It just keeps getting better over at MTV and Logo — and for gay teens on TV. EW has exclusively learned that the sister cable networks are jointly prepping a special titled It Gets Better, which will chronicle the stories of three young people struggling with LGBT issues. The 60-minute special will premiere on both MTV and Logo on Feb. 21 at 11 p.m.
Syndicated columnist Dan Savage — who in fall 2010 launched the buzzy It Gets Better Project, which led to an avalanche of more than 30,000 videos of encouragement for LGBT youth — will anchor the hour. The show will include appearances by actor Zachary Quinto, Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine, comedian Margaret Cho, Dancing with the Stars contestant Chaz Bono, and Jersey Shore star Vinny Guadagnino. Singers Sia and Jake Shears will also contribute video messages of hope and support.
Savage also leads MTV’s upcoming series, Savage U, which follows him and sidekick Lauren Hutchinson as they travel to college campuses to give a crash course on relationships, responsibility, sex, love, and life. Savage U is set to premiere this spring.
from Entertainment Weekly

Ellen DeGeneres

No, not because it sells sweater vests (heck, Rick Santorum is a fan of those), but because the Texas-based department store has hired Ellen DeGeneres as a spokeswoman.
And DeGeneres is — cue the scary music — gay, and open about it.
“Funny that JC Penney thinks hiring an open homosexual spokesperson will help their business when most of their customers are traditional families,” the million (or so) moms write on their website. “DeGeneres is not a true representation of the type of families that shop at their store. The majority of JC Penney shoppers will be offended and choose to no longer shop there.”
One Million Moms is asking people to call JC Penney to complain.
With this campaign, One Million Moms, which claims to be “the most powerful tool you have to stand against the immorality, violence, vulgarity and profanity the entertainment media is throwing at your children,” is going after one of the country’s most well-liked television hosts.
The moms want JC Penney “to replace Ellen DeGeneres as their new spokesperson immediately and remain neutral in the culture war.”
Fat chance, says the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination.
“A vast majority of Americans today support Ellen as well as their LGBT friends and family members,” Herndon Graddick, a GLAAD spokesman said in a written statement. “Selecting an out performer who has inspired and entertained millions, is not only a smart business practice, but a reflection of how LGBT Americans today are an integral and valued part of the fabric of our culture.”
DeGeneres’ daytime talk show has more viewers than the American Family Association has moms. Between Jan. 16 and Jan. 22, “Ellen” averaged 3.38 million viewers. That’s 2.38 million more people than the AFA has moms.
American Family Association did not return a request for comment.
from Reuters
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AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND – A fifth of gay and bisexual Auckland men with HIV are unaware they are infected, new research has found.
The Otago University study is the first community-based biological measure of HIV to estimate of the rate of undiagnosed and overall HIV infection among gay and bisexual Auckland men.
The research suggests 6.5 per cent of gay and bisexual Auckland men have HIV, with 21 per cent of those unaware they are infected.
The finding comes after the highest number of new HIV diagnoses was recorded among gay and bisexual men in New Zealand in 2010.
Lead investigator Peter Saxton, of Otago University’s department of preventive and social medicine, said undiagnosed HIV infection rates must be taken seriously if the virus was to be better controlled.
“A person with undiagnosed HIV cannot tell someone they’re infected and might not initiate safe sex. The practical reality of this is that everyone, especially gay men, needs to become better educated, supported and proficient at safe sex to control HIV and other sexually transmitted infections,”
The study, carried out in February last year, recruited 1049 gay and bisexual men from community settings.
Participants completed an anonymous questionnaire and provided an anonymous saliva specimen, which could be linked together by a unique code.
The researchers compared respondents’ self-reported HIV test history with their saliva result to find 1.3 per cent of HIV positive men did not know they were infected.
Most believed they did not have HIV, and many had previously tested for HIV.
The overall HIV infection rate was the same for European and Maori participants, but non-European respondents were less likely to be aware they had HIV.
Younger infected gay men also appeared to be less likely to be aware of their infection.
Dr Saxton said while testing was a cornerstone of control and needed to be made more accessible, testing alone was not the answer.
“There will always be a lag between infection and diagnosis, and a person is particularly infectious early in the course of HIV infection when partners can be exposed unwittingly. This is why condom use remains key to control of your own and your partner’s risk,” he said.
HIV positive people who remained undiagnosed delayed treatments that could improve their quality of life and life expectancy.
“While treatments don’t eliminate the HIV virus, they keep it at low levels and also reduce a person’s infectiousness to others.”
The research, carried out by Otago University’s AIDS Epidemiology Group, was a collaboration with the New Zealand AIDS Foundation.
The findings were published in the journal BMC Public Health.
from The New Zealand Herald

