Florida is at the forefront of the outbreak, with nearly one-fifth of all leprosy cases in the US originating from the state, the CDC says.
The disease is caused by a bacteria calledMycobacterium leprae, which can attack the nerves, causing a loss of sensation in the affected areas. Untreated, leprosy can also cause blindness, ulcers, disfigurements, and more.
According to a report from dermatologists Aashni Bhukhan, DO, Charles Dunn, MD, and Rajiv Nathoo, MD, the number of reported leprosy cases across the country has doubled over the past decade.
The absence of traditional risk factors in many recent cases of leprosy in Florida, coupled with the high proportion of residents, like our patient, who spend a great deal of time outdoors, supports the investigation into environmental reservoirs as a potential source of transmission,” the CDC said.
Leprosy is a curable disease. The currently recommended treatment regimen consists of three drugs: dapsone, rifampicin and clofazimine. The combination is referred to as multi-drug therapy (MDT). The duration of treatment is six months for PB and 12 months for MB cases.
“It’s as if there was a reason for all this. Why, it’s almost like Biblical plagues.” – Seth Bogdanove
Last Monday night, Scott Rowin stopped by The Loft on Fifth Avenue in San Diego and inquired about a job. He left past 8 p.m. and headed south, towards his downtown apartment, intending to call an Uber.
His memory is hazy, but somewhere within a few blocks, he heard what sounded like two people yelling gay slurs.
“Started hearing f*** this, f*** that.
Moments later, he heard footsteps behind him.
As he turned around, he says he caught a quick glimpse of one of the people, a man in his 20s or 30s. At the same time, he says a liquid was thrown at him, with the consistency of water.
“Immediately after that, I went up like coals on a barbecue. It started off really big,” said Rowin.
On fire, Rowin says stopped, dropped, and rolled on the cement, patting himself and quickly putting out the flames.
“Just in survival mode. Just in the zone, I have to save my life,” said Rowin.
Rowin suffered second-degree burns, mostly along his side and back. It’s unclear if he’ll need surgery.
“This is absolutely a hate crime. The slurs were hate-filled,” said Rowin. “Nobody walks around with flammable liquid like without an agenda. In my opinion, they were obliviously out there targeting the LGBT community,” said Rowin.
In the middle of Sheridan Square while the bars were still open. That takes a lot of nerve.
The annual rainbow flag display set on the wrought iron fences around the Stonewall National Monument was torn down early Sunday morningin an act of hateful vandalism.
The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force said that three unidentified men were walking past the Stonewall National Monument shortly after 3 a.m. when they started breaking Pride Flags on display along a fence and throwing them on the ground.
District 3’s New York City Councilmember, Erik Bottcher tweeted: “Someone vandalized the rainbow flag display on the Stonewall National Monument on Christopher Street, snapping the flag sticks and throwing them on the ground, If anyone thinks this is going to intimidate us or weaken our resolve, they’re mistaken.”
The Stonewall National Monument @ Christopher Street Park was established on June 24, 2016, and the sites in the middle of Sheridan Square are surrounded by many gay bars including the Stonewall Inn which sits directly across from it.
We need to stand up and start fighting back against the hate of the religious extremist and the Republican party.
Disturbing news out of California:
In the midst of Pride month, a disturbing incident marred the inclusive spirit as fliers containing derogatory remarks about the LGBTQ+ community were discovered on multiple cars outside a Target store.
According to Ashley Rawson, a person who received one of the fliers, they spent a brief period of time in the Target store before discovering the offensive flyer on their car’s windshield upon returning.
Rawson reportedly observed that at least two rows of cars in the vicinity had also been targeted with the same flyer attached to their windshields. KRCR interviewed an anonymous Target employee who claimed they had received verbal backlash after the display of Pride merchandise.
Luke 17:2 “It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.”
Last year several anti-LGBT bills passed and were signed into law in Alabama. One, HB334, included an amendment that prevented the teaching or discussion of gender or sexual orientations in kindergarten through fifth grade. Now the GOP controlled Alabama Housel filed on April 20 would extend and prohibit the discussion of gender identity or sexual orientation in public K-12 schools and require schools to notify parents if their child identifies as LGBTup until the 8th Grade.
