‘Don’t look at me like that!’



“Oh, don’t look at me like that! Don’t act straight when you’re gay” is a new TikTok sound is not standing for any heteronormative nonsense. Certainly not during Pride Month!

If your FYP is anything like mine, you won’t be able to scroll without coming across this sound right now. It’s everywhere, it’s really quotable and it’s camp as tits.

@justsaykyle

 

@caitlinloverofdilfs

 

@yeeyeehoeperiodt

 

@remyondrey

 

U.S. Senator Manchin says he will oppose voting rights bill pushed by colleagues
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-sena...ce=twitter

Deadpan gay horror-comedy "Road Head" is, somewhat surprisingly, the right amount of racy, silly, and scary


Road Head

A sharper, wittier horror trip than one might expect a movie titled after a sex act to be, David Del Rio’s Road Head (★★★☆☆) gives good laughs and suspense until the plot and pacing peter out along the way to the film’s gleefully gruesome climax. Not exactly full of twists and turns, the movie builds a fun ride upon crisp direction, bloody but not overdone horror mayhem, and solid performances.

Damian Joseph Quinn and Clayton Farris form a cute comic duo as vacationing L.A. couple Alex and Bryan, trekking through the Mojave in their cannabis-colored Chevy Astro van. “It was supposed to just be us,” Alex complains to Bryan, but, as it turns out, they have a tagalong in their mutual friend Stephanie, played by Elizabeth Grullon, who basically runs away with the movie.

Stephanie, smoking away her rage at the cheating boyfriend she left at home, has badass energy to spare even before the friends’ road trip takes a wrong turn into the killing grounds of a sword-wielding maniac. But she really steps up once they cross paths with the jacked, hooded menace known as the Executioner (Adam Nemet), who slices off the heads of travelers unlucky enough to pass through his domain.

Her friends, more often than not, don’t have her cojones or smarts, which isn’t a good look for the gays. Stephanie won’t be alone in wondering, “Why the fuck is your phone in the van, Alex?!”


Road Head

Quinn, Farris, and, in particular, Grullon are tasked with selling some implausible turns in the perky script by Justin Xavier, who also wrote Del Rio’s indie horror debut, Sick for Toys. The main cast is up to the task, although the same can’t be said for the main villain, whose presence loses impact as soon as he starts talking.

Of the few other characters who show up in the desert, including a drag queen played by Misty Violet, Paul T. Taylor makes an impact as an off-the-grid weirdo, as does Sierra Santana, as the unfortunate passenger in the prologue who first suggests the shenanigans suggested in the title.

Stephanie’s boyfriend David (Clay Acker) also materializes, but as a figment of her imagination — and a means for the film to dramatize the inner workings of its standout character. Again, Grullon adds nuance to the silliness, but neither the concept nor Acker’s performance as David are that persuasive.

The occasional green-screen shots of the desert are more convincing, and on the whole, the movie’s a well-made, satisfying diversion — not the best you’ve ever had, but good enough to get you there.

Road Head is available for streaming on Prime Video. Visit https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094DRT55K

He rose to fame in 2009 after finishing as runner-up on the eighth season of American Idol.

And in a new interview, Adam Lambert, 39, got candid about starting out in the music industry over 10 years ago, explaining: 'Gay artists had to tone it down!'

While gracing the cover of Gay Times' AMPLIFY! the openly-homosexual star also insisted that the new generation of LGBTQ+ talent 'don't need straight saviours.'


Cover star: While gracing the cover of Gay Times' AMPLIFY! Adam Lambert, 39, got candid about starting out in the music industry as an openly-gay man over 10 years ago

On starting out as an openly gay man, Adam said: 'I wanted to connect with other queer people in the music industry because I know that when I started 10 years ago, it was sort of like the Wild West for me.

'There weren't a lot of us on the mainstream level. It was an obstacle course. I didn't have that many examples of how to go about things, and it was quite an adventure.

