Tops-N-Bottoms, and half a dozen gay bars. Blogging will be light today, obviously. Later this afternoon, I’ll head down to South Beach for the …

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Matt Foreman Speaks To JMG Readers

Via Father Tony, outgoing Task Force executive director Matt Foreman speaks a few words of encouragement from the Fort Lauderdale vigil and remembrance of murdered trans teen Simmie Williams.

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Ft Lauderdale Diner Owner Offers $5K Reward For Gay-Basher’s Identity

Butch Samp, owner of Fort Lauderdale’s Floridian Diner, has offered a $5000 reward for information leading to the capture of the person that committed a brutal gay-bashing at his restaurant earlier this week. Police are looking for a 2002 or similar year, sage green, four-door Toyota Tacoma pickup truck with a bed cover and roll bar. A police report of …

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