Ellen Page – Rising Star

Hi people,

We all hear more and more about Ellen Page. So I think it is a good idea to gather some more info about this extraordinary woman. She really is a Rising Start!
As we all know she came out on Valentines day 2014!! Good for her! She also stars in Freeheld. More about Freeheld you can read here
Ellen Page in Freeheld

Some basic info:
Thanks to wikipedia.org
Ellen Philpotts-Page (born February 21, 1987), known professionally as Ellen Page, is a Canadian actress.
Page was born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the daughter of Martha Philpotts, a teacher, and Dennis Page, a graphic designer. She attended the Halifax Grammar School until grade 10, spent some time at Queen Elizabeth High School, and graduated from the Shambhala School in 2005. She also spent two years in Toronto, Ontario studying in the Interact Program at Vaughan Road Academy, along with close friend and fellow Canadian actor Mark Rendall. Growing up, Page enjoyed playing with action figures and climbing trees
Ellen Page

Her upcoming project Gaycation

Thanks to ellenpage.org
VICE has released the first trailer for VICELAND’s »Gaycation«, which has Ellen Page and co-host Ian Daniel travelling from Japan to Brazil, Jamaica and back to the USA. In each episode, the duo explores the ways in which different cultures deal with gender, sex, and sexuality by immersing themselves in the local LGBT community. Filming the series was a new experience, one that proved to be very personal and moving, for the Canadian actress, who found herself in front of the camera with no script to follow. In a recent telephone interview with BuzzFeed News, Page and Daniel both recapped some of the emotional moments during the production:
Ellen Page

“I think I expected to definitely have emotional experiences, I don’t know if I would have anticipated … I don’t think you can anticipate the actual degree of what you’re going to feel,” said Page of the eye-opening experience. “I’m a privileged person. I’m a privileged gay person. [The show] helped me understand, even more so, how much more vulnerable people are.” Daniel added: “Each episode you’re learning so much. It’s these one-on-one interactions that are so rare, that you don’t have in your everyday life, so you come out of each episode expanding each time.”

Marriage Equality and Countries

Good Morning people!

The day before yesterday I read an article that really made me shake my head and I really thought that something was NOT right!
You can find the article here.
Yesterday however, Australia, came back on the decision (Good!!) and apologised.
Even better! 😉
That article you can find here

I really was confused about it all. How can a legal marriage not be recognised?

Well, Today I am happy because people start to react on this. I am sure there are many more countries that will not recognize same sex marriages from other countries.
There needs to be action to make sure if people are married this is the same in ALL COUNTRIES!!!

I found this:
Thanks to gaynewsnetwork.com.au
Australia apologizes marriage equality

Frontbencher Christopher Pyne has added his voice to the calls for the government to recognise overseas same-sex marriages following the death of a British honeymooner in Adelaide.

Pyne described failing to recognise overseas same-sex marriages as anachronistic and offensive.
Asked by the ABC radio whether it was time to change the laws surrounding recognition of overseas same-sex marriages, Pyne said:

“I haven’t studied the issue. I did see the story and I agree with Jay Weatherill that that is outdated and anachronistic and I think it’s offensive to the man involved, obviously,” “I agree with him on that.”

Australia mariage equality
Pyne is a supporter of same-sex marriage and is one of the Coalition members who voted in favour of a conscience vote on the issue. In August the Catholic-raised frontbencher said he had decided to support marriage equality to create more legal certainty for the increasing number of Australian children being raised by same-sex couples.

Yesterday South Australian Premier Jay Wetherill apologised to Marco Bulmer-Rizzi – the man whose husband David had died in Adelaide whilst the couple were on honeymoon. Weatherill told the widower he would be introducing legislation that recognised overseas same-sex marriages and promised to issue a new death certificate recognising David’s marital status.

Her Story a new media series

Her Story is a new media series that looks inside the dating lives of trans & queer women as they navigate the intersections of desire & identity.

Good! a Complete serie about the difficulties en obstacles the trans- and queer women can encounter!! Her storie is a new-media series that really sounds interesting!
Her Story a new media series

Her Story is about two trans women in Los Angeles who have given up on love, when suddenly chance encounters give them hope. Violet is drawn to Allie, a reporter who approaches her for an interview, while career-driven Paige meets James, the first man she’s considered opening up to in years. Will they risk letting what they are stand in the way of being loved for who they are?

Trans women in the media have long been punchlines, killers, indications of urban grit, pathetic tragedies, and dangerous sirens. Rarely have they been complex characters who laugh, struggle, and grow, who share strength in sisterhood, who seek and find love. Her Story depicts the unique, complicated, and very human women we see in queer communities, and explores how these women navigate the intersections of label identity and love.
Co-written by Jen Richards and Laura Zak, directed by Sydney Freehand (Drunktown’s Finest), with cinematography by Bérénice Eveno, and produced by Katherine Fisher/Speed of Joy Productions, Her Story features predominantly LGBTQ women, on and off-screen. With this project we have the opportunity to positively shift cultural perceptions of trans and queer women. We invite you to join us in helping to make visible the lives of women who too often are made invisible.

