NATIONAL NEWS: Hillary Clinton Apologizes — Again — for Her Nancy Reagan AIDS Remarks
Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton elaborates on her “mistake” remarks on former First Lady Nancy Reagan’s AIDS history.
Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton made headlines this weekend after praising late former First Lady Nancy Reagan for starting “a national conversation” on HIV/AIDS. That response was met with instant backlash from various LGBTQ organizations, including her political endorser the Human Rights Campaign, which found Clinton’s remarks inaccurate. Chad Griffin, HRC president, reminded supporters on Twitter that Reagan “was, sadly, no hero in the fight against HIV/AIDS.” Shortly after, Clinton issued a brief statement on how she “misspoke,” citing the Reagans’ work on stem-cell research, but not AIDS advocacy. She would later release a long post on Medium, saying “to be clear, the Reagans did not start a national conversation about HIV and AIDS. That distinction belongs to generations of brave lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, along with straight allies, who started not just a conversation but a movement that continues to this day.”
Derrick Gordon becomes the first openly gay basketball player to participate in the NCAA tournament.
After an epic Seton Hall victory over Villanova University on Saturday, Derrick Gordon, 24, will make history as the first out athlete to play in the NCAA tournament. After coming out at UMass in April 2014, Gordon transferred to Seton Hall, where he now plays as a graduate student. However, the road to being out in college sports has not been easy for him, with Westboro Baptist Church detractors showing up at his games. Socially, there was a prediction that Gordon’s coming out would spark more players in doing so — but such a movement hasn’t happened yet. But some changes on the administrative level have progressed with the coming out of Bryant University’s Chris Burns as Division 1 men’s first openly gay basketball coach last October.
In international news, Canadian prime minster Justin Trudeau inspires a bullied gay employee with a heartfelt letter.
Degas Sikorski, a 20-year-old gay Party City employee, faced employment discrimination when one of his co-workers sent him a Valentine’s Day card with a homophobic slur and suggested that his identity was the reason he wasn’t getting shifts. When word got around of the situation, the Edmonton native met with Randy Boissonnault, an openly gay member of Parliament for Edmonton Centre, who got colleagues and fellow legislators to send Sikorski messages of encouragement. But the biggest surprise was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also sending Sikorski a personalized message that read “Know that your friends outnumber the haters by millions, and I am one of your friends.” Sikorski has since shared his excitement and the messages on Facebook stating how the experience has been “so much love, it’s amazing to know I have their support.” Culturally, Trudeau has been garnering a lot of global acclaim for his progressiveness on LGBTQ issues in Canada. Last week, he spoke to our nation’s president about his support for marriage equality.
