ADVOCATE - Prof. Bob Rucker

MCOM 105 Class Reader:
GAY & LESBIANS MEDIA & ISSUES
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Results for the question:
What was the most embarrassing gay story of 2006?
Rosie calling Kelly Ripa a homophobe 10.1%
Boy George cleaning trash 2.3%
Mary Cheney getting knocked up 2.8%
Mark Foley’s IMs 25.7%
Ted Haggard and his crack-selling hooker12.0%
George Michael getting arrested for the umpteenth time 10.7%
Out putting Paris Hilton on its cover 36.3%
Which issue is most important to you when you vote?
Gay marriage 43.5%
Gay adoption 3.0%
The war in Iraq 30.4%
A woman’s right to choose 3.8%
Terrorism 4.3%
The environment 8.7%
Stem cell research 4.2%
The way the “I Voted Today” sticker is designed 2.0%
The following stores were posted on AfterEllen.com
Sarah Warn,
Editor, AfterEllen.com
“…Erosion Media, the company I started with my partner which owns AfterEllen.com,
AfterElton.com, and three other gay and lesbian websites, has been acquired by
Logo, the LGBT cable channel and entertainment source from MTV Networks.
This is a great fit for us, because the folks at Logo are just as committed to LGBT
entertainment as we are, and their expertise in television and authentic content
creation and programming is an excellent complement to our online experience.”
Lesbian Magazines Reinvent Themselves
by Heather Aimee O..., Contributing Writer
January 9, 2007
Last year, long-running lesbian magazine Girlfriends ceased publication after more than a decade
in print, but the closing of its pages did not necessarily indicate the death of the industry. “There
have been enormous changes in the lesbian publishing industry,” said Heather Findlay, Girlfriends'
former editor-in-chief. “First of all, it is an industry right now.”
Many pioneering lesbian magazines rightly assumed they were targeting a closeted audience, and
for women who came out before the emergence of the internet or The L Word, publications such as
The Ladder, Curve and Girlfriends, among others, provided a place for community and selfreflection. These days, newer magazines such as Velvetpark and Jane and Jane, as well as
regional publications such as Los Angeles ' Lesbian News and Florida's She have contributed to a
much more open environment for lesbians and bisexual women.
“Throughout the years, we noticed a distinct increase in the openness of Girlfriends' readers to
their sexuality,” said Findlay, who is also the president and editor-in-chief of H.A.F. Publishing. “We
were not publishing to a closeted audience.”
Now, as fewer lesbians remain closeted, several publishers have launched magazines designed
to target niches within the lesbian community, despite competition with the internet for readers and
advertising dollars. Even travel and lifestyle company Olivia plans to jump into the fray with the
relaunch of their website (Olivia.com) and a print magazine set to debut near the end of 2007.
Grace Moon, founder and editor-in-chief of Velvetpark, started the magazine in 2002 under the
auspicious premise of “dyke culture in bloom.” A lesbian lifestyle magazine, Velvetpark purchased
the subscriber list to Findlay's Girlfriends and On Our Backs after they folded last year.
Though Moon had no experience in publishing or journalism when she began Velvetpark, she was
motivated to create a magazine that was as inspired editorially as it was visually. With a
background in fine art, she approached the task like a curator at an art exhibit and brought together
“a bunch of creative thinkers and put them between two pieces of paper.” The editorial staff, a
combination of “street smart and high art,” now includes a diverse group of photojournalists,
novelists, poets and musicians.
After years of launching magazines for other people, Alison Zawacki and Debbie Wells finally
decided it was time to start their own: Jane and Jane. Though they initially considered focusing on
adventure, the idea evolved into a home and family magazine for lesbians because “with all of the
attention given to domestic partnerships and all of our lesbian friends starting families with children,
we saw a need for something that was not being filled.”
Jane and Jane covers a variety of topics, from parenting and relationships to financial planning
and health, fine wine and cuisine. Zawacki and Wells believe they were able to launch their
magazine in part because of the greater visibility of the lesbian community and because shows like
The L Word created “a whole new awakening in our society with regards to the lesbian lifestyle.”
Trying to fill a niche market can be difficult. But Amy Errett, CEO of Olivia, agrees with Zawacki and
Wells that many lesbians, especially older women, are looking for a magazine that caters to their
specific interests.
What is missing from current lesbian media offerings, said Errett, are enough publications that
provide “a well-rounded view of all aspects of women's lives in all age groups.” Though their
magazine is not expected until late 2007 or early 2008, Olivia will begin with a relaunch of a “fully
integrated, lifestyle-oriented website.”
Findlay also sees “a definite trend away from using magazines as a political tool,” and a need for
more articles that tackle socioeconomic issues. Because the lesbian publishing industry is so
young, she said, it never had a chance to participate in the glory days when both circulation and
advertising dollars were up.
One of the major benefits of this period was that editors had the money to nurture and support
writers to go out and do investigative reporting. “That happens very rarely now,” said Findlay, who
cited as examples Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, which
was originally published as a two-part article in Rolling Stone. “We're missing out on the enormous
contributions these articles make on how we think,” Findlay said.
Both politics and a desire for collaboration did, in fact, influence Moon to publish Velvetpark, which
was launched shortly after Sept. 11. “At the time,” she recalled, “New York City was putting itself
back together emotionally and financially; 2002 was a year of forging ahead and optimism amidst
these obstacles and the politically and socially charged atmosphere of the time.”
It was also, according to Moon, the beginning of a “post-queer era” where gay and lesbian media
outlets were moving past the discussion of “identity and sexuality to explore the nuances of our
cultural expressions.”
There are still many more topics that deserve our attention, said Findlay. “We need to cover more
issues: trans issues, especially the transsexual community and the violence they experience; the
state of the lesbian movement — who is out there fighting for us right now and how; the difference
between regional and local issues verse national; more reporting on lesbians and their money; how
class affects lesbians; profiles of lesbians who are activists, but not necessarily gay activists; how
young people are coming out; and immigrant lesbians and their families.”
Findlay also believes that the lesbian publishing industry is suffering the same woes as the
mainstream press. “In an effort to compete with the internet for readers, the content of most
magazines — straight or gay — has become more superficial and Hollywood-obsessed.”
In such a competitive industry, Findlay said that she understands the pressure — “We, too, had
to put celebrities on the cover of Girlfriends to survive” — but she also wonders where many LGBT
publications were during the months leading up to the Foley scandal, and why not enough money
is put into Washington coverage. “How did we not know about the Foley scandal?” she asked. “The
Advocate used to go after politicians that voted anti-gay and threaten to out them. But now there is
a lack of political commitment.”
While the advent of the internet certainly brought new challenges, it also made publishing much
easier and more democratic. “We are competing in a very crowded environment of information,”
said Moon. “Everyone and their grandma can create content and have it distributed in some way.”
Still, she admitted, Velvetpark “can do things online that we can't do in print,” such as podcasts, AV
projects, newsletters and MySpace.
The style of the internet has also influenced the stories and layout of magazines, said Zawacki and
Wells, as they tend to publish “smaller chunks of information” and try to cater to a “fast-paced
society that prefers short reads.”
Zawacki and Wells see the internet as a vehicle for people who don't have the finances to pay for
printing and distribution, as it is far easier to start a website than a print magazine. “The printing
costs alone are enough to put a startup under, and as soon as you do not have the advertising
base to cover these costs, you will find yourself in trouble.”
Though companies like Orbitz and American Airlines are discovering the “benefits of reaching out
to the gay spending power,” they said, lesbian magazines today need to think as much about
advertising dollars as they do their “staying power on the coffee table and how to keep from being
tossed.”
Olivia also intends to take full advantage of the internet, said Errett, who sees it as a reliable tool
for growth. The online version of Olivia Magazine will have a section called Life that covers a range
of issues including relationships, parenting, health and fitness. “When you look at MySpace or
LinkedIn, lesbians are wondering why they do not have that type of community space for them.”
Because the internet moves so fast, many magazines are now “more feature-driven as opposed to
news-related,” said Zawacki and Wells. “By the time news-related information is passed on to the
reader, they have already read it on the web.” Instead, readers who pick up a magazine want to be
entertained “while enjoying themselves in a leisurely environment away from their computers —
such as over a cup of coffee or while relaxing at home.”
In fact, that might ultimately be the staying power of lesbian print magazines. Regardless of the
competition with the internet and mainstream press, even now many lesbians want a tangible
magazine that represents their lives.
Reading a magazine is still something people do for pleasure, Moon pointed out, “in bed, on the
toilet, in a plane, at the dentist office. You cannot comfortably check your email and sit on the john
at the same time — not yet, at least.”
The lesbian magazine industry is also all independently owned and operated by women, Moon
pointed out. “Women still represent a weaker economic bracket and smaller financial networks
compared to the old boys' clubs that have dominated media. When you look at the straight world,
you can name the most recognized female entrepreneurs in media on half of one hand: Martha
[Stewart] and Oprah [Winfrey]. And the men? Well, there's [Rupert] Murdoch, [Ted] Turner, Sumner
Redstone — and the list goes on.”
When there is finally a female-owned media conglomerate like Condé Nast or Viacom, Moon said,
“That's when we can really talk about how the industry has changed.”
For more info, visit curvemag.com, janeandjane.net, lesbian news.com, shemag.com, and
velvetparkmagazine.com.
The Tonight Show's Vicki Randle
by Suzanne Corson, October 10, 2006
http://www.afterellen.com/archive/ellen/People/2006/10/randle.html
In what may be a record, for the last 14 years there has been an out lesbian on network television
nearly every weeknight: Vicki Randle, percussionist and vocalist with The Tonight Show band.
Randle has been singing us in and out of commercial breaks, tossing her shekere, and playing with
the band since Jay Leno took over from Johnny Carson in May 1992. She has also made history
as the first woman musician in The Tonight Show band.
Randle's personal life is not a huge topic on the show, but it hasn't been a secret, either. With the
exception of band leader Kevin Eubanks, whose bantering with Leno is a regular part of the show,
this is true for the other band members as well. Their lives are just not discussed much — their
music speaks for them.
The role of a background player or “side person” is a familiar one for Randle. This past year she
went on the road as percussionist and background vocalist with Cris Williamson to celebrate the
30th anniversary of Williamson's classic album, The Changer and the Changed. That milestone
had personal resonance for Randle as well, since that was the first studio recording Randle was
ever on.
In fact, Randle has recorded and toured with most of the iconic figures in women's music:
Williamson, Meg Christian, Linda Tillery, Holly Near, Deidre McCalla, Ferron and Margie Adam,
among others. Randle has also toured or recorded with mainstream greats such as Aretha
Franklin, Laura Nyro, Wayne Shorter, Kenny Loggins, Lionel Richie, George Benson, Celine Dion,
Dr. John, Herbie Hancock, the Doobie Brothers, Todd Rundgren and Mickey Hart. She toured so
much in the 1980s that she actually turned down lucrative gigs with Anita Baker and Diana Ross so
she could get off the road for awhile.
In 2006, she's stepping out in front with her first solo CD, Sleep City: Lullabies for Insomniacs.
Though she's performed solo in the past, as she did this past August at the Michigan Womyn's
Music Festival, she's resisted the call of a solo recording until now.
Not that there weren't offers. When she was in her early 20s, companies such as Motown offered
her record deals, but Randle wasn't willing to conform to their model of who a black woman singer
should be — a stick-figure thin, sequin-gowned woman singing about the man who done her
wrong.
And Randle wanted to work with more than her voice. Music has always been an integral part of
her life. “Both of my parents are musicians,” she says. Her family has recordings of Randle singing
when she was 2 years old. She first picked up a guitar at age 9, and she also plays the piano in
addition to the percussion instruments she's seen with on NBC every weeknight.
“I hadn't planned on getting a steady job as a musician,” Randle says. “In making the decision to be
a musician, I knew that meant I would be poor. And I had evidence of that.” Her father was a
professional jazz pianist, and he and many other jazz musicians were frequently out of work in the
'50s and '60s, when that upstart rock 'n' roll was pushing jazz out of the clubs and concert halls.
Luckily, Randle's father had a full-time job at the post office. “It was the jazz musicians' motto in
L.A.: There's always work at the post office,” Randle recalls.
She herself hasn't had to resort to sorting mail; since 1992, she's had a steady gig with The
Tonight Show band, originally fronted by Branford Marsalis and now led by Kevin Eubanks.
Randle's visibility on the show has increased recently, since she now sits next to Eubanks, and like
her fellow bandmates, she's there whenever the show isn't on hiatus. Sick days just aren't done.
They work 47 weeks each year, five days per week.
And even when the show is on hiatus, Randle keeps working. During a recent — and rare — twoweek break, she played at Michigan, headlined at Sistahs Steppin' in Pride (a dyke march in
Oakland, Calif.), and performed at club gigs celebrating the release of her new CD.
During one Sleep City show in Berkeley, Calif., she was backed by guitarist Nina Gerber, vocalist
Teresa Trull and Bonnie Hayes, her CD's producer, on keyboards. Special guests included Linda
Tillery and Melanie DeMore. I asked her about the experience of playing with mostly women as
opposed to The Tonight Show band, where she's the only woman.
“There's an obvious comfort level — being a lesbian is something I don't have to think about or talk
about when playing with other lesbians, so with that out of the way, we can just deal with the music
part,” she says. There are some inevitable comparisons and contrasts when playing with men, but
she believes, “Making music as an art form, in its strictest form, strips away all the qualifiers. When
you're in the music, you're not having to deal with your looks, your height, your gender, etc.”
She's grateful that she's had the opportunity to work with a lot of great male musicians, but she
admits to having been lonely when on the road with them in the past. “We didn't have the same
sensibilities. Even if we had the same politics, we just didn't look at the world in the same way.”
When comparing her predominantly lesbian audiences to more mainstream ones, Randle thinks
there are both advantages and disadvantages to playing for groups of lesbians. “One of the things I
appreciate about a predominantly lesbian audience is, I feel that since it's a small pond, there's a
good chance that they're probably already familiar with me and with what I do, so we share a reality
in a certain way. I don't have to cross so many boundaries to get there with them,” she says.
On the other hand, “there's kind of an expectation from a lesbian audience that's a little difficult to
maneuver sometimes,” Randle says. “They expect or want me to validate that reality, such as
‘We're all lesbians; let's sing about that.' And for many musicians, that can be restrictive.”
She continues: “We're coming to you with our best work, our most creative expression, and we
want to be received in that way. Sometimes mainstream audiences, which obviously include
lesbians, aren't hardwired to expect certain things from me. So I often feel that I have more artistic
freedom in front of an audience of people who have no preconceived notions of me.”
That being said, she understands why many lesbians do have specific expectations of lesbian
performers. “I've never had to experience the kind of isolation that many women do, women who
aren't on either coast or aren't in a major city, who don't have the ability to travel. … So many
women don't get to experience a lot of validation.” And they look to lesbian performers to provide it.
She's been out to Jay Leno and others at The Tonight Show from day one, and it's never been an
issue. Leno, who sometimes teases heterosexual bandleader Kevin Eubanks about being gay, is
particularly supportive of Randle. She mentions that Leno has an almost reflexive habit of looking
over at her after he tells a joke about lesbians. “If I thought a joke were mean, I think he would
care. … Jay has been nothing but respectful. Kevin, too. Those two are my biggest allies.”
Leading in and out of commercial breaks, and when entertaining the studio audience, the band
often performs songs by the guest artists appearing on that evening's program. At first Randle
wondered about the pronouns in the lyrics of the songs she sings and asked Eubanks if she should
be changing them; he said no. “We decided that whatever song we learn, I sing it the way it was
sung by that person. I don't know if anyone's noticed, but sometimes I sing love songs that sound
like they're to women. … I get to move back and forth between the characters. I don't feel like I'm
restricted in any way.”
One of the things that Randle appreciates about the show is its equal opportunity humor. “They
joke just as often about people's homophobia as they do about people being gay. They joke
equally about Democrats and Republicans. They work very hard to keep it that way.”
Randle herself was politicized from early on. Raised in Los Angeles as part of a mixed-race
family, she came of age in the midst of the civil rights movement as well as the battle for gay rights
and women's rights.
Her experience of gender was different from others who grew up in the '60s: “One of the great
things about [attending] Catholic [elementary] school was the absence of teaching that there would
be a gender difference. I didn't learn, for instance, that I was supposed to play dumb. … There was
a feminist aesthetic. The nuns were amazing women, and I assumed all women were like that; I did
not have any models that women had limits. The world was not presented as a place where
women had limits. Imagine my surprise …”
That changed in middle school, when Randle was treated as an alien for being a girl who played
guitar. “But even when there were times when I knew it would be to my advantage to downplay my
putting restrictions on herself or her abilities.
