Ashley Madison aftershocks
The hackers who released millions of email addresses from infidelity website Ashley Madison early this week followed their dump with a new release of emails from the site’s founder, taunting him to admit that the data is authentic. Whatever Ashley Madison says, the data is already having an impact. Already disgraced conservative family values activist Josh Duggar has admitted he ran an account on the site, while a Louisiana Republican political director is claiming his account was only used for opposition research. New York Magazine has compiled a cornucopia of other excuses here.
Study: one third of US young people not completely straight
According to a study by research agency YouGov, one third of Americans under 30 say they are not 100 percent heterosexual when asked to plot their sexuality on the 0-6 Kinsey scale. Over all, 78 percent of Americans said they are completely straight, and four percent said they are completely gay. While impressive, the US numbers failed to top the UK, where nearly half of young people said they were not entirely straight.
Ellen Page ambushes Ted Cruz on LGBT discrimination
Canadian actress Ellen Page ambushed Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz at the Iowa State Fair, asking Cruz to explain why business owners should be able to fire their employees for being gay. Cruz, who later said he didn’t realize whom he was speaking to, stuck to his usual line about preserving religious freedom, and how Iran is much worse than America anyway.
Elton John vs Venice
Elton John has stepped into the battle over books read to school children in Venice, Italy, calling Mayor Luigi Brugnaro’s ban on gay friendly books “boorishly bigoted.” Brugnaro ordered 49 books banned for portraying sympathetic gay, lesbian, gender-nonconforming and disabled characters, but has since backed down to only banning two.
White House hires trans staffer
The White House has broken new ground in hiring by taking on a trans woman as a senior staffer in the Office of Presidential Personnel. Raffi Freedman-Gurspan is a trans advocate and policy adviser, and will be working to select candidates for presidential appointments in the US government.
Read more at the Washington Blade.
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