The Texas State Board of Education has given preliminary rejection to a plan to include lessons about sexual orientation and gender identity in the sex education curriculum, but LGBTQ+ advocates are fighting back.

The Republican-majority board last week voted down a proposal by member Ruben Cortez, a Democrat, to teach students in middle school and high school about the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity, ABC News reports. It also rejected a move to start lessons about consent in middle school, as some board members thought the topic inappropriate for students that age. A final vote will come in November.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a quasi-independent agency of the federal government, is suing grocery chain Kroger, alleging that two employees were fired because they refused to wear aprons bearing a rainbow heart.

“The women believed the emblem endorsed LGBTQ values and that wearing it would violate their religious beliefs,” says an EEOC press release. The suit alleges the company violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans religious discrimination in employment.

The two, Brenda Lawson and Trudy Rickerd, worked at a Kroger store in Conway, Ark., near Little Rock. They have “sincerely held religious beliefs that homosexuality is a sin,” according to the EEOC complaint, filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

Burger King celebrated Helsinki Pride in Finland with a most unusual advertising campaign that featured their royal mascot kissing Ronald McDonald.

The images, which appeared in public spaces throughout Finland, were part of September's Helsinki Pride Celebration, MediaPost reports. The image shows the famous icons making out — with only the back of Ronald McDonald's head visible — and the accompanying message: "Love Conquers All."

As the new sex and relationships curriculum comes into place across England, Kantar conducted a study into attitudes toward the LGBTQ+ community.

The study asked 2,363 people, aged 16 or over, living in the United Kingdom about their opinions toward LGBTQ+ people being in certain roles.

Although the study found high levels of comfort toward LGBTQ+ people being teachers, 91% in favour for gay men, lesbians and bisexual people and 77% for trans people, it still found that nearly four in ten people (38%) thought it “inappropriate” for a 6-year-old to be taught that being gay is fine.

For the first time since 2000, the official guidance on relationships and sex education (RSE) in England is changing. From this month, RSE is mandatory in every secondary school, regardless of whether they are state or private (though the Government has said it will make allowances for schools as yet unable to implement the change because of the coronavirus crisis).

Relationships education – which is now compulsory in every primary school – will mainly deal with families and friendships. It will cover the risks of online relationships, digital privacy, physical boundaries and recognising abusive behaviour.

But will the new guidance protect and empower young people for sex and relationships in a modern world?“The curriculum puts the physical health and emotional wellbeing of young people at its core,” Chiquita Henson, headteacher of Cirencester Deer Park School, a secondary school in Gloucestershire, tells i.

Dear Prudence,

I’ve been low-contact with my abusive dad for several years now, and my mental health has drastically improved as a result. I’m a queer trans person (they/them) and would be happiest never speaking to him again. I am in contact with my mother, who occasionally gives me updates on his life. I know my mother was victimized by him in her own right, but she also enabled and justified his abuse of me and my siblings. Now my mother is currently dying of a chronic illness, and her prognosis is only another year or two. I live across the country, although I plan to move to be closer to her this fall. But I’m already thinking about her funeral: I don’t want to go when it finally happens.

Growing up, I was mercilessly mocked for being too “sensitive” by my relatives. The environment was incredibly homophobic and transphobic. I don’t like showing emotion in front of them. I haven’t seen any members of my extended family in years and don’t want to. I have one sibling I sometimes commiserate with about how messed up our childhood was, but we’re not otherwise close. I realize not attending would likely destroy my relationship with my remaining relatives, but I don’t want to maintain that relationship anyways. I do feel guilty about not wanting to stay close sometimes, but I’d rather grieve with my partner and my friends, who accept me and love me for who I am. Based on previous interactions, I worry that attending might trigger a mental health crisis. But I also know these people think I’m overdramatic, selfish, and attention-seeking. The last time I tried to bring up my panic attacks to my mom, she told me to “just close my eyes if I get scared,” so I dropped the subject. What are my obligations here? How do I take care of myself when skipping your mother’s funeral is pretty universally seen as an awful thing to do?

—Can’t Grieve Together

Dear How to Do It,

My partner and I have been together for six happy years. Here is my (female) problem: He and our gaming friends (all male) have this habit of making gay jokes constantly. They think it is hysterical to just tack some fellatio-related quip onto every. damn. sentence. I’m exaggerating, but it is frequent. I am part of a text chain with these guys, and it is relentless—I rely on my husband to tell me when we have plans with them because I have to mute it unless I want to be inundated. These jokes aren’t hateful, per se, but they’re just constantly referencing gay, male-on-male sex, and to me, there often seems to be no discernible punchline. I see and speak to these men (and they are indeed men—we’re well out of our 20s) often and consider games with them to be a huge and rewarding component of my social life. I am the only person in the group who is not a hetero man, and I feel that if I try to say “Enough, already!,” I stand to slightly alienate myself, though they’d respect my preference.

I must say that I have never seen even a hint of outright bigotry from any of them. My partner is super kind to my close gay buddy and his partner and doesn’t act uncomfortable in the slightest when they are affectionate around us. He has embraced them with no issue whatsoever and considers them some of our best friends. In my experience, the friends have also been completely normal around them, and two other group members also have great relationships with gay family members. In fact, one guy expressed a purely religious judgment about homosexuality once (to someone outside the group), and everyone else has discussed how gross it was.