'Ten years later I can see there's been so much progress, and there's so many more queer artists out there right now. We're now allowed in that space.'

And, Adam enthused on the range of incredible LGBTQ+ talent that's now bursting through in the entertainment industry.





He gushed: 'There's so much talent! And it's a really diverse array of talent too – across genres, philosophies, it's a really exciting time.

'But I also think it's across the board in the entertainment industry. We're seeing a lot more queer actors come through.

'It's a time where we don't have to ask permission anymore. It's a time where queer creatives deserve some spotlight.

'I also feel that more and more we're able to stand on our own two feet, and I think that's really important to note.

'We don't need the straight saviours to come in and save us! We're good and we're doing really well.'


Over a decade ago! On starting out as an openly gay man, Adam said: 'There weren't a lot of us on the mainstream level. It was an obstacle course' (Pictured in 2009)

Adam also praised Lil Nas X, 22 - real name Montero Lamar Hill - for 'challenging the double standards' in the popular music industry.

Explaining further, the Queen vocalist said: 'We have straight artists creating this type of entertainment and we've grown accustomed to it over the past 25 years.

'But when it came to gay artists we had to tone it down, or make sure that it wasn't too sexualised, or aggressive, and it had to be safe and easy to digest.

'What Lil Nas X is doing is being a rockstar about it. He's being subversive and it's great.'


High praise! Adam also praised Lil Nas X, 22 - real name Montero Lamar Hill - for 'challenging the double standards' in the popular music industry (Lil Nas X Pictured in 2019)

An article in Bloomberg states that a significant number of people who have been working remotely over the last year are telling their bosses to take this job and shove it instead of returning to the rat race as employers recall them to the office.

In the old days Muslims were quite tolerant of homosexuality.



For decades regimes in the Middle East have alleged that homosexuality is both morally unacceptable and a Western import. Many gay activists disagree on both counts. Homophobia is the Western import, they claim, introduced by puritanical Europeans. “Ban the colonial law,” cried campaigners in Tunisia in December, referring to a law criminalising gay sex written by the French more than a century ago. “All these homophobic laws in the Middle East were brought in by colonialism to undermine Islam’s permissive civilisation,” says Ramy Khouili, a Tunisian activist.



History is complicated, and prejudice has ancient roots. Nonetheless, activists can point to periods of the Islamic past when Arab rulers were more liberal about sex. They relate how the Caliph Amin in ninth-century Baghdad had a male lover and feted gay poets. They read poems from a classical genre called mujun, or hedonistic smut. And they recall that the Ottoman Turks, who ruled most of the Middle East in the 19th century, decriminalised homosexuality a century before America and Britain. Back then, “you could be with a man or a woman,” says the transgender founder of north Africa’s first gay movement, the Abu Nawas Association, named after a great Arab poet, who was gay. “There were men dressed as women and living as women—and it was normal.”

“A Promenade of the Hearts”, a collection of stories and poems compiled by Ahmad al-Tifashi, a 13th-century Arab sexologist, is experiencing a revival in Beirut’s libraries. The penis, he claims, is better shaped for anal than vaginal penetration. While much classical and Ottoman poetry features male lovers, gay groups are discovering lesbian poetry from the past. “How much have we grinded sister, ninety pilgrimages/ More delightful and invisible than the entries of the penis head,” reads a couplet.

Gay poetry is not the only art form undergoing a renaissance. Muhammad Issaoui, who calls himself “a queer dancer”, adapts the traditions of male belly-dancers once common in Cairo and Beirut. He performs in Tunisia’s clubs and theatres clad just in feather boas and underpants. “It was natural for men to express their feminine sides before,” he says. “It was just pleasure and art.”

