The top national and world news since last issue you should know

BY CRAIG OGAN

As in all other entertainment award competitions, the Emmy Awards is putting forward a slew of LGBT people who appear in front of and behind the camera for honors. Notable nominations are Mi Rodriguez and Billy Porter for their roles in “Pose.” The series also made the list for Outstanding Drama Series. Bowen Yang, Dan Levy, and Kate McKinnon for appearances on “Saturday Night Live.” Out actors Hannah Einbinder and Carl Clemons-Hopkins have been nominated for their roles in “Hacks. “The Crown” actresses, Emma Corrin (Lady Diana) and Gillian Anderson (Margaret Thatcher) were nominated for queer-washing those two roles. Same for Samira Wiley from “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Jonathan Groff’s gay-wash of King George in “Hamilton” was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. Singer, Cynthia Erivo was nominated for Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for her Aretha Franklin lesbian-wash in “Genius: Aretha.” RuPaul, not gay-washing, received his sixth Emmy nomination in a row for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Competition Program for “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” Being gay and playing gay, Bobby

Berk, Karamo Brown, Tan France, Antoni Porowski, and Jonathan Van Ness were all nominated as the hosts of “Queer Eye.”

That irrepressible billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson shot off into space recently. He rode a rocket to the edge of space in his Virgin Galactic rocket plane, and he did it while proudly wearing a rainbow flag pin in memory of the Orlando Pulse Nightclub victims.

“Somebody who lost a loved one at the Orlando massacre asked if I would do that,” Branson said, “We also have many, many friends who are gay and I know people who lost friends there.” The ribbon was created by Orlando Ribbon Project founder Ben Johansen following the Pulse nightclub shooting when 49 people lost their lives.

A Pride event, “TAKING B[L] ACK PRIDE,” in Seattle may win the prize for the “wokest” Pride event this year. The event, in Jimi Hendrix Park, is being hosted for black and brown members of the LBGTQ community and the organizers announced, “(caps are theirs, ed) All are free to attend HOWEVER this is a BLACK AND BROWN QUEER TRANS CENTERED, PRIORITIZED, VALUED, EVENT.” Organizers wrote on the page of the event, “White allies and accomplices are welcome to attend but will be charged a $10 to $50 reparations fee that will be used to keep this event free of cost for BLACK AND

BROWN Trans and Queer COMMUNITY.” Another Pride organization, Capitol Hill Pride, protested to Seattle s Human Rights Commission, writing, “We consider this reverse discrimination in its worse [sic] form.” The city’s HRC sided with “TAKING B[L] ACK PRIDE” organizers.

The state of California has extended the travel ban for all but critical travel to states with “anti-LGBT” policies. The ban started with North Carolina after the bathroom legislation in 2017 and had banned travel to Texas, Alabama, Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, for some or other outrage to the LGBT community. Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta added Florida, Arkansas, Montana, North Dakota, and West Virginia to the list. The five states’ insults are legislation or policy that prevent transgender girls from participating in school sports, block access to transition health care for transgender minors and allow LGBT discrimination for religious reasons.

Thanks to SNL’s Bowen Yang and writer/producer/content creator/actor, Joel Kim Booster, the 18th-century English writer Jane Austen’s most beloved characters will receive a thorough gay-washing in a queer update of “Pride and Prejudice” called “Fire Island”. Yang and Booster will lead the cast of “Fire Island,” it will be a gay-themed romantic comedy loosely based on “Pride and Prejudice” The movie will follow two friends as they embark on a weeklong vacation to New York State’s Fire Island. The movie will stream on Hulu in the U.S. and on Disney+ Star, globally. A release date was not publicly announced

Activists, objecting to Chickfil-A’s founder’s donations to groups opposing marriage equality and supporting religious exemptions from LGBT discrimination, tried banning Chick-fil-A from being offered in the new San Antonio, Texas airport. Their efforts were thwarted by the Texas Legislature (Chick-fil-A decided not to locate there, after all). Now in New York State, haters of hate-chicken are trying to ban the restaurant from opening in New York Thruway rest areas. The New York State Thruway Authority will spend $450 million to update the toll road’s facilities. The group of avowedly LGBT legislators sent a letter formally asking that the fastfood chain be kept out of the food courts. The Authority responded that all approved vendors must observe the New York State non-discrimination laws and policies. Also, students at Notre Dame University have petitioned the University to ban Chick-fil-A from the South Bend, Indiana campus. No decision yet from the private, Roman Catholic-sponsored university.

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are re-upping the request that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency release all transgender detainees and HIV+ individuals in their detention facilities. House Democrats issued the same request in early 2020. The letter says that ICE’s detainment and judicial procedures are disproportionately harming those two groups, citing recent evidence of rampant sexual abuse. The letter also says that even in secure areas dedicated to transgender people and HIV+ individuals, ICE is not providing the level of medical care necessary.

The beds in athletes’ rooms at the Tokyo Olympics are made out of 100 percent recyclable cardboard since they are temporary. Images of the odd-looking beds started to circulate on social media, leading Irish gymnast Paul Chelimo to joke, “Beds to be installed in Tokyo Olympic Village will be made of cardboard. This is aimed at avoiding intimacy among athletes.”

Irish gymnast Rhys Mc- Clenaghan took to video to set the record straight. “‘Anti-sex’ beds at the Olympics,” he wrote, sharing a shirtless video of himself jumping on his bed to show just how much weight the cardboard sleepers can withstand.

Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz signed an executive order aiming to put an end to the practice of subjecting LGBTQ youth to “conversion therapy.” The state is now the 21st to ban conversion therapy for minors in some form. Legislation has been proposed but never passed by the state legislature to ban the practice. The legislature, which has the power to repeal the order, is adjourned until 2022.

While traveling on assignment for the U.S. bishops’ conference, a high-ranking Catholic priest apparently spent an awful lot of time chatting with guys on Grindr, visiting unfamiliar neighborhoods, hanging out at gay bars, and going to at least one gay bathhouse during a trip to Las Vegas.

“In order to avoid becoming a distraction to the operations and ongoing work of the Conference, Monsignor [Burrill] has resigned effective immediately,” read a statement by the president of the conference.

Noted transphobe J.K. Rowling is terrified for her safety after being targeted by an angry mob of anonymous Twitter trolls. In a tweet, the billionaire author wrote, “Yes, but now hundreds of trans activists have threatened to beat, rape, assassinate and bomb me.” The alleged threats appear to be in response to a rambling 3,600-word essay Rowling published last month in which she outlined her “five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism” and said she refused to “bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm.”