Lady Gaga fires up LGBTQ rally for Stonewall anniversary

NEW YORK - Lady Gaga electrified thousands of revelers who gathered in New York on Friday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the LGBTQ rights movement, exhorting the crowd to honor the past by using its "power" to extend and defend a half-century of progress.

Her warm-up speech and a subsequent rally, part of a series of World Pride events in New York this week, commemorated the so-called Stonewall uprising of June 28, 1969.

Early that morning, patrons of a Greenwich Village gay bar called the Stonewall Inn rose up in defiance of police harassment, triggering days of rioting. Their resistance gave birth to the national and global movement for equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other queer people.

Lady Gaga, a Grammy Award-winner whose signature song "Born This Way" has become an LGBTQ anthem, fired up the crowd, which began gathering in the park and public square outside the Stonewall hours earlier.

Appearing with a rainbow-colored jacket and thigh-high boots, she declared that Stonewall was the moment when LGBTQ people said "enough is enough."

"I may not, to some people, be considered a part of this community, even though I like girls sometimes. I would never degrade the fight you have endured," she told the cheering crowd. "You have the power. You are so, so powerful, and I hope you feel that power today."

Later the rally alternated between political speeches and block-party gaiety. Musical performances and rhythmic dancing rattled windows in the low-slung neighborhood. Drag queens sang '80s hits like "I'm So Excited" in between speeches by activists from countries such as Uganda and Chechnya.

US politicians including presidential hopefuls Kirsten Gillibrand, one of New York state's 2 US senators, and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio also took the stage ahead of what organizers are calling the largest gay pride parade in history set for Sunday, when some 150,000 marchers and 4 million spectators are expected.

In between featured speakers, impromptu rallies formed and dispersed outside the bar, with people waving homemade signs such as "Closets are for Clothes!" and "Gay Liberation Front," paying homage to the radical group that formed immediately after Stonewall.

"Get laid, get drunk, and have a party," said Martha Shelley, one of the Gay Liberation Front founders. "And then go home, roll up your sleeves, and fight."

While the anniversary has a celebratory air, activists see the occasion as a way to protest US President Donald Trump's record, which many consider hostile to LGBTQ people. They also want to highlight the still-precarious position of LGBTQ people in many parts of the world.

Police raided the Stonewall, a Mafia-owned gay bar, ostensibly to crack down on organized crime. But their mistreatment of the patrons, part of a pattern of abuse against LGBTQ people, touched off the uprising.

While celebrating 50 years of progress, many LGBTQ activists are sounding the alarm about Trump administration initiatives, including a ban on transgender people in the military, cuts in HIV/AIDS research and support for so-called religious freedom initiatives that eliminate LGBTQ protections.

The White House claims Trump has long advocated LGBTQ equality, noting that he has backed a global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality.

"President Trump has never considered LGBT Americans second-class citizens," White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement.

The message has been lost on many LGBTQ people, as the Trump administration opposes extending anti-discrimination protection to gay or transgender workers under federal employment law, a legal issue currently before the US Supreme Court, with a ruling due within a year.

In nearby Washington Square Park, some 500 pro-transgender activists staged a Trans Day of Action, where some held up "Black trans lives matter" signs, lamenting that 10 transgender people have been murdered in the United States in 2019 after 26 were killed in 2018 and 29 in 2017, according to the LGBTQ advocacy right Human Rights Campaign.

"Trump has really proliferated this hate towards us," said Qweenb. Amor, 30, a trans Latina. "It's something we're going to have to face every single day for the next 20 years, despite who wins the next election because these people who put Trump in power are people we have to work with every day of our lives."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Alec Baldwin arrested in New York after 'punching' man

NEW YORK - Hollywood actor and television presenter Alec Baldwin was arrested in New York on Friday for allegedly punching a 49-year-old man in the face during a parking dispute, police said.

The 60-year-old, who has famously impersonated President Donald Trump and who lives in downtown Manhattan with his second wife and their 4 young children, was arrested in Greenwich Village, a police spokeswoman told AFP.