Some activists are examining old legal texts—and finding contradictions. Classical jurists upheld the Koran’s clear prohibition of sodomy, yet debated how deep the penis must penetrate to be deemed a violation. (Up to the line of circumcision, according to a standard work written by Shia Muslims.) The present-day jihadists of Islamic State throw gay people off rooftops, citing a reported saying of the Prophet endorsing the practice. But scholars have struggled to find historical cases of anyone taking this verse literally.

This gay re-engagement with Islam has its critics. Many feminists are secular and see Muslim clerics as part of the patriarchy they want to topple. Still, most are willing to lend their support to gay people now facing arrest, torture and censorship by Arab rulers. “The problem isn’t Islam,” says Rasha Younes, a Lebanon-based researcher for Human Rights Watch, a monitoring group. “It’s the oppressive regimes who want to control us and the Middle East in its name.”

Luong The Huy, who is currently director of the Vietnamese NGO iSEE, has been campaigning for a decade to improve the lives of the Vietnamese LGBTQ community

As an LGBTQ activist, legal whizz-kid and Vietnam’s first openly gay candidate running for a seat in its parliament, Luong The Huy is determined to lead long-lasting change for the country’s marginalised communities.

Huy, 32, is one of just nine independent candidates running for Vietnam’s National Assembly in elections held across the country on May 23 and wants to boost the voices of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, who have long felt discrimination.

But getting his name on the ballot in the communist, one-party state was no simple task.

At the last elections five years ago, more than 100 independent candidates – including dissidents, a taxi driver and a pop star – tried to run, but just a handful made it through the gruelling selection process.

Now that he’s made it this far, he’s clear about what he wants to achieve.

“I want people’s voices to be heard,” Huy said, sitting in his Hanoi office beside a framed poster bearing the slogan “Human rights are for everyone”.

Huy, who is currently director of Vietnamese NGO iSEE, which aims to empower minority groups to protect and promote their rights, has been campaigning for a decade to improve the lives of the Vietnamese LGBTQ community.

He once addressed a session of the UN Human Rights Council and was listed by Forbes as one of the 30 most inspiring people under the age of 30 in Vietnam.

But despite studying law – Huy got a scholarship from the US’ Fulbright Programme to study at the University of California – he says he has struggled to bring policy to the people who matter in Vietnam’s opaque governmental system.

“If I’m a member of the National Assembly, that path will be shorter, easier and more convenient for the community groups we serve,” he said.

‘The first, but not the only’

Vietnam is seen as relatively progressive on LGBTQ issues compared with some other countries in Asia.


Luong The Huy, 32, is one of just nine independent candidates running for Vietnam’s National Assembly in elections held across the country on Sunday.

But although the country lifted its ban on same-sex marriage in 2015, it stopped short of full legal recognition for those unions, and a long-promised transgender law to allow legal gender changes has not yet materialised.

In schools, misinformation about sexual orientation and gender identity is widespread and some children are taught by both teachers and parents that being gay is a mental illness, according to a Human Rights Watch report published last year.

“Some people find it hard to accept someone from the minority LGBT community representing them at a powerful legislative body,” he admitted.

“There have been [negative] comments about me personally, about how I look and about my sexual orientation.”

Huy had pinned his hopes on votes from millennials and Generation Z, but to his surprise, many of his backers seem to be older men and women.

Some have messaged him privately, while others have openly declared their support on social media.

“Suddenly I realised that my support network isn’t as small as I thought it was,” he said.

“I have truly made a step out to the huge society beyond.”

Other than the nine independents, there were more than 850 candidates who made it onto the ballot with the help of powerful backers.

They were all competing for one of almost 500 seats in parliament, which is always dominated by members of the ruling Communist Party and rarely seen to fight for the general public.

But Huy believes he may be able to bring about real change for ordinary Vietnamese.

“I may be the first [openly gay man to run for a seat] but I hope I will not be the only one,” he said.

“People will keep on talking about the first gay candidate, whatever the result may be. This is a story for those in the future who can accomplish even more than I do.”