HB354, sponsored by Republican Mark Butler, will extend that prohibition to the eighth grade, while adding more provisions for parents to be notified of their children’s sexual orientation in school and require local boards of education to adopt policies to notify parents if there is a change in their child’s physical, mental, or emotional status. Also, the parent would have to be notified of any medical services or well-being questionnaires beforehand and could opt their child out of those services.
The new bill was not scheduled to be discussed in a committee during this legislative session and also
“North Carolina’s top Republican has — finally — made his run for North Carolina Governor official. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Greensboro native who attended Grimsley High School and UNCG, announced his intent to run in 2024 at a previously announced rally at Ace Speedway in Alamance County on Saturday, April 22.
The possibility of his run for governor drew a scathing critique published as an opinion in the New York Times, calling him “extremism incarnate.” A Talking Points Memo piece recently examined years of social media activity painting a history of conspiratorial posts and attacks on other people, according to the piece..”
After the Pulse Nightclub shooting, Robinson immediately tweeted “homosexuality is STILL an abominable sin.” Robinson has also repeatedly called homosexuality “filth,” and has said heterosexual relationships are “superior,” and has suggested women should not be in leadership positions and said climate change is “junk science.”
He also claimed that “God formed me” to battle LGBTQ rights.
For Robinson who has experienced discrimination in North Carolina as a black man. to turn around and discriminate against women, gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people is, well, deplorable.
Every week we will highlight the hypocrisy and lies of the Republican party and Extremist “Christians” Right to expose the truth about them.
*A former Norfolk church youth group leader was sentenced to seven years in prison for the sexual abuse of a minor. Charles Willoughby III, 39 was convicted to seven years in prison for traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor. #NotADragQueen
*A pastor at a high school in the Okeechobee County School District is facing allegations that he was engaged in an inappropriate romantic connection with a student at the school. According to the Okeechobee County Sheriff’s Office, Donny Raney, age 36, was taken into custody on Tuesday and put into the Okeechobee County Jail. #NotADragQueen
*A Saskatoon priest has been placed on administrative leave following sexual assault allegations involving a minor. Police arrested a 69-year-old man on Wednesday and charged him with sexual assault following a complaint by the mother of a 13-year-old girl. #NotADragQueen
*An Indiana woman has been charged with a federal hate crime for a racially motivated attack and stabbing of a woman of Chinese descent on a public transit bus. #NotADragQueen
*The federal district judge who first suspended the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the so-called abortion pill mifepristone failed to disclose during his Senate confirmation process two interviews on Christian talk radio where he discussed social issues such as contraception and gay rights. In undisclosed radio interviews, Matthew Kacsmaryk referred to being gay as “a lifestyle” and expressed concerns that new norms for “people who experience same-sex attraction”. #NotADragQueen
*Posted to Franklin Graham’s Facebook page: Artificial Intelligence is being programmed to lie. The powerful force of AI is being built with biases, agendas, and outright lies that can impact our future. As Elon Musk told the media—“They’re training the AI to lie.” #NotADragQueen– (Just a grifter)
*A member of GOP leadership in the Tennessee House of Representatives was recently found guilty of sexually harassing at least one legislative intern, likely two, by an ethics subcommittee acting in secret. About six hours after being confronted by NewsChannel 5 Investigates, Rep. Scotty Campbell gave up his seat in the Tennessee General Assembly. #NotADragQueen
A Sarasota, Florida pastor was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday after he was arrested in July 2019 when the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office received a report that he’d sexually abused a 6-year-old child, according to a news release in the case. And again. #NotADragQueen
The Bolshoi Ballet is an internationally renowned classical ballet company based at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia.
On Wednesday, the Bolshoi theatre announced it has dropped a contemporary ballet about the legendary Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev from its repertoire following the expansion of Russia’s ban on “LGBT propaganda”.
This makes any portrayal of homosexuality – such as Nureyev’s relationships with men after his defection from the Soviet Union in 1961, which the ballet touches on – impossible.
