Serena Williams ended up at #14 and Andre Agassi, the husband of the Greatest Female Player of all Time (Steffi Graf) was placed at #12. Between them was John McEnroe and Serena's sister Venus Williams was at #22, 4 places ahead of Justine Henin at 26.
- Roger Federer
- Rod Laver
- Steffi Graf
- Martina Navratilova
- Pete Sampras
- Rafael Nadal
- Bjorn Borg
- Margaret Court
- Chris Evert
- Billie Jean King
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| Martin Luther King, Jr (left) with Bayard Rustin, one of the key architects and organizing strategists of the Afrcan American civil rights movement |
To honor Rustin's courage and his invaluable legacy, NBJC will spend this year celebrating the beloved "unsung hero" through its commissioned Bayard Rustin Centennial Project and in ongoing collaborations with Walter Naegle, Bayard's surviving partner and Executor/Archivist of the Estate of Bayard Rustin. NBJC is also working with Nancy Kates and Bennett Singer, co-producers and co-directors of Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin, a biographical documentary that asserts Rustin's significance in American history. The recipient of more than 25 awards, Brother Outsider has been screened at The United Nations, The Kennedy Center, and for Members of Congress.
"The National Black Justice Coalition is looking forward to spearheading this collaborative movement to bring greater visibility to the invaluable legacy of Bayard Rustin. We recognize and value that our mission mirrors his life's work - to eradicate racism and homophobia," says NBJC's Executive Director Sharon Lettman-Hicks.
"Furthermore, his identity as an out Black gay man in the Civil Rights Movement lends validity to our belief that legal rights and protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people of all ethnicities are not just civil rights, but human rights, and that Black LGBT people absolutely deserve a place at the table of equality."
NBJC's Bayard Rustin Centennial Project is honored to join in the year-long series of celebratory events taking place across the country and to build upon more than 30 years of Black LGBT community tributes to the late, great, beloved freedom fighter.I'm sure that as more people learn about Bayard Rustin, they too will be as inspired by his life and legacy as I was when I co-founded the Barbara Jordan / Bayard Rustin Coalition, a Los Angeles-area Black LGBT community education and social justice advocacy organization in 2006.
Way back in 1989, Denmark was the very first country in the world to have state-sponsored recognition of same-sex couples when they enacted registered partnerships, which was essentially what we would now call civil unions or comprehensive domestic partnerships. Now, there are well over a half-dozen countries which have full marriage equality, led by the Netherlands in 2000 and followed by Canada, Argentina, South Africa, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Sweden and Norway.At her weekly press conference, Tuesday, Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt said the government is putting the finishing touches to a bill that will come into force on June 15th, allowing homosexuals and lesbians to walk down the aisle in the church of their choice – if they can find a priest who’s willing to conduct the ceremony.“It will always be up to the individual priest as to whether he or she is prepared to bless gay couples but this legislation provides homosexuals with the same rights as heterosexuals,” said the PM.
And Rod tells us about the LGBT angle:Davis is eyeing the project as a starring vehicle that she will produce with her husband, Julius Tennon, through their JuVee banner along with Barclay, Shelly Glasser and Diane Nabatoff.Glasser and Nabatoff optioned rights to the biography "Barbara Jordan: American Hero," by Mary Beth Rogers. Scribe Paris Qualles is adapting the book for a pic that traces Jordan's rise from a poor Houston neighborhood to an elected member of Congress and an influential figure in liberal politics.Glasser and Nabatoff initiated the project a few years ago and made separate overtures to Davis and Barclay. The thesp and the helmer have been looking for a project to collaborate on ever since Davis starred in Barclay's CBS medical drama "City of Angels" in 2000. The prospect of telling the story of Jordan, who died at age 59 of leukemia in 1996, resonated immediately with both of them.
There are lots of projects in Hollywood which are announced by press release and articles in Variety that never get actualized into movies in the theater. But this is an exciting announcement. There are many bloggers in joining me in the the hope that it gets made, and it earns Davis her much deserved Best Actress Oscar!Jordan was the first African American to serve in the Texas Senate since Reconstruction, the first black woman elected to Congress from the South, and the first to deliver the keynote address at a national party convention.But, given how private a life she led, Jordan was considered something of a mystery, even to her close friends–friends who didn’t know about the illness that would eventually kill her at just 59 years old…. And while she never publicly discussed her sexual orientation (not that she had to), Jordan’s obituary mentioned her long-term (30-year) relationship with Nancy Earl, an educational psychologist.[...]Jordan died in 1996. [Ten] years later, the Jordan/Rustin Coalition was created in California in her namesake and that of Bayard Rustin. JRC organizes and mobilizes the Black LGBT community around Los Angeles.