Jordan and Dane at Amaroo Falls after getting engaged (Instagram)

Former Mr Gay World and reality tv cooking star Jordan Bruno campaigned as strong as anyone for marriage equality in Australia back in 2017 and over the past weekend he got engaged to his partner Dane in the most Australian place ever.

Bruno organised for himself and his now fiancée Dane Taylor to fly up into the Kimberley region of Western Australia where they were choppered into a remote gorge where he proposed and yes Taylor accepted.

This area in and around Kununurra isn’t new to Bruno as he has visited the region many times supporting the local communities and attending festivals as part of his cooking and volunteering work.

Jordan Bruno was announced as Mr Gay Pride Australia in January 2018 and went on to win Mr Gay World in the same year at a week-long event in Knysna, South Africa.

Before winning those titles, the Perth resident appeared on Australian reality show My Kitchen Rules alongside his mum and they went on to finish as semi-finalists and build a strong legion of fans.


Picnic site (Instagram)

In social media posts overnight Bruno, who turned 29 on Wednesday, has shared the moments surrounding his proposal to his long term partner Taylor.

“It started with a private helicopter ride to Amaroo Falls (which is only accessible by helicopter),” Bruno explained on Instagram.

“The helicopter picked us up from our accommodation at the Elquestro homestead.”

They were then dropped into a gorge near Amaroo Falls where the couple went for a hike and had a picnic lunch that included champagne.

“So after a 20-minute walk we found a little water hole and in the corner it had a cave. Naturally Dane wanted to swim across and go in.


Cave site across the river. (Instagram)

“While Dane was looking at the cave, I got down on one knee and when he turned around, I told him that he was the love of my life and I then asked if he would marry me….. He thankfully said yes!”

There are no photos in the cave as Bruno was spooked by bats flying out so he freaked out and they swam back across to the other side of the stream.

“I wondered if having bats swoop at you after a proposal was a bad omen, but Dane said they are one of his favourite animals and loved them.

“We then swam for a few hours in the gorges down from the waterfall, had our little picnic and champagne, took some tacky photos and headed back to Elquestro Homestead for our final candlelight dinner.”


Bubble in the gorge (Instagram)

The couple’s engagement ring was made by Cornwall’s Justin Duance Jewellery in the UK and according to Bruno it was a sand cast ring and it had the beach sand from where he and Taylor shared their first kiss, filtered throughout the gold. Something personal for them both.


Love is Love (Instagram)

Bruno’s message to his fiancée was as cute as the proposal.

“Finally a massive thank you to Dane. You are without a doubt the kindest, cheerful and most patient person I’ve ever met.

“I don’t know how you put up with me, but I’m grateful that you do. I love EVERYTHING about you and I am so proud to call you my fiance. I promise I will try and give you the world every day, because you deserve no less x”

Today has been a day of surprises for DC Comics fans, in addition to announcing a new Superman animated series and an animated film based on Injustice, Variety reports that the live-action Green Lantern series for HBO Max will have actor Jeremy Irvine as Alan Scott, one of the main characters and who is known among fans for being homosexual in his most recent versions.

Alan Ladd Wellington Scott is known as the first Green Lantern and was created by Martin Nodell for DC Comics. He had his first appearance in All-American Comics # 16, from 1940. Like the other Lanterns, Scott has a magical ring in which he channels his will and grants him a wide variety of powers. In 2012 it was announced that a major DC Comics character would be revealed as homosexual, the character turned out to be Scott and was confirmed in number 2 of the Earth 2 series.

Scott was originally created straight, but the comic book company couldn’t be left behind on inclusivity and decided to make Scott a part of the LGBTQ community. In the HBO series Max he will not be the protagonist, that role is destined for Guy Gardner, played by Finn Wittrock; Gardner is a more recent Green Lantern, first appearing in 1968 in Green Lantern # 59.

