David Smith, the owner of Stonewall Fitness,
holds a degree in exercise science from Metropolitan State University
of Denver, several fitness certifications including ACSM Personal
Trainer and Group Fitness. Smith specializes in
exercise, nutrition and wellness programs for the GLBT community and
leads a variety of different programs, including group fitness classes,
personal training, athletic conditioning programs, educational seminars
and workshops. His passion lies in promoting the physical, mental and
social benefits of exercise and healthy diet to the community by
breaking down the barriers often associated with a healthy lifestyle to
make it accessible for everybody.
Today, just days after the introduction of the historic Equality Act in Congress, five new major American companies announced their support for comprehensive, federal LGBT non-discrimination protections. Each of these new leading corporations – American Airlines, Facebook, General Mills, Google and Nike demonstrated their belief that all LGBT Americans should have the protections from discrimination in federal law that they deserve. These companies join Apple, The Dow Chemical Company, and Levi Strauss, & Co. in supporting comprehensive federal LGBT non-discrimination legislation.
STATEMENT BY AMERICAN AIRLINES – “We at American Airlines are proud of our long history of supporting LGBT equality. Now is the time for full equality for the LGBT community in the United States. Ensuring fairness in our workplaces and communities is both the right thing to do and simply good business.”
STATEMENT BY FACEBOOK – "We are open and vocal supporters of equality. Ensuring fairness in the workplace is a fundamental principle at Facebook and we support legal protections for LGBT Americans as outlined in the Equality Act.”
STATEMENT BY GENERAL MILLS – “At General Mills we have a long history of supporting LGBT equality and the time has come in this country for full, federal equality for the LGBT community. Ensuring fairness in our workplaces and communities is both the right thing to do and simply good business.”
STATEMENT BY GOOGLE – Diverse perspectives, ideas, and cultures lead to the creation of better products and services and ideas. And it’s the right thing to do. That's why we support protections for LGBT individuals as outlined in the Equality Act."
STATEMENT BY NIKE – “At NIKE, we are committed to diversity and inclusion, and we strive to treat our employees equally. We believe that diversity drives innovation and allows us to attract and retain world class talent. We need fair and equitable laws that prevent discrimination, and NIKE supports the Equality Act introduced by Senator Merkley and his colleagues in Congress. This is another important step in the fight for equality.”
All eight of these major companies scored a perfect 100 on HRC’s annual Corporate Equality Index (CEI), a nationally recognized benchmark of LGBT inclusion in the workplace, and were recognized on HRC’s list of Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality in 2015.
“The American business community is once again demonstrating what it has long understood -- that inclusion gives rise to innovation and productivity, and discrimination has no place in the workplace,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “We are tremendously grateful to these corporate leaders for their support of the Equality Act and the basic principle that all Americans should be able to live their lives free of discrimination. These companies agree — equality is good for business and the time for full federal equality is now.”
Earlier this year, over 120 prominent leaders in the tech industry called on “legislatures to add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes to their civil rights laws and to explicitly forbid discrimination or denial of services to anyone.”
On Wednesday, Ted Olson and David Boies, the bipartisan legal team that represented the plaintiffs in the Hollingsworth v. Perry case that challenged California’s Proposition 8 and was ultimately heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, came out in support of a comprehensive federal LGBT non-discrimination law.
The results of a new Democracy Corps survey from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research released Wednesday indicates that support for non-discrimination legislation unites the country. Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of likely Republican voters support protecting LGBT people from workplace discrimination, as do 90 percent of Democrats. Similarly, this legislation draws impressive majorities of support among college (84 percent) and non-college voters (73 percent), younger (85 percent) and older voters (75 percent), as well as observant Christians (70 percent).
In March, polling conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) revealed that nearly two-thirds of LGBT Americans (63 percent) have faced discrimination in their lives, with LGBT people reporting workplace discrimination as the most frequently experienced form of discrimination.
Denver's own Eugene Ebner converses with Olympic Gold Medalist Greg Louganis about
his past triumphs and challenges, coming out publicly as a gay man with
HIV, his new documentary film, Back on Board and the responsibility of
mentoring youth.
Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo, the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case that struck down Prop. 8 in California, today released the video “TruthTrending" in response to CatholicVote.Org’s public service announcement “Not Alone.”
The Catholic Vote video “Not Alone” attempts to equate coming out against marriage equality to coming out as LGBT by borrowing language and tone that mimics actually coming out as LGBT. “Truth Trending” simply affirms what most American’s know to be true about the clear separation of Church and State and reminds viewers that coming out is a deeply personal and many times life altering experience.
The 5th anniversary 2015 Denver County Fair kicks off this Friday and it's basically the best weekend of the year so make plans to be there!
Tomorrow is the last day to get these special discounted offers online: • Family 4-Packs! $25 for any 4 family members! Just $20 if you go on Friday! • $10 regular adult admission - will be $12 at the door! (Kids, seniors and military: $5 always. <5 FREE.) • Pie Jury Tickets - $35 to taste any or all of our entries in the Best Pie Categories! Not sold at door! • Group Rate Tickets - Save 20% off advance ticket prices with groups of 10 or more! Online only! • Buy online and skip the ticket purchase lines! Take your eTicket straight to entrance!
Want in for FREE? VOLUNTEER to get free fair admission, free parking, t-shirts, posters and more!
Immortalize your furry friends with a pet portrait by Maurice Becnel. Clients admire Becnel's
ability to capture the essence of a pet's personality in his work. Says Becnel, "Painting animal portraits, for me, is more fun than it is work. I began
painting them several years ago. The first one I did was for a friend on
her birthday. Because it was a gift it never dawned on me that other
people would commission me to do more. Word got out and before I knew it
more and more of the emails I was receiving from my website were going
to the dogs! And cats!"
Are
you a new or experienced writer or blogger? Do you want to be? Or maybe
you're just some gay guy with something to say? Well, what better forum
for you than MileHighGayGuy? MileHighGayGuy
is looking for regular and guest bloggers to write about local news and
events, do music and movie reviews, or write opinion or feature pieces
from a gay perspective. These are unpaid positions but offer the
opportunity to be published in Colorado's Best Gay Blog (2010, 2011,
2012 OUTstanding Awards, Denver 2012 #WebAwards), expand your audience and gain valuable
experience. There's also swag available in the form of free movie and
concert tickets, music, books and other cool stuff. If interested, shoot an email over to Drew Wilson atdrew@milehighgayguy.com. And if you've got column or story ideas to pitch, this is the place to do it.
Can you believe that it is almost the end of July? What happened to the future plans of summer? I started to ponder this the other day as I daydreamed; looking upon clouds in the middle of Cheesman Park. Reclining on a blanket with my face looking upon the clouds. The clouds and I shared a lazy agenda, to waste an afternoon. Their plan was to slowly creep across the huge blue sky. My plan was to watch their paced path. It is funny how, upon the first breath of Spring, the plans for “everything you want to do this summer” become laid. The long path of warm weather. A chance to enjoy. The scheme of being able to look back in September and recite to the class, “How I Spent my Summer.” Here we sit at the end of July. How has your plans come along so far? This is fair warning to the end of fair warming. So, maybe the roadtrip to Mount Rushmore isn’t going to materialize for this summer. But, a road trip somewhere will. Get out there! There isn’t much time.
There isn't time, there isn't time To do the things I want to do, With all the mountain-tops to climb, And all the woods to wander through, And all the seas to sail upon, And everywhere there is to go, And all the people, everyone Who lives upon the earth , to know. To know a few, and do a few, And then sit down and make a rhyme About the rest I want to do. -Eleanor Farjeon
This post originally appeared on Steven Bennet's website Nice to See StevieB. Republished with permission.
Good Chemistry, Denver’s gay-friendly dispensary, is guided by four core principles: SCIENCE – Good Chemistry believes that Cannabis has significant therapeutic benefits and work to support and expand its study. ACCESS - Good Chemistry believes that many barriers exist which fundamentally restrict access to safe reliable medical grade cannabis and search for meaningful ways to remove them.
