SPRINGVILLE, Ala. (AP) | An Alabama high school graduate doesn’t appear in her yearbook after wearing a tuxedo top for her senior portrait, instead of the black drape female students usually wear.
Holley Gerelds tweeted that she was left out of the Springville High yearbook “because I’m a lesbian who wanted to wear a tux instead of a drape.”
OWENS CROSS ROADS, Ala. (AP) | A former Alabama sheriff’s deputy who posted homophobic Facebook comments in response to the suicide of a bullied gay teenager now has a job with a different Alabama law enforcement agency.
Jeff Graves resigned as a Madison County sheriff’s deputy in May. His comments on the death of 15-year-old Nigel Shelby of Huntsville called the LGBTQ movement “fake.” He also said “society cannot and should not accept this behavior.”
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) | After some conservative Alabama probate judges stopped issuing marriage licenses over the issue of same-sex marriage, state lawmakers have come up with a workaround: marriage certificates that don’t have to be signed before the wedding by the judge.
The bill, which won final approval May 23, now goes to Gov. Kay Ivey for her signature.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) | An event this week will highlight the history of LGBTQ people in the American South.
What organizers are calling the inaugural Queer History South Conference opens March 28 in Birmingham, Alabama. More than 115 people are expected to attend from the South and elsewhere.
The U.S. had more hate groups last year than at any point in at least the past two decades, according to an organization that tracks white supremacists and other far-right extremists.
The Southern Poverty Law Center said Feb. 20 that the 1,020 groups it counted in 2018 is the most since 2011 and the highest number since the center broadened its survey of such groups in the 1990s. Last year’s tally also represents a 7 percent increase over the 954 groups that the Alabama-based law center counted in 2017.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) | The founder of a far-right men’s group filed a defamation lawsuit Feb. 4 against the Southern Poverty Law Center for labeling the organization as a hate group, in the latest attempt to use litigation to fight the extremist label.
Gavin McInnes, founder of the Proud Boys — an organization that describes its members as “Western chauvinists” — contends in the lawsuit that he was banned from social media platforms and saw his livelihood suffer after getting the designation from the SPLC.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) | A former student has sued a north Alabama school district, saying she was harassed and physically assaulted because she was transgender, while administrators turned a blind eye.
Zelda Menefee filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Huntsville city school system, former superintendent Casey Wardynski and eight other teachers and school employees.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) | A new project is documenting the history of LGBTQ people in the Deep South, a region that once all but forced gays, lesbians and others to live in hiding.
Bob Burns, who is gay, both lived through some of the toughest times for LGBTQ Southerners and documented them through years of activism. Now 66, he compiled a trove of information from years that included the AIDS epidemic and the systemic oppression of gay people in the Deep South.
Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer has signed anti-LGBTQ adoption legislation making his state the latest to enact a “religious freedom” law enabling taxpayer-funded agencies to deny placement into LGBTQ homes.
Colyer signed the legislation, Senate Bill 284, into law on Friday, according to a local media report. The Washington Blade has placed a call in with Colyer’s office seeking confirmation that he signed the bill.
ORLANDO | The One Orlando Alliance has retracted the offer of employment made to former Alabama Rep. Patricia Todd to serve as the organization’s executive director after Todd suggested on Twitter May 15 that Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey is a lesbian.
“The Board affirms that Ms. Todd’s recent comments are not aligned with the values of One Orlando Alliance. We strongly believe that coming out is a personal choice and we do not support involuntarily outing,” said Jennifer Foster, Chair of the Board of Directors and one of the original co-conveners of the Alliance, in a press release. “This has been a challenging situation. While Ms. Todd has a well-established record of outstanding service to the community, her lapse in judgment has led us to end our relationship with her. We admire her many decades of exemplary service and believe that, with the right opportunity, Ms. Todd will continue to use her many talents to make significant progress advocating for justice and equality.”
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — State lawmakers in Kansas and Oklahoma have approved legislation to grant legal protections to faith-based adoption agencies that cite their religious beliefs for not placing children in LGBTQ homes.
Supporters of such measures argued that the core issue is protecting a group’s right to live out its religious faith, while critics saw them as attacks on LGBTQ rights. Both Kansas and Oklahoma have GOP-controlled legislatures and governors, but in Kansas, the proposal split Republicans.
ATHENS, Ala. (AP) — A gay businessman and one-time police officer who is married to another man says GOP leaders in a north Alabama county refused to let him run for sheriff after a review that included questions about his sexual orientation.
Jason White told the News-Courier of Athens that members of the Limestone County Republican Executive Committee voted Tuesday to deny his bid for sheriff in a decision he believes is linked to the fact he is gay.
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