Via Press Release:
In Season 2, a feud between warring clans comes to a boil when budding psychopath Annie Wilkes, Stephen King’s nurse from hell, gets waylaid in Castle Rock.
Season two stars Lizzy Caplan, Tim Robbins, Paul Sparks, Yusra Warsama, Barkhad Abdi and Elsie Fisher.
Castle Rock premieres Wednesday, Oct. 23, only on Hulu.
January 4, 1877 – Marsden Hartley the American painter, poet, and essayist. is born in Lewiston, Maine. Hartley was in Paris at the creation of the cubist movement. His friends reads like a phone book of the gay who’s Who on the time: William Sloan Kennedy, Thomas Bird Mosher, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, to name only a few. The love of his life was Karl von Freyburg a young German soldier who was sadly killed in battle in 1914. References to Freyburg were a recurring motif in Hartley’s work, most notably in Portrait of a German Officer (1914).
January 4, 1976 – In Saskatoon, the Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench rules that term “sex” in the Saskatchewan Human Rights Act does not include sexual orientation and turns down a job discrimination case brought by Doug Wilson. Wilson decides to abandon pursuit of legal redress.
January 4, 1977 – The first issue of After Stonewall: A Critical Journal of Gay Liberation is published in Winnipeg. The magazine continued into the early 1980s.
On Tuesday, Deadline reported that actors French-Canadian actor and director Xavier Dolan and Taylor Frey have been cast in the roles of gay Derry residents Adrian Mellon and Don Haggerty. Both the characters were left out of the 1990 mini-series.
In the book, Don and Adrian are supporting characters who experience homophobia and hate crimes in thier own respectively tragic storylines, which set off the events of the second part of It and this is what brings the Losers Club back to Derry.
Adrian grows fond of the town of Derry despite it’s violent homophobic attitude and only agrees to leave because of Don. Before leaving, the two attend the town fair and on the way home, they are attacked by 3 homophobic teens, Webby Garton, Steven Bishoff Dubay and Chris Unwin. After the teens throw Adrian over a bridge, they continue beating up Don, Officer Andrew Redemacher arrives to stop the fight. Pennywise meanwhile drags Adrian out of the water, bites into his armpit and cracks his ribs. Though Don and Chris witness this, nobody mentions Pennywise at the trial.
After Adrian’s body was found, he was buried in the Derry Cemetery.
Andy Muschietti returns to direct the sequel, which features the adult version of Losers’ Club members who survived the malevolent Pennywise, which Bill Skarsgard will once again portray. James McAvoy plays Bill, Bill Hader is Richie, Jessica Chastain is Beverly, James Ransone is Eddie, Andy Bean is Stanley, Jay Ryan is Ben and Isaiah Mustafa is Mike.
Production on the sequel, It: Chapter Two, is currently underway.
Gov. Paul LePage vetoed a bill Friday to prohibit state-licensed counselors and therapists from engaging in “conversion therapy” aimed at changing an underage client’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The bill would allow the state to deny or revoke a professional license to medical or mental health professionals who engage in conversion therapy of minors.
The bill defines conversion therapy as “any practice or course of treatment that seeks to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including, but not limited to, any effort to change gender expression or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same gender.” In his veto message, LePage called the bill “bad public policy” because the broad definition could prevent professionals from answering clients’ questions or having conversations with them.
The bill was sponsored by Rep. Ryan Fecteau,who is gay, sponsored the bill after he said an administrator at the Catholic university he graduated from in 2014 urged him to seek similar therapy. The Legislature will need to muster two-thirds votes in both chambers to overturn the veto. The conversion therapy bill failed to win two-thirds support in either chamber in earlier votes.
LePage will be term-limited out of office in November.
Via Politico:
Sen. Susan Collins on Tuesday blasted coverage of her support for the GOP tax bill as “extremely discouraging” and “unbelievably sexist.” The Maine Republican, a key swing vote on the tax package, accused reporters of ignoring her influence over the final legislation and unfairly criticizing her efforts to pass a pair of Obamacare stabilization bills.