"Police got a call around 1:30 pm (1730 GMT) regarding an assault in progress. When we got there, we discovered that it looked like 2 individuals were fighting over a parking spot," the spokeswoman said.

The younger man had already parked his vehicle and was attempting to purchase a parking ticket, when he got into a dispute with Baldwin, "who then punched him in the face," the officer said.

She said the unnamed man was taken to hospital in "stable" condition, while Baldwin was in custody awaiting charges.

Baldwin is well known for his hot temper and for impersonating Trump on satirical US television show "Saturday Night Live." The Oscar nominee recently launched a Sunday night talk show on ABC television.

In 2014, he was detained by New York police for riding his bicycle the wrong way down a street.

In late 2013, NBC scrapped his late-night chat show after he allegedly subjected a photographer to a homophobic slur outside his apartment on the day that a Canadian actress convicted of stalking him was jailed.

In a subsequent profanity-laden article in New York Magazine, the actor said he was finished with public life and that the Big Apple no longer offered his then baby daughter a "normal" life.

The nearly 5,300-word rant denied allegations that he insulted gays and lashed out furiously against the media, the city where he has lived since 1979, and US public life in general.

Despite that February 2014 article, the actor still lives in Manhattan with second wife Hilaria. The couple now share 4 young children.

His anger made headlines as long ago as 2007, when he left a notorious message for his then 11-year-old daughter with first wife Kim Basinger, calling her a "rude, thoughtless little pig."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Exuberant and defiant, New Yorkers flock to Halloween parade despite attack

NEW YORK - Thousands of merry-makers, many dressed in elaborate Halloween costumes, paraded through lower Manhattan on Tuesday, undeterred by the attack that unfolded just hours earlier when a driver mowed down dozens of people on a bike path a few blocks away.

   
Revelers who joined the 44th annual Village Halloween Parade said they were painfully aware that eight people were killed in what authorities say was an act of terrorism but carried on with the festivities to show fortitude and solidarity with the victims.

"You gotta live your life, you can’t let things like this discourage you,” said 60-year old Michael Spain along the route. “As sobering as they are, you still gotta come out and enjoy stuff like this - or they win."

Thousands of people in costumes took part in the annual celebration along Greenwich Village's Sixth Avenue, typically one of the nation's largest Halloween parades. Hundreds of uniformed police officers maintained a steady presence throughout the mile-long route.

"Out of an abundance of caution, you will see an increase of NYPD personnel throughout NYC, including the Halloween Parade," the New York City Police Department said on Twitter.

Among the participants were a Rio de Janeiro-style group with the drums, witches and ghosts, and a massive Día de los Muertos group with 12-foot-tall skeletons.

"Tonight we're at a Halloween parade to say, you didn't win and you didn't affect us, and we're out and we're celebrating and we're doing what New Yorkers do and we're living our lives because we're not going to allow the terrorists to win. Period," New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told CNN.

"And that's why I'm here marching in the parade, not because I have a great costume." said Cuomo, who was dressed in a suit and tie.

Jorge Arias, the owner of a wine shop and an adjacent bar near King Street, said that the crowd was slightly smaller than in past years but not by much.

“By 5 o’clock the street was a bit empty and last year it was already full,” Arias, 42, said in Spanish. "But now the crowds are more normal compared to last year. Maybe a little less, but almost the same.”

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Obama designates first US LGBT national monument

WASHINGTON, United States - President Barack Obama designated the first LGBT national monument Friday, bestowing the honor on a New York bar and surrounding area considered to be the birthplace of America's gay rights movement.

The monument includes Greenwich Village's Stonewall Inn bar, the small park next door, and the immediate vicinity, where protests that came to be known as the Stonewall Uprising erupted in 1969 following a police crackdown.

"The designation will create the first official National Park Service unit dedicated to telling the story of LGBT Americans," the White House said in a statement.

On June 28, 1969, officers arrived at the Stonewall Inn to enforce a law that forbids the sale of alcohol to gays.