Although Variety reports as a fact that Irvine will be part of the Green Lantern series, it also says that HBO Max declined to comment on it, but we should not take it as a rumour; We can remember how Alfred Molina’s return to the role of Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man: No Way Home took months to be officially confirmed, and it was by statements from the actors.

The Green Lantern series was announced in 2019, and it was said at that time that it was a very ambitious project and exclusive to HBO Max, which unlike other DC Comics series such as The CW (Arrow – 86%, Supergirl, The Flash – 77%, etc.), it would have a big budget and therefore much higher quality, at the level of the movies.

The show will span decades of history, from 1941 on Earth, with Alan Scott, to 1984 with Guy Gardner and the half-alien Bree Jarta. But not only will we have those three characters, there will be a multitude of Green Lanterns, some already known to comic book readers and others completely new.

Jeremy irvine is a British actor who will be remembered for his appearances in War Horse – 76%, Mamma Mia! Let’s go again – 76% and Between Reason and Madness – 67%. Based on his previous work, it seems logical to assume that he will perform well as the first Green Lantern in DC Comics history.

In addition to the animated series and movies where we have seen Green Lantern, there was a film adaptation starring Ryan Reynolds (Green Lantern – 26%), which the actor has made fun of on several occasions, and which was not well received by the criticism and failed at the box office. Released in 2011, it aspired to become a franchise, but only managed to become a source of ridicule.

The DC Comics universe features three main and very popular superheroes: Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman; however, Green Lantern, although not as famous as the trinity, is well loved and has millions of fans. In Zack Snyder’s Justice League – 82% was going to appear the Green Lantern John Stewart, played by Wayne T. CarrBut Warner Bros. demanded that the director remove the scene, so reluctantly decided to replace him with Martian Manhunter, played by Harry Lennix.

As an adult, I’ve traveled to well over 50 countries and lived in more than a dozen of them on six different continents. I’ve documented my world travels in two books, all the while considering myself a true blue New Yorker at heart. Throughout my globetrotting, the one place I never thought to venture for any extended period of time were the U.S. suburbs. Having already spent my formative years getting my fill of American suburbia in Kissimmee, Florida, a return engagement was the furthest thing from my mind. I’m a gay man. Bright lights, big city is supposed to be my natural habitat.

Then the pandemic happened. Now I’m living in Kingston (population: 23,000), the original state capital of New York, in the Hudson Valley at the foot of the Catskill Mountains, about two driving hours from Manhattan. So how exactly did I end up here?

I’m a gay man. Bright lights, big city is supposed to be my natural habitat.
After 13 years living abroad, I moved back to New York City, previously my home for 15 years, with my husband Jayden near the end of 2019. A few months later, COVID-19 sent everything screeching to a grinding halt. Despite the stark, sudden decline of that familiar New York City energy, even at its ghost-town worst when it was the global epicenter of the pandemic, Manhattan still felt like the gay haven it was when I first moved there fresh out of college in the early ’90s.

As the months drifted by, and I settled into two new normals (marriage and pandemic life), my priorities shifted dramatically. I no longer needed the city I lived in to be my gay haven because, for the first time in my life, I had that at home. My best friend and her husband had moved permanently into their house upstate near Woodstock to wait out the pandemic, and after a few visits to see them and their then-foster son Isaiah (who is now Jayden’s and my godson), we decided to make a newlywed move I hadn’t previously seen coming. In November, we left New York City and its by-then-resurgent hustle and bustle for quiet, suburban life in Kingston.

I no longer needed the city I lived in to be my gay haven because, for the first time in my life, I had that at home.
About one hour south of Albany, Kingston is not exactly Schitt’s Creek. For one, we’ve yet to find a real-life Moira Rose anywhere in Kingston – and I do look for her every time we go to our favorite neighborhood diner. Also, it’s far from the cow towns of both our youths (Jayden grew up in Trafalgar, Australia, which is two hours outside of Melbourne and has a population of just under 4,000, according to the 2016 census). Kingston has multiple supermarkets and gas stations, gorgeous Gothic churches, and a Hudson River waterfront. It even has a historic center. It’s not exactly the middle of nowhere either, but its 23,000 residents and 8.77 square miles is a massive drop from New York City’s eight million people and eight million stories.

