NEW YORK CITY: Churches Win Temporary Stay On Public School Evictions

The 160 churches that operate virtually free in New York City's public schools have been granted a temporary reprieve from the eviction ordered by a federal court of appeals.

Alliance Defense Fund says the temporary restraining order is in effect for 10 days while the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York more fully considers constitutional arguments about the city’s unique-in-the-nation prohibition on worship services in vacant public school buildings on weekends. As ADF senior counsel Jordan Lorence puts it, “Churches help communities; evicting churches hurts communities. Empty buildings offer nothing to communities that need hope.”

Andy Humm reports at Gay City News that anti-gay Christian groups are operating a "church planting" network intended to indoctrinate children attending public schools.

The congregation’s legal argument relied on the Supreme Court’s Good News v. Milford Central School ruling that allowed religious meetings in schools. In “The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children,” published last month, Katherine Stewart argues that the “real mission” of Good News Clubs in schools is to “convert children to fundamentalist Christianity and encourage them to proselytize to their ‘unchurched’ peers, all the while promoting the false but unavoidable impression among the children that its activities are endorsed by the school.” She also documents how leaders “of the church-planting movement have declared their ambition to turn all 1,200 of New York City’s schools into churches.”

As an example of the type of churches granted the above-cited reprieve, here's what the Village Church, which operates out of PS 3 on Hudson Street, has on its website.You read that right. An "ex-gay" ministry affiliated with Exodus is operating in New York City public schools. And YOU are paying for it. Why not just charge us for the rope used to hang us?

Tweet Of The Day

Follow WTC Progress for some nut-shriveling photos of steelworkers walking the beams at a thousand feet up.

"Not A Cat" Wins Westminster Dog Show

A tiny Pekingese named Malachy bested 185 other breeds to take the top Westminster prize at Madison Square Garden yesterday.

“He’s a super dog who had a stupendous night,” Vogels told reporters as Malachy lay quietly on a table before them. His handler and part-owner, David Fitzpatrick, was asked whether the 11-pound (5 kilograms) champ has feline traits, given that he loosely resembles a Persian cat. “He’s not like a cat at all,” he said. “He’s like a Pekingese.”

Rabbi Yehuda Levin Vs Ellen DeGeneres

This is the same repulsive douchebag who claimed God murdered an eight year-old boy because he was so angry about gay marriage in New York.

Swag Tuesday

Today's Swag Tuesday prize is two tickets to Evolution Of A Dancer, this Sunday's epic ten-hour journey through the history of gay dance music. Starring legendary DJs Susan Morabito, Michael Fierman, and John Ceglia, the party takes place at Le Poisson Rouge in Manhattan's West Village. Doors open at 6pm and the aural excursion begins with the '70s music of the famed 12 West club.

Advance tickets. Event site. Party blog. Subway info.

JMG: Can you explain the "evolution" in the party's name?

Michael Fierman

The title “Evolution Of A Dancer” came out of our notion to present a completely unique dance event: one that told a musical story in a literal chronological order. A dancer, no matter what his or her age, can step on to the floor and be taken on a trip to hear and feel how dance music has evolved. How one movement in dance music follows another. One will not only recall some precious memories of clubs gone by, but also experience the music of today through the lens how “how we got here”. This is not just another oldies party by any means. By 11PM we will have reached the 21st century and all three of John, Michael and Susan’s one hour encores beginning at 1 AM will feature uplifting new music that is in keeping with our goal: not just to preserve the past, but to keep our community’s dance music alive and well into the future.

JMG: What kind of audience will this party draw?

Susan Morabito

We anticipate having an audience who remember music from all the decades we will be covering. Those who remember the music from the 70s will most likely get there on the earlier side and as the night progresses with each hour the music moves along the decades right up to current times. As the music evolves the crowd will most likely shift a little. And of course, like last year, we had people who were there from the first note until the last. Though this will be a prominently gay male dance event, the number of women who attended this event last year was delightfully surprising and we expect more women to be in attendance this year. Evolution of a Dancer is a celebration of music and dancing, it doesn’t cater to any particular group, Evolution of A Dancer is an inclusive event.

Enter to win tickets to Evolution Of A Dancer by commenting on this post. Only enter once and please remember to leave your email address in the text of you comment. Entries close at midnight on Thursday, west coast time. If you cannot be in Manhattan on the day of the party, your winning entry is transferable to your favorite dance lover. I attended last year and had a fantastic time.

NEW YORK CITY: Gay Couples Wed Atop Empire State Building For First Time

The Empire State Building only permits wedding ceremonies on Valentine's Day. For the first time ever, two of today's four sky-high couples were gay. Shawn Klein and Phil Fung, pictured above, met 18 years ago at the famed Roxy nightclub. Hit the link for more photos and a video.

Quote Of The Day - Pastor Bill Devlin

"This will now go like a flood from east to west because the misnamed [American] Civil Liberties Union will grab ahold of this, as will other forces that oppose worship and oppose the church. This will go like a tsunami across the nation. So when they say that they're just excluding churches for whatever reason, it's discriminatory, it's a monstrosity of religious intolerance, it's wrong, and it's against the Constitution, which guarantees religious liberty and the freedom of speech." - Manhattan Bible Church head Bill Devlin, who claims to be in the 28th day of a protest fast over the eviction of churches from NYC public schools.

RELATED: I noticed a couple of gay activists listed in the friends section of Devlin's Facebook page, so I clicked around to see if his "church" is gay-friendly. (It totally is not.) But only if you are working at home today should you dare click on the partners link on his website. And even then, maybe not.

