Joel Grey: “If you have to put a label on it, I’m a gay man.”
Oscar-winning actor Joel Grey, 82, has come out as gay in an interview with People magazine. Grey is famous for his role as the host in Cabaret, opposite Liza Minnelli. He was married to actress Jo Wilder for 24 years and has two children.
Rare syphilis outbreak blinds two in Seattle
An outbreak of an unusual strain of syphilis has blinded two men and caused eye disease in four more in Washington State since December. Three of the patients were men who have sex with men, and three were HIV-positive. Ocular syphilis is usually very rare, even among syphilis patients who show symptoms.
Read more at The Seattle Times.
Andrew Sullivan announces retirement from The Dish
Journalist, blogger and openly gay conservative writer Andrew Sullivan has announced on his blog that he will stop blogging, after 15 years. Sullivan’s blog, The Dish, was an early experiment in political blogging and built a subscriber-based model almost unique in the medium.
French court allows French-Moroccan gay marriage
France’s highest court of appeal has given the go-ahead to a French-Moroccan gay couple to get married. While gay marriage has been legal in France since 2013, an international treaty blocked marriages between French citizens and the citizens of certain other countries, including Morocco, where gay marriage is banned. The court ruled, however, that marriage fell under a loophole in the treaty for situations where it would be “obviously incompatible with public order.”
Read more from Agence France-Presse.
Gambian gay prisoner shows signs of torture
A man held in prison in Gambia for the crime of being gay was transferred to a hospital showing signs of torture, according to a BuzzFeed informant. The informant said that the man was then transferred to a private block, where other prisoners are said to have been murdered by the Gambian government. Gambia is in the midst of a widening crackdown on gay people, at least 15 of whom are in custody.
Sean Strub on Body Counts
On his blog, Mark King interviews HIV activist and POZ magazine founder Sean Strub about his book Body Counts: A Memoir of Politics, Sex, AIDS and Survival. Strub discusses his political activism, getting over the shame of HIV, and how the 1980s epidemic is remembered.
Why you can trust Xtra
