Category Archives: Gay

February 28, 2011 · 7:53 pm

Raleigh No. 3 in Gay Parents – NewsObserver.com

This kind of blows the old Jesse Helms image of North Carolina to hell…

Thank God!

From the Raleigh News and Observer:

Raleigh is one of the highest-ranked metropolitan areas in the nation for gay parents. Nearly one-third of the same-sex couples who live here are raising children under the age of 18.

The American Community Survey says Raleigh has the third-highest percentage of same-sex couples with kids among metro areas that have a population of more than 1 million. San Antonio is first, with 33.9 percent of same-sex couples raising children, and Jacksonville, Fla., is second, with 32.4 percent.

Southern cities tended to rank high in the survey, which was conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau and used population and housing data collected between 2005 and 2009.

Gary Gates, a senior research fellow at UCLA Law School, said he thinks the traditionally conservative South has more gay parents because people in the region tend to come out later in life, often after marrying and having children in heterosexual relationships.

Some cities with the highest concentrations of gays, such as San Francisco, aren’t ranked that high when it comes to same-sex couples with children, Gates said.

Ian Palmquist, executive director of Equality North Carolina, a gay rights organization, was not surprised to hear Raleigh ranked so high.

“Gay people from the more rural communities move to the Triangle because it is much more friendly and more supportive,” he said. “We know there are many same-sex couples raising children in North Carolina.”

Palmquist added that the same things that make North Carolina appealing to heterosexual couples also make it a good choice for same-sex couples.

via Raleigh No. 3 in gay parents – Family – NewsObserver.com.

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February 26, 2011 · 10:32 am

Jeremy Bernard: A Historic Choice for White House Social Secretary

This makes perfect sense since I’m beginning to believe only a few of we Gay Men are among the remaining pillars of civilization who understand the importance of protocol, pageantry and place settings…

From Jonthan Capehart at the Washington Post:

The White House is set to make news and history this afternoon when it announces the new social secretary. Jeremy Bernard, currently the chief of staff to the U.S. ambassador to France, will become the third person to hold the job in the Obama administration. But he will be the first man and the first openly gay person to be the first family’s and the executive mansion’s chief event planner and host.

Desiree Rogers was the first social secretary under President Obama and the first African American in the position. But one state dinner and three party crashers later, the exquisitely grand Rogers was gone. “She is a star,” as one friend aptly put it at the height of the Salahi controversy, “who has taken a gig in the chorus.”

Julianna Smoot swooped in at the behest of the Obamas last March. She was the engineer behind the president’s 2008 fundraising machine and a known Washington hand who focused the social secretary’s office on the fundamentals. But she resigned last month to join the reelection campaign taking shape in Chicago.

And now comes Jeremy Bernard.

Bernard and his then-partner Rufus Gifford were early supporters of Obama in California. And they raised a ton of money for him through their company, B&G Associates. Gifford went on to become finance director of the Democratic National Committee. Bernard was the White House liaison at the National Endowment for the Humanities before dashing off to his Paris post in November.

Full disclosure: Bernard and I are friends. He will bring a certain warmth and irreverence to the job that will make him a joy for his colleagues to work with. His knowledge of the Obamas and his intense attention to detail will ensure that their vision for the people’s house continues seamlessly. And he has a reverence for the presidency and the meaning of the White House that will make him an imaginative steward of their image.

The president and the first lady have made an excellent choice.

via PostPartisan – Jeremy Bernard: A historic choice for White House social secretary.

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February 25, 2011 · 6:52 pm

A World Without Gay People

Look at this and imagine the impact on civilization….

 

 

I came across this YouTube video on David Mixner’s site and he has some thoughts on it as well:

http://www.davidmixner.com/2011/02/history-on-film-famous-gay-men.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29

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February 17, 2011 · 10:04 pm

Virginia Politics Blog – House panel kills bill to add legal protections for gay state employees

Yep, you can count on the VA GOP to always move backwards….

A House of Delegates subcommittee has killed a proposal to write legal protections for gay state employees into Virginia law.

The same GOP-led panel killed similar legislation last year. Democrats had pushed the bill hard this year, in part in response to a letter that Attorney Gen. Ken Cuccinelli (R) delivered to colleges and universities last year instructing them that, in the absence of a decision by the General Assembly to write protections for gays into law, they could not include language dealing with sexual orientation in their campus non-discrimination policies.

After Cuccinelli’s letter sparked a firestorm, Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) issued a executive directive outlining that the state does not discriminate, including on the grounds of sexual orientation, and that employees who violate the policy can be disciplined.

Opponents of the bill, which was sponsored by Sen. Don McEachin (D-Richmond), argue that there is little evidence gay state workers face discrimination and that the governor’s executive directive provides sufficient protections. Proponents note that without a change in law, employees cannot sue if they have faced discrimination.

“I can’t pretend it’s a surprise,” McEachin said of the vote. “It’s still a disappointment.”