What Kingston lacks in skyscrapers, urban energy, and an obvious gay presence (despite an LGBTQ center a few blocks from our apartment in the historic center that’s currently closed for pandemic reasons), it makes up for in sheer beauty. We have clear mountain views all over town and according to every real-estate agent we spoke to, all the Brooklyn hipsters are flocking here to get out of the city. Despite the much-publicized urban migration and the “Black Lives Matter” signs peppering our neighborhood, Kingston remains, at heart, the epitome of small-town suburbia. For a bit of context, Dubuque, the 11th largest city in Iowa, a state I’ve always considered to be the ultimate gay graveyard, has a population of 58,000.

The other day my husband Jayden asked me if I thought Kingston has any nightlife (translation: a place for the gays we occasionally see on the streets to hang out and meet when they aren’t practicing social distancing). I was surprised to realize I didn’t even care. I used to judge vacation destinations based on the number of LGBTQ venues listed in travel guides and, more recently, on the size of their Grindr grid. I used to be the Manhattan snob who feared crossing the river into Brooklyn or New Jersey. Now here I am, two hours away and perfectly happy.

I used to judge vacation destinations based on the number of LGBTQ venues listed in travel guides and the size of their Grindr grid.
As a gay man, I’ve never felt more content, which feels like a major evolution. As much I enjoyed walking a block or two to get to Phoenix and Nowhere, two of the gay bars near our East Village apartment where we’d go at least once a week for happy hour in Manhattan, I enjoy happier hours going nowhere in Kingston.

Of course, life in Kingston isn’t life in a bubble. As a gay Black man in a post-Trump America, I’ve become more aware of my otherness outside of the gay urban comfort zone than I ever was when I was surrounded by diversity in Manhattan. The aforementioned “Black Lives Matter” signs offer some reassurance in a town with considerably less racial diversity, but not always for my husband, a White Australian.

Moving to the US during a time of heightened racial tension has given Jayden a crash course in American racism. Shortly after we moved to Kingston, he confessed to me that he worries every time I leave the house and drive anywhere alone that I might get stopped by a racist cop who will use some minor or made-up traffic infraction as an excuse to harass me… or worse. So far, so good – for both of us – but we don’t let down our guard.

It’s nice to have someone in my corner here, and I’m fully aware that my positive reaction to living in the suburbs might be markedly different if I were still single and 10 or 20 years younger. But I’m not (thank God), and Kingston couldn’t have come at a better time. Surviving as long as we did in lockdown Manhattan tested my bond with Jayden and strengthened it. Now I feel like we get to enjoy the payoff: nature trails, long drives, trees, and Woodstock, which is only 20 minutes away. Of course, there are drawbacks, too. Kingston is a driving community, so we don’t burn calories walking everywhere (although shoveling snow is a great way to break a sweat in the dead of winter). We even have to drive to the gym, and that requires another layer of motivation. I thought I’d left strip malls behind me for good when I left Florida after college graduation, and once again, there seems to be another one every other mile or so.

We don’t let down our guard.
Several weeks ago, Jayden and I returned to Manhattan for the first time since we left in November, and it seemed even dirtier than it had been when we’d left. I couldn’t wait to leave again, and Jayden, who had once been so excited to be living in the city, felt the same way. Sometimes I think about David and Patrick in the Schitt’s Creek series finale and how they choose small-town life over big-city dreams, even after David no longer has to. When I watched it last summer, I was secretly rooting for New York to win, but now that Jayden and I are in a similar space, I finally understand why they decided to stay put.

Far away from the center of everything has never felt more like home.