DIGNITY - Good Chemistry believes in the fundamental and inalienable right of a person to choose their medical treatment. Recognizing that often patients who take cannabis are subjected to unfair treatment under the law, Good Chemistry is committed to defending and protecting the rights of their patients.
COMPASSION - Good Chemistry recognizes that medical cannabis is a potent and effective medicine for many patients who cannot afford it and is dedicated to providing for those in need.
Do
you want to advertise to Denver’s gay community? Of course you do, it’s
the 7th largest in the United States! And the best way to reach them is
with MileHighGayGuy – Colorado’s Best Gay Blog.
Let's talk. No, let's really talk. About HIV. While we have come far, gay and bisexual men continue to bear the greatest burden of this disease in Colorado. Nearly four of out of every five individuals newly diagnosed with HIV identifies as a gay or bisexual man. We still have more work to do to get that number to zero. Let's work together to change the future of HIV/AIDS by talking about testing, PrEP and staying in care.
Since talking about HIV in the heat of the moment can be a buzz kill, why not bring it up before you get it up? By bringing it up, everyone wins.
Divine Feline is Colorado’s leading spay/neuter source for free roaming (“community”) cats and a significant provider of spay/neuter services for pet cats, all through their in-house clinic, The Feline Fix.
To date The Feline Fix has performed more than 27,000 spay/neuter surgeries, preventing the births of hundreds of thousands of unwanted cats in Denver and surrounding communities.
For more information about the clinic, or to request a reservation for your tame, stray or feral cats, please click here.
Divine Feline is a Colorado nonprofit corporation and a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. All contributions are tax deductible. To make a donation please click here.
The Dumb Friends League has opened a new 1,200-square-foot Cat Pavilion at its Quebec Street Shelter in Denver. After five months of construction, the Cat Pavilion welcomed its first feline residents last week, just in time for the height of summer and the busiest season for cat intakes at the Dumb Friends League. A grand opening celebration was held on July 23 for Dumb Friends League donors and board members.
The Dumb Friends League cares for nearly 10,000 homeless cats every year—about 18 percent more than dogs. Not only does the League receive large numbers of cats, but adult cats take more than twice as long to adopt out as dogs. The new Cat Pavilion is designed to provide a more enriching environment for cats and a more interactive experience for adopters, who will be able to play with or simply pet the adoptable cats housed in the pavilion. As a result, the League hopes to adopt cats into new homes more quickly, reducing their length of stay at the shelter.
“We do our best to make sure that cats in our care are comfortable and happy, and this facility will provide a more natural and comfortable environment while they’re at our shelter,” said Bob Rohde, president and CEO of the Dumb Friends League. “But the best place for any pet is a loving home, so the Cat Pavilion is designed to let cats show how playful, charming and friendly they can be so they’ll find homes faster.”
The Cat Pavilion adjoins the Quebec Street Shelter’s current adoption center, located at 2080 S. Quebec St. in Denver, and can house more than 60 cats at a time. The bright, open facility features three spacious colony rooms for cats in addition to a large “play room” with a retractable door that opens to let the cats enjoy fresh air and sunshine from behind the safety of a screen. The cats will also have plenty of windows, elevated platforms, play structures and quiet spots—features ideal for reducing the cats’ stress in the shelter while they wait for a permanent home.
For more information about donor and naming opportunities for the new Cat Pavilion, or to learn more about the Dumb Friends League, visit ddfl.org or call (303) 751-5772.
The Seventy Four, an online education newsroom, launched a new section today featuring a series of articles surveying the complexities of gender identity, the evolving political debate surrounding the transgender rights of today's youth, and the ways in which these issues intersect with the policies and practices of K-12 schools across the country.
I love drunk women, they’re so fun and happy and easy to sell into white slavery! We’re you offended? Good, then I did my job as a comic. Why were you offended? Is it because you’re a woman who gets drunk way too often, or is it because you’ve been sold into white slavery, or is it because you’re just an uptight jerk with a sphincter so clenched that if turds were footballs you’d never fumble! Sorry if I just offended turds.