Yet her gender helped her in her overwhelmingly white public high school in Garden Grove, Calif.,
where they moved after her parents divorced. “In most of my classes, I was the only black person
most of the other students had ever seen, outside of television. My brothers got into fights
everyday; I was saved from that because of my gender.”
During high school, many of her friends were being drafted. “I was a math geek, addicted to logic,
and logically, the [Vietnam] war didn't make sense, the way people laid it out.” In between club gigs
and studio sessions in the '70s and '80s, Randle was often at marches and rallies for various
causes.
Randle realized that she was a lesbian after high school and began performing with lesbian and
other women musicians. She values her friendships from those days, such as the one with Cris
Williamson. She speaks with pride and admiration about her friend: “Cris is in charge of her own
music now, with her own label, Wolf Moon Records.”
Though Randle does have her own publishing company, Raging Hormones (“because hormones
will always be in play in my life”), she didn't want to establish her own label for her CD, so she was
grateful to Williamson and to Judy Werle for allowing her to release Sleep City on Wolf Moon. “My
shipping and receiving department is Cris Williamson. There is something so exquisitely ironic
about that, but Cris packaged up and mailed all the pre-orders on my CD. How can you quantify
that kind of relationship?” Randle asks.
Her long-term friendship with Bonnie Hayes is another that Randle treasures. “We worked well
together on this CD. She found the heart in the project and stayed close to it.” Though common
wisdom says it can sometimes be challenging to work closely with friends, Randle says she and
Hayes both know how important their friendship is and that it is worth working on.
A seasoned producer, musician, and singer, Hayes may be best known for her songwriting, like
“the song that bought my house,” as she remarked at Randle's gig in Berkeley — “Love Letter,”
which was popularly sung by Bonnie Raitt.
Hayes is also a songwriting teacher, and though Randle usually writes songs first on guitar (“It was
my first instrument, kind of like my first language”), Bonnie encouraged her to try different beats,
such as starting from a rhythmic perspective. The liner notes of Sleep City give a song-by-song
synopsis of each track's genesis, and Hayes' influence is duly noted, as are the contributions of the
other musicians.
The musicians, including Julie Wolf and Barbara Higbie — both also participants on the recent Cris
Williamson tour — are all excellent on Sleep City. And Randle's vocals are fabulous, especially on
the tracks “I've Been Thinking” and “Next Big Thing.” The sound on the CD smoothly shifts in mood
and style in the instrumentation, vocals and lyrics. Several tunes, such as the lovely “Back Into My
Arms,” feature syncopation, resulting in a jazz-informed, upbeat folk style. My only wish would be
for more than nine tracks, but then I'm greedy for great music.
Sleep City is full of stories — about loves lost, loves remembered, and difficult lives — with some
social commentary thrown in. In the notes for “Carry On,” Randle says, “I come from the kind of
family that virtually insured that I would become a songwriter. I needed to write about these things
mostly to explain them to myself.” An avid reader of “Actual Books” (as Randle's website
emphasizes), the song “Don't Let Me Fall” was inspired by James McBride's memoir, The Color of
Water.
The title track, which is more funk than folk, addresses some of her political feelings in a tongue-incheek way. She wanted to use the words “sleep city,” which she saw on a marquee, as the title of
her album since it would be an inside joke about her insomnia. Her friend Lynnly Labovitz, a
photographer, came up with the cover concept immediately, which Randle explains as “Awake, in
bed, with my guitar, honoring my first and enduring love, music.”
Speaking of love, Randle is currently single. “I haven't been able to date in a long time. In a way,
it's protective of others,” she says, laughing. In fact, she's been intentionally staying celibate for
more than a year. “It's for me to look at what I bring into a relationship and if I even want one,” she
explains. “We don't usually think in terms of how to share our lives with somebody long-term and
whether or not we want to do that. I want everything I do to be intentional, as much as possible.”
Randle divides her time between Los Angeles, where The Tonight Show is taped, and the San
Francisco Bay area. She runs and bikes, loves spending time with her two Siberian huskies, and
rides a custom 1994 Harley-Davidson FXR motorcycle. She has been in both the Los Angeles and
San Francisco Pride parades, riding with Dykes on Bikes. “The last time I rode in L.A. was when
The L Word was filming. We were unpaid labor for them, lots of waving, etc.”
This December Randle will turn 52, and she wants to emphasize that life does not stop at 50.
“When I was younger, I thought that getting things, having autonomy in the world, having material
possessions, would make me free.” She used to joke that she wanted a chance to prove that
money can't make her happy, and with her current steady gig at The Tonight Show, “I've proved it.
Money can't make me happy, people can't make me happy.” But she concedes with a smile, “My
dogs can make me happy.”
Now, Randle says, “being physically active is really important to me. Being spiritually aware, having
a spiritual practice of some kind is important. Living life in service and love is very important.”
She has three more years with The Tonight Show and is planning another solo album. When first
planning Sleep City, she had a wealth of material to choose from but needed to decide on a focus
for the CD. “I spend a good portion of my professional life singing R&B, but when I'm writing, I think
in terms of folk ballads. … I decided to restrict this record to my singer/songwriter life, rather than
the percussive, jazz life.”
But that will be explored on her next solo outing. “I'd like to be able to move between the two styles,
since I've done just as much jazz work, and scat singing is something I enjoy. I've written a lot of
Brazilian-type tunes, percussion-heavy, so the next effort will include those.”
Until then, you can explore her folk tunes on Sleep City and witness her percussive and vocal
stylings on The Tonight Show — and celebrate the longest-running gig of an out lesbian on
television to date.
http://www.afterellen.com/archive/ellen/column/2006/11/outside2.html
OUTSIDE THE LINES: Where Are the Black Lesbian
Roles?
by Linda Villarosa, November 9, 2006
Linda Villarosa is a former editor of The New York Times and executive editor for Essence
magazine, and has authored and co-authored several books. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New
York, with her two children and her partner, Jana.
Gabrielle Union is a lesbian, y'all. Sanaa Lathan is bi.
All right, already. Not in real life (that we know of), but both are now
playing gay onscreen. In the movie Running With Scissors, which
opened nationwide last weekend, Union stars as Dorothy Ambrose, the
love interest of Deirdre Burroughs (Annette Bening), the over-the-top,
Valium-popping mother of the film's main character. In the vibrant colors of
the '70s, Union looks ravishing during her very brief eight minutes on
screen.
Lathan has a 12-episode run as Michelle Latham, Larry Hagman's much, much younger girlfriend,
on FX's Nip/ Tuck. On Oct. 3, Jacqueline Bisset stroked Lathan's breast, just before the two
engaged in a juicy lip lock.
Union doesn't tip the velvet in Scissors or kiss or even hug Bening. But when she drapes her silky
brown arm lightly across the back of Bening's chair or softly rubs her back, it feels big. And Lathan
and Bisset's vinegary dalliance is only one of several lesbian-themed story lines dreamed up by
Nip/Tuck's gay creator, Ryan Murphy (who also directed Scissors).
But seeing Lathan kiss another woman feels very, very big.
Playing a lesbian shouldn't be a big deal for a straight actress anymore, for God's sake. As we
know, nearly every actress on The L Word is straight, as is Jennifer Connelly, Catherine Deneuve,
Salma Hayek, Susan Sarandon, Meryl Streep, Uma Thurman and Kate Winslet, as well as Bisset,
Bening and other A-list actresses who have played bisexual or lesbian characters. A love scene
with another woman is no risk anymore; in fact, it can enhance a Hollywood career, demonstrating
award-bait edge. Look at Oscar winners Hilary Swank and Charlize Theron.
But maybe not for black actresses. Rarely have black women played gay. You can count the
number on the fingers of one hand. There was Queen Latifah in Set It Off. (Hush up — I know what
you're thinking!) Jennifer Beals, of course. Nicole Ari Parker (Soul Food, Remember the Titans)
early in her career in The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love. Whoopi Goldberg's
controversial onscreen kiss two decades ago in The Color Purple and 10 years later in Boys on the
Side. Kerry Washington (Ray, The Last King of Scotland) and Nia Long desperately seeking sperm
in She Hate Me and The Broken Hearts Club, respectively.
The saucy girl next door of black film, Long has
starred in hits like Big Momma's House, The
Best Man and Are We There Yet? But her
career-turning role in 2000's mainstream movie
Boiler Room has been largely forgotten. She
most recently appeared in Alfie with Jude Law
and Susan Sarandon, receiving limited screen
time and forced to wear an unbearably hideous
afro wig.
So are Union and Lathan destroying their
images by being lesbians onscreen? Hell no. In
fact, it might help both of their careers, which have fallen far short of the enormous potential of
each of these actresses.
Both are members of Hollywood's African-American elite, an extremely small sorority of successful
young actresses. These are the women who are on the covers of Essence and Ebony, and have
flashy lead roles in black movies. But after Oscar winner Halle Berry and nominee Latifah, the list
starts to dwindle. And most have had few appearances in mainstream movies — starring or
otherwise — the kinds of roles that can propel an actress into the Hollywood stratosphere.
Vivica A. Fox, who famously prompted Bill Clinton to ask “Who's the black girl?” when he saw her
in Independence Day as Will Smith's hot, stripper girlfriend, has also had a rocky career. She
starred in Set It Off, Two Can Play That Game, Booty Call and Juwanna Mann, but has struggled
to cross over to the mainstream. Despite a star turn as a murderous mama in Quentin Tarantino's
Kill Bill Vol. 1, most recently she was a contestant on ABC's Dancing With the Stars, a truly
desperate career move — and she was eliminated, to boot.
Jada Pinkett Smith has starred in at least a dozen black movies, including Woo, Bamboozled,
Kingdom Come and The Nutty Professor. Despite rave reviews in Collateral with Jamie Foxx and
Tom Cruise as well as the The Matrix and Ali, her most recent role has been the voice of an
animated hippo in Madagascar. Power to her for keeping her schedule light to focus on her family
— including two kids of her own, a stepson and hubby Will Smith, and her metal band, Wicked
Wisdom — but come on!
Of the other talented, well-known young black actresses — Kimberley Elise, Regina King and
Thandie Newton to name a few — not one has achieved the success she deserves. And even the
black roles, generally as a male star's wife or girlfriend, are limited and shrinking. Many of the black
female money roles have been snatched up by men. Think Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Madea's
Family Reunion and Big Momma's House. Black male actors are even grabbing roles from White
Chicks.
So what of Lathan and Union? Lathan muscled her way into her first
starring role in 2000's Love & Basketball, but has never lived up to the
early promise. She has carried black movies like Brown Sugar,
Disappearing Acts and, most recently, the disappointing interracial love
story Something New. She starred opposite Denzel Washington in Out of
Time in 2003 and made a splash onstage as Sean P.'s sister in Raisin in
the Sun. But her mainstream resume is sketchy … unless you include the
cheesy Alien vs. Predator.
Union, a beauty with killer dimples and a marquee smile, has lit up the
screen in a series of “mean girl” roles beginning with Love & Basketball
and Bring It On. She also starred in Two Can Play That Game, Deliver Us from Eva and 2005's
failed black remake of The Honeymooners. Given her beauty, brains, talent and charisma, it's a
shame she hasn't been able to make the mainstream leap.
Maybe these LGBT supporting roles will help both Union and Lathan and allow directors, casting
agents and the public to appreciate their gifts and their edge. Maybe next time, these actresses will
take on lead roles as lesbians. But of course, somebody's got to write those roles. (Yoo hoo,
Angela Robinson.) And somebody's got to get those films made. (Hello, somebody!)
And maybe Union and Lathan will even get an onscreen smooch — with each other.
http://www.community-newspapers.com/archives/rosegardenresident/20060427/cover1.shtml
April 27, 2006
Silicon Valley Community Newspapers
COVER STORY… "I HAD NO IDEA THERE WAS A GAY NEWSPAPER OR GAYS IN
SAN JOSE…”
Photograph reproduced with permission of Ted Sahl Archives, Special Collections, San Jose State
University
Early Gatherings: Volunteers who worked on refurbishing a storefront for the first Billy DeFrank Center at
86 Keyes St. celebrated the grand opening in 1981.
DeFrank center celebrates 25 years of service to the LGBT
community
Center's anniversary to be marked by gala
By Mary Gottschalk
In its quarter-century of existence, the Billy DeFrank Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender
Community Center has evolved from near invisibility to high visibility, going from a tiny, two-room
storefront location to a 10,000-square-foot, renovated building at 938 The Alameda.
The DeFrank grew out of a desire by members of the LGBT community for a place of their own.
"There weren't any places to meet and gather with large groups of people other than the bars,"
says Liz Burkhouse, one of the DeFrank founders.
In 1981, through word of mouth, more than 200 people showed up for the initial meeting at the
Unitarian Church Hall in downtown San Jose. By evening's end, they had elected an interim board
of directors and formed committees.
Equality was important from the first, Burkhouse says, so the initial board had an equal number of
men and women.
The naming of the center was a fundraising affair, where names were suggested and voting was in
the form of donations.
Billy DeFrank won.
DeFrank was the stage name of William Price, a female impersonator who was also a tireless
ambassador and fundraiser for the gay community. He died in 1980 of an apparent heart attack
following a performance and was nominated by his lover and friends.
The first locale for the DeFrank was at 86 Keyes St. in what had been a television repair store.
"The location on Keyes was a seedy storefront with a bar on one side and a used car lot on the
other," Burkhouse recalls. "You were afraid to go in. The first time I visited, I had to go around the
block three to five times because the neighborhood was creepy."
Once she overcame her fears, Burkhouse did park and go in.
"The thing I most remember is how home-like it felt. We tried to make it welcoming so when people
came there, they could put off their feelings of being oppressed. When you walked through the
door, it didn't matter. Everyone knew you were who you were, and it was like coming home," she
says.
Initially the center operated a switchboard, a hotline and counseling services.
Additionally, Burkhouse says both she and the late Neil Christie worked to make sure "there was
always a social component, not just workshops and STD testing, and later AIDS groups. It was
more a place where you could come for a barbecue and meet people under natural
circumstances."
Burkhouse believes relationships that begin away from a bar atmosphere are usually healthier. The
DeFrank offered the first alternative to the bars that were the traditional gathering places for the
gay community.
Prior to the establishment of the center, there were an estimated 27 bars in the South Bay friendly
to gay or lesbian clientele. Today, there are around five.
In the beginning, the DeFrank was an all-volunteer operation.
Burkhouse was the first paid executive director, named in 1982. Still attending college, she stepped
down from her position after six months but continued as an active volunteer for 18 years.
Today, the center continues to offer a switchboard, hotline, counseling and more, including some
30 support groups in seven areas of interest. There are women's, men's, sports, bisexual,
transgender and youth groups, as well as general interest ones focusing on families, 20somethings, Latinos and activities such as pageants.
Additionally, there are a variety of regular workshops, including ones in dance, yoga, stress
management and home-buying.
Social activities also continue to be an important component, ranging from bingo to film nights to
kayaking.
One of the most popular activities is the weekly vintage taste luncheon. Held on Wednesdays, the
free lunches are open to anyone 50 and older. Each week around 40 attend.
Norman Costa, a longtime DeFrank member and volunteer, is one of the regulars.
"I go for the company," Costa says. "It keeps me in touch with friends I might not normally see on a
weekly basis. I know I'll see them on Wednesdays."
Costa, who was volunteer of the year in 2000, had to stop volunteering after lung surgery.
He laments the fact the center's hours have changed, so it doesn't open until 3 p.m. on weekdays,
except for Wednesdays.
On the other hand, Costa is pleased at the growth of different groups and activities at the center.
"It's a place to get together to do things of mutual interest," he says. "It's a safe place to be, not like
being in a bar drinking."
The DeFrank now has a staff of five full-time employees, two part-time and volunteers who serve
around 400 people each week. Each year they serve more than 21,000 different people.
From its original location on Keyes, the DeFrank moved to Park Avenue, where it was located from
1985 to 1990 before moving to Stockton Avenue.
City Councilman Ken Yeager, an active member of the DeFrank since it was on Keyes, describes
the moves and growth as an evolution.
"I think each time the DeFrank has moved and found a new home, it's been a whole new era,"
Yeager says. "When it was on Keyes, it was all very secretive. The era now is one of integration
and a center where straight people can feel comfortable going. It is a neighborhood center, as well
as a gay and lesbian center."
Ted Sahl has watched the evolution of the DeFrank from its inception.
A freelance photojournalist who focuses on three areas--"freedom of choice, social justice and no
war," Sahl says his involvement with the local gay and lesbian community came about "through a
combination of curiosity and accident."
Already covering the anti-nuclear protest movement, Sahl decided to attend a gay pride rally in St.
James Park in 1978.
Sahl, who describes himself as "very straight," admits he was somewhat nervous and unsure of his
reception.