“I believe that the coverage has been unbelievably sexist, and I cannot believe that the press would have treated another senator with 20 years of experience as they have treated me,” she told reporters in the Capitol. “They’ve ignored everything that I’ve gotten and written story after story about how I’m duped. How am I duped when all your amendments get accepted?”
Dear Sen. Collins: Its not sexist to call you a stupid bitch when you indeed are being a STUPID BITCH!
#ThatIsAll
Leaders of the Louisiana chapter of the KKK are distributing fliers urging members and people who want to join their heinous group to slaughter gay people in an effort to “Save our land, Join the Klan, White power!”
The flyers were found by residents in neighboring Bessemer, Alabama and were placed on their driveways and lawns.
“Stop AIDS: Support Gay Bashing,” one of the flyers read. “Homosexual men and their sexual acts are disgusting and inhuman.”
“Our race is our nation,” reads another.
The fliers are signed “The Loyal White Knights of the KKK” and include a website address and phone number of the Ku Klux Klan Louisiana Chapter call for those interested in joining the hate.
Bessemer Deputy Police Chief Mike Roper told AL.com the flyers were “very offensive”..
Recently, KKK flyers have been found in Newton County, GA and as far north as Boothbay Harbor, Maine.
The FBI said it is investigating the incidents.
Remember their hate is not only about race
The citizens of Boothbay Harbor, Maine are waking up finding Ku Kux Klan flyers being left on their lawns inside plastic ziplock bags,
The flier has “Transgender” stamped at the top in bold letters followed by “Is an Abomination according to the King James Bible.”
It quotes Deuteronomy 22:5 and warns: “Act now, before it’s too late. They are jeopardizing the safety of bathrooms across the nation for our women and children. This needs to stop.”
The flier urges readers to join the KKK. It says the nation has no future unless the KKK unites and organizes white Christian patriots. It isn’t clear whether the fliers were printed and distributed by representatives of the Ku Klux Klan.
Maine Democratic Party Chairman Phil Bartlett released this statement:
Simply put, this is despicable. Hatred and bigotry have no place here in Maine. But unfortunately, actions like these are the direct result of leaders like Donald Trump, Paul LePage, and Mary Mayhew who only embolden white supremacists by refusing to stand up and condemn their hateful actions and rhetoric. Our message is clear: this hate is not welcome in Maine and we will not allow it to stand. We hope Donald Trump, Paul LePage, and Mary Mayhew will join us in denouncing these shameful acts.
Lincoln County Sheriff’s Lt. Michael Murhpy said the pamphelts do not seem to be directed at any one individual nor related to any other incident locally or nationally.
“While unsettling to many, this appears to be nothing more than an expression of free speech,” Lt. Murphy said.
Six-term congressman and former paper mill worker Maine Democratic Rep. Mike Michaud has come out of the closet in an op-ed provided to The Associated Press, the Portland Press Herald and the Bangor Daily News.
Michaud who is hoping to unseat Maine Gov. Paul LePage next year announced that he’s gay in response to what he called a ‘‘whisper campaign, insinuations and push-polls’’ attempted to get voters to question whether he’s gay.’ by political opponents hoping to weaken his gubernatorial bid.
I wasn’t surprised to learn about the whisper campaigns, insinuations and push-polls some of the people opposed to my candidacy have been using to raise questions about my personal life. They want people to question whether I am gay.
Allow me to save them the trouble with a simple, honest answer: “Yes, I am. But why should it matter?”
That may seem like a big announcement to some people. For me, it’s just a part of who I am, as much as being a third-generation millworker or a lifelong Mainer. One thing I do know is that it has nothing to do with my ability to lead the state of Maine.
Growing up in a large Franco-American Catholic family, it’s never been in my nature to talk about myself. I write this now merely to let my opponents and the outside interests who fund them know that I am not ashamed of who I am. And if seeing someone from my background, in my position, openly acknowledge the fact that he’s gay makes it a little bit easier for future generations to live their lives openly and without fear, all the better.“
Michaud didn’t identify who he thinks was behind the alleged whisper campaign against him. His campaign has not previously raised the issue.
