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Saying Goodbye To A Ferndale Friend
BY AJ TRAGER FERNDALE - Longtime LGBT activist and storeowner, Kevin Rogers, passed away Jan. 4, succumbing to his battle against skin cancer. Rogers' life was grand and vibrant. He bought Just 4 Us, a [...]
Q&A: Harvey Fierstein Opens Up On The Success Of ‘Kinky Boots,’ His ‘Legendary Disaster’ & ‘Insulting’ Double Standards
Photo: Bruce Glikas "I'm sorry," Harvey Fierstein growls in his unmistakable Brooklyn gravel, "I gotta go on with my life." And so, after our insightful 40-minute chat peppered with Fierstein's true-to-form frankness, he does. [...]
Join Jeremy Moss In His Swearing In Ceremony
BY BTL STAFF SOUTHFIELD - With the start of the new year and a new Mich. legislative term, newly elected members for the state have begun swearing in, gearing up for the 2015 cycle. Jeremy [...]
The Frivolist: The Gay Year in Review: 7 Hot Topics That Had Us Talking in 2014
This year the LGBT community laughed together, cried together, and celebrated together as news broke on issues important to us all. To refresh your memory, here are my picks for the top headlines that had [...]
Best Books Of 2014
By Common Language Staff Best-of lists are ultimately personal choices. Part of our bias is for local authors, and we have three on our list for 2014 - the "Year of the Memoir." We started [...]
They Died In The Closet
Across 1 Bankhead's home, for short 5 Pesky kid 9 Fruit peel in a drink 14 Russian river 15 Luau dance 16 Path finder 17 Make a hole bigger 18 "Exotica" director Egoyan 19 Hostile [...]
World Premiere At The Rep Explores Racial Dignity
Jenaya Jones-Reynolds and Aaron Kottke in "Sweet Pea's Mama." Photo: Lance Luce. "Sweet Pea's Mama" by Robert Lawrence Nelson, a timely story about racial dignity, will have its world premiere at 8:30 p.m. Jan. [...]
Mittens For Michigan
By Shelby Clark Petkus Washtenaw County's annual music festival, Mittenfest, comes to Ann Arbor this January. Blind Pig will host 2015's event from Jan. 1-4. The yearly event hosts a variety of different music acts [...]
Sizzling New Year’s Eve At Spiral
By Shelby Clark Petkus Spiral Dance Bar, the Lansing area's premier LGBT club, gets ready to welcome 2015 in an epic 18-and-over evening. Considered the best outdoor patio in Lansing, the bar is known for [...]
A Year In Michigan Marriage
BY AJ TRAGER MICHIGAN - This year saw big advances in the DeBoer v Snyder case as it moved through the federal courts. April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse began their legal fight for second parent [...]
Things That Happened in 2014
Jeremy Moss won a seat to serve in the Michigan State House for the 35th District. One of his main priorities once he sits down in January is to work a bipartisan model to get [...]
From Front Page News To Respected Charity
Alan Gilmour Twenty years ago, the HOPE Fund started as a financial challenge to the LGBT community of Detroit. But over the past two decades it has evolved into so much more: an important [...]
Kick funded by the HOPE Fund
Curtis Libscomb. BTL Photo: Andrew Potter The HOPE Fund has awarded several grants to KICK, the agency for LGBT African-Americans, both directly and from the Racial Equity Initiative, an offshoot of The HOPE Fund [...]
The HOPE Fund: Grantmaking
To date, The HOPE Fund has distributed over $1.8 million through 131 grants to nonprofit organizations serving southeast Michigan's LGBT communities. The following organizations have benefitted: Al-Gamea - Serving Southeast Michigan's Middle Eastern LGBT Community [...]
2014: HIV Year In Review
Nick Rhoades, a gay man convicted of criminal transmission of HIV in Iowa and sentenced to 25 years in prison, despite the virus not being transmitted, talks to activists at the national HIV is Not [...]
Michigan: 2014 In Review
Jeremy Moss (Left) and Jon Hoadley (Right). Elliott-Larsen Amendment This was almost the year that the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act was amended to include the LGBT community. Almost. A broad coalition of business leaders [...]
New Fund Helps LGBT Youth In West Michigan
By Carol Tanis In August, a West Michigan couple, Carol Sarosik and Shelley Padnos, and the Grand Rapids Community Foundation announced the formation of a fund titled Our LGBT Fund to be administrated by the [...]
Caspar v Snyder
In April, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan, on behalf of eight couples that were married in March, filed a lawsuit against the state arguing that because the couples are legally married in [...]
International Day To End Violence Against Sex Workers
BY BTL STAFF GEORGIA - The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) stood in solidarity Dec. 17 with sex workers and their allies to commemorate the 11th Annual International Day To End Violence Against Sex [...]
Top Ten LGBT News Stories Of 2014
By Lisa Keen The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear appeals seeking to preserve bans on marriage for same-sex couples. President Obama finally signed a long-sought executive order protecting LGBT people who work for federal [...]
Creep of the Week: Pat Robertson
Sound the alarms, everybody! Crazy old televangelist Pat Robertson has gone and exposed the deep dark secret of lesbian and gay people and there's no putting that genie back in the bottle now. On the [...]
Looking Ahead: 2015 A Year Of Justice
Failure to amend Elliott-Larsen. Fast passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The re-election of Attorney General Bill Schuette and Gov. Rick Snyder. The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upholding of Michigan's marriage ban. [...]
Local Governments Now Clear To Offer Benefits To Same-Sex Partners
BY AP DETROIT - -- The state of Michigan won't appeal a decision that struck down a law barring local governments from offering benefits to same-sex partners. The American Civil Liberties Union says the state [...]
Hear Me Out: Best Of 2014
10. Against Me!, 'Transgender Dysphoria Blues' Breaking from the aggressive rock roar of Against Me!'s sixth LP is "Two Coffins," a whisper among the glorious chaos of "Transgender Dysphoria Blues." Its simplicity might standout sonically, [...]