It was more cordial than he expected, and Sahl found himself empathetic toward the community.
"I had no idea there was a gay newspaper or gays in San Jose. They were in the closet, poor
souls," he says.
"As a Jew from Boston, Mass., I know about discrimination.
"When I first got in touch with the gay community, I recognized a deep sense of richness of the
human spirit. That, in my mind, had to be supported, so I went into it."
Sahl photographed events, demonstrations and get-togethers for local gay newspapers.
Sensitive to privacy issues, Sahl asked before he shot and found over time more people willing to
be photographed than ones shying away from his lens.
The result was a front-row seat at the evolution of the gay community in the South Bay, including
all the phases of the DeFrank Center.
Sahl was accepted by the community, which inducted him into the Santa Clara County Gay Hall of
Fame in 1988. In 1997, Sahl was honored as the first straight president of the Gay Pride
Celebration Committee. Sahl used his definitive photographs and insight in his book From Closet to
Community: A Quest for Gay & Lesbian Liberation in San Jose & Santa Clara County, published in
2002. He's now at work on a sequel he's titled Out in the Community: The Second Generation.
Also in 2002, Sahl donated his archives to San Jose State University's Special Collections.
Sahl's work served as one of the resources former interim director Clark Williams is using for a
DeFrank history presentation at the DeFrank's 25th anniversary gala April 29.
"It's been fascinating," Williams says of his research. "There's a need to pass our history on to
another generation, to keep it going."
Williams, who served an interim director of the DeFrank for four months until the appointment of
Aejaie Sellers in late February, has been contacting past directors and board members.
One of the most striking changes Williams says he's found in the past 25 years is in the area of
communications.
"For the first 15 years of the organization, the DeFrank produced a newsletter providing news and
information to the LGBT community that was oftentimes the only way many gays and lesbians
knew there was a large community here. Now we take the Internet for granted," Williams says.
As the DeFrank looks toward the next quarter-century, new executive director Sellers says she
sees "a tremendous amount of potential."
She'd like to see the center take a stronger leadership and advocacy role in the community at
large.
"As we do that and move into that role, we become more joined with the San Jose community as a
whole and understand that to be a player at the table, we have to be full participants at the table,"
Sellers says.
"The LGBT community along with the DeFrank Center have plenty of energy, ideas and support to
be a major player at that table in this community."
|| BEST OF THE WEB 2006 ||
Dude worship on YouTube
Images of puffed-up bodybuilders made popular in 1950s publications are alive and well as videos
on the Internet. Only now they’re creating a new connection between gay and straight men.
By Jason Rowan
From The Advocate
October 24, 2006
Somewhere in America, a fit, tan, hairless 19-year-old straight boy who goes by the online
name “Weatiez” demonstrates calisthenics while standing in his bedroom with a poster of a hot
blond topless chick on the wall behind him. He’s the kind of guy I’d furtively steal glances at in
my high school locker room, afraid of getting beat up if I stared too long.
In most of Weatiez’s videos, an aggressive rap song plays as he faces the camera then starts
flexing his biceps and bouncing around, staring at me with an unsettling mixture of hostility and
desire. His appealing, slightly disturbing performance of bodybuilder and rapper poses is one of
several Weatiez has posted on YouTube.com, an online video clearinghouse where as many as
43,000 viewers—mostly male—have watched his impromptu shenanigans since he started
broadcasting them in April.
Weatiez is far from alone. For whatever reason, young guys who list themselves as straight have
decided to display their chiseled physiques on YouTube. They’re building a very large gay male fan
base while creating a new forum for the ever-changing dialogue between gay and straight men.
As recently as a year ago, this kind of dynamic for exhibitionism and voyeurism was unheard-of.
But YouTube changed all that. After the now-famous Saturday Night Live clip “Lazy Sunday”
appeared on the site last December (in which an unknown male duo did a gangsta-rap parody
about “the chronic—what!—cles of Narnia”), the site skyrocketed in popularity, and soon people of
all ages and persuasions started posting videos of themselves. When I contacted YouTube for this
story, their representative declined, citing an “unbelievable amount of interest” in the company.
I discover Weatiez while surfing YouTube and come across a video in which he stands in what
looks like a basement, his brown skin contrasting against the white wall behind him. A bare
fluorescent bulb is affixed to the ceiling. Wearing a white T-shirt, Weatiez suddenly rips it off his
body, WWE style.
Altogether, Weatiez’s videos offer a surprisingly intimate glimpse of the kind of rough-and-tumble
jock many gay men, myself included, obsessed over in high school. And judging from the
comments posted on this young man’s YouTube profile, many gay men still hold that adolescent
fixation. “A ha cool video,” writes “noffin1” about another Weatiez bedroom creation. “Nice with the
hat flying onto the head…a bit risky having the pants so low they are almost showing the good
stuff.”
The fact that gay men are ogling his hot bod doesn’t concern Weatiez. “Yeah, I’m aware of it, but it
does not bother me,” he says via e-mail. “I’m comfortable with that because I know working out will
give me a great body, and I know that will get attention, both female and male.”
Weatiez is not the only young straight man posting such personal videos of himself on YouTube to
the immense gratitude of gay men everywhere. Shane Jessuran, who goes by “Shanejj” on
YouTube, is a 19-year-old originally from Suriname in South America who is now living in St.
Petersburg, Fla. With a chest the size of a beer keg, he recently started posting videos of himself
on YouTube, charting his progress as he pumps iron. About half the comments posted on his
videos are from bodybuilders giving him encouragement; the other half are men telling him how
sexy he is. He flexes provocatively in his dark bedroom wearing only a pair of gray Polo boxer
briefs that he constantly adjusts, running his hands over his obliques.
Shanejj says he doesn’t care that more than half his viewers are gay men. “It doesn’t really matter
to me—I’m actually intrigued that gay guys respond to it,” he says. “It’s on my profile that I’m
straight, and if guys ask if I would go that way, I just say, ‘No, but thanks for thinking of me.’ ” It’s
just about the attention, he explains. “Most of the guys posting aren’t average guys—they’re into
their appearance, their clothes, their grooming. They shave; I shave. It’s more a metrosexual thing,
and in that way I think we have something in common with gay guys. So when I get attention from
them, I like it. It confirms that I’m doing it right.”
One such online admirer is Tommy, 23, a recent college graduate and bartender in Miami who
goes by the name “Hotjokstud.” “These straight guys love the attention—they really do,” he says.
“I’m constantly posting flirty comments, praising them for their bodies and telling them they should
show more—and sometimes they do.” All it took was his suggestion to “FuSoYa999,” a youthful
20-year-old flexer from northwest Georgia, that he should pose in a Speedo, and a video of him in
said attire was up three days later. The comments were euphoric. “Men are dogs,” Tommy says
with a laugh. “Gay or straight, they all love getting their egos stroked, and it’s fun to see how far
you can go with them.”
Another fan, Matt, a 30-year-old retail worker from Durham, N.C., maintains a blog called
DudeTube where he regularly posts videos of hot straight guys. “Guys showing off has always
been a part of gym culture,” he says. “The Internet just provides a way to do it anonymously—or
not so anonymously—and get some feedback. It’s a way for straight guys to put themselves out
there safely and to get attention without many repercussions.”
Matt has come to know some of these guys in the course of posting their videos on his site, and he
says they’re “so friendly about it. When I post stuff of theirs, it’s not ‘Hey, fag, stop looking at my
ass,’ but it’s like, ‘Thanks, I’m straight but that’s cool.’ They’re really, really nice about it.”
Of course, male-on-male voyeurism is hardly novel. It’s just that YouTube has provided a new
venue for it. “It’s nothing new for straight guys to get attention from gay guys—or other straight
guys,” says Cyd Zeigler Jr., cofounder of Outsports.com, where many a picture of hot, straight
athletes can be found. “Athletes in our culture are put on a pedestal and they like that: being
worshiped. And one of the things they’re worshiped for is their physique. When they get that praise
from other men, it just massages their egos more.”
But even in the vaporous, amorphous world of the Internet, maybe that worship can go too far.
Weatiez stopped responding to my e-mails soon after I contacted him. He was the first self-made
flexing star I approached for this piece, and while I have no way of really knowing what happened, I
can only assume that our communication must have crossed that invisible variable line between
“flattering” and “threatening.” My questions must have been too much for his straight-jock comfort
zone.
As much as the Internet can bridge the divide between a gay man in New York City and an
anonymous straight stud in suburban America, it can also be a harsh reminder of how much space
still exists between us. At the end of the day, you’re still sitting alone in your bedroom, lusting after
the same boys who were so unavailable as a teenager. That disinterested roughneck is still out of
reach.
If I creeped you out, Weatiez, I’m really sorry.
(Feuds on the set of TV Ratings Winner: Grey’s Anatomy)
January 17, 2007
Grey's Anatomy star jokes about being gay on Golden Globes red
carpet
Grey's Anatomy star Isaiah Washington, accompanied by his wife, shared a secret on the Golden
Globes red carpet. "I love gay. I wanted to be gay," he said. "Please let me be gay."
In October, Washington apologized for an on-set incident involving costars Patrick Dempsey and
T.R. Knight during which Washington allegedly used a homophobic slur. Knight said last year he is
gay. (Sandy Cohen, AP)
January 18, 2007
Grey's Anatomy actor upset with Washington's comments
Grey's Anatomy star Katherine Heigl was not pleased with fellow cast mate Isaiah Washington's
comments following Monday's Golden Globe Awards. During an interview in the press room after
the show's best drama win, Washington denied his involvement in a heated on-set incident in
October during which he allegedly used a homophobic slur.
''No, I did not call [costar] T.R. [Knight] a faggot,'' Washington said. ''Never happened; never
happened.'' Rather than soothing the situation, his comments left Heigl seething.
''I'm going to be really honest right now: He needs to just not speak in public. Period,'' Heigl told
Access Hollywood at a Golden Globe after party. ''I'm sorry, that did not need to be said. I'm not
OK with it.''
She called the comments ''hurtful,'' characterizing the incident as one that should be handled
privately among the show's cast and crew. ''I don't think [Washington] means it the way he comes
off,'' Heigl said. ''But T.R. is my best friend.... I will use every ounce of energy I have to take you
down if you hurt his feelings.''
Knight, who said soon after the October fracas that he is gay, appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres
Show Tuesday to discuss the original incident and Washington's recent comments. ''He referred to
me as a 'faggot.' Everyone heard it,'' Knight said of the October squabble.
Comments from Heigl and Washington were set to air Tuesday on Access Hollywood. A call placed
after hours Tuesday to Washington's representative was not returned. (AP)
From: GLAAD Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defammation
NATIONAL NEWS
Congressman Works To Repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"
Democratic Representative Marty Meehan from Massachusetts said he will attempt to reintroduce
legislation to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in response to former Joint Chiefs Chairman John
Shalikashvili's New York Times op-ed supporting gays serving openly in the U.S. Military. In a
statement released Tuesday Meehan said, "There is no place in this country for discrimination, be
it on the basis of race, creed or sexual orientation, and there is certainly no place for institutional
discrimination codified in federal statute."
Meehan introduced a similar bill in 2005, which attracted 120 co-sponsors, including Republican
Chris Shays of Connecticut. It is unclear how much support Meehan will have in Congress.
Probable '08 presidential contender, John McCain, recently called the policy "very effective." John
Hutson, a retired two-star Navy admiral, said Tuesday he thinks allowing gays to serve openly in
the military would strengthen rather than weaken the cohesion of fighting units. "I think it will
absolutely happen, but probably not during the Bush administration."
Army Gen.: "Don't Ask Don't Tell Policy" Out
January 2, 2007
Megan Shannon - All Headline News Staff Writer
(AHN) - An influential Army general has changed his mind on the "don't ask, don't tell" policy
dealing with gays in the military. This is predicted to have a big impact on congress this year.
John Shalikashvili, who was Joint Chiefs chairman at the time the policy was adopted, wrote in a
New York Times opinion piece that he believes gays should be able to be open about their
sexuality while serving in the military.
Gay and lesbian soldiers were asked to keep quiet about their sexual orientation while serving their
country. Many soldiers were dismissed after violating the policy.
Shalikashvili said his change of heart occurred after speaking with several gay soldiers.
He wrote in the editorial, "These conversations showed me just how much the military has
changed, and that gays and lesbians can be accepted by their peers."
While some republicans still support the policy, democrats are standing behind the former general
saying discrimination does not belong in the military, especially at a time when the nation is fighting
two wars.
In a statement, Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Massachusetts, said, "There is no place in this country for
discrimination, be it on the basis of race, creed or sexual orientation, and there is certainly no place
for institutional discrimination codified in federal statute."
NFL Fines Pittsburgh Steelers Linebacker for Using Anti-Gay Slur
The National Football League has fined Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Joey Porter $10,000 for
using an anti-gay slur to describe Cleveland Browns tight end Kellen Winslow, Jr., following a
game between the two teams earlier this month.
Cameras captured Porter's use of the word 'fag' in an interview after a Dec. 7 game. Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette columnist Ron Cook and other commentators and community activists had called on
Porter to apologize. The linebacker did eventually apologize but added that he did not 'mean to
offend anybody but Kellen Winslow.'
Courts in Two States Uphold Lesbian Parents' Custody Rights
Courts in both Pennsylvania and Virginia have issued rulings in recent days that have upheld the
parental rights of lesbian parents.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld a landmark lower court ruling on Nov. 29 that nonbiological, non-adoptive same-sex parents have the right to primary custody of their children in the
Commonwealth. The court affirmed Patricia Jones' custody of twin boys that she and her former
partner of 14 years, Ellen Boring, had raised after it found that it was in their best interest to remain
with Jones.
A Virginia appeals court issued a similar decision on Nov. 28 that upheld a Vermont Supreme
Court ruling that awarded a lesbian woman joint custody of a child that she raised with her former
partner before they separated.
Gay Media Is Back
http://www.thegully.com/essays/gay_mundo2/wilke/050524_gay_ads_boom.html
Queer press surges past mainstream.
By Michael Wilke
MAY 24, 2005. Gay media is back and better than ever. Advertising revenues rebounded in 2004,
with gay magazines, newspapers and web sites outdistancing the growth of general media
with major increases in sales.
PlanetOut, the parent company of both Gay.com and PlanetOut.com, had its biggest advertising
year yet, generating total ad revenues of $6.54 million, a whopping 41.3 percent increase from
$4.63 million in 2003.
By comparison, the overall online ad industry also surged 33 percent in 2004, according to the
Internet Advertising Bureau, while advertising in all media rose more modestly to 6.3 percent,
according to the Myers Report.
Mark Elderkin, co-founder of Gay.com and president of PlanetOut, says 2004 was "an amazing
year with strong advertising growth for our business."
PlanetOut's next largest competitor, HIM Media, with sites including Gaywired.com and
Lesbianation.com, also enjoyed a 25 percent increase in revenues reaching $500,000 last
year, according to HIM president Matt Skallerud. (PlanetOut and HIM properties both carry
Commercial Closet's column.)
Similarly, the decade old Gay Market Press Report, produced annually by gay newspaper
representation firm Rivendell Media and ad agency Prime Access Inc., found that ad spending in
gay and lesbian publications reached $207 million for the year, an increase of 28.4 percent
over 2003. That compares to a similar 26.7 percent lift in newspapers overall, according to the
Newspaper Association of America, and 11.1 percent growth in magazines, according to the
Publishers Information Bureau.
Like the general market, most of the growth in gay print was experienced by local publications
instead of national ones, the Gay Market Press report says. Local gay newspapers, for instance,
experienced a 53.9 percent increase in ad revenues, while national gay magazines generally saw
just a 2.5 percent increase.
Nonetheless, things were rosier for OUT magazine than the rest in its class, according to Joe
Landry, publisher of LPI Media's OUT and The Advocate, which are included in the Gay Press
Report. Landry says OUT was up 26 percent in ad pages, and Advocate up 7 percent, as
measured by TNS/PIB. "We saw overwhelming ad growth. It was incredible," he says about OUT.
New advertisers continue to seek out the gay market, including Advantage flea control from Bayer,
and Atkins, Casio, Dell, Eastman Kodak, Eclipse gum from Wrigley, Edge shave gel from S.C.
Johnson, Intel, L'Oreal for Vive shampoo and Men's Expert skin care. Other advertisers include
Oral B tooth brushes from Braun-Philips, Panasonic, Pepsi Cola Co., Scion from Toyota, Sony,
Starbucks, and Westin and Wyndham hotels.
Previously, LGBT print media suffered three consecutive years of revenue declines,
diminishing the enthusiasm of the Gay Press Report's publishers for making efforts to publicize the
data. (The report tracks ads only from April editions of 139 North American gay publications and
projects the data for the year — an approach criticized by some.)
