The Memphis Gay & Lesbian Community Center (MGLCC) announced today that it will no longer offer free weekly HIV tests after Planned Parenthood informed the center that it could no longer fund the tests.

Planned Parenthood has funded the free service, which was the only regularly-scheduled, after-hours HIV testing offered in the Mid-South, for three years. But the State of Tennessee's decision to pull Planned Parenthood's grants for HIV prevention has left the organization without the funds to support testing at MGLCC.

From MGLCC's news release on ending the HIV testing program:

"Despite MGLCC’s core mission to focus on the needs of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community, the HIV testing program offered at MGLCC has always been open to anyone needing a test. MGLCC does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. MGLCC believes that helping clients find out their HIV status and find access to appropriate HIV care is an essential service not only for the individual, but for the health and well-being of our entire city."

Since MGLCC's HIV testing program began, more than 500 people have taken advantage of the free service.

“Our strong collaboration with Planned Parenthood to provide HIV testing has improved the lives of hundreds of people every year," said Will Batts, MGLCC's executive director. "Losing this vital program will put the health and well-being of many Memphians at risk. MGLCC considers the setback to our HIV testing program a great tragedy, but we hope the setback will be only a temporary one.”

MGLCC is working to obtain new funding for the tests. Planned Parenthood Greater Memphis Region and Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee are suing the state for denying the $150,000 in grant money.

Writer/producer/director/activist Del Shores, producer of Sordid Lives: The Series and Queer As Folk, has launched a petition to push the Tennessee Attorney General's office to charge state senator Stacey Campfield with an ethics violation.

• Del Shores

The alleged ethics violation stems from an exchange between Shores and Campfield last spring. Shores challenged Campfield to a debate over homosexuality and the Bible. Campfield agreed to a debate, but he said it could only be over his "Don't Say Gay" bill, which would ban discussion of homosexuality in elementary and middle schools. Campfield then requested a $1,000 retainer fee.

"I will happily debate you. I require a $1000.00 [sic] retainer fee and all expenses covered. You can do with the rest all you want," Campfield wrote in a Facebook message to Shores.

Shores then contacted the Tennessee Attorney General's office to file an ethics complaint against Campfield since he was requesting a fee to debate a bill that he authored while serving in the Tennessee Senate. Last August, Shores received an email from Victor Domen Jr., senior counsel for the Tennessee Attorney General's Office, informing him that the complaint had been filed and a formal investigation was being launched.

According to Shores, Domen said on January 29th that the investigation is ongoing: "I'm still working on it. You know how slow and deliberate we can be."

Now Shores is asking equality advocates to sign his petition urging the state attorney general's office to make an official determination so the State Ethics Commission can move forward with filing an ethics violation.

Click here to see Shores' petition.

• Newt Gingrich

It looks like GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich isn't even trying for the moderate Republican vote in Tennessee. After all, he's chosen notoriously anti-gay state senator Stacey Campfield to co-chair his Tennessee campaign.

Not only did Campfield author the "Don't Say Gay" bill, which would ban talk of homosexuality in grades K through 8, but the senator was thrown out of a Knoxville restaurant on Sunday following some dangerous and inappropriate remarks made regarding AIDS on Sirius/XM OutQ's The Michelangelo Signorile Show. See yesterday's post to read Campfield's comments.

The Nashville Scene's "Pith in the Wind" blog has more.

• Bistro at the Bijou

State Senator Stacey Campfield got a taste of his own medicine on Sunday night when the "Don't Say Gay" bill author was denied service at Bistro at the Bijou in his hometown of Knoxville.

Bistro at the Bijou owner Martha Boggs posted on Facebook about her decision to turn the senator away: “I hope that Stacey Campfield now knows what it feels like to be discriminated against.”

Boggs' decision to turn Campfield away stemmed from some remarks he made during an interview on The Michelangelo Signorile Show on Sirius/XM's OutQ gay talk radio station. In the interview last Thursday, which was supposed to be about his state bill that would ban discussion of homosexuality in grades K through 8, Campfield said the following:

"Most people realize that AIDS came from the homosexual community — it was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having sex with men. It was an airline pilot, if I recall."

"My understanding is that it is virtually — not completely, but virtually — impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex...very rarely [transmitted]."

"What's the average lifespan of a homosexual? It's very short. Google it yourself."

Boggs told the Knoxville News-Sentinel that denying Campfield service was her way of standing up to a bully: "He's gone from being stupid to dangerous."

Click here to listen to Campfield's entire interview on OutQ.

And click here to hear another juicy interview (and read Truth Wins Out blogger Evan Hurst's funny commentary) by David Pakman with Stacey Campfield. Among the many ditties in that interview, Campfield says not having sex with Africans helps one's chances at avoiding AIDS.