April 28, 1929 – Gay journalist John Paul Hudson is born. Hudson is one of the first gay writers to take up gay rights and become involved in the media. He wrote for the periodical Gay in 1969, the Advocate in 1970 and contributed to David, Gaysweek, News West, Flash and Vector. A tireless activist he is credited with being one of the founders of the gay rights movement that grew out of the Stonewall riots and was one of the principal organizers of the Christopher Street
Liberation Day (CSLD) committee, which put together the first GLBT Pride March, in 1970 on
the first anniversary of Stonewall.
April 28 1977 – Florida Governor Reubin Askew asks Miami voters to rescind a recently passed ray rights ordinance saying, “I would not want a known homosexual teaching my children. Askew was an ally of Florida Orange Juice spokesperson Anita Bryant, who conducted an anti-gay crusade and signed legislation prohibiting any gay or lesbians in Florida from adopting children.
April 28th, 1981 – Marilyn Barnett files a palimony suit against tennis icon Billie Jean King outing her. At the time, King denies that she is a lesbian, although she acknowledges the affair. King lost all her endorsements in a 24-hour period (an estimated $2 million), wins the case and comes out officially.
April 28th, 1990 – Over 1000 people attend Queer Nation’s first major demonstration. Queer Nation founded by AIDS activists from ACT UP mobilized over a 1000 protesters in a matter of hours outside Uncle Charlie’s Downtown in NYC responding to pipe bomb which exploded at about 12:10 A.M injuring 3 men in the very popular Greenwich Village gay bar and marched their way to the NYPD’s 6th Precinct, blocking traffic.
Five years later in 1995 it was discovered that an extremist radical Muslim terrorist ring led by El Sayyid Nosair who was convicted of involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was responsible for the pipe bomb attack
April 29, 1933 – Singer Rod McKuen is born in Oakland, California. His “new age” songs made him a celebrity in the late 60s. He told an interviewer “I have had sex with men. Does that make me gay?”
April 30, 1877 – Alice B. Toklas is born in San Francisco. Toklas will become a lover of Gertrude Stein and become gay history’s most legendary lesbian couple.
After moving to Paris, Stein met Alice B. Toklas in 1907; she called her “Pussy” and Gertrude was “Lovey” to Alice. Their apartment on the Rue de Fleurus became a famous meeting place for artists and writers.
During the period Toklas and Stein were together, they frequently exchanged love letters. Alice was an early riser, and Gertrude, who wrote late into the night, left her tender, passionate notes to cheer up her mornings. “Baby precious Hubby worked and / loved his wifey, sweet sleepy wifey, / dear dainty wifey, baby precious sleep,” Stein once rhymed.
Toklas gained wide attention with the publication of The Autobiogrphy of Alice B. Toklas (1933), which is actually Gertrude Stein’s memoirs. It records Toklas’s first-person observations of Stein’s life and her friends, among them Ernest Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Georges Braque.
The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook came out when Toklas was 77. It contained 300 recipes and became famous because of one special dish, Toklas’s Haschich Fudge (“which anyone could whip up on a rainy day,” as she wrote),
May 1, 1974 – Studio One disco opens in West Hollywood, CA. Started in an old WW2-era bomb-sight manufacturing building, Studio One has a long history that played a big part in the lives, politics and gay rights movement.
May 1, 1974 – Gay activists march in Portugal for the first time, demanding an end to the country’s sodomy laws and a repeal of all statutes that discriminate against gays and lesbians.
May 1, 1975 – Maine Legislators decriminalize homosexuality between consenting adults by repealing its sodomy laws.
May 1, 1975 – Published reports confirm that Paul Newman is having financing trouble with his attempt to bring The Front Runner, a 1974 novel by Patricia Nell Warren. considered now to be a classic of LGBT literature to the big screen. Newman eventually allows his option to lapse.
May 1, 1976 – Christopher Street magazine a gay-oriented magazine published in New York City, New York debuts. Known both for its serious discussion of issues within the gay community and its satire of anti-gay criticism, it was one of the two most-widely read gay-issues publications in the USA. Christopher Street covered politics and culture and its aim was to become a gay New Yorker. Christopher Street printed 231 issues before closing its doors in December 1995.