I want to see this, sounds very nice and has a new approach!
Series Launching January 19th

For more go here

Ellen DeGeneres show in the UK

Good news for the people in the UK!!

Thanks to PinkNews.co.uk
The Ellen DeGeneres Show will be broadcast on ITV in the UK, it has today been announced.

It was announced today that the host’s long-running daytime chat show would be making its way across the Atlantic.
DeGeneres often uses the show as a platform to talk about LGBT stories and issues as part of the line-up, and has interviewed a number of prominent guests – from Caitlyn Jenner to Barack Obama.
The show first launched in 2003, but still attracts around 3.9 million viewers per episode state-side.
Ellen DeGeneres show to UK

However, the show will now be airing in the UK, every weekday on ITV2.

A statement from Ellen said: “After what feels like decades of campaigning I’m so excited that my show is on ITV2.

“I can literally feel my crumpets tingling down my cockles.”

ITV2’s Director of Digital Channels and Acquisitions Angela Jain said: “We’re over the moon Ellen DeGeneres is joining ITV2 – her daily mix of Hollywood guests, topical comedy and great conversation is a welcome addition to the channel.”

The Ellen DeGeneres Show will air every weekday at 1.45pm, a few days behind the US broadcast.

Under a separate deal, NBC recently secured the show’s future until the 2019-20 season through a hefty renewal order.

Valari Staab of NBCUniversal said: “For more than a decade, ‘Ellen’ has anchored the daytime lineups of the NBC-owned stations, offering our viewers a great afternoon show, delivering a strong lead in for our early evening newscasts and helping to launch new hits.

“We’re proud of our partnership with Ellen, her fabulous team and our friends at Warner Bros., and we are thrilled to extend our relationship with them.”

Ken Werner of Warner Bros said: “There’s a very simple explanation as to why ‘Ellen’ is number one.

“Day in and day out Ellen delivers the best show on television. Ellen and her team produce a completely unique and exciting hour, which is appointment television for viewers everywhere.

“We are thrilled to continue our 13-year partnership with the NBC Stations which delivers to their communities the entertainment and inspiration of ‘Ellen’.”

Amanda Stenberg is bisexual

Amanda Stenberg is bisexual.

Thanks to PinkNews.
Wikipedea: mandla Stenberg (born October 23, 1998)[1] is an American actress. She is best known for her portrayal of young Cataleya in Colombiana and Rue in The Hunger Games.

You probably know her from ‘The Hunger Games’.
The actor, who played the character of Roo in the series, revealed her sexuality almost as an after-thought whilst she took over TeenVogue’s Snapchat profile.
Amanda Stenberg bisexual

Stenberg subsequently posted the video on her Tumblr page, where she talks about the lack of media representation of women of colour.

On the subject of minorities being “silenced” she said:

“As someone who identifies as a black bisexual woman I’ve been through it, and it hurts and it’s awkward and it’s uncomfortable.”
“I definitely believe in the concept of rebellion through self-hood, and rebellion just by embracing your true identity no matter what you’re being told.
“Here I am, being myself, and it’s hard and vulnerable, and it’s definitely a process but I’m learning, and I’m growing.”

Stenberg then went on to voice her frustrations with misogyny, racism, homophobia and transphobia.

As a finishing touch, she tagged the post containing the video with “I’m very bisexual”.
Amanda Stenberg bisexual
Stenberg made her film debut in 2011 in the film Colombiana before landing the role of Roo in the mega hit Hunger Games series staring alongside Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth.

Josh Hutcherson, who plays Peta in the series, has been an outspoken LGBT advocate and has received an honour from GLAAD for his work.

President Obama Ally of the Year 2015

President Obama Ally of the Year 2015
for the GLBT community

 
 Thanks to out.com

This president and his administration have ushered extraordinary change into the lives of LGBT Americans.
Barack Obama LGBT ally
For someone who at first seemed coy, even awkward, on the subject, President Obama’s evolution on marriage equality has been something to behold. He came to office reiterating that marriage was an institution reserved for a man and a woman, and continued to hold that line throughout most of his first term, even while advancing other important legislation, including the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Other signal achievements included an order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, passage of the first federal LGBT law in the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, encouraging the end to a ban on transgender military service, and the ongoing effort to create a more diverse judiciary. His nomination of Eric Fanning to be secretary of the Army, if successful, will make him the first openly gay head of a military branch.
Barack Obama LGBT ally

Yet even as polls suggested that a growing majority of Americans supported same-sex unions, many of us were losing faith that the president would join their ranks. His public conversion, when it came on May 9, 2012, telegraphed just how far the country had moved, and was one that had the encouragement of two important women in his life: the first lady and his senior advisor, Valerie Jarrett. It took a few more years for the president to agree that marriage equality was a constitutional matter, rather than one left up to the states, but by November 2012, Americans were electing the nation’s first pro-gay marriage president. It was an extraordinary contrast to eight years earlier, when President Bush exploited fears of gay marriage to help secure a second term.

