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NYC Health Officials Warn Gay Men of Deadly Meningitis Outbreak

VERY IMPORTANT: The New York City Department of Health is urging all gay men in the city "regardless of HIV status, who regularly have intimate contact with other men through a Web site, digital application or at a bar or party," to get vaccinated against a deadly strain of bacterial meningitis, reports the New York Times.

Although the first recorded case of this "absolutely terrifying" meningitis outbreak was first noted in August 2010, authorities made their first public announcement only six months ago. The new strain kills "one out of three people instead of the [usual] one out of five." This strain is particularly lethal among those who are HIV positive because their immune systems are already compromised.

New York City health officials are growing increasingly worried that this strain of meningitis, which is an inflammation of the lining around the brain and the spinal cord, is so insidious that it could suddenly mushroom into a major outbreak, claiming many lives before anything can be done to stop it.

The department issued a warning this month recommending the standard meningitis vaccination for a particular subset of the population: "men, regardless of H.I.V. status, who regularly have intimate contact with other men through a Web site, digital application or at a bar or party."

There have been 22 cases, all among men, of the unique strain since 2010, 13 of them last year and 4 this year, [Dr. Jay Varma, the deputy commissioner for disease control] said. Seven of them have died. Twelve were H.I.V.-positive, a possible risk factor. Ten of the cases were in Brooklyn.

This is VERY important:

Many of men who are at risk may not identify themselves as either gay or bisexual, even though they are having sex with other men, health officials said. So it is hard to reach out to them through gay organizations, and it is hard to get them to come forward to be vaccinated.

There is a vaccine that is effective against the new strain. Find a clinic near you.

VIDEO: Economist Paul Krugman on HuffPost Live w/ Marc Lamont Hill

The nation's economy will grow by only 1.4 percent in 2013 and "unemployment will remain above 7.5 percent through 2014", according to a new report released this week by the Congressional Budget Office.

How to end the recession? Marc Lamont Hill hosted a great Huff Post Live discussion with Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning progressive economist and New York Times columnist.

"It's the easiest thing [to do] in the world," said Krugman. "We know how to end it. To end this depression we need the federal government to give aid to the state governments. [The states] need to rehire the teachers that they laid off, begin road and infrastructure repair. ... But the political will is not there."

Watch AFTER THE JUMP ...

NYT Profiles the Amazing "Fashion Forward DJ" Miss Honey Dijon

Thanks to Monica Roberts for the heads-up. If there is one thing that  you read during lunch, make sure that it is the New York Times profile of Rod 2.0 favorite and turntable goddess Miss Honey Dijon.

The Chicago-born DJ and producer created a name for herself in the early 00s by performing amazing deep house sets in intimate settings and massive club rooms across the globe. In recent years Miss Dijon has created a singular brand at "the nexus of art, fashion and night life" as she spins live for Givenchy, Louis Vuitton and other runway collection, reports NYT fashion critic Alex Hawgood.

The fact that Honey Dijon is transgender has caused barely a shrug in the widening circles that have embraced her. Style.com routinely features her as a talking head alongside industry power players in its video reviews of ready-to-wear collections. ...

In January, Vogue Italia chose a snapshot of Ms. Redmond wearing thick blue-frame glasses and a floral print blouse by Givenchy as its 'Look of the Day,' praising her personal style as a "mix of femininity, androgyny and irony, which is always cool." The top was a gift from her friend Riccardo Tisci, the label’s designer. In an e-mail, Mr. Tisci wrote: "I’ve known Honey for a long time. I love her style and I like her playing with her masculine and feminine sides."

And:

Ms. Redmond grew up in the 1970s on the South Side of Chicago in a “very middle-class, loving African-American family,” she said. Her young parents often gave parties in their basement on Friday nights and invite their son, who identified as female from an early age, to lift the needle on the record player between songs from artists like the Isley Brothers and Minnie Riperton. “That’s where I got my first education in music,” she said.

Ms. Redmond thought that going public about her transition, which took place after moving to New York (where “there was more of a community”) might help broaden notions about feminine ideals of beauty in the fashion and D.J. worlds.

"I’ve always wanted my talent to speak for itself,” she said. "I didn’t want ‘black’ or ‘trans’ or any of it to speak for me. Now I am beginning to realize the importance of it because there is really hardly any visibility for black trans women, especially in fashion. Hell, there are hardly any black women in fashion. Period." But despite her success, Ms. Redmond said she still can feel like an outsider.

