Last year, Zack Snyder developed an idea for a new 300 sequel, this time cantered on a romance between Alexander the Great and his closest confidant.



Zack Snyder reveals his 300 sequel focusing on a gay romance with Alexander the Great was rejected by Warner Bros. Well before Snyder was given the keys to WB's budding DC universe, the director first partnered with the studio on the swords and sandals epic 300. Based on the comic series by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, the film cantered on a fictionalized retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae, as Spartan king Leonidas (Gerard Butler) led 300 men against the incredible might of the Persian army. Though 300 inspired some controversy over its historical accuracy and depiction of Persians, it was a box office success and has become a favourite among Snyder fans.

300 was released in 2007, and a sequel followed seven years later, after Snyder had already kicked off the DCEU with Man of Steel. Snyder produced and co-wrote 300: Rise of an Empire, though it was directed by Noam Murro. Rise of an Empire wasn't as financially successful as 3oo and earned poorer reviews. Nevertheless, Snyder confirmed back in 2016 he still had some ideas for 300 sequels, some of which could actually move the franchise outside of Ancient Greece.

It turns out Snyder was still working on 300 as recently as last year, though Warner Bros. rejected his latest idea. While speaking to The Playlist, Snyder revealed he spent some time during the pandemic developing a third and final 300, as per his deal with WB. Interestingly, though, his work pushed him in the direction of a love story between Alexander the Great and his closest confidant Hephaestion. Warner Bros. was not interested. Snyder said:

“I just couldn’t really get my teeth into it. Over the pandemic, I had a deal with Warner Brothers and I wrote what was essentially going to be the final chapter in ‘300.’ But when I sat down to write it I actually wrote a different movie. I was writing this thing about Alexander the Great, and it just turned into a movie about the relationship between Hephaestion and Alexander. It turned out to be a love story. So it really didn’t fit in as the third movie.

“But there was that concept, and it came out really great. It’s called ‘Blood and Ashes,’ and it’s a beautiful love story, really, with warfare. I would love to do it, [WB] said no… you know, they’re not huge fans of mine. It is what it is.”



Snyder's relationship with Warner Bros. has soured considerably over the past year. Signs of trouble first emerged in 2017 over the production of Justice League; Snyder ultimately departed due to a family tragedy. This led to the fervent fan campaign for the "Snyder Cut" of Justice League, which WB finally released this year. That reignited fan interest in Snyder's complete DCEU plan, dubbed the "SnyderVerse," but Warner Bros. has so far resisted calls to restore it. In recent days, Snyder has opened up further about his relationship with WB, even going so far as to say the studio "tortured me" over Justice League.

While 300 is a very different project than the DCEU, it's clear the creative partnership between Snyder and Warner Bros. is no longer a positive one. The studio isn't very interested in the stories Snyder wishes to tell, which is a shame since his 300 sequel idea sounded quite compelling. However, if Warner Bros. wanted another bloody, war-centric tale, it sounds like Snyder moved in a very different direction, thus leading to the studio saying no. Snyder has since found a new home with Netflix, and that appears to be a much more positive relationship for him. Perhaps he'll find more creative freedom there.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 28: A view of NYPD officers blocking off a street in the West Village during the Queer Liberation March for Black Lives & Against Police Brutality on June 28, 2020 in New York City. Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, this year's Pride march had to be cancelled over health concerns. The annual event, which sees millions of attendees, marks its 50th anniversary since the first march following the Stonewall Inn riots.


NEW YORK CITY PRIDE PARADES BAN COPS – EVEN GAY COPS
Organizers of New York City’s Pride events said Saturday they are banning police and other law enforcement from marching in their annual parade until at least 2025 and will also seek to keep on-duty officers a block away from the celebration.

In their statement, NYC Pride urged members of law enforcement to “acknowledge their harm and to correct course moving forward.”

The sense of safety that law enforcement is meant to provide can instead be threatening, and at times dangerous, to those in our community who are most often targeted with excessive force and/or without reason,” the group completely without merit or substantiating facts.

No Cops… Unless We Need Them…

Police will provide first response and security “only when absolutely necessary as mandated by city officials,” the group said.

What If You’re A Cop AND You’re Gay?

The Gay Officers Action League said in a release it was disheartened by the decision.