This Is An Actual Thing

Grammy watchers buzzed on Twitter after CBS ran a short teaser for an apparent contest to win a free colonoscopy. It's a real thing and as the teaser implied, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne are involved. Wait, does that make a colonoscopy less scary?

If you are the grand prize winner, we will fly you and a companion to New York for three nights in a suite at a luxury hotel with a view of Central Park. And then the main event - you will be driven to the Center for Advanced Digestive Care at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center for a free colonoscopy! NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital - with which we have proudly teamed up for the sweepstakes - is a leader for the diagnosis and treatment of digestive diseases. Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne's participation in this project is especially meaningful - not only because they are major stars, but because Sharon fought a courageous and successful battle against colon cancer.

Jokes aside, props to CBS for a novel idea. Enter here.

NOTE: One must ponder the insanity of a society that has to hold a contest to give away a health test that should be free to every person in the nation.

NEW YORK CITY: Pepper-Sprayed Occupy Wall Street Protesters Sue The NYPD

Two women who were pepper-sprayed by the NYPD as they were held inside a protesters pen have filed a lawsuit. The incident was caught live by local news cameras and the video instantly went globally viral, fueling other Occupy protests around the nation.

Chelsea Elliott and Jeanne Mansfield are suing Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna in Manhattan Federal Court for blasting them in the face with pepper-spray during a protest last Sept. 24 near Union Square. Bologna was docked 10 days of vacation for violating NYPD regulations. In an interview Monday, Mansfield, 24, a Boston writer, said she was suing because she wanted to put the NYPD on notice that what Bologna did was wrong. "I was attending a peaceful demonstration when I was met with what I feel was an undue amount of force," she said. Mansfield said she is sympathetic to police in general but said she didn't deserve to be pepper-sprayed. "

The suit claims that the women's right to free assembly and free speech were violated by the attack.

TODAY IN NYC: Dogs Against Romney Protest Outside Westminster Show

Details!

FRC: We're Suing NYC Over Churches

NEW YORK: Clergy To Protest MSNBC For Hosting Anti-Gay Hate Group Leaders

Tomorrow progressive and LGBT clergy members will protest outside the Rockefeller Center headquarters of MSNBC to express their anger over the network's routine hosting of viciously anti-gay hate group leader Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council. Via Advocate:

“FRC has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for using dishonest, incendiary rhetoric about gay and lesbian Americans,” notes a press release from the online action network Faithful America, “but MSNBC has continued offering a friendly venue for Perkins, neither informing their viewers of FRC’s status nor including any rebuttal from progressive religious leaders. Perkins has appeared on MSNBC more often this year than on any other cable news network.” The clergy group will hold a press conference at 11 a.m. tomorrow at Rockefeller Center in New York City, the building where MSNBC is headquartered, then deliver petitions bearing 20,000 signatures from Faithful America members. “The delegation will remind MSNBC that the hateful views of Perkins and the Family Research Council aren’t reflective of the faith community and demand that the network stop inviting him on the air to represent the views of Christians and other people of faith,” says the press release.

PETITION: Close NYU's Chick-fil-A

It's the only location in NYC and people want it gone.

10,000 Phantiacs

Phantom Of The Opera had its 10,000th Broadway performance yesterday.

While “Phantom” has prospered from unparalleled word of mouth, a show as much for sightseers as for theatergoers, its unprecedented Broadway run has hardly been a foregone conclusion. When it opened on Jan. 26, 1988, big hits were few, and roughly half of Broadway’s theaters were empty. Yet thanks to persistent marketing, strict quality control and flexibility in ticket pricing (the worst seats can now be had for only $26.50), “Phantom” survived — in fact thrived — when shows with bigger stars and better reviews brought down their curtains. The show’s 2011 box office performance was its most lucrative, and in December “Phantom” earned more in a single week, $1,579,428, than in any of the 1,256 weeks since the musical reached New York.

I've never seen Phantom but I did at least get to sit in that gorgeous theater during Bea Arthur's memorial tribute.

Remembered In Harlem

Harlem's famed Apollo Theater was the location of Houston's The Greatest Love Of All video.

Gay Flash Mob At NYC JCPenney

A mob of pink-wearing gays descended on midtown Manhattan's JC Penney today in a "buy-cott" in support of Ellen DeGeneres, who since having been hired as the chain's spokesperson has been the subject of a national anti-gay campaign by the American Family Association. JC Penney management was expecting us and greeted all with handshakes and smiles as credit card waving gay men entered the store, which is located at the former site of the famed Gimbels department store. Lots of happy handsome men can be found in the slideshow below, including a couple of industrious boys who bedazzled their shirts with Ellen's name. Fun day!

TODAY: Flash Mob At NYC JCP

Today in Manhattan: Gay flash mob at JC Penney. I'll be there! Facebook event page.

On Fashion Week

Obviously the publicists that send me invites to Fashion Week have never seen me in person. Thanks anyway, but I'll wait until Old Navy's Ringer-T Spring Collection hits the catwalk.

FRC: New York Is About To Evict Us

Manhattan Rents Soar

It may or may not be a leading sign of economic recovery, but rents in Manhattan are surging back to their all-time high.

Manhattan apartment rents continued to soar through the roof in January and are now getting close to hitting historic highs. The average price of a rental apartment was a whopping $3,352, up 5% compared with January, 2011, according to a report from Citi Habitats. Manhattan rents are now just $42 away from the peak of $3,394 reached in May 2007. January prices were up across all apartment types, with the average three-bedroom apartment going for $5,026, a 4% jump.

Apartments in my small 20-unit building are never vacant for longer than a weekend.