Miss Dijon performed today at the Louis Vuitton Men's F/W 2013 Presentation in Osaka, Japan. She arrived in Japan last night and almost lost her music. "[Left] my laptop on the plane with 4 hard drives full of music because i was over exhausted from traveling," Miss Dijon writes on Facebook. "Just got it back and I'm back in business."

Brava! I first encountered Miss Honey' and her music in the mid 90s via the old Gramaphone Records in Chicago. Miss Honey and I reunited in the early 00s in New York City. I've heard her play everywhere from G in Chelsea to clubs in Montreal and Paris. Love, love, love her music and energy.

LISTEN to Miss Honey Dijon on Soundcloud

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NYT Endorses Obama, Applauds His Record on Civil and LGBT Rights

The editorial board of The New York Times has endorsed President Barack Obama's re-election campaign.

The Times applauded the President's "many impressive achievements" around the economy, foreign policy, health care and civil rights. The editors called attention to the President's record on LGBT equality and Mitt Romney's opposition to that platform

The military’s odious “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule was finally legislated out of existence, under the Obama administration’s leadership. There are still big hurdles to equality to be brought down, including the Defense of Marriage Act, the outrageous federal law that undermines the rights of gay men and lesbians, even in states that recognize those rights.

Though it took Mr. Obama some time to do it, he overcame his hesitation about same-sex marriage and declared his support. That support has helped spur marriage-equality movements around the country. His Justice Department has also stopped defending the Defense of Marriage Act against constitutional challenges.

Mr. Romney opposes same-sex marriage and supports the federal act, which not only denies federal benefits and recognition to same-sex couples but allows states to ignore marriages made in other states. His campaign declared that Mr. Romney would not object if states also banned adoption by same-sex couples and restricted their rights to hospital visitation and other privileges.

The President's re-election was endorsed by the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune in recent days.

Catholics Threaten Funding for Pro-Gay Colorado Immigrant Group

But what about the children?

The Catholic Church has threatened to cut funding to Compañeros, a rural southwestern Colorado-based immigrant rights group that helps poor Latino "immigrants with basic needs including access to health care and guidance on local laws," reports the New York Times.

The problem is Compañeros’s membership in an immigrant rights coalition that includes the statewide LGBT rights group ONE Colardo, which pushed for civil unions in the Rocky Mountain State.

Compañeros was told that unless it withdrew from the coalition, [Executive Director] Nicole Mosher said, the group would lose money it got each year. "I was shocked that our money was all of a sudden in jeopardy, and confused about why," Ms. Mosher said. "We have no reason to believe that we are in any way going against Catholic teachings. If they are willing to defund our program based on an affiliation, it sends a clear message of divisiveness."

Debate over the church’s vaunted antipoverty campaign, which was begun by the bishops’ conference in 1970, has taken a more contentious turn in recent years. Conservative Catholics, with the help of search engines and other Web sites, have become more aggressive in tracking the activities of groups that receive funds from the campaign, while some groups have found themselves forced to defend their work.

Clarifying who should be eligible for the money — a tactic pushed hard by the conservative Catholic groups — has forced the campaign to strike a delicate balance between the church’s priorities: helping the poor while staying true to traditional Catholic doctrine.

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development, which is part of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, donates about $8 million annually to about 250 groups nationwide. The funding arm  "has been under increasing pressure from conservative Catholic groups to ensure that it is not unwittingly aiding organizations that run afoul of church positions on issues like birth control and marriage."

The situation is very similar to the Diocese of Sacramento, California's decision last month to cut off their funding to a local homeless shelter because its new director supports marriage equality.

VIDEO: Civil Rights Icon Julian Bond Speaks Out for Marriage Equality

Legendary civil rights leader Julian Bond becomes the third and latest installment to the Human Rights Campaign's Americans for Marriage Equality.

"Gay and lesbian couples have the same values as everyone else," says the NAACP Chairman Emeritus and longtime LGBT rights ally. "Love, commitment and stable families. They should have the same right to marry as the rest of us."

