Americans React To FDR's Unexpected Death This Week: VIDEO

In a special President's Day edition of Jimmy Kimmel's 'Lie Witness News,' the late night host proves just how much most Americans don't know about our presidents by getting reactions from passersby to the (definitely false) news that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt passed away today. 

Watch people react to the death of our 32nd president (born in 1882), AFTER THE JUMP...

Study: LGB Individuals In Anti-Gay Areas Die 12 Years Earlier

A new study from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health has found that lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) individuals living in areas with high levels of anti-gay prejudice live, on average, 12 years less than LGB individuals living in areas of low anti-gay prejudice. The study is the first of its kind to examine a link between mortality and and anti-gay prejudice. From the University’s Press release: 

"Our findings indicate that sexual minorities living in communities with higher levels of prejudice die sooner than sexual minorities living in low-prejudice communities, and that these effects are independent of established risk factors for mortality, including household income, education, gender, ethnicity, and age, as well as the average income and education level of residents in the communities where the respondents lived," said Dr. Hatzenbuehler. "In fact, our results for prejudice were comparable to life expectancy differences that have been observed between individuals with and without a high school education.” [...]

The authors also found that suicide, homicide/violence, and cardiovascular diseases were all substantially elevated among sexual minorities in high-prejudice communities. LGB respondents living in high-prejudice communities died of suicide on average at age 37.5, compared to age 55.7 for those living in low-prejudice communities, a striking 18-year difference. Homicide and violence-related deaths are one of the most direct links between hostile community attitudes and death, and results indicated that homicide rates were over three times more likely to occur in high-prejudice communities than in low-prejudice communities.

Of the deaths in high-prejudice communities, 25% were due to cardiovascular disease, compared to 18.6% of deaths in the low-prejudice communities. "Psychosocial stressors are strongly linked to cardiovascular risk, and this kind of stress may represent an indirect pathway through which prejudice contributes to mortality. Discrimination, prejudice, and social marginalization create several unique demands on stigmatized individuals that are stress-inducing," said Dr. Hatzenbuehler.

The study is also remarkable not just in its conclusions but also in its methods, particularly in the way it quantifies prejudice within a community. As “Dr. Hatzenbuehler points out, the community-level measure of prejudice does not rely on sexual minorities' perceptions of how stigmatizing their communities are, but rather was based on the prejudicial attitudes of all respondents living in that community.”

The full study is available online in the journal Social Science & Medicine.

Gambian President: Gays Are 'Vermin' And Should Be Killed Like Malaria-Infected Mosquitos

Gambian President Yahya Jammeh continued to feed the frenzy of anti-gay fervor on the African continent when on Tuesday he called homosexuals “vermin” and pledged his government will fight them much the same way it fights mosquitoes (notorious for spreading malaria). Reuters reports:

"We will fight these vermins called homosexuals or gays the same way we are fighting malaria-causing mosquitoes, if not more aggressively," Jammeh said in a speech on state television to mark the 49th anniversary of Gambia's independence from Britain.

Britain and some other Western nations have threatened to cut aid to governments that pass anti-gay laws.

But Jammeh said his country would defend its sovereignty and Islamic beliefs, and not yield to outside pressure on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues.

"We will therefore not accept any friendship, aid or any other gesture that is conditional on accepting homosexuals or LGBT as they are now baptised by the powers that promote them," he said.

"As far as I am concerned, LGBT can only stand for Leprosy, Gonorrhoea, Bacteria and Tuberculosis; all of which are detrimental to human existence," he added.

These are not Jammeh’s first incendiary and anti-gay comments since coming to power two decades ago in a coup. Last April, Jammeh threatened, “If we catch you, you will regret why you are born.” And in his address before the UN General Assembly this past fall he labeled homosexuality one of the three “biggest threats to human existence,” dubbing it “more deadly than all natural disasters put together."

Kenyan MPs To Demand Enforcement of Laws Criminalizing Homosexuality

Members of Kenya’s parliament are upset that the nation’s anti-gay laws are not being enforced to an extent they find sufficiently draconian and have thus decided to question their Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko (pictured above) and Attorney General Githu Muigai in an attempt to find answers and redirect public policy on the subject. According to Standard Media:

The legislators say that in spite of the existence of the law banning homosexual behaviour, gays have had leverage to operate with impunity as the State appears helpless in cracking down on what they insist are outlaws. 