Major growth categories in the 2004 Gay Press Report included health/fitness/grooming, with a
87.2 percent increase, and alcoholic beverages, up 76.5 percent.
The report also found that customized ads for gay readers experienced a dramatic increase,
surging 242 percent from major corporations such as Delta, IBM, L'Oreal, Orbitz, Wyndham and
others. Interestingly, national publications received only a 3 percent share of the increase, with the
rest going to local publications.
LPI's Landry predicts gay creative ads will rise, but cautions they are not a panacea for success. "If
they're done well, they're terrific," he says. "If not, they're like any other ad."
By contrast, PlanetOut's Elderkin projects little increases in customized ads, though banner ads are
a different breed than print. "The development of unique gay creative is not necessarily the right
approach. The overall quality of a campaign's creative execution and its alignment with the brand's
general market messaging most often has the greatest impact."
Following the burst of the Internet bubble, as companies moved away from online advertising,
PlanetOut strengthened its non-advertising revenue sources. Advertising still accounts for only 26
percent of PlanetOut's total 2004 revenue, while 65 percent comes from personal ad fees, and 10
percent from retail sales of items like trendy underwear and DVDs. Gay.com and PlanetOut have
more than 3.4 million combined active American members, 127,500 of whom are paid users, the
company's financial statement said.
Elderkin believes the anticipated June launch of LOGO, media giant Viacom's gay cable network,
will increase awareness of the LGBT community among advertisers and bring the community even
more into the mainstream.
"It will help show people that being gay is something not to be afraid of," he says. Elderkin also
anticipates companies will allocate bigger budgets to gay advertising overall, because of the higher
costs to advertise on television.
LOGO's arrival will certainly have a significant impact on gay media sales, bringing greater
attention to the market, and confidence to advertisers who already work with Viacom on other
networks. LOGO so far has announced founding sponsors Paramount (in the Viacom family),
Subaru, and Orbitz, but will no doubt attract more in the coming year as advertisers sort through
their growing variety of choices.
Reporting by Eric Noll. The Commercial Closet — bringing lesbian, gay, bi and trans sensitivity to
corporate advertising.
GAY PRESS REPORTS:
2005 http://www.rivendellmedia.com/documents/gaypressreport2005.pdf
2002 http://www.primeaccess.net/Press/2002GayPressReport.pdf
Complete Coverage
Gay Mundo
US Politics
Related Articles
Cosmetic Companies Compete for
Gay Shelves
Diet Pepsi, Subway Go Gay at
Super Bowl
Same-Sex Marriage Ads
Dominated 2004
T-Mobile's Call Includes Gay
Couples
Democrats Target Gay Voters
Gay Radio and Subaru Get Sirius
On Satellite
Pepsi Marches Into Gay Pride
Research Booms on Same-Sex
Couples
Cheney For Gay Marriage?
Wyndham and W Hotels Bed Gays
Japanese Join Gay Fray
IBM: Beyond Gay Vague
Gay Dads Fashionable
A Blackened Eye for Queer Guys
Gay & Lesbian Television:
http://www.logoonline.com/
What is Logo?
Logo is the newest channel from MTV Networks, the force behind channels like VH1, MTV, TV
Land and SpikeTV. Logo is entertainment programming for lesbians and gays and just about
anyone who enjoys a gay point of view. Logo is for us, our friends and our family. Logo is originals.
Logo is movies. Logo is documentaries. Logo is news. Logo is specials. Logo is the channel for
Gay America. Finally.
Why did you choose the name "Logo"?
We chose to name the channel "Logo" because as the first and only 24/7 channel for the LGBT
community, we wanted a name that people could make their own and give it personal meaning. For
us, the word "Logo" is about identity, about being comfortable in your own skin. It's about being
who you are.
How can I advertise on Logo?
To advertise on Logo or Logoonline.com, or for more information regarding ad sales, please contact
us by completing this form and selecting "Ad Sales."
How can I get a job at Logo?
Careers:
All Logo job openings are posted on the MTVNetworks Job Hunt
site. If you see something that interests you, follow the instructions on how to apply.
Internships:
MTV Networks Internship Programs in New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA has internships in various
departments at LOGO including, Creative, Press, Production, Programming and Marketing.
http://www.logoonline.com/about/
Why does Logo edit its programming?
Our first priority is to entertain our viewers. Therefore, we do our best to edit our programming as
little as possible while still maintaining an appropriate level of content standards for a sponsorfriendly cable channel. Logo's programming is edited to the same degree as other MTV Networks
channels geared towards adult audiences, such as Spike TV or Comedy Central.
How can I pitch a show idea to Logo?
Unfortunately, we have been forced to adopt a policy, which we consistently apply, to return all
unsolicited submissions without reading them or considering their merit. This policy, which most
other companies in the entertainment industry also follow, is essential to avoid misunderstandings
that might otherwise arise because of the nature of the industry. So many ideas and concepts are
developed by writers and producers that the only prudent way to avoid conflicts regarding possible
similarities is to strictly adhere to a policy of not accepting unsolicited submissions.
Our practice is to review only those materials which are submitted through franchised agents. If
you currently have, or in the future, secure such an agent, we will be happy to receive your material
through the agent.
Logo and CBS News join up to bring you
exclusive news throughout the week. Hosted
SHOWTIME Channel: THE L WORD
by Jason Bellini.
http://www.logoonline.com/news/archive.jhtml?contentTypeID=1089
http://www.sho.com/site/lword/home.do
ADVERTISING ON GAY RELATED WEBSITES:
Bet the NFL Playoffs!
REALJOCK.COM:
THE GAY FITNESS COMMUNITY
"THE L WORD: THE COMPLETE
SECOND SEASON" DVD PRICE:
$69.99 SHOC SHO2633
Bet on NFL!
Great odds & betting options. All
the exciment of the NFL and all
major US sports at
LinesMaker.com.
Get in
the best shape of your life with our free
Strong and Lean workout plan from
super-trainer Billy Polson.
Imagine a subtropical island where
the average temperature is 70.
Where two oceans meet &
accommodations are among the
most appealing & diversified. With
our live and let live attitude, it's no
wonder that our two-by-four-mile
island is acclaimed as THE gay and
lesbian vacation destination.
DList.com Guys. Music. Blogs.
"The best gay men's resort in the
world.” by OUT Traveler Magazine
Search 30,000 Gay Jock
Parties.
DLIST.COM:
LIKE MYSPACE FOR FAGS
BUT BETTER
curve personals
Meet her on Curve
personals.
Join
LESBIAN & GAY MAGAZINES
Curve: The best-selling lesbian magazine
brings you the latest in celebrity interviews,
news, politics, pop culture, style, travel, social
issues and entertainment.
http://www.curvemag.com/speak/index.php?s=af87f084151f9b78cddd30e5e2e88e49
The Advocate - This is the site for the national gay and lesbian
magazine, The Advocate. It is filled with the same well-written, informative articles that appear in
the print version. In addition there is also a message board, a chat room, and an incredible number
of links to other gay-related sites.
http://www.advocate.com/
OutProud, The National Coalition for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender
Youth, serves the needs of these young men and women by providing advocacy, information,
resources and support. Our goal is to help queer youth become happy, successful, confident and
vital gay, lesbian and bisexual adults.
OUT NOW magazine
http://www.outproud.org/
http://www.outnowmag.com/
ONLINE GAY & LESBIAN MEDIA SITES:
PlanetOut
http://www.planetout.com/news/
Gay.Com
http://www.gay.com/news/
FakeGayNews
http://www.fakegaynews.com/
Stories from Advocate.com:
Hudson releases statement clarifying her position on gays
Advocate cover girl Dreamgirls Jennifer Hudson gets sideswiped by a gay Dallas newspaper.
Here's her side of the story.
Jennifer Hudson
An Advocate.com exclusive posted December 12, 2006
Jennifer Hudson has been receiving rave reviews and considerable Oscar buzz for her portrayal of
the character Effie in the Bill Condon–adapted film version of the popular Broadway musical
Dreamgirls. Her notices are no surprise to The Advocate, as Hudson graces our current cover.
What is surprising is a headline posted December 6 in the online edition of the Dallas Voice: "
'Dreamgirl' Says, Gay Is a Sin," which ran above the subhead "Oscar front runner Jennifer Hudson
stops in Big D; Devout Baptist sticks with Bible on same-sex issues." Hudson was in Dallas as part
of a promotional tour for the film, and she participated in a roundtable where Daniel A. Kusner, life
and style editor for the Voice, a local gay and lesbian newspaper, asked Hudson about her
religious beliefs. Hudson said she is Baptist. When he asked about her stance on same-sex
marriage, Hudson is reported to have responded, "Nobody has ever asked me these questions."
She continued, "Everybody sins. No sin is greater or different than the other. To each his own. If it
don't bother Jennifer, then Jennifer don't mind. I don't really even think about it because I don't
believe in judging people for what they do."
Kusner then asked Hudson if she thinks being gay is a sin, to which she reportedly replied,
"According to the way we're taught and what it says in the Bible, it is." Kusner's article then scolds
her for not having a more "thoughtful response."
Hudson contacted The Advocate through her representatives on December 6, saying she is
devastated by the report, which she says misrepresents her beliefs about her gay fans and gay
people in general. She released the following statement to The Advocate:
"In a recent interview I was asked how I reconciled being a Christian with performing at events for
my gay fans. I find it upsetting that some folks equate being a Christian with being intolerant of gay
people. That may, unfortunately, be true for some, but it is not true for me. I have talked often of my
love and support of the gay community. I have said again and again that it was the gay community
that supported me long before and long after American Idol and kept me working and motivated. It
is the gay community that celebrated my voice and my size and my personality long before
Dreamgirls. Yes, I was raised Baptist. Yes, I was taught that the Bible has certain views on
homosexuality. The Bible also teaches us not to judge. It teaches us to love one another as God
loves us all. I love my sister, my two best friends, and my director dearly. They happen to be gay.
So what? While some search for controversy, I hope that my friends and fans who know me know
where I stand."
In the Advocate cover story, Jennifer is quoted as saying, "[There are] about a hundred of 'em [her
gay friends]. Girls don't like me. People say, 'Oh, here comes Jennifer and a bunch of dudes.' And
gay guys always recognize me when I'm out. I love that. It happens so much—even if I have a hat
and sunglasses on—that when I see a group of gay guys and they don't, I think, What's wrong with
them? I even asked Bill [Condon] about it. I said, 'Why are all my friends gay men?' And he said,
'Oh, I know why.' But then he still wouldn't explain it to me!"
About Condon, she said, "I love my Bill. I love that man. Asking questions about him is the wrong
thing to do if you want to get out of here soon, because I'll talk about him forever. He's an angel. I
couldn't have asked for a better director." There's also a quote from Condon about Hudson: "She
and I had serious marriage discussions. I fell in love with her. It's one thing to try to step into
Jennifer Holliday's shoes, to take on this kind of epic role, but to have done it without ever having
been on a movie set before and to go toe-to-toe with Jamie Foxx and everyone else, it takes a
rock-solid confidence. I know it's overused to describe actors as brave, but I thought that her job
took actual physical courage."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Of course Betty's nephew is gay
By Lydia Marcus
An Advocate.com exclusive posted December 18, 2006
“Justin” on UGLY BETTY
In the recent Advocate article “Betty’s Family Secret" by Gretchen Dukowitz, the Gay and Lesbian
Alliance Against Defamation’s entertainment media director, Damon Romine, says of Betty’s
nephew Justin (Mark Indelicato), “He’s a character with a flair for the dramatic and someone who
has a sense of style. To say he’s gay based on that means viewers are letting stereotypes decide
for them the definition of gender and sexuality.” While ABC has not officially labeled Justin gay, I
find Romine’s archaic reasoning completely irresponsible and offensive. Plenty of gay men of every
age are just like Justin. It’s not just a stereotype; it's reality, and it’s OK. I’ve lived enough years and
developed enough gaydar that I can watch even a preteen TV character and figure out he’s written
to be gay, even if he’s never said, “I’m gay,” even if ABC hasn't issued a press release confirming
it. From the first episode I was able to ascertain that Justin was gay from his swishy personality, his
feminine vocal patterns, and his obsessive interest in fashion. There’s no need for “a special
episode” to spell it out. The boy is gay-gay-gay. Incidentally, the show’s confirmed gay character,
Marc (Michael Urie), has all the “stereotypical” gay features Romine mentions. “Flair for the
dramatic.” Check. “Sense of style.” Check. And on the recent Thanksgiving-themed episode, Marc
even camped it up in drag by prancing around Mode magazine’s fashion offices dressed in an
evening gown, long gloves, and a feather boa while singing the theme song to Dreamgirls. Since
Marc was officially labeled “gay” by ABC, it’s OK to be “stereotypical.” Huh? Marc didn't say he was
gay for a few episodes, but gee, somehow I figured out that he was gay—the same way I instantly
recognized Justin as gay.
And I have news for GLAAD’s Romine: In today’s world and even in the past, not every gay person
who comes out proclaims it by saying, “I’m gay.” Often they do it just through their actions and
general demeanor. Back in the summer of 1983, when I was 13 and my best friend Robert was 14,
I realized he was gay after he showed up on my doorstep wearing his mother’s pedal-pusher pants
and her big white floppy picture hat. My parents figured it out too. It was Robert’s way of coming
out with a bang, and he never had to say he was gay that day for us to figure it out. A few months
later, in ninth grade, Robert communicated his gayness to the entire student body by showing up at
our junior high school wearing a white sweatshirt fashioned Flashdance-style. Wearing the low-cut
scoop neckline suggestively off his naked shoulder, he nearly created a lunchtime riot when the
senior student body convened around us, rubbernecking to get an eyeful of this obviously gay
boy—a species previously not seen in this hetero land adorned with preppy polo shirts, classic
Levi's 501s, and rock-concert jerseys. Robert embraced and proudly communicated his gayness in
that Flashdance fashion proclamation just like Justin shows his true gay self in every episode of
Ugly Betty, when he gets excited talking about Martha Stewart, dresses up like Gene Kelly in a
sailor uniform and tap dances his way through the neighborhood for Halloween, or explains how he
stood out in the Thanksgiving play because he was the only one doing jazz hands. On the one
episode where Justin and Marc actually meet and interact, Marc tells Justin that he reminds him a
lot of his younger self and dishes out wisdom for Justin to follow Marc’s youthful example. He
essentially tells Justin to continue to be fabulous, be himself, keep his individual style, and most
importantly, learn to run fast. Even if ABC isn't sending out any official gay proclamations about
Justin, this exchange between him and Marc was an acknowledgment that these two guys have
something in common besides an excessive interest in high fashion. And Marc’s story could have
easily been my best friend Robert’s. The only difference was that Robert never had to run; he knew
how to fight and didn't stand for any guff about his sexuality.
I’m certain that viewers with a clue will be able to read between the lines and realize that Justin is
gay. I’d personally like to thank the ABC network and the writers of Ugly Betty for putting a positive
gay youth role model into a show viewed by millions each week. I think the nonchalant organic way
that Ugly Betty has introduced the audience to Justin is a huge leap forward in gay visibility. It
shows that gay identity isn't just reserved for sexually mature adults. On a recent episode, Justin’s
long-absent father voiced his disapproval of his son’s solely feminine and artistic interests and
expressed his concern that the rest of the family was endorsing these traits. Justin’s mother stood
up for her son, declaring, “He is comfortable with who he is, and so am I.” Justin’s close-knit family
wholeheartedly loves and embraces him, and that’s the message viewers are getting from ABC.
Making Justin a likeable gay preteen that the audience can grow with will do a lot more toward
opening people’s minds than any official network press release sent off to a bunch of LGBT
journalists and one gay media watchdog organization.
I think it’s a positive step forward that Justin can be himself and the audience can get that he’s gay.
In real life, people don't walk into a room and instantly say, “I’m gay.” For many of us the official
coming-out days are over. We are open, like Justin, and people get the message. From what I
recall of my coming-out days, from my teen years to my early 20s (the mid 1980s to the early
1990s), there were a lot of hand-wringing, gut-wrenching stomachaches and mental anguish.
These days, I’m simply myself with whomever I meet, and if the conversation turns to dating,
relationships, or gay issues, I speak from the hip. Thankfully my days of proclamations (and
pronoun changes) are over. Seeing the way the writers of Ugly Betty have decided to handle both
Justin and Marc on the show, it looks like network TV is beginning to reflect how more and more
real gay people live their lives: openly.