From that moment, the wind has been in our sails. Obama’s re-election was followed by two Supreme Court decisions in June 2013: United States v. Windsor, which struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, and Hollingsworth v. Perry, which led to the annulling of California’s Proposition 8. In March this year, as the Supreme Court prepared to hear arguments on Obergefell v. Hodges, lawyers for the Justice Department filed a brief arguing that state bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional, likening them to prohibitions on interracial marriage.

When he was sworn in on January 20, 2009, there were two states where same-sex marriage was legal. Today it is a right nationwide. Many share credit for what has transpired, but there’s no question that without the active engagement of the 44th president of the United States, who has made securing the rights of LGBT Americans a fundamental part of his legacy, we’d still be working to fulfill that dream. On this issue, among many others, he is truly a great American.

I for one think President Obama is a very good President, not only for the GLBT people!!

Marriage Equality

Marriage Equality

Thanks to advocate.com

Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson asked the state’s Supreme Court Wednesday to uphold a lower court’s decision finding that a local florist violated the state’s anti-discrimination law when she refused to provide flowers for a longtime customer’s wedding to his same-sex partner in 2013.
Ferguson

“As the Superior Court recognized, it is illegal in Washington for a business to offer services to opposite-sex couples yet refuse those same services to same-sex partners,” Ferguson said in a Thursday statement. “My office will not stand for discrimination, and I am confident that the Supreme Court will agree.”

The case arose after Barronelle Stutzmann, the owner of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, Wash., refused to provide flowers for longtime customer Robert Ingersoll’s wedding to another man in March 2013, saying she couldn’t provide floral arrangements for her customer of nine years’ wedding “because of [her] relationship with Jesus Christ.”
Stutsman

On behalf of the state, Ferguson filed a lawsuit in April 2013, contending that Stutzman violated the state’s Consumer Protection Act, which declares it unlawful to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Although Stutzman filed a counter-suit in May of that year claiming she had a “right to discriminate,” the Benton County Superior Court ultimately sided with the state, ordering Stutzman to stop discriminating, and pay a fine of $1,000 for breaking the law, along with an additional $1 to cover the state’s legal fees, as requested by Ferguson.

But now Stutzman, who is being represented pro-bono by the right-wing, anti-LGBT Alliance Defending Freedom, has appealed the ruling to the Washington Supreme Court, according to the Tri-City Herald. The florist declined a proposed settlement earlier this year, and her supporters have raised more than $92,000 through a since-closed GoFundMe campaign, notes the newspaper.

Meanwhile, Stutzman and her attorneys have made the rounds on conservative media, contending that the state-imposed fine of $1,001 will bankrupt the elderly woman and force her to close her business and lose her home.

Ferguson filed a 64-page brief asking the state’s high court to uphold the ruling against Stutzman, according to The New Civil Rights Movement. The brief is meticulous in its description of how Stutzman violated state law, explaining that if all business-owners were allowed to deny service based on their personal beliefs, discrimination on many counts would run rampant.

“This was discrimination based on sexual orientation, pure and simple,” Ferguson wrote on behalf of the state. “Free speech and free exercise rights do not prohibit states from outlawing discriminatory conduct in business. If they did, discrimination of all kinds would flourish, and our country never would have made the enormous progress that we have.”

“Just as it would be race discrimination for a florist to refuse to serve an interracial couple for their wedding, even if she would serve them at other times, it is sexual orientation discrimination for her to refuse to serve a same-sex couple for their wedding, even if she served them at other times.”

Cate Blanchett and opposition to same-sex marriage

Cate Blanchett and opposition to same-sex marriage

Thanks to divamag.co.uk

Cate Blanchett has told ABC that she is “bewildered” by the opposition to same-sex marriage in Australia.

The Australian actor stars in Golden Globe-nominated Carol, which follows the romantic relationship between Blanchett’s character and another woman, is released in her country next month.

carol_poster2_final_1

Blanchett said that her fictional character Carol would not have been a campaigner for same-sex marriage because she does not think “she exists in any community”.

However, Blanchett was happy to talk about the political debate herself.

She said: “The interesting thing for me in the debate about same-sex marriage, quite aside from the film of Carol, is that it’s one of those issues where it has no impact on anyone apart from the people it impacts upon.” 

“So I find it quite bewildering that it’s so complicated for people,” she added.

Blanchett also dismissed questions surrounding her ability to play a lesbian as “silly”.

She said: “People are still interested [in] whether you [can] play a gay character without being gay?” 

“No-one asked me when [in the film Truth] I played Mary Mapes, a journalist, how many years I’d actually worked for a newspaper, had I gone to journalism school?”

“I think the power, when people actually see the film and forget about all of that stuff, is that falling in love is falling in love.”

Carol has been widely praised by critics, including a standing ovation at its international premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

In addition, it has secured a release date in Russia, despite the country’s anti-LGBT+ laws, in May 2016.