The same subcommittee also killed a bill that would have allowed public colleges and universities to offer employees the ability to extend their health coverage to their unmarried partners, including gay partners.

via Virginia Politics Blog – House panel kills bill to add legal protections for gay state employees.

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February 17, 2011 · 6:50 pm

Facebook Adds New Relationship Categories to Reflect Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships

It’s about time….

New York, NY, February 17, 2011 – The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the nation’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) media advocacy and anti-defamation organization, today applauded Facebook for adding ‘In a Civil Union’ and ‘In a Domestic Partnership’ options to user profiles. The option is now available for users in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Australia.

“Today, Facebook sent a clear message in support of gay and lesbian couples to users across the globe,” said GLAAD President Jarrett Barrios. “By acknowledging the relationships of countless loving and committed same-sex couples in the U.S. and abroad, Facebook has set a new standard of inclusion for social media. As public support for marriage equality continues to grow, we will continue to work for the day when all couples have the opportunity to marry and have their relationship recognized by their community, both online and off.”

GLAAD was among the organizations that met with Facebook to advocate for this change.

via Steve Rothaus’ Gay South Florida.

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February 14, 2011 · 5:34 pm

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Especially to my partner, Steve…

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February 13, 2011 · 9:25 am

What women want: Gay male romance novels – The Globe and Mail

Fascinating article…

I’ve noticed all these books on the Amazon Kindle list.  I’ve even read a couple.  You can really tell they were written by women and for a different audience than gay men.

More evidence that the “love that dare not speak it’s name” is becoming more and more mainstream.

I’m obviously going to have to think of something else to maintain my outsider status…

Trends in contemporary popular fiction can be as unpredictable as fashion fads. Nobody expected, for instance, that the gloomy, bespectacled Harry Potter would help resuscitate the ailing book industry any more than Lady Gaga’s bizarre looks would help motivate retail sales. Yet today’s newest publishing trend is as out in left field as Potter and Gaga once were.

Over the past year, man-on-man romantic fiction – books featuring two male protagonists engaged in a sexual or emotional relationship with each other – has taken a significant bite out of one of publishing’s biggest markets. Amazon’s Kindle has had such success with the genre that the e-book site has tripled its “m/m” stock since January, 2010. Even Harlequin – the most profitable and old-fashioned romance fiction house in the world – has recently started to publish same-sex love stories via the company’s digital imprint, Carina Press. What’s most surprising, though, are the types of readers the books have hooked: Straight, married women are among the genre’s top fans. That may be because the authors, such as Iowa’s Heidi Cullinan, a 37-year-old suburban mother of two, are frequently heterosexual females, too. Cullinan has penned such recent works as the popular gay romance Double Blind and the homoerotic fantasy Miles and The Magic Flute.

MORE:   What women want: Gay male romance novels – The Globe and Mail.

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February 12, 2011 · 11:25 am

Gay Conservatives: GOProud at CPAC

I found this more amusing than disturbing…

This is the new gay Republican group that caused so much conservative consternation when they were allowed to appear at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Committee, gathering in Washington this week.  The Evangelicals really got their panties in a wad.

These gay people and their allies seem to live in an alternative universe…kind of like a Gay Frat Party at W&L 30 years ago.

And the little blond Gay boy, who doesn’t like Gay people because they are stereotypical kills me.  I hate to tell him, but he is a stereotypical Gay boy.

Poor thing, I predict in 10 years he’ll be starring in the Kansas City Community Theatre’s production of “La Cage Aux Folles”…as a Cagelle.

UPDATE:  I just found out from JoeMyGod’s blog that this guy’s name is Matt Hissey.  Talk about a Hissey Fit….

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February 6, 2011 · 6:10 pm

Ronald Reagan’s Real Legacy: Death, Heartache and Silence Over AIDS : LGBT | POV

Excellent article about the real legacy of Ronald Reagan…

This is exactly how I remember it…

Hat tip to PamsHouseBlend.com for originally posting this….

America is gushing Sunday over former President Ronald Reagan in recognition of what would have been his 100th birthday. Produced by Reagan groupies, the long-weekend celebrations at the newly primped Reagan Library and Museum in Simi Valley are glitzy and reverent evocations of an imagined man.

In this white-washed version of history, Reagan, not Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev (remember “glasnost,”  “perestroika,” and the impact of Levis, Coke and “Dynasty”?) is credited with “tearing down” the Berlin Wall; the trillion dollars in debt Reagan wracked up during his “conservative” presidency is ignored;  “supply-side” or “trickle-down” economics” still works, even though theory-originator David Stockman says it doesn’t; the Reagan-approved secret Iran-Contra scandal was patriotic, not subversive; and he is still the “Great Communicator” – who conned working-class “Reagan Democrats” while catering to the rich, creating a huge surge in homelessness, reveling in unchecked deregulation and extolling union-busting with the mass firing of the over-worked, striking PATCO flight controllers – even before there were trained replacements.