Bond, who was one of first Blacks elected to the Georgia House of Representatives, has been especially vocal on gay issues in recent years.  As a result of Bond's leadership, the NAACP now has an LGBT Equality Task Force. And the national NAACP (finally) took a position on marriage equality and called for the overturn of California's Proposition 8. Bond also spoke at the 2009 National Equality March and has pushed for marriage equality legislation in Maryland and New Jersey.

The first prominent spokespersons in this video series were Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Academy Award-winning actress Mo’Nique. It is "no accident" that the first three videos featured prominent Black allies, writes New York Times columnist Frank Bruni today.

This isn’t a topic that advocates for gay rights or their many black supporters relish discussing, because it focuses on a wedge where they wish there was a tighter bond. But polls indicate that support for same-sex marriage lags among black Americans. ...

[M]any African-Americans who oppose same-sex marriage do so on religious grounds. "This is a community composed of many Biblical literalists," Bond said in a recent phone interview, adding that they put a "wrong and wrong-headed" emphasis on certain Biblical references to homosexuality.

But it’s also important to recognize that people lobbying for gay rights have at times given African-Americans pause by appropriating "civil rights" language and arguments in too broad a manner.

Wade Henderson, the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, noted the existence of phrases like "gay is the new black" and said that attempts to equate the persecution of gay and black Americans can be "deeply offensive."

African-Americans were enslaved. And during their brutal struggle for justice, they couldn’t make a secret of what set them apart from others, said Henderson, who supports same-sex marriage, during a phone interview Friday. When gay men and lesbians glide over such details, he said, it feels "inherently disrespectful to the black experience in this country."

It's too bad that Bruni references the much-hyped  Prop 8 exit polls—debunked by several experts—but the point remains valid. Black communities tend to be more religious and attend more fundamentalist churches. Read the full column HERE.

The larger issue: Many LGBT rights organizations (and media) do relatively little networking with Black LGBTs—let alone the larger Black community. HRC is addressing that deficit with campaign, but it will take a lot more effort. Bottom line: You can't expect someone's support, you have to ask for it.

Watch Julian Bond's video AFTER THE JUMP ...

Lesbian Veteran Sues Govt Over VA Benefits, Defense of Marriage Act

PHOTO: New York Times

In what has been described as the "first case of its kind", a disabled lesbian Navy veteran has filed suit to challenge the constitutionality of the federal law that defines marriage as between a man and woman. Carmen Cardona legally married her wife in Connecticut and says the Dept. of Veterans Affairs denied her benefits, reports the New York Times.

But when she applied for an increase in her monthly disability compensation because she was newly married, the Department of Veterans Affairs regional office in Hartford rejected her application, citing a federal statute that defines a spouse as “a person of the opposite sex.”

In a case to be filed before the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, a special federal court in Washington that handles disputes over veterans benefits, [attorneys] will argue that the government’s definition violates her Fifth Amendment right to due process. The lawyers intend to file their notice to appeal on Thursday. The legal team ... says it will also challenge the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages.

Experts said this would be the first time a plaintiff had tried to use the veterans court of appeals to attack the law. ... Advocates for gay rights say they also anticipate lawsuits challenging the federal definition of marriage to be filed by active-duty troops in same-sex marriages who have been denied benefits granted to heterosexual married couples, like military health care [and] housing.

Cardona is being represented by Yale Law School's Veterans Legal Services Clinic.

The Obama Administration announced in February that it will NOT defend recent lawsuits challenging the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits federal recognition and benefits to same-sex couples. If the government chooses not to defend the case, there is still the possibility that counsel hired by House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to defend DOMA's constitutionality will take the case.

"And even if no government lawyer defends the laws, the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims could still rule against Ms. Cardona. The court consists mainly of judges—most of them former military officers — appointed by President George W. Bush."

Only two weeks ago, President Obama reiterated his opposition to DOMA, saying that he believed the courts will address the law "fairly soon" but couldn't predicting a ruling.

Former Anti-Gay Detroit Mayor Kilpatrick Released from Prison

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick was released from a Michigan prison this morning after serving 14 months for obstruction of justice after his efforts to conceal a sex scandal, reports NYT.

Mr. Kilpatrick smiled broadly as he left the G. Robert Cotton Correctional Facility in Jackson, Mich., where throngs of local journalists had waited since the early morning. The Detroit Free Press live blogged the release and posted a video.