From episode 1 I’ve loved Ugly Betty for a lot of reasons. The show is campy, over the top, arch,
cartoonish—and that’s often just from story lines involving the straight characters. Its entire
aesthetic screams gay sensibility. If that wasn't enough gayness to please me, the show actually
sports two gay characters, Marc and Justin. Instead of thinking badly of the show because Justin
hasn't uttered the words “I’m gay,” I’ve been continually marveling at how fantastically progressive
it is that the show has a preteen character who happens to be gay—and it’s a nonissue for him and
for his family. I’m often amazed by just how gay Mark’s officious, snide assistant character is
written (and so wonderfully brought to life by Urie). To top it all off, the show has a lead character
who bucks the tradition of what a leading lady on TV should look like. She’s chunky and short with
a brace-face, her eyebrows have a life of their own, she doesn't have one ounce of fashion sense,
and she’s a minority to boot.
I really look forward to Justin growing up in our living rooms. The only thing I wish ABC would have
keyed me into earlier is the fact that Justin is Betty’s nephew because for the first several episodes
I thought he was her little brother.
Lydia Marcus is a film critic and entertainment journalist whose features and photographs have
appeared in the Los Angeles Times, AOL, The Advocate, indieWIRE.com, Gay.com ,
logoonline.com, and AfterEllen / A fterElton.com. For more info log onto
www.lydiamarcus.com. Photo courtesy American Broadcasting Companies Inc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|| NEWS || January, 2007
Boston TV news anchor marries partner on statehouse steps
Boston's 7News anchor Randy Price married his longtime partner, Mark Steffen, on the steps of
the statehouse Friday, one day after a proposed ban on same-sex marriage advanced in the
legislature. "Our timing couldn't be better," Price told BostonHerald.com, referring to the marriage
ban. "But actually it's pure coincidence since [today] is our 30th anniversary."
Price said he and Steffen wanted to swap vows on the capitol steps for "symbolic reasons." "We're
certainly not defiant people, but we believe that we should have the right to marry like anyone
else," Price said. "Right now it's right for us. And we've got as good a track record with vows and
commitment as anyone else." (The Advocate)
The following bio on RANDY PRICE is posted on the WHDH-Channel 7 website in Boston:
Randy Price is an anchor of 7NEWS at 5PM, 6PM and the region's premiere 11PM news.
“7NEWS at 11" is the winner of numerous Emmys, plus the most prestigious Edward R. Murrow
and Associated Press awards for best newscast and overall excellence.
Randy has been with 7NEWS since 1998. As one of region's most popular and distinguished TV
journalists, Randy has spent most of his career bringing New Englanders the stories of our
times...travelling back roads, the country, and the world to report those events. Randy is widely
recognized for his professional and personal accomplishments. He was the only Boston news
anchor to have his own nightly news magazine program. He was the first Boston TV journalist to
anchor news programs on two different Boston stations. He was also the country's first openly gay
newscaster.
Randy actually began his career in radio while a student at Louisiana State University in his
hometown of Baton Rouge. After college, Randy served in the United States Air Force as a
broadcaster with the American Forces Radio and Television Service. His assignments included
stops in Thailand, Guam, and Alaska. His commercial TV career began in California where he was
first recognized for his reporting skills. Winning an Associated Press award for his days of reporting
on the complex effort to put out a huge oil fire planted a seed Randy now realizes: "It is ultimately
why most of us are in this news business; to bring big stories to our viewers in the fastest and most
comprehensive way possible. It's funny, because this many years later, it is still the very same
sensation that I experience when we scramble to put great stories on the air at 7NEWS."
Prior to coming to Boston, Randy had a successful stint as the main anchor for the NBC station in
Toledo, Ohio.
Because of his relationship with viewers, Randy has become a champion of many organizations
and causes; from human and civil rights, to hunger, aids care and research, to animal welfare. As a
breeder of many top winning Cocker Spaniels (he has more than 12 at home!), Randy helps
humane societies and rescue leagues throughout New England. He is also an enthusiast and
supporter of Boy Scouting, an organization where he spent many years of his childhood. Randy
achieved the highest level of Scouting and is an eagle scout.
While Randy has been the recipient of innumerable awards and accolades, he says "the biggest
compliment comes from the hundreds of thousands of viewers who show their trust and confidence
by watching our programs everyday."
Randy and his partner of 28 years live in Kittery Point, Maine. Besides caring for all those dogs,
gardening is also a big part of life at home.
Gay journalists come ‘Out in the Sunshine’
At convention, journalists will discuss how recent media buy-outs affect being out in the newsroom
Chagmion Antoine, a reporter for CBS News on LOGO; Eric Hegedus, NLGJA national president; and Akilah
Monifa, an NLGJA national board member, mingle at a previous convention for gay journalists. One topic of
discussion at this year’s convention in Miami Beach is how big media buy-outs will affect diversity in newsroom
hiring. (Photo by Jason Smith)
Story By SHERI ELFMAN Published on: expressgaynews.com
September 02, 2006
Gay and lesbian journalists will turn their focus on South Florida Sept. 7-10, where National
Lesbian & Gay Journalism Association members will gather from all over the United States for the
15th annual convention, dubbed “Out in the Sunshine.”
More than 650 members are expected at the convention, according to organizers. “We’ve grown to
nearly 1,400 members,” said Executive Director Pamela Strother. “We now have 25 chapters
across the country.”
NLGJA was founded 16 years ago, and Strother has been a member of the group for 10 years.
She’s been the executive director for the last six. She said she has seen first-hand the differences
that members have made.
“Our primary work is not only about fair and accurate and increased coverage” in the news of gay
and lesbian people, she said. “It’s also about workplace issues. It’s about domestic partnership
rights and being out in the newsroom.”
Changes in the media
The NLGJA convention is held in a different city each year, and typically includes panels that
discuss everything from how being gay affects a journalist’s job, to how to cultivate better sources.
But this year’s convention will have a bit of a different focus because of all of the buy-outs and
changes that occurred in the newspaper business this past year, said Strother.
“We’re really having to confront a major shift in the news industry,” she said. “More of our
membership is affected. Folks are looking to other roles in the media, like public relations,” she
added.
Another concern in the media field is about how these layoffs and buy-outs will affect being gay in
the newsroom, Strother said.
“We’re concerned about the diversity in hiring in newsrooms,” she said.
Some other panel topics this year include titles such as “Covering the Legal Beat: What You Won’t
Learn Watching ‘Law & Order,’” “Lavender Press Politics: Too Blue for Red State Readers,” “Off
Camera: The Challenges of LGBT TV Anchors” and “Stick It In Your Ear: How Podcasting is
Changing LGBT Radio.”
Each of the seminars will be led by a panel of experts, with a discussion after. There will be
representatives at the convention from notable news sources like the New York Times, Washington
Post, L.A. Times, CNN, Fox News, ABC, NBC, CBS, Logo and Here.
Not all work
But it’s not all work for the hundreds of journalists who will participate in the convention.
“I think it’s social but with a purpose,” Strother said of the convention.
Although the participating journalists will be learning a lot in the numerous workshops, they will also
have several opportunities to mix and mingle with a variety of mixers and socials at local gay
haunts, including Score bar on Lincoln Road.
“We’re having great parties and receptions in the evening,” Strother said.
In addition to partying and sharpening their professional skills, the journalists will honor the
anniversary of the terrorist attacks on 9/11. The documentary, “Saint of 9/11,” will be presented by
the film’s director, Glenn Holsten, and its producer, Malcolm Lazin, who will then discuss it on a
panel.
The organization is open to all journalists in print, broadcast and online newsrooms, academic
institutions and public relations. Information about the group can be found on their website at
www.nlgja.org.
“It’s about making friends with other out journalists and networking with colleagues to give you the
strength to be out,” Strother said.
--------------------------------------------------Professional Organization:
National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association
- An organization of journalists, online media professionals, and students that works from within the
journalism industry to foster fair and accurate coverage of GLBT issues.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Columbia Journalism Review
March/April 1994
(academic magazine)
SHOULD GAYS COVER GAY ISSUES?
by Keith Eddings
Eddings, a former reporter for Knight-Ridder and Gannett, teaches journalism at Mercy College in
Dobbs Ferry, New York.
As gay journalists come out of the closet in their workplaces, they compel the news industry to
answer a number of questions. Some -- Should gay reporters be excluded from covering gay
issues because of their presumed bias? -- are only the latest version of questions about bias raised
by the presence of women, African-Americans, and other minority groups in the newsroom. Others
are more complicated. If a news organization allows gay reporters to cover gay issues, should it
also require reporters to disclose their sexual orientation when they cover those issues? How far -if at all -- should gay reporters distance themselves from events staged by or of special significance
to their community, such as last April's march in Washington?
In response to the question of whether a gay reporter should be assigned to cover a gay issue,
many editors say they wouldn't hesitate to do so. In fact, some editors say they prefer to assign
gays to such stories out of a belief that they bring an insight to gay issues much as blacks are
thought to do when covering civil rights, and women when covering breast cancer.
"Being gay and covering a gay story to me are never inconsistent -- never," says Justin Gillis,
urban affairs editor at The Miami Herald. "Having a gay reporter cover a gay issue in a
sophisticated way is, as a rule, a good thing. That person brings a skill and an ability at dialogue
with the people being covered, and sources and knowledge of the community.
The real issue for a journalist isn't his objectivity, because "no one comes at anything with pure,
unvarnished objectivity," Gillis adds. "The question to me is, how fair-minded are you and is your
vision broad enough to take in the points of view of people you might really disagree with? We've
had gay journalists go up and do the stories on the rampant homophobes in north Florida and,
conversely, we've had gay journalists do stories on gay civil rights issues."
James Fallows, Washington editor of The Atlantic Monthly, holds that simply checking the copy of
a gay reporter writing about "rampant homophobes" to ensure fairness and balance isn't enough.
Gay reporters who regularly cover gay issues, Fallows believes, should either disclose their
homosexuality to their editors, sources, readers, listeners, and viewers, or they should write about
other issues.
Fallows acknowledges that such a policy could force gay reporters to disclose their sexuality to
their editors whether they accept assignments about gay issues or turn them down. But he says
that "being involved in journalism -- which to a large degree involves making judgments about other
people, intruding on their privacy in various ways, asking readers to take certain things on trust
from you -- involves some sacrifices that might not be necessary in other lines of work."
Last March, The Atlantic published a 9,000-word cover story on the biological roots of
homosexuality that was widely acclaimed in the gay community. True to the policy outlined by
Fallows, the story, written by Chandler Burr, included this sentence: "Many of the scientists who
have been studying homosexuality are gay, as am I." (And as am I.)
Fallows doesn't single out gays for this type of newsroom candor: all reporters have an obligation
to disclose relevant facts about themselves. "Editors and reporters might not think that various
identities -- gender, race, political views, sex -- have bearing," Fallows says. "But the readers may
not agree, and in that respect one should let readers know to a reasonable degree. I think I can be
completely detached in judging Bill Clinton's strengths and weaknesses. But if a reader later found
out that I worked for a Democratic administration, that reader might feel he'd been deceived in
some way." Disclosure should not be a written rule, Fallows adds, but an "understood professional
obligation." (Fallos was chief speechwriter for former President Jimmy Carter.)
But gay journalists may find that coming out on the job is a risky business. Editors at The Houston
Post provided evidence of that in August 1991 when they fired columnist Juan Palomo during a
dispute over a column about a fatal gay-bashing in Houston in which Palomo attempted to come
out. Editors ordered him to remove references to his own homosexuality from the column, then
fired him a month later for talking to other news organizations about the internal disagreement over
the column at the paper. After a week of public protest, Palomo, who had worked at the paper for
thirteen years, was hired back.
The openly gay journalists often finds himself under a special kind of pressure -- from within the
gay community itself. In a December 20, 1992, Week In Review piece titled "Covering AIDS and
Living It: A Reporter's Testimony," Jeffrey Schmalz, who covered gay issues for The New York
Times until his death last November, described an exchange at the funeral of a man who had died
of AIDS.
"Are you here as a reporter or as a gay man with AIDS?" Schmalz said he was asked at the
funeral. When he responded that he was there as a reporter, Schmalz wrote, "Some shook their
heads in disgust, all but shouting 'Uncle Tom!' They wanted an advocate, not a reporter."
Outside the newsroom, the line between professional duties and private lives seems to shift with
the issue. For example:
The board of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) voted early in 1992
that members would not march as an organized group in April's march in Washington because it
was an overtly political event intended to influence government policy. (Many of the nation's
leading news organizations apparently agreed. The Associated Press, ABC News, and The
Washington Post, among others, prohibited their editorial staffs from participating in the march.)
Late that summer the NLGJA board voted not to support Sandy Nelson, an education reporter for
the Tacoma, Washington, News Tribune, who had sued the paper after she was reassigned to the
copy desk because she was working for a local gay rights initiative. The NLGJA board concluded
that the issue in the dispute was not discrimination against a gay journalist, but whether journalists
should be involved in any political campaign.
To some, the NLGJA's decision in these cases seemed at odds with its decision a few months
later, in December 1992, to ask the National Hispanic Journalists Association to move its
convention from Denver as part of the campaign to boycott Colorado after voters there approved a
measure invalidating local laws protecting gays from discrimination. Leroy Aarons, former
executive editor of The Oakland Tribune and president of the NLGJA, explains that the board acted
in the latter case because the Colorado law "potentially affected journalists and their right to work."
Palomo of The Houston Post, who has served on the NLGJA board, says that making such
distinctions has put the organization "on the road to becoming a gay social club. We're talking
about the rights of reporters, and the NLGJA shouldn't sit back and let these reporters be trampled
on," he says, referring to the association's refusal to support Nelson in her dispute with The News
Tribune. "What's the organization for it it's not going to do anything for its members?"
Off-duty activism can be more than just an ethical issue for journalists. Pressure by conservative
groups that complain that recent coverage of gay issues had legitimized and glamorized
homosexuality can shift the focus of debate from ethics to the bottom line. Asked how he might
respond to a campaign to remove an openly gay reporter, Bruno Cohen, vice-president and news
director of WNBC-TV in New York City, replied, "The pressure to be successful in a commercial
environment means that if anyone has an attribute that has a negative impact on ratings, their job
security is certainly affected by it."
Broadcast journalists can be especially vulnerable to pressure from the right because on-the-air
reporters and anchors are living-room celebrities, unshielded by the anonymity of print. "It's our
face, our personality," says Steve Gendel, chief science and medicine correspondent for CNBC,
who declared his homosexuality to a live audience of 175,000 households in July while covering a
report about the genetic roots of homosexuality. "It's more than just a byline, because we're
identified with a story."
Lesbians working in television can be even more vulnerable, because, as Barbara Raab, a
producer at NBC's Dateline, explains, the "aura of availability" that surrounds women reporters and
anchors can be shattered if their audiences know they are gay. "There are lesbians on the air, but
there are no open lesbians on the air," Raab says. "Believe me, none of these women are going to
talk to you [for this story]."
Among those bringing pressure on stations are conservative media watchdogs such as Accuracy in
Media and a handful of smaller groups, including the Springs of Life Church, a Pentecostal church
in Lancaster, California. The church produced "The Gay Agenda," a twenty-minute video that offers
a brutally unflattering protrayal of gay life in America, and last year began publishing Lambda
Report, a twelve-page monthly newsletter devoted to "monitoring the homosexual agenda in
American politics and culture."
The newsletter's August edition included a story by Joseph Farah, formerly an editor at the nowdefunct Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, about "the pernicius role of the National Lesbian and Gay
Journalists Association in media coverage of homosexual issues," Farah's story identified several
reporters as "card-carrying members" of the gay journalists group, and was accompanied by a
sidebar that listed nineteen other journalists who "are or have been active" with the group.
Lambda Report editor Peter LaBarbera says that a future newsletter may update the list of gay
journalists published in the August issue. What service do such lists provide? "A lot of people feel
there is an activism among reporters," LaBarbera replied. "They want to know if this person is an
open gay, if he's proud of it, if he's attending meetings."
Gay journalists also are being challenged by other colleagues, including syndicated columnist Cal
Thomas. In a column published a few days after the gay journalists association met in New York in
September, Thomas scolded the news organizations that set up tables at a job fair that opened the
convention. (Among the twenty organizations were The New York Times, The Washington Post,
The Miami Herald, the Los Angeles Times, The Associated Press, National Public Radio, and ABC
News.) In an interview after his column appeared, Thomas argued that joining a group like the
National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association is in itself a statement of political activism by
journalists, which he called an "ethical outrage."
"Those of us in journalism have to understand that our stock in trade is our credibility with our
consumers, our readers, viewed, listeners," Thomas said. "If they feel they're getting anything but
the facts, then their trust level and our credibility will decline."
The NLGJA, for its part, is not about to urge its members to shrink back into the closet. The group
is organizing task forces to establish parity in employee benefits, such as health care for the
domestic partners of gay journalists, and to reach out to journalism majors on college campuses.
And it recently completed a survey of working conditions for gays in broadcast newsrooms.