Customers resisted the police crackdown and a crowd gathered outside, with riots ensuing on nearby streets.

In the days that followed, demonstrations and clashes with police continued, and nearby Christopher Park became a gathering place for members of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community to express their frustrations and steel their resolve.

The events are "widely considered to be a watershed moment when the LGBT community across the nation demonstrated its power to join together and demand equality and respect," the White House said.

Christopher Park and Stonewall Inn remain to this day a rallying spot for the LGBT community.

Following the Orlando massacre, the deadliest mass shooting in US history that left 49 dead at a gay nightclub earlier this month, thousands gathered in the area.

It's also where the gay community gathered to celebrate the Supreme Court decision to legalize gay marriage in all 50 states on June 26, 2015.

The designation of the monument comes just days before the one-year anniversary of that decision.

Gay rights groups heralded Obama's announcement Friday.

"The Stonewall National Monument will pay tribute to the brave individuals who stood up to oppression and helped ignite a fire in a movement to end unfair and unjust discrimination against LGBTQ people," president of Human Rights Campaign advocacy group, Chad Griffin, said in a statement.

Within a year of the Stonewall Uprising New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago began to hold annual pride marches. Traditionally held in June, New York's is scheduled for Sunday.

Stonewall Inn, Christopher Park and their immediate surroundings were classified national historic sites in 2000.

The Stonewall National Monument will report to the National Park Service.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Shooting death of gay man rocks NY's cradle of gay rights

NEW YORK - Greenwich Village, the birthplace of the U.S. gay rights movement, remained in shock on Sunday over the shooting death of a gay man by a gunman who police said uttered anti-gay slurs before targeting the victim.

Mark Carson, 32, was shot dead in Greenwich Village around midnight on Friday in what police are calling a hate crime. Others say it could be a backlash against the recent advance of gay marriage laws across the United States.

The Manhattan neighborhood has long been a haven for bohemians and artists, and its Stonewall Inn has been a landmark for gay rights since a 1969 clash when patrons of the gay bar resisted a police raid.

Sympathizers built a shrine to Carson on Sunday, leaving cards, candles and flowers at the spot where he was killed, on Sixth Avenue at Eighth Street.

"This is supposed to be like the world's capital where it's OK to be gay," said Josh Steinman, 42, who paused for a moment in front of the memorial.

The attack marked the 22nd anti-gay hate crime in New York City this year, compared to 13 incidents at this time last year, New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

"It's clear that victim here was killed only because, and just because, he was thought to be gay," Kelly told reporters on Sunday. "There's no question about that. There were derogatory remarks. This victim did nothing to antagonize or instigate the shooter. It was only because the shooter believed him to be gay."

A suspect identified as Elliot Morales, 33, was arrested on a charge of second degree murder as a hate crime shortly after the shooting. He is being held without bail and two of his companions are cooperating with police, Kelly said.

"I can't believe that something like that happened in the Village," said Carmine Tzavis, 40, a bartender at Stonewall Inn.

The police commissioner stopped short of confirming an increase in anti-gay attacks because, he said, hate crimes are typically underreported, so the data are skewed.

People in the Village said they were alarmed and feared the violence may have been sparked by the rapid passage of gay marriage laws.

On Tuesday, Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton signed a bill making his state the 12th to allow same-sex couples to marry.

"I seem to think it's an overreaction to the marriage equality stuff," said Brian Kennedy, 56, who came to the crime scene on Sunday to pay his respects.

Kennedy, who is gay, said he moved to New York from Atlanta in 1991 because he believed the city would be more accepting. Now he has his doubts.

"Getting beat up is one thing. Getting shot point-blank in the face is another," Kennedy said.

The Anti-Violence Project has organized a march and vigil at the crime scene on Monday.

A spokesman for the anti-defamation group GLAAD called the killing "a stark and sobering reminder of the rife homophobia that still exists in our culture."

"Until we rid our society of the discrimination that allows us to be seen as inferior and less than human, we will never truly be safe, even in one of the most accepting cities in the world," spokesman Wilson Cruz said in a statement.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com