Tracey Cooper-Harris & Maggie Cooper-Harris

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – A Pasadena woman who served 12 years in theU.S. Army, including tours of duty in Iraq, filed suit Wednesday against the Department of Veterans Affairs for denying her full disability benefits because she is married to a woman.
The lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles by Tracey Cooper-Harris seeks a ruling that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutionally discriminates against legally married same-sex couples.
Cooper-Harris, who earned the rank of sergeant and more than 20 medals during her Army service, was honorably discharged in 2003 and married her spouse, Maggie, during the six-month period in 2008 when same-sex marriage was legal in California. The veteran who trained and provided care for military service animals, such as explosives-sniffing dogs, has suffered from post-traumatic stress disordersince returning to civilian life and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2010.
The regional VA medical center determined that Cooper-Harris’ illnesses were “service-related” and she has been collecting benefits since the diagnosis but at the lesser rate paid to single veterans. She petitioned the VA for recognition of her spouse as her legal beneficiary but was denied in a letter in August in which the VA wrote that her marriage “is not valid under current federal regulations.”
In her lawsuit, Cooper-Harris said she receives a $1,478 monthly disability benefit, which is $124 less than for a married veteran. Additionally, she said, in the event of her death her surviving spouse won’t receive the compensation to which an opposite-sex spouse is entitled.
“There is a good likelihood that multiple sclerosis will cause my death, and I just want to make sure that whatever benefits are available that Maggie gets them if I do die,” said Cooper-Harris, 38, in a telephone interview fromWashington, D.C., where her lawsuit was announced at the National Press Club.
The VA policy of recognizing only opposite-sex spouses as eligible for benefits — a practice dictated by the Defense of Marriage Act throughout the federal government —- “sends a disturbing message to gay and lesbian service members that the courage, commitment and sacrifice they make on behalf of their country are not valued as much as the service of heterosexual military veterans,” said attorney Randall Lee, whose law firm is representing Cooper-Harris pro bono.
Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder, Jr. said a year ago that he believed that the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional. The Obama administration has ceased defending the statute from the various lawsuits filed against it, but conservatives in the House of Representatives have directed their legal counsel to defend it in the absence of the Justice Department.
Cooper-Harris’ suit is at least the 10th to challenge the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act but the first to seek a ruling on the denial of military disability benefits on the basis of sexual orientation, Lee said.
Several challenges of the statute, known by its acronym, DOMA, are making their way through federal courts in the Northeast. One suit brought by same-sex couples and surviving spouses in Massachusetts led a federal judge to strike down parts of the 14-year-old law in 2010.
Justice Department spokesman Charles S. Miller said the government had no comment on the latest lawsuit, which names both the VA and Holder as defendants.
from The Los Angeles Times

Zoliswa Nkonyana

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA – Four South African men have been sentenced to 18 years in jail for stabbing and stoning to death 19-year-old lesbian Zoliswa Nkonyana in 2006.
The court found that the men killed Ms Nkonyana because she was living openly as a lesbian.
A crowd outside the court in Khayelitsha, a Cape Town township, cheered and danced at the sentencing.
The constitution protects people on the grounds of sexual orientation – but homophobia is widespread.
The BBC’s Pumza Fihlani in Johannesburg says the sentence handed out in the Nkonyana case is highly significant – both because of its length and the fact that the magistrate concluded that Ms Nkonyana was killed for being a lesbian.
For years activists have been calling on the state to be tougher on people who kill or attack people because of their sexual orientation – and they want the state to recognise hate crimes against lesbians, she says.
Lubabalo Ntlabathi, Sicelo Mase, Luyanda Londzi and Mbulelo Damba – who were convicted in October – were each given 18 years.
Five other people were acquitted.
The family of Ms Nkonyana welcomed the sentence.
“They did not accept responsibility for what they did and we are happy that when we asked for a lengthy jail term, the magistrate agreed to that,” stepfather Mr Mandini told South Africa’s Sowetan newspaper.
Ms Nkonyana was stoned and stabbed nine times in February 2006, just metres from her home in Khayelitsha.
The magistrate said it was clear the motive for the killing was hatred and homophobia – and Wednesday’s sentence was meant to send out a signal that violence based on sexual orientation will not be tolerated, the South African Press Association reports.
Jill Henderson from the Triangle Project – a non-governmental organisation that fights for the rights of gay and lesbian people in Khayelitsha – said this was a good move.
“The magistrate has named hate and intolerance on the basis of sexual hate and intolerance on the basis of sexual orientation as an aggravating factor in sentencing – that is the first time that has happened in a criminal trial in South Africa. It has therefore set a precedent,” she told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme.
In December, the global rights group Human Rights Watch said in a report that South Africa is “desperately failing lesbian and transgender people” – despite the country’s liberal laws.
South Africa is the only African country where same-sex marriage is allowed.
But violence against gay and lesbian people is common, particularly in black communities, our correspondent says.
Lesbians are often subjected to “corrective rape” by men who think this will “cure” them of their homosexuality.
Three years ago, a man was sentenced to life in prison and another to 32 years for the gang rape, robbery and murder of Eudy Simelane, a lesbian activist who had been a midfielder on the national football team.
Last year, a man was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the rape and murder of Nqobile Khumalo, a lesbian in Durban.
from The BBC