AND:

For LGBT people, Ronald Reagan’s presidency was the far different “mourning in America.” And unlike Nixon who was forced to resign for covering up the political Watergate scandal, Reagan didn’t even bother covering up his cold disdain, his deliberate neglect, his abject refusal to help gay men stricken in 1981 by a strange new communicable disease that turned out to be AIDS. But there was no “AIDSgate” for Reagan; the White House agreed with the Religious Right that gays deserved what they got – they deserved to die.

Rev. Jerry Falwell, head of the Moral Majority, said, “AIDS is the wrath of God upon homosexuals.” Patrick Buchanan, Reagan’s Press Secretary, said AIDS was “nature’s revenge on gay men.” Antigay Gary Bauer, Reagan’s domestic policy advisor, kept Surgeon General C. Everett Koop (selected because he was an anti-abortion Christian fundamentalist) away from Reagan:

”[In 1986] President Reagan asked the surgeon general to prepare a report on AIDS as the United States confirmed its ten-thousandth case. Leaders of the evangelical movement did not want Koop to write the report, nor did senior White House staffers who shared Koop’s evangelical convictions. As Dr. Koop related to me, “Gary Bauer [Reagan’s chief advisor on domestic policy] … was my nemesis in Washington because he kept me from the president. He kept me from the cabinet and he set up a wall of enmity between me and most of the people that surrounded Reagan because he believed that anybody who had AIDS ought to die with it. That was God’s punishment for them.”

 

via Ronald Reagan’s Real Legacy: Death, Heartache and Silence Over AIDS : LGBT | POV.

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January 26, 2011 · 9:30 pm

Is Evangelical Christianity Having a Great Gay Awakening?

My friend Renee sent me this and introduced me to Sojourner’s Magazine where this article appears.

I must say, it is making me revise my views about organized religion and admit there are some Christians who are not as judgmental, self righteous and self-absorbed as I thought…

Kind of a weird journey for this New Age Spiritual,agnostic, psuedo-Buddhist,  Jewish Wannabe, Gay Man who was raised in- and detests- the judgmental Southern Baptist Church and the Right Wing Political Evangelical’s message of hate….

I’m going to try to be more open-minded as I ask others to be…

It’s easy when Christians start saying some of the same things I do…

From Cathleen Falsani at Sojourners.com:

Some of my dearest friends are gay.

Most of my dearest friends are Christians.

And more than a few of my dearest friends are gay Christians.

As an evangelical, that last part is not something that, traditionally and culturally, I’m supposed to say out loud. For most of my life, I’ve been taught that it’s impossible to be both openly gay and authentically Christian.

When a number of my friends “came out” shortly after our graduation from Wheaton College in the early ’90s, first I panicked, and then I prayed.

What would Jesus do? I asked myself (and God).

According to biblical accounts, Jesus said very little, if anything, about homosexuality. But he spent loads of time talking, preaching, teaching and issuing commandments about love.

That was my answer: Love them. Unconditionally, without caveats or exceptions.

I wasn’t sure whether homosexuality actually was a sin. But I was certain I was commanded to love.

For 20 years, that answer was workable, if incomplete. Lately, though, it’s been nagging at me. Some of my gay friends are married, have children, and have been with their partners and spouses as long as I’ve been with my husband.

Loving them is easy. Finding clear theological answers to questions about homosexuality has been decidedly not so.

That’s why I’m grateful for a growing number of evangelical leaders who are bravely offering a different answer.

In his new book Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self and Society, Jay Bakker, the son of Jim Bakker and the late Tammy Faye Messner, gives clear and compelling answers to my nagging questions.

Simply put, homosexuality is not a sin, says Bakker, 35, pastor of Revolution NYC, a Brooklyn evangelical congregation that meets in a bar.

Bakker, who is straight and divorced, crafts his argument using the same “clobber scriptures” (as he calls them) that are so often wielded to condemn homosexuals.

“The simple fact is that Old Testament references in Leviticus do treat homosexuality as a sin … a capital offense even,” Bakker writes. “But before you say, ‘I told you so,’ consider this: Eating shellfish, cutting your sideburns and getting tattoos were equally prohibited by ancient religious law.

“The truth is that the Bible endorses all sorts of attitudes and behaviors that we find unacceptable (and illegal) today and decries others that we recognize as no big deal.”

Leviticus prohibits interracial marriage, endorses slavery and forbids women to wear trousers. Deuteronomy calls for brides who are found not to be virgins to be stoned to death, and for adulterers to be summarily executed.

“The church has always been late,” Bakker told me in an interview this week. “We were late on slavery. We were late on civil rights. And now we’re late on this.”

More:  http://blog.sojo.net/2011/01/25/is-evangelical-christianity-having-a-great-gay-awakening/

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