Frankly, I’m kind of tired of people getting offended lately. Actually I’m more offended by the way they react to being offended. It’s as if being offensive to someone or some group of people means you are evil personified and should not be allowed in public anymore or even in Congress! Being offensive is simply, according to Google, “causing someone to feel deeply hurt, upset, or angry.” So what is wrong with that? You can hurt someone by simply telling a guy in a bar who just bought you a drink that you’re not interested. Not that I’ve ever turned any guy down in a bar. But I have been rebuked by a few poor unfortunate souls. You can hurt someone by strategically placing a screwdriver attached to a block of wood under an ex lover’s sofa cushion but, wait a moment, I don’t think that’s the kind of hurt Google meant. Though if you are in the market for hurting someone in that way I have a cousin named Vito ... You can emotionally hurt someone by simply breaking off a long term relationship, especially if you tell them in a text message that "It’s not you, it’s me." And hell, I’m sure you’ve made plenty of people angry just on the drive to work this morning. So why have cries of “that’s offensive” become so damn full of pretentious importance as of late?
Maybe we should ask that gay pride event in Scotland that banned drag queens because transgendered folks might be offended. Did you catch that? They banned drag queens because transgendered people “might” be offended, not because they were, but just because they might. Being offended is just a part of life, folks. And frankly, if you are offended by a drag queen, then maybe the problem is you and not drag queens. The same goes for those butt clenching morons who get offended when a woman pulls out a boob in public and feeds her hungry child. You’re offended? Oh well, I’m sure you will get over it. And those black folks who were so offended by the confederate flag in South Carolina ... oh wait, now that’s a bit different. Is it, you ask? Well, yes it is because it’s not offensive, it’s malicious.
Malicious, does that make a difference? You bet your sweet ass it does and here’s why. Malicious as defined by Google is “characterized by malice; intending or intended to do harm.” See, though a transgendered person (notice how I didn’t say 'tranny' in fear of offending someone) might be offended by a drag queen, they are not in danger of that queen causing them harm, unless of course they step on her fucking dress. Then it's all bets are off. And I’m betting the word “f**king” will get edited in this article because we might offend someone. But really, I think this is the line you have to cross in determining if a particular behavior or word or item should be banned or not allowed.
The fact that someone or some group might be simply offended is not enough to eliminate it from everyone else. Yes, it may be insensitive and it may show the stupidity and small mindedness of the GOP ... oop,s I mean of the person spouting the offense. But if it’s not malicious then it shouldn’t be banned. Is the confederate flag offensive? Maybe it is, but even moreso, it’s malicious. After all it was a battleflag used by the side that fought and killed in an effort to continue enslaving a whole race of people whose only offense was being born a different color. It’s malicious in its use since then by the Ku Klux Klan and ignorant, backwoods, cousin marrying morons to taunt and intimidate black folks with the threat of harm to themselves and their families.
So is it offensive then when some bible thumping, four-time divorced clerk in Texas says she thinks gay marriage is wrong. Yes, it’s offensive to me. But it is it malicious? No. But when she refuses to do her job as mandated by the Supreme Court it crosses the line of offensive into malicious territory. By taking away a person’s equal rights you are intending harm and that’s why I hope she finds herself in jail for this.
So yeah, I’m offended every damn day, by religion, conservative politics, and coworkers who think they’re hatred for themselves should be directed at me. And will I post offensive remarks and jokes about the Pope and Mike Huckabee and that bitch in the cubicle next to me who doesn’t seem to realize that the whole office can hear her personal phone call to her therapist? You bet your ass I will. Will some people be offended? Sure they will. Do I care? Hell no I don’t because I’m not promoting a wish to kill them or break their knees or throw them in jail. Well, I might call my cousin Vito about that bitch in the cubicle next to mine. Anyway, it’s time to quit giving so much power to being offended. Lighten up folks, unclench and fumble a football once and a while.
David Smith, the owner of Stonewall Fitness,
holds a degree in exercise science from Metropolitan State University
of Denver, several fitness certifications including ACSM Personal
Trainer and Group Fitness. 