Another gay Tennessee teen took his own life last week. Phillip Parker, a 14-year-old gay kid from Gordonsville in Middle Tennessee, killed himself after enduring years of bullying and harassment by his peers. His death came just a few months after the November suicide of Ashland City teen Jacob Rogers, another gay kid who had endured bullying by classmates.

Now, GLESN of Middle Tennessee (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) is trying to get the word out about their free "Safe Space" kits for schools.

“There are professional development opportunities and Safe Space Kits offered to educators and administrators on how to effectively address anti-LGBT bullying and create safer spaces for these youth,” said Brad Palmertree, co-chair of GLSEN's Middle Tennessee chapter. “This shouldn’t be happening. Each school in Tennessee should be a safe environment in which to learn and grow. We have the resources, and we’re more than willing to help. But the school has to invite us in because, unfortunately, this kind of diversity training is not required.”

Each kit includes a 42-page guide on being an ally to LGBT students and educating about anti-LGBT bias, 10 Safe Space stickers, and two classroom posters. The stickers may be placed on office doors or windows to show students which administrators or teachers they can turn to for help against anti-LGBT bullies.

Kits may be requested on GLSEN's website.

Tennessee Equality Project members had been gearing up support to attend a planned hearing today on the "Don't Say Gay" bill in the state House of Representatives, but that hearing has been deferred. Now the bill will be placed on the calendar with other education bills aimed at the elementary and middle school curriculum.

The "Don't Say Gay" bill, co-sponsored by Knoxville Senator Stacey Campfield and Hohenwald Representative Joey Hensley, would "prohibit the teaching of or furnishing of materials on human sexuality other than heterosexuality in public school grades K-8.”

The state Senate passed the bill in May with an amendment that restricts the law to only banning discussion of homosexuality in prepared lesson materials.

David Fowler, president of the Family Action Council of Tennessee (FACT), blamed the December suicide of gay Ashland City teen Jacob Rogers on alcohol and drug abuse and an eating disorder, despite the fact that the teen's friends have reported that he was bullied by his peers on a daily basis because of his sexual orientation.

The Nashville Scene reported that, according to FACT, Rogers' suicide was a result of "the rotten fruit of the all-about-me individualist culture that comes when we deny the existence of God and his image in us."

FACT is currently pushing a state bill that would redefine school bullying polices so as not to "infringe upon the First Amendment rights of students" and not to "prohibit their expression of religious, philosophical, or political views as long as such expression does not include a threat of physical harm to a student or of damage to a student's property." In other words, this bill would make it easier for young Christian conservatives to bully gay kids, so long as they don't threaten them, beat them up, or break their stuff.

Out and About, Nashville's LGBT newspaper, recently reported that Rolling Hills Hospital in Franklin, Tennessee denied multiple requests by Val Burke to visit her partner who was a patient in the hospital's residential facility. Burke said she wasn't allowed visitation because she wasn't a legal spouse or family member.

The practice of excluding non-family members from hospital visitation violates federal regulations that went into effect last January. Those rules require all hospitals participating in Medicaid and Medicare programs to permit patients to designate visitors of their choosing and prohibit discrimination in visitation based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Since the Rolling Hills event, the Tennessee Equality Project (TEP) is calling on all hospitals to participate in the Human Rights Campaign's (HRC) Healthcare Equality Index. The annual survey rates hospitals based on how they treat LGBT patients and their partners or families.

“Denying a loving partner the right to be with his or her sick loved one shows the very personal side of anti-LGBT discrimination,” said TEP Nashville Chairman Chris Sanders. “We hope hospitals across
Tennessee and the country learn from this sad incident and ensure this never happens again. The starting point of this learning process is to participate in the Healthcare Equality Index.”

The health index survey is currently available for completion online.

• Greg Davis

If Southaven mayor Greg Davis had any hope of remaining in the closet, those hopes are dashed now. After admitting he is gay to the Commercial Appeal, the story went viral, even appearing on the Huffington Post and PinkNews, Europe's gay news service.

Davis told a Commercial Appeal reporter that he is gay after the daily newspaper uncovered receipts showing a $67 charge at Priape, a Toronto-based sex shop catering to gay men. He'd reportedly been in Toronto on a business recruiting trip. Other receipts showed Davis had spent thousands of dollars on liquor, expensive dinners, and a vacation using taxpayer funds.

Davis is currently under investigation for allegedly misusing $170,000 on city-issued and personal credit cards. He's been working to repay some of that money and has managed to pay off $96,000 to date.

Davis was divorced from his wife last year. The couple had three daughters. Davis, a Republican, ran an unsuccessful bid for Congress in 2008 on a "family values" platform.