News Round-Up: July 30, 2019

Michael Caprio

Some news items you might have missed:

• Hottie of the Day: Prior to last week's red carpet at Chippendales in Las Vegas when 'Jersey Shore' star Vinny Guadagnino returned as celebrity guest host, my hubby Michael (longtime publicist for Chipps) helped photographers get their light settings right standing in for the reality star. This was his 'back of the dress' pose.

• Tennessee: A group of over 300 lawyers says Coffee County District Attorney Craig Northcutt should have his law license suspended after admitting he doesn't prosecute domestic violence crimes involving married same-sex couples. "I don’t prosecute them because I don’t recognize it as marriage. There’s no marriage to protect."

• Sun Sentinel: The South Florida newspaper had an 'oopsie' when it tweeted out a headline about moving a 100-year-old house, but instead featured a hot guy and a link to a story about an 'adult-themed' party in Key West.

How a nearly 100-year-old house will be saved by moving it across town https://t.co/F1vqJgJTEv pic.twitter.com/K9VZ876Vnt

— South Florida Sun Sentinel (@SunSentinel) July 28, 2019

• Lambda Legal: Military leaders, medical associations, public health groups, and HIV advocates joined three friend-of-the-court briefs which argue the Pentagon’s exclusion and discharge of HIV-service members is outdated, irrational and discriminatory given the advancements made in HIV medicine.

• Newsweek: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell got his panties in a wad when #MoscowMitch began trending on Twitter after he refused to allow a vote on new election security measures to stop interference in U.S. elections. What he's not keen on admitting is he received campaign donations from voting machine lobbyists before blocking the vote.

• Out Music: Earlier this month, I interviewed out singer/songwriter Tom Goss about his latest single, "Quayside," from his upcoming album, Territories.

The song is born out of Goss's own experience exploring a polyamorous relationship after his husband asked to open their marriage. It was a journey he'd not previously considered.

“I really wanted the video to reflect the uncomfortableness of my situation,” Goss recently told Parade. “I want the viewer to feel the uncertainty and fear that I did visiting the Quayside for the first time."

"That said, we were very conscious to make sure that my actions were still my own," he added. "Nobody ever forced me through the door, I was, and am, a person who chooses his own path. The final decision, to walk into the Quayside and to completely submerge, represents the most complicated and uncharted path of them all — polyamory.”

Barbershop Ordered To Pay $75K For Refusing To Cut HIV+ Customer's Hair

In October 2017, personal trainer Nikko Briteramos was surprised to be turned away at a barber shop because of his HIV status.

Briteramos had been a customer at King of Kuts barbershop in the Leimert Park area of Los Angeles several times before.

But apparently, another barber in the establishment who knew Briteramos shared his HIV status with the owner. And so, on that visit, owner Ramsy Milton declined to cut Briteramos’s hair.

What’s wild about this story is it took place in 2017, not 1987.

First of all, you can’t contract HIV by cutting someone’s hair.

Second, people with HIV are protected against discrimination under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).

Briteramos filed a lawsuit saying the barber shop and its owner violated those statutes.

According to Lambda Legal, which handled legal duties along with HIV Project director Scott Schoettes, the lawsuit was never answered in court.

This past January, Briteramos and his legal team asked the court to issue a default ruling in the case. Milton neither answered nor showed up for the hearing on March 1, 2019.

On Tuesday, Judge Andre Birotte Jr. ruled King of Kuts must pay Briteramos $75,000 in punitive damages, as well as $4,600 in attorney’s fees and $574.60 in litigation costs.

“This judgment is proof that what happened to me in that barbershop and what happens to people living with HIV who experience discrimination just trying to do basic things in life like go the dentist or get a haircut is simply not acceptable,” said Briteramos.

“Such discriminatory practices harken back to times not too distant during the period of American ‘Jim Crow’ and are equally unjust,” added the 35-year-old trainer.

The case became the impetus for the Cut the Stigma campaign.

Launched in 2018, Cut the Stigma works to “engage Black businesses, including barbershops, around the country to dispel misconceptions about the transmission of HIV” and in doing so, reduce the stigma attached to living with HIV.