Three MPs allied to Jubilee [a four party political coalition] last evening convened a Press conference where they announced their plan to summon the two and also launched an anti-gay caucus of parliamentarians. 

MPs Irungu Kangata (Kiharu), John Njoroge (Kasarani) and Julius Ndegwa (Lamu West) said they were appalled by recent activities of pro- gay groups demonstrating in support of homosexuals in Nairobi and Mombasa.

The activities which the ministers refer to will likely include the recent protests organized by LGBT rights activists in Kenya regarding neighboring Uganda’s newly enacted anti-gay bill along with the celebration of Pride at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi back in June of 2012.

Kenya remains a dangerous place to be openly gay as the nation’s penal code, first enacted in 1930 and revised in 2006, still criminalizes homosexuality. As reported here, a man was stoned to death in 2012 after it was discovered he had sex with another man. 

All Men Must Die: New 'Game of Thrones' Season 4 Trailer Is Here - VIDEO

A new trailer for Game of Thrones’ Season 4 has dropped and this one, while still focusing on the wedding of King Joffrey and Margaery along with The Mother of Dragons’ new kingdom, turns towards Arya Stark and the revenge she plans to exact on the Lannisters (n.b. the Red Wedding). 

And don’t worry, Jon Snow still makes an appearance. 

Check it out, AFTER THE JUMP…

You can also watch the previous trailer HERE. The show returns to HBO on April 6.

Former Irish Rugby Star Says Gays Have No Interest In Sports: VIDEO

Former Irish Rugby star and sports commentator Neil Francis recently made comments about homosexuality and sports that have landed him in hot water. As RTE Sport reports, the remarks ensued during a round-table conversation on the radio show Off the Ball on Newstalk that began with a discussion of American football player Michael Sam’s recent coming out. Referring to Sam, Francis said:

“This is a different coming-out than any other. I was in the States, and I was watching Missouri [Sam’s college team] play, before they got to the Cotton Bowl, and I noticed this guy because he was very flamboyant, and y’know, a bit of a showman, and a very good player. No question about that.

“And I think it was Jimi Hendrix that said, ah, y’know, talking about Janis Joplin’s death, y’know: ‘Great career move’. So, is this - what is the motivation for coming out?”

After questioning Sam’s motives for coming out, Francis then went on to insist that there are not that many gay men involved in sports and that gay men by and large have little interest in sports:

“You do a survey of the hair-dressing industry and find out how many heterosexuals work in that…Professional sport, by its very nature, doesn’t promote, y’know, sort of, there are a wide range of people who are homosexual, and, that exact, the environment that they’re in isn’t something that they’re interested in…What are their interests? I mean, If you’ve ever sat down with, y’know, homosexual people, and asked them what their interests are, very often they have no interest in any kind of sport. That’s my experience from sitting down with them; I’ve done it on a regular basis.”

 On how his views will be received, Francis added:

 “A lot of people would sort of say, well, y’know, y’know sort of what you’ve said really is stereotyping, but y’know, I don’t care. I’m here. I’m gonna express an opinion.”

Francis said he hadn’t watched any of the Winter Olympics because he was “sick and tired of, y’know, sort of picking up, y’know angles on whether the Russians have an anti-gay policy or not. It’s about the Olympics or not, and the side issue has just put me off.”

Francis has since attempted to backpedal his derisive statements, according to The Telegraph:

"When I got home I had a listen to the interview again and it didn't sound like me at all – and a lot of people who listened to it said 'it's not your form'," he said on Today FM's 'The Last Word' programme yesterday.

"Some of the points I tried to make were very clumsily made and my language and the analogies I tried to make were quite poor and poorly expressed, and it's unusual for me not to be able to articulate myself. In this instance, I was unable to do so.

"Listening to what I said, on reflection, I probably said the wrong things and some of the things I said were extremely clumsy. On reflection, I would like to withdraw those comments and apologise profusely and unreservedly.”

You can watch the original discussion in full, AFTER THE JUMP…