The group called the ban an “abrupt about-face” and said the decision “to placate some of the activists in our community is shameful.”

The Police Are Coming Anyway, So There!

Detective Sophia Mason, a spokesperson for the New York Police Department, said: “The idea of officers being excluded is disheartening and runs counter to our shared values of inclusion and tolerance. That said, we’ll still be there to ensure traffic safety and good order during this huge, complex event.”

Mock n’ Daisy have more in the clip below.

Colton Underwood, who rose to fame on The Bachelor, has opened up about his decision to come out as gay, revealing that he was blackmailed over his sexuality.

In his first in-depth interview since coming out on Good Morning America in April, Colston said someone had threatened to out him.

Underwood told Variety that he went to a gay spa in Los Angeles “just to look”, and afterwards he received an anonymous email threatening to leak nude photos from the visit.

“I’ll just say it,” he said. “I, at one point, during my rock bottom and spiral, was getting blackmailed. Nobody knows I was blackmailed.”

The reality star said he then sent the email to his publicist, who he knew would not “ruin” him, and eventually came out to him as gay. He later came out publicly on GMA.

Underwood also revealed that he attempted suicide in summer 2020, when he was at his “saddest and most confused and most hurt”.


Colton Underwood

He added that his father had found gay pornography on his computer when he was in the eighth grade, and he had told him he was “curious and I was exploring and just looking”.

In dating show The Bachelor, Underwood’s virginity was famously in the spotlight leading up to his season. “I could never give anybody a good enough answer about why I was a virgin,” he later said. “The truth is I was ‘the virgin Bachelor’ because I was gay, and I didn’t know how to handle that.”

After the show, Underwood dated Cassie Randolph, the finalist from his 2019 season of The Bachelor. They announced their split in May 2020 and, in September, Randolph filed for a restraining order against Underwood after he allegedly stalked and harassed her. She dropped the charges the following month.

Underwood told Variety that he “did not physically touch or physically abuse Cassie in any way, shape or form”.

He said: “I never want people to think that I’m coming out to change the narrative, or to brush over and not take responsibility for my actions, and now that I have this gay life that I don’t have to address my past as a straight man. Controlling situations to try to grasp at any part of the straight fantasy that I was trying to live out was so wrong.”

The US will protect gay and transgender people against sex discrimination in health care, the Biden administration announced yesterday, reversing a Trump-era policy.


US President Joe Biden

The US will protect gay and transgender people against sex discrimination in health care, the Biden administration announced Monday, reversing a Trump-era policy that sought to narrow the scope of legal rights in sensitive situations involving medical care.

The action by the Department of Health and Human Services affirms that federal laws forbidding sex discrimination in health care also protect gay and transgender people.

The Trump administration had defined sex to mean gender assigned at birth, thereby excluding transgender people from the law's umbrella of protection.

Fear of discrimination can lead individuals to forgo care, which can have serious negative health consequences," said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra.

Everyone including LGBTQ people should be able to access health care, free from discrimination or interference, period.

Becerra said in a statement the Biden administration policy will bring HHS into line with a landmark 6-3 Supreme Court decision last year in a workplace discrimination case, which established that federal laws against sex discrimination on the job also protect gay and transgender people.

Despite that ruling, the Trump administration proceeded to try to narrow the legal protections against health care discrimination, issuing rules that narrowly defined sex as biological gender.

A federal judge had blocked those rules from taking effect, although Trump administration officials argued that as a legal matter health care discrimination was a separate issue from the employment case the Supreme Court decided.

Monday's action means that the HHS Office for Civil Rights will again investigate complaints of sex discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Hospitals, clinics and other medical providers can face government sanctions for violations of the law.

The Biden administration action essentially restores the policy established during the Obama years.

The Affordable Care Act included a prohibition on sex discrimination in health care but did not include the term gender identity.

The Obama administration interpreted the law as shielding gay and transgender people as well. It relied on a broad understanding of sex shaped by a person's inner sense of being male, female, neither or a combination.

Behind the dispute over rights for transgender people in particular is a medically recognized condition called gender dysphoria discomfort or distress caused by a discrepancy between the gender that a person identifies as and the gender assigned at birth. Consequences can include severe depression. Treatment can range from gender confirmation surgery and hormones to people changing their outward appearance by adopting a different hairstyle or clothing.