The Simpsons' 500th episode, "At Long Last Leave," centers on the Simpsons family getting evicted from Springfield and join an off-the-grid community outside of town. But when Homer and Marge try to return to Springfield, their friends give them a hostile welcome.Fox has already announced that the show has been renewed for two more seasons, ensuring it will air on television for a record 25 years, longer than any scripted show in history. The Simpsons premiered in 1989 (I saw the the very first show when I was in college) and George H.W. Bush was president of the United States!
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| Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) | Charles Darwin (1809-1882) |
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| Bruce Harris, is believed to be the first openly gay, Black, Republican elected official in the country (Mayor of Chatham Borough, NJ) |
If Harris is confirmed, he would make history as the first openly gay member of New Jersey's highest court. Interestingly, after lagging for years, recently there have been several additions of openly LGBT members on state high courts."I am honored to nominate these two gentlemen," Christie said at a Statehouse news conference. "I trust the Senate will take into account their extraordinary backgrounds and experience and will give them swift hearings.”The nominees would replace former Justice John Wallace Jr., whom Christie declined to reappoint in 2010, and Justice Virginia Long, who faces mandatory retirement on March 1.[...]In 2010, Christie touched off a firestorm when he declined to renominate Wallace. Senate Democrats, infuriated by the unprecedented move, refused to consider his replacement for the seat, Anne Patterson, for a year. Eventually, Patterson was sworn in to replace Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto, who declined to seek re-nomination, and Wallace’s seat has remained vacant.After refusing in 2010 to reappointment Wallace — who had two years to go before reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70 — and Rivera-Soto retired, the criticism of Christie grew louder because he left the court with no minority members. The court is currently comprised of five women and two men, all of whom are white.
Interestingly, in researching this blog post I discovered that Turing was also a staunch atheist, which in my book is another excellent reason that he is such a great person!The first-class stamp tribute, naming him as one of 10 ‘Britons of Distinction’, comes at a time when there is still a campaign running seeking a posthumous pardon for his conviction for homosexuality in 1952.The stamp will be released in Britain on 23 February from Royal Mail. Today, there are an estimated 2.5 million stamp collectors and gifters in the UK and millions more worldwide.Turing was a mathematician and computer scientist, whose work with the code-breakers at Bletchley Park helped to speed up the end of the Second World War.The Cambridge don had invented the Turing machine, a calculator capable of solving any mathematical problem, which was created in his head many years before the technology existed to build the actual computer.
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| AFP PHOTO / GLYN KIRK |
The measure, adopted by the House last night, passed the Senate by a voice vote this morning. Governor Deval Patrick has indicated he will sign the bill into law. It would go into effect July 1, 2012.
The transgender civil-rights bill would add protections based on “gender identity” to the statutes banning discrimination in employment, housing, education, and credit. It would also add gender identity to current hate-crimes laws.
The measure, however, does not include protections for public accommodations, such as hotels and restaurants, restrooms, locker rooms, public buildings and transit, including subway and bus lines.
That omission bothers a lead sponsor of the bill, Representative Carl M. Sciortino, Jr. (D-Medford). But he said, the bill is a step forward “It makes sure that people who have faced violence and discrimination have legal remedy.”Massachusetts will become the 16th state to include protections for transgender people from discrimination into law. Curious that this is happening more than 7 years after the state embraced marriage equality. Better late than never.
If one of these initiatives qualifies it means that there will be an anti-gay ballot fight in November 2012 after all.Opponents of the state law that mandates the inclusion of the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in social science instruction in public schools have filed two initiatives with the attorney general to eliminate the law and to give parents the ability to opt out of classroom teaching on the topic.The initiatives come from two groups that are not affiliated with the organization that failed to qualify a referendum on the law, SB48, last month. The leader of that effort said they will also file an initiative with the attorney general on the law in the near future.[...]One of the proposals would simply strip out the inclusion of LGBT people in the section of law that mandates teaching about other minority groups. SB48 also included a new mandate for instruction about people with disabilities, and that would stand under the initiative.The second proposal adds the ability of parents to pull their kids from instruction in “social science and family life” if it conflicts “with the religious training and beliefs of a parent or guardian.”
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| PHOTO CREDIT: MIGUEL MEDINA |
1,242— Jimmy ConnorsAnyone think Rafael Nadal will get to 800 wins? I'm sure one of Federer's goals is to get into the Top 5 on this list, but I think getting past Agassi and McEnroe will be difficult, especially if Federer retires at the end of 2012, which I suspect will happen.
1,071— Ivan Lendl
923— Guillermo Vilas
875— John McEnroe
870— Andre Agassi
806— Stefan Edberg
800— Roger Federer
