NBA Player Jason Collins Comes Out

The coolest most awesomest thing ever happened today. Jason Collins an NBA basketball player for the Washington Wizards came out as a proud gay African American man. This guy has no idea how many young African American men he's helping by coming out. When you live in a small town in the bible belt of America all you hear is negative things about being gay and it can make you feel extremely lonely and isolated. After a while you start to believe all the negative things and begin to hate yourself. Seeing someone like Jason Collins come out can help to change all that... and that is a very huge big deal.

When Jason was a student at Stanford he became very good friends with Chelsea Clinton and the Clinton family. After he made his announcement today, Chelsea and former president Bill Clinton released a statements.

President Bill Clinton's statement:

I have known Jason Collins since he was Chelsea's classmate and friend at Stanford. Jason's announcement today is an important moment for professional sports and in the history of the LGBT community. It is also the straightforward statement of a good man who wants no more than what so many of us seek: to be able to be who we are; to do our work; to build families and to contribute to our communities. For so many members of the LGBT community, these simple goals remain elusive. I hope that everyone, particularly Jason's colleagues in the NBA, the media and his many fans extend to him their support and the respect he has earned.

Chelsea's statement:

I am very proud of my friend Jason Collins for having the strength and courage to become the first openly gay athlete in the NBA. His decision marks an important moment for professional sports and for our country. I echo what my father said in his statement and similarly hope that everyone, particularly Jason's colleagues in the NBA, the media and his many fans extend to him their support and the respect he has earned.

After receiving a ton of public support via twitter, here's Jason's response:

Thank you to everyone who has reached out to me thru email, texts, calls, tweets, letters, and every other form of communication. #support
— Jason Collins (@jasoncollins34) April 29, 2013

Elton John With Husband & New Baby Gets Censored

On January 18, 2011, Us Weekly debuted Elton John and partner David Furnish’s new baby, Zachary on the front cover. The happy singer talked about the birth of their son and said that they wouldn't be spoiling him, but lavishing love on him.

Seems all well and good, right? That is, until I checked my Twitter feed and found this disturbing piece. Apparently there’s a grocery store in Arkansas called Harps, who is censoring the front cover of that particular issue of Us Weekly.

Jennifer Huddleston tweeted this message out to numerous people in the span of three hours, “This was taken at my local grocery store. I was shocked and horrified. Can you help bring attention to this? They are saying they need to keep children from seeing it, because it is a gay family."

Following the outcry surrounding their decision to place a “Family Shield” over an Us Weekly cover featuring Elton John, his partner David Furnish, and their new baby boy Zachary, Harps Supermarket has issued a statement.

We have received a number of complaints regarding an incident in our Mountain Home store involving the current issue of US Weekly Magazine depicting Elton John, David Furnish and their newborn son. I would like to explain how this happened. For many years we have provided each of our stores with shields which can be used at the manager’s discretion to cover the front of magazines when they receive complaints from our customers regarding either the photo on the cover of the magazine or the titles of articles contained within the magazine. Sometimes those photos might be sexually provocative or too revealing. The magazine article titles might also be too suggestive for some customers. 

In this case our store manager received some complaints and, as has been our custom, placed the shield over the cover of the magazine. When we began receiving complaints at our corporate office, we reviewed the magazine in question, removed the shield and are selling the magazine in all our locations today without any shield. 

Our true intention is not to offend anyone in our stores and this incident happened at just one of our 65 locations, which when brought to our attention, we reversed.

This “shield” comes from a place of ignorance, intolerance and hate.  An image of two loving parents thrilled to finally have a child of their own. This image should be praised not censored. It's ashamed that the joy of new parents showing love and excitement about their new baby can be offensive to some people.

TD Jakes Son Arrested Public Gay Sex

This is a first for me. I came across some stories reporting the arrest of TD Jakes son, for indecent exposure sometime in January. He "reportedly" unzipped his pants, and began masturbating while making eye contact with an undercover male officer at a park in Texas. I'm just like most red-blooded Americans in the way of loving some good gossip every now and then. And my favorite kind of gossip is usually something dealing with a religious figure, or a politician. And to put icing on that cake would be some gossip about exposing or outing one of these people. This story is so crazy and I absolutely LOVE it. lol. Here are the juicy details:

Jermaine Jakes, the 29-year-old son of Bishop T.D. Jakes was arrested in Dallas last month after he exposed his genitals to two MALE undercover police detectives at a public park. He was charged with indecent exposure and released on a personal recognizance bond. Dallas Police say Jermaine Jakes approached the detectives at Keist Park on Jan. 3 with his pants unzipped. He then began to masturbate while making eye contact with the male detective, according to an affidavit. “We are aware of potential allegations involving Jermaine Jakes and are undertaking our own investigation of these allegations at this time. Given an apparent police investigation, we have no further comment at this time,” Jakes family attorney Faith Johnson said in a statement on Wednesday.

Read Jermaine Jakes’ Arrest Affidavit