The NLGJA's Aarons says the association will also be working for parity in news coverage, to
"mainsteam gay and lesbian information" in the media. As an example, he recounted a story
conference he sat in on recently with editors at the Detroit Free Press at which editors discussed a
story about new angles in refinancing homes.
"I spoke to a group of editors afterward and made the point that if you're refinancing as a
heterosexual couple, or as an unmarried gay or lesbian couple, you're dealing with an entirely
different world with regard to taxes, inheritance, a whole range of things," Aarons says. "I made the
suggestion that that might stand on its own as a sidebar, its own story, or as a piece of the main
story. Everyone was taken by surprise. That's the level where I think our organization can be useful
in the future."
Aarons's view of the future indicates how much has changed in the decade since CJR reported
("Uptight on Gay News," CJR, March/April 1982) that the prevailing mood in newsrooms was "a
compound of hostility and ignorance," resulting in stories that were "inadequate and uninformed."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|| NEWS ||
01/06/07-01/08/07
Spitzer still committed to legalizing same-sex marriage
Eliot Spitzer, New York's newly elected Democratic governor, will not back down on a promise to
propose legislation legalizing same-sex marriage in the state, a top aide to the governor told The
New York Sun on Wednesday.
The new governor didn't address the issue specifically in his 61-minute state of the state address
on Wednesday, so the Sun pressed his office for an answer. "The governor made a commitment to
advancing it this year, and he will do so," Spitzer's communications director, Darren Dopp, told the
Sun.
However, legalizing marriage for gays is not a "day one" issue, Dopp added. For now, the
administration is chiefly concerned with pushing forward its ethics and economic agenda and is
keeping the issue of same-sex marriage off the front burner. "We have to prioritize, and that's how
we prioritized," Dopp said. "That's not to say other matters are not important."
In his address Spitzer didn't use the word "gay" but did say New York should be a "state that
understands that the civil rights movement still has chapters to be written." (The Advocate)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's not easy being a gay pop star
Commentary By: Ari Gold
An Advocate.com exclusive posted December 21, 2006
I’m having a blast being a full time "Homofessional Gaylebrity." When I first started, everyone told
me I couldn’t do it. Gay people, straight people, friends, family, music industry professionals, all
said to me, “Why do you have to make being gay an issue? It should be about the music.” But its
not just about the music. All the great music I can think of has been inspired by political and social
issues. The great artists write to change the world. So I set out to do just that.
Growing up an Orthodox Jew in the Bronx, N.Y., I learned in yeshiva about the way Jews
throughout history were forced to hide their beliefs, rituals, and practices for fear of being killed. I
learned this on the days that I wasn't taken out of class to sing jingles on TV for Toys 'R' Us or My
Buddy (the “butch” doll for boys.) I was the only yeshiva boy in show business. I did my own share
of hiding during this time by taking off my yarmulke and tucking in my tzitzit while I sang backup for
Diana Ross when she needed a children's choir. While I was considered “too ethnic” to be on
camera, off camera I was a huge success. I particularly enjoyed doing girls' voices for the cartoon
series Jem and the Holograms and for Cabbage Patch Kids—you could dial me up on the
Cabbage Patch Kid talking telephone and hear me say,“Hi, I’m Sybil Sadie, want to come play with
me?” Playing girls' voices was not something I wanted to brag about in gym class, though, so the
hiding continued in grade school as well.
By age 12 I recorded my first demo, and by 14 I had started writing my own songs, inspired by the
popular music of the day One of the first songs I wrote was called "Experienced Girl" about my
older girlfriend Dahlia, who more recently asked me to sing my song "Bashert/Meant to Be" at her
Orthodox Jewish lesbian wedding. As now made famous by a Logo promo spot and the VH1 My
Coolest Years special, I came out to my family in an 18-page letter that I read to them the year
after I left yeshiva high school. In college I quickly became a politicized gay man studying queer
theory at New York University and Yale. At this point I knew that if I was to continue to write and
sing, I was going to be the kind of artist I never saw growing up—an out and proud pop singer,
singing about living as a gay man.
When I came out with my first album in 2000, there was no other openly gay R&B or pop singer
who was out from the beginning of his career like I was. Certainly no one else was singing about
being gay. With the help of a publicist friend I got myself on the cover of every gay rag. I tried to
see if any of the mainstream record labels were interested in the album, but they wouldn't touch it.
When I played "Write Me a Love Song," which included male pronouns in the lyrics, one exec said,
"I won't even go there." Ironically, the exec was a gay man.
The album received positive attention from the gay media and music industry trade papers, and
it garnered the attention of a very well-known music producer. As he was out himself, I thought this
producer would embrace my gayness—but he wanted me to go back in the closet and come out
later, something I felt would be disrespectful to all those great artists who came out in the '90s.
When I played him my song “He’s On My Team” about the time my friend Kendra and I were
fighting over the same man, he asked me, “Why would you waste your time writing about this?” In
the same breath he told me to write from a place of truth.
I refused to take his advice, and in 2004 I came out with my sophomore album, Space Under Sun,
on my own label, Gold18 Records. This album proved to be even more successful than the first,
selling enough copies to be considered a success for an independent artist. I toured the world, put
out a coffee-table book and remix CD distributed in 25 countries, got heavy play of my video “Wave
of You” on Logo, and bumped Madonna out of the number 1 spot with my second video, “Love Will
Take Over.” I became the first out artist to debut on their video charts, and I proved that there was
in fact a market for an artist like myself.. And for a few years, I stopped going to any label
meetings, figuring I would have a great career as the gay male pop version of Ani DiFranco.
Now it's almost 2007. Gay people are finally starting to show up in music like they've been showing
up in film and television for years. The music industry is taking notice, and we are seeing the birth
of new gay record labels. I figured I should at least meet with some of these labels and see what
opportunities I might have to expand my audience with a bigger company behind me.
At the first gay label meeting, the record exec said to me that he thought I didn't need a label since
I was already doing everything on my own. He told me about all the resources for marketing and
promotion his label provides, while I told him that I hadn't been able to do half those things because
I'd never had the budget. I pointed out that a label marketing gay artists would be a great place for
me, and that if I had done all this on my own, just think how much more could be done with a
bigger team. His response was, “Just because an artist is gay doesn't mean we are going to sign
them.” Guess it wasn't bashert.
At the next meeting, with another gay label, the exec told me that while I was “a pioneer” and I
should be “really proud” of myself, he thought I was too niche for their label. Too niche for a gay
label? Kind of ironic, since I had just been told by an indie label that my music was too mainstream
for their indie sensibilities. So…how could this be? Too niche for the gays, and too mainstream for
the straights? The execs at this label told me they would rather have an artist that “just happens to
be gay” or was “willing to say they are gay” than one who emphasizes his sexuality to the press
and in the content of his music.
So the gay labels didn't sign the gay pop star. Big deal, right? I’m still fabulous! But with these
experiences come larger questions. What’s the point of having a gay record label if the gayness of
the artists needs to be downplayed? Isn’t that what straight record labels are for? With gay people
reportedly having $641 billion in disposable income, I figure that I should not have to erase the gay
content of my music or soften my sexuality. We have the power to support our own without having
to worry about whether we are acceptable to straight audiences. And further, we don’t need to
compromise who we are in order to cross-over to the mainstream. Samantha on Sex and the City
said it best: “First the gays, then the girls, and then the world.”
Or maybe some of us feel as though it easier for us to accept ourselves when we don’t emphasize
our gayness too much. Lately gay celebs have been prone to saying things to the press like, “My
gayness is the least interesting thing about me.” The few gay musicians that are actually out say,
“We don't like to use male pronouns 'cause we don't want to alienate our straight audience,” or,
“We are artists—not gay artists.”
Labels don't have to define us. They simply describe us—they shouldn't confine us. I for one am
proud to be known as a gay artist when too many artists on the music scene don't want to be. I’m
done with hiding and done with shame in any form. As long as my friends are being beaten on the
streets, as long as there are still kids killing themselves because of shame, and as long as we are
still fighting for our basic civil rights, I will continue to shout from the queer rooftops. Aren’t we
ready to express the fullness of who we are and what it means to be gay in all of our sexuality and
complexity? The personal is political. And in art, it is the specificity of our experience that is
universal.
Is being gay all of who I am? Of course not. But at this particular moment, while our rights are still
being contested and while we are still learning to accept ourselves, I will continue to emphasize
that part of me… even if it means having to do it on my own.
Ari Gold’s third studio album, Transport Systems , drops this summer.
Photo: Duane Cramer
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Love, Latin American style
Gays pilot a new culture-crossing entertainment phenomenon—telenovelas.
By Lawrence Ferber
An Advocate.com exclusive posted January 5, 200
Openly gay Angeleno Carlos Portugal left his home in Cuba as a boy so his family could begin a
new and better life in the United States. But he gets nostalgic and craves things, like coffee with
the scent of a woman.
Actually, that’s Café con Aroma de Mujer, and it’s not a locally brewed Cuban beverage—it’s the
title of a telenovela, a type of soap opera as tightly woven into the cloth of modern Latin
American cultures as, say, chorizo, beans, and mojitos. And today, Carlos Portugal is a key figure
in remaking telenovelas in English for the U.S. market, specifically an NBC offering for 2007 titled
Body of Desire. It's a trend that has already received media attention thanks to ABC’s hugely
successful ratings juggernaut Ugly Betty, and Bo Derek and Morgan Fairchild’s bitch-slap high jinks
on MyNetwork’s campy Fashion House in 2006. But what hasn't received so much press to date is
the fact that it’s so gay. Muy, muy gay.
Garrett Swann and Tony Tripoli on Fashion House
Like elsewhere in the nooks, crannies, and master soundstages of the Hollywood entertainment
business, gays occupy prominent positions behind the scenes as producers, head writers,
and directors, infusing these shows with campy sensibility, cheeky (and very American) irony,
snappy dialogue, and a revival of Dynasty-era over-the-topness. They’re also representing LGBT
people onscreen with a diversity and breadth lacking in today’s dry TV landscape: a pair of sassy
designers on Fashion House, a fey preteen on Ugly Betty, a lesbian psychic on Body of Desire,
and a closeted assassin played by heartthrob Casper Van Dien on Watch Over Me.
Characterized by limited runs rarely lasting more than a year, and ranging from mushily romantic to
socially aware and topical, telenovelas bring Spanish-speaking households, families, and friends
together daily in Latin America, Spain, and even the Philippines. They also represent audiovisual
comfort food for the growing ranks of Latino immigrants to the United States who miss the familiar
language, situations, and characters.
Out author Eduardo Santiago’s 2006 novel Tomorrow They Will Kiss involved a trio of CubanAmerican women united by telenovela fever; Ugly Betty's out creative executive producer, Silvio
Horta, is also a fan. "Growing up as a Cuban-American in Miami, I had to watch them when I came
home from school,” Horta reminisces. “We would make fun, but we were also addicted to them.”
Telenovelas aren't completely alien to Americans: They've long been a source of wide-eyed
fascination and amusement for channel surfers who land on Telemundo or Univision during a
pivotal moment. “I would switch over occasionally because they'd have people with no shirts on,”
admits out Fashion House actor Tony Tripoli. “And that’s the extent of my Spanish: hot guys with
no shirts on.”
Twentieth Television senior vice president of programming, Stephen Brown, is one of the gays who
led the charge. During July 2005 he and other big network executives noticed an unusual spike or
glitch in the ratings that elicited a “Caramba!”: Other networks' prime-time ratings were being
eclipsed by Spanish-language network Univision. What was responsible for tilting the seesaw?
Telenovelas. It triggered a mass epiphany that went something like, Were we to appropriate the
telenovela format and translate or remake these shows, we could draw in a burgeoning population
of first- and second-generation Latin Americans thanks to the familiarity factor, plus a whole new
English-speaking audience as well.
And so Brown and 20th Television president of programming Paul Buccieri accelerated the
development of U.S. adaptations for daytime syndication.
A professed fan of Knots Landing, Dallas, and other iconic prime-time dramas—which he watched
during their heyday at West Hollywood, Calif., gay bar Revolver—Brown was determined to adapt
equally engaging and fun yet contemporary programs. After combing through rights catalogs for
prospects and reading hundreds of synopses, he found Salir de Noche, a Cuban telenovela that
revolved around an iconoclastic fashion-house matriarch.
“It seemed like something exciting,” Brown recalls, “and a guilty pleasure that would make for a
good story right off the bat.” The endeavor was first labeled a “translation,” reportedly in part to
sidestep the Writers Guild of America’s demands and requirements, but those issues have since
been resolved. The adaptation’s title became Fashion House, and a number of gay talents were
enlisted to participate, including staff writers Richard Andreoli and Ted Koland and director Jeremy
Stanford. (Desire's gay staff included writer Kyle Buchanan and director P. David Ebersol). “We
have gay writers and directors, I’m gay, and my son is gay,” Brown reveals. “He’s 23, and I fly
things by him all the time. When we cast Morgan Fairchild and Bo Derek [in Fashion House] he
was freaking out and loved it.”
Bo Derek smashes Morgan Fairchild's face into her own wedding cake on Fashion House.
Upcoming MyNetwork products are decidedly campier and even more attractive to the queer eye
thanks to the superior ratings of Fashion House in comparison to dark melodrama Desire.
MyNetwork’s second wave of programming, which started December 5, included Wicked Wicked
Games, with Tatum O’Neal as a twisted woman bent on revenge, and Watch Over Me, in which
Casper Van Dien plays Andre, a closeted gay assassin. Andre's story sees another gay character,
Ryan (played by Omar Avila), urge him out of the closet. Lesbians figure into the third wave’s
Saints & Sinners in March, with bonus cat fights and pop-culture points from stars Robin Givens
and Maria Conchita Alonso. Also in that season there is camp to the nth power in The Heiress,
starring Theresa Russell. “It’s Romancing the Stone meets Dynasty with more cat fights than ever,”
Brown promises, adding that gay characters feature prominently in one of June's as-yetunannounced titles.
2007 could prove to be a zenith for telenovela fever and gay characters with the addition of NBC's
Body of Desire to the party. Having worked on U.S. soaps like All My Children and One Life to Live,
Portugal was tapped by Galan Entertainment's Nely Galán, whom he touts as one of the most gayfriendly folks in the industry, to head up Body of Desire's writing staff. “I was excited,” he says,
“because it’s a formula that worked around the world but not in the United States.”
Adapted from a Colombian telenovela, Body of Desire concerns a wealthy elderly white man in
Palm Beach, Fla., who dies, is reincarnated as a strapping young Latino immigrant, and seeks
revenge on his unfaithful former wife. “The immigrant doesn't speak a word of English,” Portugal
says, “but when the old man takes over his body he suddenly speaks perfect English. We’re having
fun with all that stuff. Like with Ugly Betty, they have a sense of camp and humor, and we think that
would be a funny twist.”
In adapting the show, Portugal—who also makes his feature directorial debut in the upcoming East
Side Story, about a gay Latino in a rapidly gentrifying Los Angeles neighborhood—took a pathetic
gay character that assisted the show’s main villain and reconceived him as a straight, jockish
personal trainer and chef. He also added several brand-new representations of LGBT people,
including a lesbian couple, one of them a John Edwards–style psychic, and a gay Latino artist. “I
will always be involved in projects where I can have Latino and gay characters,” Portugal says.
Alas, a downside to the telenovela format is that once a season is over, the whole show is over—
no sequels. There’s one happy exception to this rule: Ugly Betty, which Silvio Horta emphasizes is
a “serialized one-hour dramedy” merely inspired by its Colombian source material and characters
and not an adaptation per se. Horta says that more gays will appear—it’s set in the fashion world,
after all—and we could even see the show’s sassy preteen, Justin, emerge as an openly gay swan.
“We call him a fashion-fabulous prodigy,” laughs Horta. “He’s so young, and his interests, the
things he finds pleasure in and is fascinated by, are very different than what most boys his age are
into. People will take from it what they will, and there’s a lot of fun to be had with a boy who loves
fashion, especially playing off a fashion disaster like Betty.”
Regardless of what the telenovela revolution leads to—cultural connections and a pro-gay utopia,
anyone?—Portugal feels our TVs could use the jolt that this trend provides. “Telenovelas take you
back to what is really primal,” he says. “The big themes like love, passion, revenge—they’re very
visceral that way. How many more lawyer or doctor shows can you watch? We love to see happy
endings and bad people getting the punishment that we don't witness them getting in the real
world. These shows are not only guilty pleasures but wish fulfillment.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spanish lessons
How did Spain, a country with a long Catholic tradition, manage to implement marriage equality? A
year after same-sex weddings became legal, an on-the-ground analysis of how it happened—and
what Americans can learn.