Under the Obama-era rule, a hospital could be required to perform gender-transition procedures such as hysterectomies if the facility provided that kind of treatment for other medical conditions.

LGBTQ groups say explicit protections are needed for people seeking gender transition treatment, and even for transgender people who need care for illnesses such as diabetes or heart problems.

More than 1.5 million Americans identify as transgender, according to the Williams Institute, a think tank focusing on LGBT policy at the UCLA School of Law. A bigger number 4.5 per cent of the population identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, according to Gallup.

Professional groups like the American Medical Association, along with civil rights organizations, have supported health care protections for gay and transgender people, while social and religious conservatives sought to narrow their scope.

HHS is a traditional battleground for conflicts over social issues. During the Trump administration the department clearly bent to the will of conservatives. Other Trump policies applauded by the right restricted abortion referrals and broadened employers' ability to opt out of providing birth control to women workers covered by their health plans.

Under President Joe Biden, the policy pendulum is swinging back in the opposite direction, as officials unwind the actions taken in the Trump years.

Jesuit Father Jan Korditschke

Germany's powerful Catholic progressives are openly defying a recent Holy See pronouncement that priests cannot bless same-sex unions by offering such blessings at services in about 100 different churches all over the country this week.

The blessings at open worship services are the latest pushback from German Catholics against a document released in March by the Vatican’s orthodoxy office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which said Catholic clergy cannot bless same-sex unions because God “cannot bless sin.”

The document pleased conservatives and disheartened advocates for LGBTQ Catholics around the globe. But the response has been particularly acute in Germany, where the German church has been at the forefront of opening discussion on hot-button issues such as the church’s teaching on homosexuality as part of a formal process of debate and reform.

The dozens of church services celebrating blessings of gay unions are the latest escalation in tensions between conservatives and progressives that have already sparked alarm, primarily from the right, that part of the German church might be heading into schism.

Germany is no stranger to schism: 500 years ago, Martin Luther launched the Reformation here.

Pope Francis, who has championed a more decentralized church structure, has already reminded the German hierarchy that it must remain in communion with Rome during its reform process, known as a “synodal path."

In Berlin, the Rev. Jan Korditschke, a Jesuit who works for the diocese preparing adults for baptism and helps out at the St. Canisius congregation, will lead blessings for queer couples at a worship service May 16.

“I am convinced that homosexual orientation is not bad, nor is homosexual love a sin,” Korditschke told The Associated Press in an interview Friday. “I want to celebrate the love of homosexuals with these blessings because the love of homosexuals is something good.”

The 44-year-old said it is important that homosexuals can show themselves within the Catholic Church and gain more visibility long-term. He said he was not afraid of possible repercussions by high-ranking church officials or the Vatican.

“I stand behind what I am doing, though it is painful for me that I cannot do it in tune with the church leadership,” Korditschke said, adding that “the homophobia of my church makes me angry and I am ashamed of it.”

The head of the German Bishops Conference last month criticized the grassroots initiative for gay blessings which is called “Liebe Gewinnt” or “Love Wins.”

Limburg Bishop Georg Baetzing said the blessings “are not suitable as an instrument of church political manifestations or political actions.”

However, Germany's powerful lay organization, the Central Committee of German Catholics, or ZdK, which has been advocating for gay blessings since 2015, positioned itself once more in favour of them. It called the contentious document from Rome “not very helpful" and explicitly expressed its support for ”Love Wins."

“These are celebrations of worship in which people express to God what moves them," Birgit Mock, the ZdK's spokeswoman for family affairs, told the AP.

“The fact that they ask for God's blessing and thank him for all the good in their lives — also for relationships lived with mutual respect and full of love — that is deeply based on the Gospel,” Mock said, adding that she herself was planning to attend a church service with gay blessings in the western city of Hamm on Monday in which she would pray for ”the success of the synodal path in which we, as a church, recognize sexuality as a positive strength."

Michael Deel - campaign photo

Michael Deel is hardly the only human curiosity running to be the next senator from Arkansas. The gay Republican says he will run against everything the party stands for in an attempt to “prevent these radical right extremists from taking over” a party they already dominate.

The competition so far includes a former football player, a bigoted gun range owner who won’t allow Muslims on her property, and a gun-lovin’ pastor who thinks everyone has a right to own a tank. The competition will be stiff.

