The general consensus among political pundits is that North Carolina is primed for its most competitive elections for local, state and national offices in history. It very well could be that for the first time since arch-conservative television commentator Jesse Helms took his seat in the U.S. Senate, the Tar Heel state is truly up for grabs.

As an example, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) clearly thinks the state is in play. They are in full swing readying for a fight to oust Republican Elizabeth Dole from her seat in the U.S. Senate. Just a few months ago, Dole was generally thought to have an easy road to reelection.

GREENSBORO — Researchers at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro (UNCG), aided by funds from the Guilford Green Foundation, are working for a second year to develop resources to offer those in the domestic violence service field information on preventing, supporting and rehabilitating victims and perpetrators of same-sex domestic violence.

The initiative, called Project Safe Love, incorporates counseling services for both victims and their abusers, training for counselors and other professionals, and educational resources.

UNCG is partnering with Family Service of the Piedmont to test the training materials. “Not only can they benefit from the material, but they can give us some feedback,” said Dr. Keith Mobley, a clinical assistant professor who directs Safe Love along with his colleague Dr. Christine Murray.

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Photo Credit: Anne Fishbein

In David Sedaris’ latest collection of humorous essays, “When You Are Engulfed in Flames” (Little, Brown and Company), the North Carolina-raised, openly gay humorist shares laugh- and cringe-inducing experiences involving longtime boyfriend Hugh Hamrick, sex-obsessed cab drivers, airplane passenger drama, quitting smoking in Japan, run-ins with people he despises and even a bizarre, brief friendship with a neighborhood child molester. Now living in France and England, Sedaris returned to the states for a book tour and, during a stop in Chicago, took time out for a chat about his book, his Gawker-alleged advances towards male fans and whether he’d put on an elf suit again.

The last time I interviewed you a few years back, you mentioned that you had started an essay on befriending a neighborhood child molester, but couldn’t figure out a way to finish it. That story appears in “Flames,” so how did you find your way to completing it?

Well, it helped that he died. I didn’t have to worry about him being hurt by the story, but even then it took me a few years to write it. Someone was commenting, “Why is it you have sympathy for a child molester but you have no sympathy for a woman who wants to swap seats with you on a plane?” And I thought, well, the child molester never did anything to me, he was always nice to me. But I think often you have to get a certain distance from a story in order to write about it.

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NEW YORK, N.Y. — Openly bisexual millionaire Charles Merrill (pictured) might be facing jail time for his decision to protest gay inequalities in the U.S. tax code.

Merrill — who lived in Hendersonville, N.C. for a few years this decade and originally hails from Southern Pines, N.C. — decided in 2004 to withhold his income taxes from the government as an act of civil disobedience. He is outraged that U.S. tax law penalizes same-sex couples for not being married while the federal government denies them the option to get married. He has not paid taxes in four years.

The Internal Revenue Service will go to trial against Merrill on Nov. 17 in the U.S. Tax Court in San Diego, Calif. Merrill currently lives in Palm Springs, Calif., and New York City. The maximum penalty for each year of his civil disobedience is three years in jail or a $25,000 fine.

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Bishop rebukes vicar for wedding
LONDON, England — Rt. Rev. Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London, has strongly renounced the validity of the same-sex wedding between two priests conducted by the vicar of Saint-Bartholomew-the-Great, Rev. Martin Dudley (pictured).
The Bishop has declared that the ceremony carried out by Dudley is illegal under current codes within the Anglican [...]

Charlotte
 
One, two, three, four…
CHARLOTTE — Lez Be Fit Boot Camp (LBFBC) has begun! A preliminary session was held on May 31 as a warm-up preview of what to expect in this kicking four-week series that meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 p.m.
Workout lasts an hour. No equipment is needed. Participants need only to bring [...]

Marriage brings economic windfall
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law has released a new study analyzing the economic gains that same-sex couples’ weddings will bring to California. According to the report, the state’s wedding industry will receive a substantial $683.8 million boost in direct spending by same-sex couples over the [...]

Gay Dems victorious
STATEWIDE — On Tuesday, June 10, two openly gay candidates sailed to victory in their respective South Carolina primaries.
Real estate agent James Akers, Jr. won his primary for a seat on the conservative Greenville County Council and Linda Ketner won in her bid to challenge incumbent U.S. Rep. Henry Brown of the 1st [...]

I was recently angered by a phone conversation I was privy to regarding a certain television star popular with the LGBT community. I won’t go into details, but what upset me — and still upsets me now — was learning about the reaction this bisexual star has to requests to attend Pride festivals.
The star’s agent [...]

I’m the only person in Seattle who hasn’t weighed in on the Ballpark Kissers. Time for me to step up to the plate.
The case of the two lesbians ordered to stop smooching at a Seattle Mariners game has not only engrossed the local media and blogging types, but has popped up in newspapers from Cape [...]

As if the trans community has not suffered enough from the exclusion and disenfranchisement resulting from the ENDA fiasco, the latest news is another blow in the struggle for trans rights and trans autonomy. In May, the American Psychiatric Association, publisher of the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders” (DSM), issued a press statement [...]

Morehouse College in Atlanta has been noted as the bastion of black male leadership since its inception in 1867. Embodying W.E.B. Dubois’s theory of “The Talented Tenth,” that stated “exceptional black men” would be the ones to lead the race, Morehouse College has produced unquestionably a pantheon of noted black men.
However, nowhere in its development [...]

[Note: Editor Matt Comer was not involved in the writing of this editorial. — Assoc. Ed.]
Since its founding in 1991, Time Out Youth (TOY) has been one of the Charlotte LGBT community’s most important organizations and one of its finest resources. Thousands of LGBT and questioning youth have been guided through the challenging process of [...]