So what is my question? Well … is this a thing? Do hetero guys really talk like this, or are they just anomalous pervs? Is there any chance they stick to the gay stuff because they don’t want to be gross about sex with women with me around? Do I need to “stand up” to this humor, even though it seems to be free from hate? I’m not even uncomfortable with it exactly, I’m just concerned I might be dropping the ball as a citizen of the LGBTQ world. They really don’t seem hateful. Could this just be a way for them to engage with something that makes them uncomfortable?

— No Homo

New research suggests that sexual promiscuity negatively impacts social responses toward both gay and straight men. The study, published in the journal Psychology of Men & Masculinities, found that women are more likely to seek to avoid gay men described as promiscuous compared to gay men who are not described as promiscuous.

“Perceptions of masculinity, and stereotypes toward gay men, are multifaceted,” said study author Corey Cook, an assistant professor of psychology at Pacific Lutheran University.

In the study, 354 heterosexual undergraduate students were randomly assigned to report their social attitudes towards either gay men, straight men, gay men who are sexually promiscuous, straight men who are sexually promiscuous, gay men with very feminine qualities, straight men with very feminine qualities, gay men with very masculine qualities, or straight men with very masculine qualities.

To assess their attitudes, the participants were asked how strongly they agreed or disagreed with statements such as “I would like for a member of this group to work in the same place as I do” and “Members of this group are the kind of people that I tend to avoid.”

The governor of Texas has warned that he could reimpose a lockdown on the state if coronavirus prevention measures were not heeded, as states across the U.S. battled to get the pandemic under control.

Friday brought 63,900 new cases nationwide - a new record, according to data from Johns Hopkins University analyzed by CNN.

Bioethicist Dr Zeke Emanuel said up to 250,000 Americans could die directly from the coronavirus by the end of the year.

Saturday Night Live mainstay Michael Che has lost his grandmother to the coronavirus pandemic, the comedian revealed Monday afternoon. In a sizable post on Instagram, Che revealed the news while warning others to begin taking the pandemic seriously, telling his hundreds of thousands of followers to adhere by any rules and regulations local governments may have in place at this time.

"Hi, I'm Michael Che, from TV. Last night my grandmother passed away from the coronavirus," Che writes in the post. "I'm doing ok, considering. I'm obviously very hurt and angry that she had to go through all that pain alone. But I'm also happy that she's not in pain anymore. And I also feel guilty for feeling happy. Basically the whole gamut of complex feelings everybody else has losing someone very close and special. I'm not unique. But its still scary."

In a televised address, Duterte said it was vital everyone cooperates and follows home quarantine measures, as authorities try to slow the coronavirus contagion and spare the country's fragile health system from being overwhelmed.

The Philippines has recorded 96 coronavirus deaths and 2,311 confirmed cases, all but three in the past three weeks, with infections now being reported in the hundreds every day.

"It is getting worse. So once again I'm telling you the seriousness of the problem and that you must listen," Duterte said late on Wednesday.

"My orders to the police and military ... if there is trouble and there's an occasion that they fight back and your lives are in danger, shoot them dead."

"Is that understood? Dead. Instead of causing trouble, I will bury you."

The woman from Illinois wrote to the Santa Rosa’s Press Gazette’s ‘Dear Abby’ column to explain her dilemma.

She said she had previously been in an abusive relationship, but broke it off 14 years ago and stayed single to raise her “small son to adulthood”.

She finally found someone she had “strong feelings” for, and who felt the same about her, around seven months ago.

The woman wrote: “My feelings for my boyfriend are strong, and it’s mutual. He is giving, kind, caring, hardworking and protective. We are very much in love.

Two weeks ago, Matt Levine’s immediate concerns centered on where to find the best happy hour and coolest DJ. Now, he just wants his coronavirus-panicked dad to let him back in the house.

While residents in his hometown of Nanuet, NY, were hunkering down to avoid corona, 21-year-old Matt and his friends from Springfield College in Massachusetts hit up spring break in South Padre Island, Texas — and stayed there against the advice of his father, Peter Levine.

“I spoke with him every day and told him that maybe they should come home,” Peter, 52, and a salesman, told The Post. “I was aggravated. The news here was getting worse and worse. Matt sent me pictures of him and his friends congregating outdoors and listening to live music. It’s the scene you would not want to be in.”

Finally, Peter told Matt and his buddies that they could not stay at the family home after the trip, as they’d planned. “His grandparents live here and there is no need to expose them to god knows what he had been exposed to!” Peter explained.

Even celebrities can’t get their coronavirus test results in the United States — just the bill.

After having a colleague test positive for COVID-19 and developing minor symptoms himself, “The Walking Dead” actor Daniel Newman sought to be tested in Georgia. He called around and discovered his own doctor and many urgent-care clinics didn’t even have the tests available. When he finally found a large hospital in Atlanta that did have them, it was only after Newman was recognized for his role on the AMC horror TV series that he was given one.

“Preferential treatment is disgusting,” Newman, 38, tells CNN of being among the few to receive a test for the novel coronavirus. But apparently, even fame isn’t enough to get the results of the test — only an invoice to the tune of $9,116.

NEW YORK, March 23 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The coronavirus is causing the closure of homeless centers across the United States, putting LGBT+ people without housing at increased risk of suicide, health complications or hate crimes, according to homelessness experts.

Homeless centers said they have been forced to shut their doors in order to follow safety precautions over social distancing as enforced by international governments and health organizations.

There are about 10,000 shelters for homeless people in the United States with an estimated 250 LGBT+ centers, largely in metropolitan areas, according to The National Coalition for the Homeless, a network of homelessness advocates.

There are currently no estimates on the exact number of shelters closed in recent weeks due to the coronavirus outbreak.