“‘Nureyev’ was removed from the repertoire in connection with the law … where issues related to the promotion of ‘non-traditional values’ are stipulated absolutely unequivocally,” Vladimir Urin, general director of the Bolshoi, told a news conference on Wednesday.
The ballet, choreographed by Kirill Serebrennikov, has had a troubled history in Russia. It premiered in December 2017, several months late, after the then-culture minister reportedly called it gay propaganda, and has not been performed since 2018. Performances scheduled for 2022 were abruptly cancelled after Serebrennikov publicly blamed Russia for the conflict in Ukraine.
Serebrennikov is one of Russia’s leading film, theatre and television directors and stage designers, has made his frustration clear.
Below you can watch the best of talented ballet star Rudolph Nureyev.
Two years before the Stonewall Riots on March 7th, 1967, CBS Reports presented an hour-long broadcast “documentary” about homosexuality hosted by Mike Wallace called “The Homosexuals”
Taking three years to make, principal filming took place starting in the fall of 1964 and continued through early 1965. Gay men were interviewed in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Charlotte and New York City. The identities of several of the men were obscured, either in shadow or, in one instance, behind a large potted palm tree.
Also interviewed were psychiatrist Charles Socarides, who strongly advocated the position that homosexuality is a mental disorder, and fellow psychiatrist Irving Bieber, who shared Socarides’ opinion of homosexuality as pathology. Interspersed with these interview segments was footage cinema verité style, of the inside of a gay bar along with shots of hustlers working a street corner and of all things a gay teenager being arrested in a public sex sting..
Charles Socarides, said when he was he interviewed ‘There is no such thing as a happy homosexual’; ‘these homosexuals are by nature unable to form steady relationships, rather their prerogative is a series of one-night-stands and hookups’. Socarides was one of many professional homophobic bigot psychiatrists of the day who earned virtually their entire living by promoting homophobia. (In a sublime irony of history, Socarides’s son, Richard Socarides, is openly gay; he served as a public policy advisor in the Clinton White House.)
And almost all of Mike Wallace’s commentary echoed Socarides disparaging views of homosexuals.
The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. He is not interested or capable of a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage. His sex life, his love life, consists of a series of one–chance encounters at the clubs and bars he inhabits. And even on the streets of the city — the pick-up, the one night stand, these are characteristics of the homosexual relationship.
For his part, Wallace came to regret his participation in “The Homosexuals”. “I should have known better,” he said in 1992. Speaking in 1996, Wallace stated, “That is — God help us — what our understanding was of the homosexual lifestyle a mere twenty-five years ago because nobody was out of the closet and because that’s what we heard from doctors — that’s what Socarides told us, it was a matter of shame.”
LGBT activist Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out labels the broadcast “the single most destructive hour of anti-gay propaganda in our nation’s history. ” and that “The Homosexuals’ not only had a devastating effect on public opinion at the time but also was a nuclear bomb dropped on the psyches of gay and lesbian Americans, who, prior to this show, had never been represented as a group on national television.”
The anti-gay arguments made in “The Homosexuals” in 1967 are still used today by right-wing extremist and “Christians” who seek to harm and destroy the LGBT Community today.
“The Homosexuals” is a must watch shows how the past still affects the present and our equality to this very day.
The Schwules Museum in Berlin, Germany is one of the largest LGBT museums in the world.
On February 24, museum employees discovered evidence of an attack on the institution’s building. Two window panes, the illuminated sign with the museum’s name, and a work of art hanging in front of the entrance door were damaged by gunfire.
‘I think it’s important to state that we don’t know who did this or why’, Ben Miller, historian and board member of the museum, told Dazed Magazine. ‘However, I’m not sure it’s possible to think about this incident without considering the right-wing, anti-queer mobilization that we’re seeing around the world. And I think it’s fair to say that we are certainly the target of that kind of mobilization in general.’ Physical attacks aside, the museum has also experienced Neo-Nazi demonstrations as well as regular threats from phone calls and on social media..
The damaged piece of artwork is a part of Elizabeth Sweeney’s the Unrelenting (2022), created for the ongoing exhibition Queering the Crip, Cripping the Queer, on view through 29 May. The black triangular piece hanging outside the museum references the badges used by the Nazis to label and stigmatize a diverse range of people.
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