May 1, 1977 – Wyoming decriminalizes private consensual adult homosexual acts.
May 2, 1895 – Lorenz Hart was born in New York. Richard Rogers wrote the perfect scores for Hart’s words. They became some of the best songs of the ’20s and ’30s. It was a closely guarded secret he was gay. No one knew until a biography came out 30 years after his death.
May 2, 1972 – J. Edgar Hoover dies, and leaves the bulk of his estate to Clyde Tolson, his “companion” of over 40 years. To this day no one really knows th truth if Hoover was gay or not. But for LGBT history’s sake lets hope that it wasn’t so.
May 3, 1912 – Writer May Sarton is born in Wendelgem, Belgium. The writer of some of the most lyric poetry of the 20th century. Satron didn’t see herself as a “lesbian” writer, instead wanting to touch on what is universally human about love in all its manifestations. When publishing her novel Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing in 1965, she feared that writing openly about lesbianism would lead to a diminution of the previously established value of her work. “The fear of homosexuality is so great that it took courage to write a novel about a woman homosexual who is not a sex maniac, a drunkard, a drug-taker, or in any way repulsive” wrote Sarton in Journal of a Solitude. After the book’s release, many of Sarton’s works began to be studied in university level Women’s Studies classes, being embraced by feminists and lesbians alike
May 3, 1989 – Christine Jorgenson, pioneering transsexual, dies of cancer at age sixty-two. Jorgensen was the first person to become widely known in the United States for having sex reassignment surgery—in this case, male to female.
Jorgensen grew up in the Bronx area of New York and upon returning to New York after military service and increasingly concerned over (as one obituary called it at the time) her “lack of male physical development” Jorgensen heard about sex reassignment surgery, and began taking the female hormone ethinyl estradiol on her own. She researched the subject with the help of Dr. Joseph Angelo, a husband of one of Jorgensen’s friends.
Jorgensen had intended to go to Sweden, where at the time the only doctors in the world performing this surgery were located. During a stopover in Copenhagen to visit relatives, however, she met Dr. Christian Hamburger, a Danish endocrinologist and specialist in rehabilitative hormonal therapy. Jorgensen stayed in Denmark, and under Dr. Hamburger’s direction, was allowed to begin hormone replacement therapy. She then got special permission from the Danish Minister of Justice to undergo the series of operations for sex re-assignment.
Jorgensen chose the name Christine in honor of Dr. Hamburger and she became the most famous and outspoken figures and for transsexual and transgender community.
May 4, 1993 – “Angels in America: Millennium Approaches” opens on Broadway. Millenium Approaches is part one of Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes the Pulitzer Prize-winning play in two parts by American playwright Tony Kushner.
The two parts of the play are separately presentable and entitled Millennium Approaches and Perestroika, respectively and have been made into both a television miniseries and an opera by Peter Eötvös.
Angels in America received numerous awards, including the 1993 and 1994 Tony Awards for Best Play. The play’s first part, Millennium Approaches, received the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
The play garnered much praise upon its release for its dialogue and exploration of social issues. “Mr. Kushner has written the most thrilling American play in years,” wrote The New York Times and decade after the play’s premier, Metro Weekly labeled it “one of the most important pieces of theater to come out of the late 20th century.”
Former Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) now says that she supports gay marriage and she also now opposes DOMA, which she voted for in 1996:
“I think obviously this has evolved over time on the whole issue for the whole country and the nations,” Snowe, a moderate Republican, told CNN. “We’ve seen a sea change in society’s whole attitude on this particular issue and it’s only natural for government to be responsive to those changes.”
“The time has come,” she continued. “I think what we’re seeing is, I think, changing societal conventions, that ultimately you see the transformation of society’s gradual thinking and evolving on issues. I think we’re seeing those sea changes on this particular question.”
Very brave words Olympia now that you are retired and have absolutely no power to make things happen.
But to be fair Olympia Snowe once a very strong-willed independent Republican who reached across the aisle more than a few times in her career but she lost her steam and her freewill the last 4 years of her term becoming nothing more than another GOP lemming voting along the new Reich Rights extremist hard line something she despised and which is why she retired and let office.