“If elected, I will be the first openly gay Republican senator elected to office,” Deel told the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. “Being gay and being a Republican, which is kind of a unicorn in this day and time, I felt like I could make a difference.”

The seat is currently held by Sen. John Boozman ®, a former Arkansas Razorbacks football player. Boozman has a history of voting against LGBTQ civil rights.

“Early on in his career, he co-introduced legislation to prohibit gay marriage,” he said. “He attempted to define it in the Constitution. He proved to be soft on law and order by voting against a bill that would more strongly penalize people who attacked someone based on sexual orientation. He even voted against an anti-discrimination measure that affected members of the military.

“But Sen. Boozman has not just been hostile to the LGBTQ+ community. He voted against ratifying an agreement that would protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities the year before he vocally opposed reauthorizing the ‘Violence Against Women Act.'”

Deel will also face at least two other primary candidates – Jan Morgan, a gun range owner who reportedly does not allow Muslims on her property, and Heath Loftis, a Baptist minister who doesn’t believe in the separation of church and state. Loftis is also a gun extremist and believes everyone has a right to own a tank.

“Tanks? Why not?” Loftis writes on his website. “The right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right to keep an overbearing government in check.”

“I think what’s happened is the Republican Party has lost everything right now,” Deel said. “They’ve lost the presidency. They’ve lost Congress. So they’re fighting a cultural war. ‘Your guns will be taken away. The gays are taking over.'”

“Our democracy is hanging on by a thread right now. It really is. People should be scared right now. If they’ve been paying attention, they should be scared. I’m trying to prevent these radical right extremists from taking over.”

It wasn’t clear if Deel understood that the values he is espousing are the ones in the Democratic party platform while the ones he condemns are part of the Republican party platform. He insists he’s part of the GOP.

“I am a Republican, but on social issues, I lean left,” he said. “I want to protect everyone. I want to help everyone. But I will not go with this rhetoric about the election being stolen. I won’t stand for it.”

Not sure if this is an issue outside the US, so please to comment if it is. Here in the US people are finding their cars are significantly louder the next time they get in their car as thieves are going around cutting off catalytic converters off of cars and trucks. My sister had her stolen off her Prius a few months ago and appears the trend is spreading.

So you might be wondering what's the deal. Catalytic converters contain precious metals that right now are going for very high prices, so scrap yards, junk yards are paying top dollar for catalytic converters. Although there are laws in effect thieves are collecting hundreds of dollars per converter and with a saw can make an easy payday for thieves.



There are some products that you can install that will hopefully prevent the theft of your catalytic converter such as Cat Security.

https://getcatsecurity.com/

Catholic parishes across Germany plan to offer “blessing services for lovers” on and around May 10 in a campaign that is aimed in part at gay and lesbian couples – and will heighten the pressure in the church debate on the issue. In this 2015 file photo, LGBTQ supporters wave a flag outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington.

Bonn (KNA) “Love wins” – that is the name of the initiative in which Catholic chaplains in parishes across Germany plan to invite people to “blessing services for lovers” on and around May 10. It was launched in Hamburg at the weekend.

The campaign’s website said the aim was to celebrate “the diversity of people’s different life plans and love stories” and to ask for God’s blessing.

Gay and lesbian couples are also invited, which is attracting public attention because the Vatican declared in mid-March that the Catholic Church had no authority to bless same-sex relationships as such unions did not correspond to the divine will. That statement has been widely criticized among church members in Germany. “I have blessed buildings and sugar beet harvesting machines,” said the Wuerzburg priest Burkhard Hose. “So why not also people who love each other?”

“I have blessed buildings and sugar beet harvesting machines,” said the Wuerzburg priest Burkhard Hose. “So why not also people who love each other?”

Hose and Bernd Moenkebuescher, a priest from the town of Hamm in North Rhine-Westphalia, started collecting signatures against Rome’s ban on blessing same-sex couples and have so far gathered some 11,000. Birgit Mock, the vice-president of the Catholic German Women’s Federation (KDFB), said: “The current discussion could lead to a historic step: a positive appreciation of responsibly lived sexuality in the Catholic Church in Germany.”