By Chris Rovzar
From The Advocate
January 17, 2007
Last fall a Catholic priest invited me to my very first same-sex wedding. I was thrilled. The
wedding was between an Episcopal deacon and his long-term boyfriend. The rites were Christian
with the priest presiding. Sound unorthodox? What if I told you the priest was openly gay? And
sexually active? And that he identifies as a bear?
¡Hola y bienvenidos! to gay Spain, where the citizens have been struggling to reconcile their
country’s Christian underpinnings with a liberal attitude toward gay rights ever since same-sex
marriage became legal over a year ago. On June 30, 2005, you were probably as surprised as I
was when the Spanish government under President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, a Socialist,
granted equal marriage rights to gays. After all, the country has a long Roman Catholic tradition,
with 80% of its people at least nominally a Friend of Benedict, and homosexuality itself became
legal only in 1978. And hello, Spanish Inquisition, anyone?
Yet somehow Spain beat the United States to the altar and allowed all its citizens to marry—which
as of late 2006 included more than 4,000 gay couples. Nowadays marriage equality has dropped
from the headlines (two thirds of voters supported it anyway). In the capital city of Madrid, one in 10
marriages are between members of the same sex. The city’s mayor, a member of the right-wing
People’s Party, even performed the nuptials of one of his gay deputies.
Confusing? I certainly thought so. So in September I did what any young gay journalist with a
temporary lease (and no romantic prospects) would do: I moved to Spain to figure it out.
On the surface Spain is exactly the country you expect it to be. The people have a strong cultural
bond with Catholicism, and their festivals explode with as much color and vigor as ever. During
Holy Week, men still parade down the streets in brilliantly colored robes and those tall slightly
creepy fabric hoods. On feast days, spectacularly bejeweled icons of the Virgin Mary are carried
through the streets, and in Europe, Spain’s celebrations before Lent are surpassed only by Italy’s.
During the Christmas season, as I am writing this story, Madrid’s wide boulevards have turned into
festivals of lights, mangers, and crushes of humanity.
But I learned that underneath this facade lies a much more complicated relationship between
religion, politics, and society. All the color and ceremony is what some call “Catholicism of rhythm.”
That is, people celebrate because they always have, not out of a religious obligation. Since
marriage between members of the same sex was legalized, Pope Benedict XVI has railed
repeatedly against the Spanish government. Same-sex “pseudomarriage,” based on “a love that is
weak,” is the “greatest threat ever” that the church has faced, he has said on various occasions.
But his remarks fall largely on deaf ears. Spaniards remember all too well what happened the last
time they allowed the Catholic Church to order them around.
Advocate.com PERSON OF THE YEAR, 2006
Bill Maher doesn't care if you're gay (and that's why we love him)
Our 2006 Advocate Person of the Year is a regular guy who speaks
his mind, makes TV that matters, and proves to America that real men
don’t sweat the gay stuff.
By HeathCliff Rothman
From The Advocate January 16, 2007
He’s about as fearless a voice as we have in America right now. If you
tell him that, as I did, over drinks at the Beverly Hills Hotel—just down
the street from where he lives—he’ll scoff and remind you that bravery
involves dismantling bombs. But gays have no better friend in the
media than Bill Maher, who treats the still-verboten topic of total
equality for gays and lesbians—from gay marriage to gay sex to gay
anything—with nonchalant conviction as he muses, pontificates,
jostles, and hammers mainstream America weekly from his television
platform. Maher was practically incinerated by the media and the
public immediately following 9/11 when he suggested that the
hijackers were brave in their own way—a statement he meant not as a
compliment but an acknowledgment of fact—and lost his ABC
platform, only to rise like a phoenix on the more hospitable HBO with
his weekly Real Time With Bill Maher. In 2006, as gay sex scandals
helped to scuttle the Republican dream of a perpetual majority,
Maher’s razor-sharp New Rules monologues became our favorite way
to keep score. After the Mark Foley mess came to light, Maher listed a
dozen worse threats to American youths, including military recruiters
and corporate pitchmen. “Stop with the righteous indignation about
predators,” he concluded. “This whole country is trying to get inside
your kid’s pants, because that’s where he keeps his wallet.”
A fascinating amalgam of bleeding-heart member of the intelligentsia
and man’s man—he is a regular at the Playboy mansion, has his share
of hetero commitment issues, and is a sports freak—Maher is at once
one of the most famous and most quoted men in America, and most
disconcertingly free of attitude. I told him, and meant it, that he was the
least narcissistic celebrity I’ve ever interviewed. As we sat over drinks
at night in a pitch-dark romantic booth on the patio of the Polo Lounge,
the unabashed hetero and I, we both appreciated the irony.
Rothman, founder of Film Your Issue, has written for Vanity Fair, The
New York Times, and other publications.
The cyber mafia – GAY BLOGGERS Speak Out
Gay bloggers have emerged as the most influential voice in a new wave of journalists who are
redefining the way the information game is played.
By Greg Hernandez
Hernandez is a staff writer for the Los Angeles Daily News, where he has his own blog, Out in
Hollywood.
From The Advocate January 16, 2007
Former White House correspondent Jeff Gannon gets exposed as a phony journalist and a male
escort to boot. Mark Foley’s aggressive pursuit of young male congressional pages leads to his
resignation and a crisis in the Republican Party. Lance Armstrong gets asked by Details magazine
about the nature of his close friendship with Matthew McConaughey. Actors Neil Patrick Harris and
T.R. Knight and singer Lance Bass all confirm to the world in the pages of People magazine that
they are gay.
These are just samples of the gay-related headlines that piqued national interest in 2006. None
would have seen the light of day in the mainstream media had they not been either broken or
nudged along by a group of increasingly influential gay bloggers who are changing the way we get
our news about the famous and powerful.
Sites like AmericaBlog, TowleRoad, BlogActive, PerezHilton, and Defamer have become mustreads from Washington, D.C., to Hollywood, where secrets—especially gay-related ones—are
getting harder and harder to keep.
“They give us the opportunity to access breaking news and are very efficient for us,” says celebrity
publicist Simon Halls, who helped Harris craft his coming-out statement. “TowleRoad has a lot of
helpful information on a societal level. I think that’s the new wave of journalism.”
Andy Towle, 39, rises about 6:30 a.m. most weekdays in his New York City apartment. He turns on
his computer and starts scanning the Web sites of The New York Times and other mainstream
news organizations as well as “about 100 blogs” to see what might be of interest to the readers of
TowleRoad, his well-regarded and popular gay-interest site that serves as a digest and a link to
news of the day. The topics are a mix politics and entertainment news, and just about every day
there is a beefcake shot of an actor or athlete usually in some form of undress.
“I think that blogs have definitely created a greater awareness of gay culture in general, particularly
because blogs have propelled political stories like Mark Foley and Jeff Gannon and celebrity
stories like Lance and Reichen [Lehmkuhl, a former winner of the reality show The Amazing Race]
into the public consciousness—[stories] that people watching mainstream news or reading
mainstream magazines would not have become aware of so quickly,” observes Towle, a Vassar
graduate and former editor of Genre magazine.
On the opposite side of the country—and taking the opposite approach—is a flamboyant 28-yearold blogger known as Perez Hilton. The self-described “queen of all media” can be found at a table
at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on Sunset Boulevard near West Hollywood, Calif., constantly
looking for dish to post with his unique attitude and flair.
Hilton, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira, is on a roll. The day it was learned that Britney
Spears was divorcing Kevin Federline, PerezHilton.com received more than 2.3 million visits. But it
was his aggressive postings about Bass and Harris that many believe led to both men publicly
coming out. In May, Hilton published photos of Bass and Lehmkuhl wearing each other’s clothes.
On November 2, when a former publicist of Harris’s denied to a Canadian publication that the actor
is gay, an irate Hilton went into overdrive, asking readers to post about their experiences with the
actor; the next day he asked them to share any photos.
“The word outing is not part of my vocabulary. I don’t out anybody. I report on the private lives of
public figures,” Hilton insists. “We’ve had three [performers come out] this year and not a single
one of note in 2005, and that speaks volumes. I’m not going to take credit for it, even though
people are trying to say, ‘Oh, it’s because of you.’ I will take credit for maybe greasing the wheels
and maybe leading the conversation.”
Hilton doesn’t pretend to be modest: “I’m a new phenomenon, a new thing, a new creature, this
rogue renegade character. I’m not Carson Kressley. I’m not some Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
safe homo: I’m dangerous. I’m not afraid to offend; I’m not afraid to push the envelope.”
Watching and reacting to Hilton’s site and other blogger sites is 34-year-old Seth Abramovitch of
Defamer, the Los Angeles–based site that is a West Coast version of Gawker. Defamer got over a
million visits in a day when it was the first to post pictures of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s new
baby.
“It was huge for our traffic,” says Abramovitch. “Sites like ours are setting a quicker velocity for the
rest of the media just because of the nature of it, the way we’re throwing stuff up. We’re not waiting
for a team of lawyers to tell us to do it; we’re just doing it. At the same time we’re saying, ‘Take this
for what it’s worth.’ We’re a hub through which the Hollywood buzz can have a voice.”
Abramovitch, an associate editor at Defamer who was hired just over a year ago by editor Mark
Lisanti, made hay mocking Lehmkuhl’s attempt at coining the word “Lanced,” his term for the
media’s outing of Bass.
“Trying to actively out someone goes against what Defamer is,” Abramovitch says. “But if there’s
something funny out there like [Reichen] turning his boyfriend into a word, then we’re going to jump
on that and maximize that and use whatever else is already out there. Are we supportive of people
coming out of their own volition? Yeah. I’m gay, and Mark is as gay-friendly as they come, but
we’re not ever going to push somebody out of the closet.”
Hilton took credit for Bass’s People cover story, saying in a November 20 Los Angeles Times
profile, “If I had not been talking about Lance Bass as much as I was before he came out, there is
no way he would have gotten the cover.” He also touts the bloggers’ ability to generate enough
interest in these topics to make them front page news. Which brings up the question, What exactly
is the line between blogging and journalism?
“We can’t go with a story unless we get it from the source,” says People assistant managing editor
Jess Cagle, himself a gay man. “Someone printing rumors or speculation is not the same as
breaking a story. But any time we hear anything, yeah, we go check it out. The blogs are another
voice that everybody hears. We definitely hear them; we definitely read them.”
Towle, who reported on his blog last summer that he had seen and spoken to Bass and Lehmkuhl
together in Provincetown, Mass., says he is not in favor of aggressively outing celebrities for sport
but adds, “I’m all for outing legislators and figures in government who are promoting antigay
agendas and living their lives in a way that is extremely hypocritical.” He believes it’s up to the
blogs to get the ball rolling. “I think mainstream media are too afraid,” Towle says. “They’re big
corporations, and they have much more at stake than blogs and independent publishers. It’s
interesting that blogs have become the stepping-stone for certain issues and how they reach the
mainstream media. When enough blogs publish the same information, it creates a snowball effect
for a larger news outlet to pick up.”
While most media outlets go with a double-sourcing policy on stories where the source is not
identified, bloggers have so far made up their own rules and criteria when it comes to breaking a
story with unnamed sources.
“I don’t need a double source,” says AmericaBlog’s John Aravosis. “I will print something where I
absolutely know the source.”
Hilton insists that he holds himself “to a higher journalistic standard than a lot of the celebrity
weeklies in this country. [Other] people will flat-out print lies. I’ve worked too hard over two years to
develop a pool of reliable sources and nurture and gain the respect of mainstream media to selfsabotage that by lying to my readers. I’m not stupid.”
Still, there are signs that the guerrilla tactics that have made blogs so popular are starting to have a
backlash. Photo rights, for instance, have become a sticky issue. Bloggers have been able to
garner huge hits by posting a photo that the legal departments of established news sources and
even tabloids would have to avoid. (Hilton has, on more than one occasion, posted photos of
Lindsay Lohan’s vagina.) Even though he has not yet been sued by any of his outing targets or
arguably mean-spirited posts, photo agencies are getting litigious with him for unauthorized use of
their photos on his site. He was even served with a cease-and-desist order by Splash News in
November. Hilton declined to talk about the brewing legal matter.
While Hilton and others make waves on the Hollywood scene, Washington Post media reporter
Howard Kurtz says political bloggers are having a huge impact inside the Beltway. “They break
stories that the dinosaurs in the mainstream media miss,” says Kurtz. “They come up with fresh
and provocative angles, and they hold old media types accountable for their screwups. Clearly,
[AmericaBlog’s] John Aravosis was hugely influential on the Gannon story. He kept breaking news,
and I followed. Andrew Sullivan [see People of the Year, page 58] has been influential not just on
gay-related issues but on all issues.”
Kurtz, who says he personally reads about 30 blogs a day, thinks the sites are becoming more of
the typical mainstream reporter’s daily diet of information.
“Now some of them go too far and just churn out opinionated screeds,” he says. “But I think the
debate over their importance is over, and they’ve established an important beachhead.”
And the delicate line between established journalism, like The Washington Post, and blogging is
becoming harder and harder to draw. The Washington, D.C.–based Aravosis, 43, is considered a
pioneer among gay bloggers, for the same reasons traditionally credited to crackerjack reporters.
His AmericaBlog.org blew the cover of Jeff Gannon, whose partisan questioning as a reporter in
the White House briefing room had come under fire.
While other media outlets discovered that Gannon’s real name was James Guckert and that he
was the employee of a wealthy Texas Republican activist who hired him to write for his Web site, it
was Aravosis who broke the story about Gannon’s apparent second job as a $200-an-hour escort
through Web sites such as HotMilitaryStud.com and MaleCorps.com.
“I got the information on a Friday that he was a prostitute; I spent four days tracking the
information,” recalls Aravosis, who launched his blog in the spring of 2004. “I posted a tease about
it Monday night, the night before it ran. Within 15 minutes I got an e-mail from a Washington Post
reporter and from CNN. This was when I only had 8,000 people a day. Now I talk to a lot of
journalists who will call, and I’ll get e-mails from Democratic pundits.”
Aravosis—a former Democratic consultant, quite familiar with the workings of Capitol Hill—thinks
that most mainstream news organizations were reluctant to cover the porn part of the Gannon
story.
“It totally freaked them out,” he remembers. “It was the gay angle, the porn angle, the hooker
angle. A number of people refused to believe it was real because it was a blog. The papers were
saying you can’t believe everything you see on a blog. I wrote to one of the editors and said, ‘Just
do your own research.’ We provided the research links for everything.”
Marty Kaplan, associate dean at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for
Communication, also gives Aravosis credit for “owning” the Mark Foley story after ABC News broke
the news online that the former congressman had been sending inappropriate online chat
messages to male congressional pages as young as 16.
“From time to time there were two or three other gay bloggers he would link to, but AmericaBlog
and ABC were the places you went to find out what was going on,” says Kaplan, who is himself a
blogger on The Huffington Post. “There were several subsequent waves of that story involving the
description of a network of gay staffers who worked for Republicans and raising the issue of
whether they are hypocritical. It was certainly a level of insight into what was going on on the Hill
that was not being covered elsewhere.”
Kaplan thinks the Foley story and news of a subsequent cover-up by Republican officials was a
real display of blog power.
“Had it not been for a robust set of gay blogs, I think the information would otherwise have been in
a kind of silo that people wouldn’t have been aware of,” he says. “It’s not just the individual sites;
it’s a portal to get to a range of information that in another era would have been a specialty act.”
Michael Rogers, editor and publisher of BlogActive.com, thinks his mission is “to make it
acceptable to talk about these antigay closet cases.” He points out that, “blogs have done an
amazing job of being an echo chamber. The echo chamber is wonderful. It’s great to have
everybody moving the same message, but a handful of us are really harnessing that power.”
In Rogers’s case, his postings about former Virginia Republican representative Ed Schrock leaving
messages on a gay-sex phone line to arrange hookups with other men led to the congressman’s
abrupt resignation in August 2004.
Rogers, considers himself a “gay activist blogger” and targeted Schrock because of his antigay
voting record, including support in 2004 of the Federal Marriage Amendment. Rogers also outed
Idaho Republican senator Larry Craig, another antigay marriage supporter, after talking to several
men who said they’d had sex with Craig in recent years. Craig’s office called the reports “almost
laughable.”
“Larry Craig was the biggest search term on the Web for two days,” Rogers says. “I was on four
radio shows in Idaho and in lots and lots of print media—so much so that the senator issued a
nondenial denial. It’s extraordinary the change that has gone on.”
Though the impact of the gay bloggers has been felt on a national scale, there have been a
number of smaller victories in 2006, often by the most underrepresented groups.
In July, black lesbian and gay bloggers, led by Jasmyne Cannick and Keith Boykin, among others,
organized a 48-hour protest against LIFEbeat, the music industry’s AIDS organization, and its
plans to feature homophobic reggae “dancehall” artists Beenie Man and T.O.K. at a benefit concert
in New York. LIFEbeat would cancel the concert.