A 6-foot-4 former college football player once known as Detroit’s “hip-hop mayor,” Mr. Kilpatrick was elected to run the city when he was 31 years old. He left office seven years later in 2008 under a dark cloud of corruption after text messages revealed the affair, with his chief of staff, and an $8.5 million settlement with police officers, whom he fired to prevent the affair from being revealed.

[Kilpatrick was in] jail since May 2010, when a judge found he had mislead authorities and did not turn over certain assets toward his $1 million restitution to Detroit.

During his scandal-plagued administration, Kilpatrick infamously campaigned for a same-sex marriage ban in Michigan, saying that he didn't "support equal rights for gays because marriage should be a sacred institution between 'a man and a woman.' "

The anti-gay mayor was later outed as a serial adulterer. Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff faced multiple felonies after tens of thousands of text messages surfaced, including many sexually explicit ones, that revealed they were having an affair and attempting to payoff witnesses with city funds. This was Kilpatrick's second publicized extramarital affair.

The former mayor's legal woes undoubtedly helped end the career of his mother, one of the biggest names in Detroit politics and one of the LGBT community's strongest supporters on Capitol Hill. Democratic Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick lost her bid for an eighth term in August 2010.

Kiwame Kilpatrick's legal problems are only just beginning. Kilpatrick is facing a 38-count federal indictment "that accuses the former mayor and his circle of rigging contracts, collecting millions of dollars in bribes and defrauding taxpayers."

#GlassHousesStonesEtc

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LISTEN: Bronx Teen Shares His Coming Out Story and Gay Bashing

PHOTO: NYT

The New York Times begins a week-long multimedia series on the experiences of LGBT teenagers entitled "Coming Out': Gay Teenagers, in Their Own Words." One of the first personal stories is from John Albuquerque, a 19-year from the Bronx.

John shares his coming out story and relates the pain of feeling "alone" in a city of 8 million people. He also discusses the pain of being gay-bashed and wanting to give up. "I started thinking this is going to happen to me again and again," says the teen. "Who wants that life? If I die, things would get better."

John did not give up and recently graduated from culinary school. The teen has now begun his career as a pastry chef. Bravo.

John's voice and story is bittersweet and the photojournalism is brilliant. Listen and watch HERE.

REPORT: IMF Chief Strauss-Kahn to Claim "Consensual Sex" as Defense?

PHOTOS: AP and GETTY

Absolutely outrageous. Days after suggesting that International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn had an alibi for the sexual assault that allegedly took place last Saturday ...

The defense is now suggesting that any sex between Kahn and the housekeeper, described as a native of the West African country of Guinea, "would have been consensual", reports the New York Times.

A statement [in court] seemed to suggest the defense may acknowledge that a sexual encounter had occurred. Indeed, on Tuesday, a person briefed on the case said the defense believed that any sex act may have been consensual.

That elicited an angry response from the woman’s lawyer. He dismissed any suggestion that the housekeeper had agreed to have sex with Mr. Strauss-Kahn. “There is no question this was not consensual — she was assaulted and she had to escape from him, which is why when she finally got out of the room, she reported it to security immediately," [Jeffrey J. Shapiro] said. “"It doesn’t matter what Mr. Brafman says, and it doesn’t matter what the defendant says. Her story is her story, which she has told to everyone who asked her, and she is telling the truth. She has no agenda."

The 62-year-old Strauss-Kahn is accused of forcing the housekeeper to perform oral sex and submit to anal sex. The hotel maid is expected to testify before a grand jury today and emphasize "there was nothing consensual" about the encounter, repots ABC News.

NYPD investigators say they brought the maid back to the room where, she says, Strauss-Kahn emerged naked from the bathroom and assaulted her. They say she pointed them to the place where she says she spat after the French politician forced her to perform oral sex. Those fluid samples are being tested for Strauss-Kahn's DNA.

Investigators also say information downloaded from the suite door's electronic card reader indicate the maid entered the room and never closed the door. The hotel policy requires maids to leave the door open when cleaning. The open door, they say, is proof that the women entered the room to work, not to engage in consensual sex.

Staruss-Kahn is charged with a criminal sexual act, attempted rape, and unlawful imprisonment. The man once "widely expected" to become the Socialist candidate for the French presidency remains held without bond at Rlkers Island.

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