Mock and Bishop Helmut Dieser head one of four working groups of the Synodal Path reform project. The group deals with sexual morality, and the church’s approach to homosexuality is among its topics. Bishop Dieser has made clear that his office does not allow him to give a mandate to bless gay couples—but added: “In the case of requests to bless same-sex couples, pastoral ministers are bound by their conscience.” That doesn’t sound like a ban. However, the German Bishops’ Conference criticized the blessing services. “They are not suitable as an instrument of church-political manifestations or protest actions,” said the conference president, Bishop Georg Baetzing.

Baetzing is in an awkward position: the Vatican is increasingly critical of the debates in Germany but grassroots members are becoming ever more vocal in their demands for reforms. However, there is strong opposition to change at the universal church level. Australian Cardinal George Pell, for example, warned that part of the church in Germany was “resolutely heading in the wrong direction.”

After Hamburg, there will be further blessing services in about 70 locations. Why around May 10 of all days? Hose, a college chaplain, referred to the Orthodox Church which commemorates the biblical patriarch Noah on this day. God made a covenant with him after the Flood—under the sign of a rainbow. That is not far removed from the colors of the rainbow flag of the gay rights movement.

The argument is unlikely to meet with approval from the Orthodox Church. Metropolitan Hilarion of the Moscow Patriarchate praised the Vatican’s ban on blessing same-sex couples. On this point, the teachings of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches were in agreement, he said.

The AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and activist Dennis Peron largely sparked the drive toward acceptance of cannabis use.



After years of the “War on Drugs” and nearly a century of staunch anti-marijuana policies, the United States is nearing full legalization of cannabis substances in medical and recreational form. Nearly half the country now lives in states where marijuana is legal.

All of this progress builds on decades’ worth of work by committed activists, with gay activists playing an outsized role in the push for legalization.

In 2021 alone, New York, New Mexico and Virginia have passed legislation that the possession or use of recreational cannabis is legal. Legislation is advancing in Louisiana, Minnesota and Rhode Island.

Last fall, voters in conservative states South Dakota, Mississippi and Montana all approved ballot measures to loosen restrictions on cannabis.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill legalizing cannabis, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D) has pledged to move ahead with the bill in the upper chamber, despite President Joe Biden’s (D) reluctance on the issue.

As with a lot of progressive policies, San Francisco was at the forefront of marijuana acceptance. The city’s large gay population wasn’t incidental to that cause. In many ways, it was the reason for it.

The push to decriminalize marijuana possession started in the 1970s. Before his assassination in 1978, Harvey Milk pushed a nonbinding ballot measure requesting the city district attorney to stop prosecuting marijuana possession and usage.

The effort to legalize marijuana ramped up considerable with the advent of AIDS in the 1980s. Treatments for the disease were poor at best.

Marijuana emerged as a legitimate treatment for pain and loss of appetite that were common with AIDS. Activist and hospital volunteer Brownie Mary toured the wards at San Francisco General Hospital, offering cannabis brownies to AIDS patients.

The person who did the most to push for legalization in the Golden Gate City, and eventually all of California, was Dennis Peron, who became known as the gay ‘father of medical marijuana.’

Peron was a Vietnam War vet who sold medical cannabis out of a storefront in the Castro. Seeing the benefits of cannabis for people with AIDS, Peron organized a statewide measure to legalize medical cannabis. That initiative passed in 1996 with more than three-quarters of the vote.

The issue was personal for Peron. His partner died from AIDS.

Having the largest state legalize medical marijuana was the start of broader acceptance for usage in all forms. While it wasn’t all that hard to get approved for medical usage, the move from legalizing medical cannabis, to legalizing recreational, became shortly inevitable.

Ironically, Peron opposed legalizing recreational marijuana, on the grounds that all usage was medicinal.

Years later, in a perfect pairing, the first ballot measures to legalize recreational marijuana in Colorado and Washington state both appeared at the same time as ballot measures to legalize marriage equality. Both measures passed handily in both states.

The speed in which attitudes changed around both issues is remarkably similar. At the turn of the century, about a third of voters supported legalizing cannabis and a third supported marriage equality. Both issues are now supported by two-thirds of Americans.

One significant split on the issues: a majority of evangelicals support cannabis legalization, while still opposing gay rights.

Changing societal attitudes is time-consuming work, as activists can attest to. It’s no wonder gay men like Dennis Peron applied those same lessons to the quest to legalize marijuana, and with the same winning effect.