“I think it’s a powerful example of what can happen when we fight together,” Cannick says. “This is
the first instance where the black bloggers decided to work together in a common cause.”
Cannick’s JasmyneCannick.com site is one of the more prominent lesbian blogs on the Web, along
with Pam’s House Blend by Pam Spaulding. Two other popular sites, Hothouse and SistersTalk,
have been inactive in recent months. Sarah Warn, founder and editor of the Web site
AfterEllen.com, wishes there were more lesbian bloggers—so much so that she started a blog on
her site called “Best. Lesbian-ish. Day. Ever.” to help fill the female void.
“I think that lesbians are definitely interested in blogs,” says the New York City–based Warn, whose
site was purchased this year by the LGBT cable TV network Logo. “Our blog quickly became the
most popular thing on our site. Part of the reason we launched the blog was to look at things
through a female lens, because that’s what’s missing. There is more of a gay male lens, but I don’t
want this to be one of the only blogs for women. I’d love lots and lots of competition. This is one of
the areas where there is room for multiple players. I wish there were more.”
It seems clear that Warn will get her wish as the blogosphere continues to draw more and more
players who want to go where mainstream media can’t or won’t. As news and entertainment
become less and less separate, the bloggers’ emphasis on perspective above all else marks the
future of reporting. In the end, the queer perspective of gay bloggers may turn out to be the most
effective route yet to visibility.
“With so many gay blogging voices out there, it’s putting a new perspective on the table that I don’t
think necessarily was available before,” says Andrew Belonsky, editor of the blog Queerty.
“Someone Googles Ted Haggard’s name, and it’s likely a Queerty article will come up, and they
will get that perspective. It’s both exposing and changing attitudes.”
Democrats “Fresh Face/Shining Star “ Not So Great?
| COMMENTARY On Illinois Democratic Senator Barack Obama by…
“If he should run for president, he wouldn’t get my vote.”
Irene Monroe, a Massachusetts-based religion columnist, public theologian, and motivational
speaker.
Don't bet on Barack
LGBT voters may want to think twice about throwing their support behind 2008's great blue hope.
By the Reverend Irene Monroe
An Advocate.com exclusive posted November 21, 2006
Barack Obama, the lanky and charismatic U.S. senator from Illinois, is a national, if not global,
phenomenon. He is being touted as the miracle elixir for a nation divided along the fault lines of
race, religion, and class.
And also a nation divided along the battle lines of Red State versus Blue State.
Obama delivered a visionary keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, when
he stated, “There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America. There’s the United States of
America. There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America.
There’s the United States of America…. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we
don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the
blue states and have gay friends in the red states,” made him America's great hope for a better
future.
As a supposedly bipartisan politician who understands and reconciles opposing views, and a nondoctrinal Christian whose personal identity and life journey shaped his lens to include those on the
margins, why then, I ask, is this presidential hopeful not united with lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender and queer voters on the issue of marriage equality?
“I was reminded that it is my obligation not only as an elected official in a pluralistic society, but
also as a Christian, to remain open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support gay marriage
is misguided,” Obama wrote in his recent memoir, The Audacity of Hope.
But Obama’s audacity is not only his unwillingness to support the issue, but also his
misunderstanding and misuse of the term “gay marriage.” The terminology “gay marriage” not only
stigmatizes and stymies our efforts for marriage equality, but it also suggests that LGBT people’s
marriages are or would be wholly different from those of heterosexuals, thus altering its landscape,
if not annihilating the institution of marriage entirely.
But Obama’s remarks in a recent interview with Tim Russert on NBC’s Meet the Press spoke
somewhat encouragingly about granting LGBTQ couples not marriage equality but certainly civil
union rights.
However, having lived outside of America during its turbulent decades of the Jim Crow era and
legal segregation, Obama may not know on a visceral and lived experienced level what those
decades had been like for African-Americans.
But he ought to know, as a civil rights attorney, that granting LGBTQ Americans only the right to
civil unions violates our full constitutional right as well as reinstitutionalizes the 1896 U.S. Supreme
Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson. As a result of that decision, the “separate but equal” doctrine
became the rule of law until it was struck down in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision.
However, Obama doesn’t understand that regardless of one’s gender expression or sexual
orientation, we want equal status to be institutionalized within our marriages as well.
Although not a cradle Christian, Christianity became Obama’s newfound religious identity late in his
life. And his affinity to conservative Christian beliefs not only informs his decision on the issue of
marriage equality, but it also solidifies his decision about us in a community of believers like
himself.
“I must admit that I may have been inflected with society’s prejudices and predilections and
attribute them to God, ” Obama writes in his book. “My work with pastors and lay people deepened
my resolve to lead a public life. ... I had no community or shared traditions in which to ground my
most deeply held beliefs. The Christians with whom I worked recognized themselves in me; they
saw that I knew their Book and shared their values and sang their songs.”
Religion has become a peculiar institution in the theater of American politics. Although its Latin
root, religio, means to bind, it has served as a legitimate power in binding people's shared hatred in
both red states and blue states, both intentionally and unintentionally.
Obama’s The Audacity of Hope is not a must-read for LGBT voters because he fails to fully
comprehend or sincerely commit to the issue of social justice for all Americans. He does not tackle
head-on how the religious rhetoric of this political era has played an audacious role in
discrimination against LGBT people, leaving us with little to no hope, his rhetoric included.
“In years hence, I may be seen as someone who was on the wrong side of history. I don’t believe
such doubts make me a bad Christian, ” Obama writes.
As LGBT voters, our job is neither to judge nor vote for Obama on whether he is a good Christian.
It is, however, for us to judge and vote on whether he is a good statesman.
If he should run for president, he wouldn’t get my vote.
December 12, 2006
Another Colorado pastor resigns amid gay sex scandal
The founding pastor of a second Colorado church has resigned over gay sex allegations just
weeks after the evangelical Christian world was shaken by the scandal surrounding megachurch
leader Ted Haggard.
On Sunday, Paul Barnes, founding pastor of the 2,100-member Grace Chapel in the Denver
suburb of Englewood, told his evangelical congregation in a videotaped message that he had had
sexual relations with other men and was stepping down.
Dave Palmer, associate pastor of Grace Chapel, told The Denver Post that Barnes confessed to
him after the church received a call last week. The church board of elders accepted Barnes's
resignation on Thursday.
On the videotape, which the Post was allowed to view, Barnes told church members, ''I have
struggled with homosexuality since I was a 5-year-old boy.... I can't tell you the number of nights I
have cried myself to sleep, begging God to take this away.''
Barnes, 54, led Grace Chapel for 28 years. He and his wife have two adult children.
Palmer said in a written statement, ''While we cannot condone what he has done, we continue to
support and love Paul.''
Ted Haggard, an opponent of same-sex marriage, admitted to unspecified ''sexual immorality''
when he resigned last month as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and pastor of
the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs. Paid escort Mike Jones said he'd had
sex with Haggard for three years.
(AP)
December 12, 2006
Ad campaign calls on Pfizer to stop "irresponsbile" promotion of Viagra
A new ad campaign asking pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. to end its promotion of Viagra as a
sexual-enhancement drug will launch in New York Wednesday and Los Angeles next week. The
print campaign by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which will appear in The Village Voice and gay
newspapers The New York Blade and L.A.'s Frontiers, also warns gay men of the danger of using
Viagra with crystal meth.
"We call on Pfizer to exercise responsibility by discontinuing marketing to men with mild erectile
dysfunction and by initiating an educational campaign on the dangers of Viagra and meth targeting
men who have sex with men," the ad copy reads. Headlined "Viagra/Meth Alert!" the ad also
features an image of a doctor's prescription with the text "Viagra + Crystal Meth = Rx for HIV
infection."
"Pfizer’s direct-to-consumer marketing of Viagra as a drug to enhance sexual performance aimed
at men who don’t necessarily suffer from erectile dysfunction is irresponsible, especially in light of
the drug’s known use as part of a ‘circuit party cocktail’ that is fueling the spread of STDs and HIV,”
Michael Weinstein, president of the L.A.-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, said in a statement.
"By marketing Viagra to men with ‘mild’ erectile dysfunction, for men with ‘all degrees of ED, even if
it only happens once in a while,’ or as a way to ‘improve your sex life'...Pfizer is selling the drug as
a way to enhance sexual experience, not as a treatment for an illness. We urge Pfizer to not only
end this dangerous marketing tactic but also to fund a national educational campaign on the
dangers of Viagra and crystal meth in order to mitigate the negative impact its advertising
continues to have."
A plethora of research studies have shown a link between the use of Viagra, both by itself and with
crystal meth, and an increased risk of HIV and STD infection. In the past Pfizer was forced by the
Food and Drug Administration to withdraw ads that suggested Viagra could restore a man's
youthful vigor and become a "wild thing." (The Advocate)
Conservative Jews to consider gay unions, ordination
December 06, 2006
Conservative Jewish leaders will consider making homosexuality acceptable for more than 2
million international followers, The Baltimore Sun reported Monday.
The possible shift would allow rabbis to conduct civil unions and ordination of openly gay rabbis.
The Committee on Jewish Laws and Standards of the Rabinnical Assembly represents about 1,600
rabbis and will analyze and discuss the role of same-sex practices under Jewish law, or Halacha.
This will be the second time since 1992 that the topic has been discussed by Jewish leaders,
according to The Sun. The earlier debate resulted in the acceptance of gay and lesbian Jews in
worship services but did not condone marriage or commitment ceremonies. (The Advocate)
|| COMMENTARY ||
"Making It Real" in corporate America
A gay partner at the top-rated firm Ernst & Young reports on how his company and others are
working with the Human Rights Campaign to make U.S. employers more LGBT-friendly
By Mike Syers, a partner at Ernst & Young and a founding member of bEYond,
the firm’s LGBTA network.
An Advocate.com exclusive posted September 25, 2006
Corporate America is coming out to create an LGBT-inclusive workplace. More and more
companies are adopting diversity training, sexual orientation nondiscrimination policies, and samesex domestic-partner benefits. This is perhaps most evident in the September 19 announcement of
a record number of companies receiving 100% on the 2006 Human Rights Campaign Corporate
Equality Index. An unprecedented 138 major U.S. companies earned the top rating, a tenfold
increase in the four years since the index was introduced in 2002.
Companies that support LGBT workplace equity recognize that an HRC 100 rating is a notable
achievement, but it’s not the finish line—it is a good beginning.
In that spirit, Ernst & Young, the first of the Big Four professional services firms to receive an HRC
100 rating, hosted the first LGBT Inclusiveness Roundtable in July. Several HRC 100 companies
and nonprofit groups came together with HRC to discuss how to promote and facilitate an inclusive
workplace, as well as to share thoughts and best practices with other organizations.
Knowing that knowledge and awareness create change, a report titled "Making It Real" was
created—based on the roundtable discussion—to highlight examples of how leading companies
are moving beyond basic nondiscrimination policies toward a more LGBT-inclusive culture.
Key recommendations from the report urge companies to shift from a diversity culture of “them” to
an inclusive “us” culture, to use a team approach to adopt and promote policies by partnering
senior leadership and human resources officials with representatives from all employee ranks as
well as external nonprofit partners, and to document accomplishments toward LGBT workplace
inclusiveness goals.
The full recommendations of “Making It Real” are available online at www.ey.com/us, and
businesses can customize solutions to fit their industry, location, or departmental function, rather
than adopting a one-size-fits-all plan toward inclusiveness.
One thing that is applicable across the board: A commitment to equality at work inevitably expands
within employee ranks, beyond the cubicle and the office walls. In today’s highly competitive
business environment, a company that not only adopts but also projects a philosophy of respect
and fairness for all employees is critical to the recruitment and retention of top-tier candidates.
In other words, doing the right thing pays off for both employees and companies.
|| FIRST PERSON ||
I hate being gay
This Washington State teen faces a daily battle between the sexual attraction he feels for other
men and his religious convictions that tell him being gay is against God’s word.
By Kyle Rice
An Advocate.com exclusive posted September 15, 2006
In late July the Washington State supreme court upheld a law that limits marriage to heterosexual
couples. As a gay 19-year-old in Longview, Wash., my delight with that ruling is probably
surprising. However, I’m not your average gay person—I'm also a Christian who views living a gay
lifestyle as against God's word.
And because of my religious beliefs, I hate the fact that I am gay.
About the time I was 12 years old, it became clear to me that I was sexually attracted to guys. I
assumed these feelings would go away as I got older. People choose to be gay, right? I didn’t
choose this, so I figured it would pass. But it didn’t. By age 15 I had my first boyfriend.
At about that time I started to attend a Pentecostal church. I began reading the Bible, including its
many different and powerful passages condemning homosexual activity. I knew in my heart that
being gay was wrong in God’s eyes. I decided to devote myself to living a God-filled life and knew I
needed to stop being gay so that I could stop being attracted to guys.
I looked into "ex-gay" ministries and joined such a program offered by a local church. It has taught
me that with God’s help I can change my desires. A friend of mine went through another church’s
program, and he's changed. He’s now happy and in love with his girlfriend. I pray the same will
happen to me someday.
In the meantime I focus on fighting efforts to force the "gay agenda" on those of us who know God
does not accept homosexuality. Although I do not condone discrimination, I also do not support gay
marriage laws or many of the other issues backed by gay rights groups. I am a proud conservative
Republican, and I support political candidates who feel the same way I do.
Many people ask me how I can be gay and also be a Republican and a Pentecostal Christian. My
answer is that I am so much more than my sexuality. I don’t vote solely on pet gay issues. My faith
and love of God is not guided by one small piece of who I am—a piece of me that I am trying very
hard to change.
Being a gay Christian is at times very hard to deal with. Some days I feel as if I’m at war with
myself. But I know God would not approve of me acting on my gay feelings, and I have no right to
question his directive. I know that in the end I will be happy I lived my life according to God’s
standards the best that I could.
That means refusing to accept being gay.
|| NEWS ||
November 17, 2006
Study: San Francisco, Seattle, Atlanta top list of cities with highest percentage of gays
A study that shows the percentage of people in the nation's largest cities identifying as gay,
lesbian, or bisexual lists San Francisco on top with 15.4%, with Seattle coming in second with
12.9%. Atlanta was third with 12.8%, and Minneapolis fourth with 12.5% Four of the top 10 cities
were in California, while all but Boston and Atlanta were west of the Mississippi River.
The Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at the University of California,
Los Angeles, used census and other federal information to estimate the numbers.
The census data on same-sex couple households showed that between 2000 and 2005 the
number reported increased by 30%. New Hampshire had the largest jump in same-sex couples,
with 106% over the five years studied, with heartland states like Nebraska, Kansas, Indiana, and
Iowa also showing substantially increased numbers.
The findings do not show a sharp increase in the number of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals in
general. Instead, the study suggests, people are more willing to disclose their sexual orientation in
government surveys. (The Advocate)
|| COMMENTARY ||
Katrina's queer victims: Still suffering
One year later the lives of many LGBT New Orleans residents remain in tatters—no thanks to
George Bush's "faith-based" charities, most of which condemn homosexuality and refuse to
recognize, much less assist, our families.
By Rev. Irene Monroe
Monroe is a Massachusetts-based religion columnist, public theologian, and motivational
speaker.
An Advocate.com exclusive posted August 31, 2006
It has been one year since Hurricane Katrina barreled through New Orleans. Thankfully the
waters have receded, as has much of the stench from the wreckage. What still lingers in the postKatrina relief efforts is the odious fault lines of heterosexism and faith-based privilege.
While seemingly invisible in this disaster, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer evacuees
and their families faced all kinds of discrimination at the hands of many of the faith-based relief
agencies because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or HIV status.
And with most of the evacuees being African-American, along with the fault lines of race and the
fact that sexual orientation is on the "down-low" in much of the African-American community, many
African-American LGBT evacuees experienced discrimination from both their communities and
black faith-based institutions.
"The Superdome was no place to be an out black couple," said Jeremiah Leblanc, who now lives in
Shreveport, La. “We got lots of stares and all kinds of looks. What were we thinking? But my
partner and I were in a panic and didn't know what to do when we had to leave our home."
George W. Bush's faith-based organizations fronted themselves as "armies of compassion" on his
behalf. But these organizations' caveat to LGBT people was, If you are gay, you ought to stay
away.
And with black churches, many of which are known for their unabashed homophobia, conducting a
large part of the relief effort, African-American LGBT evacuees and their families had neither a
chance nor a prayer for assistance.
"When we were all forced to leave the dome, we were gathered like cattle into school buses,” said
Leblanc. “[My partner] Le Paul and I both needed our meds, clothes, and a way to find permanent
shelter after the storm, but we knew to stay the hell away from the black churches offering help.
We couldn't tell anyone we were sick and HIV-positive. And when we got to Houston, we saw the
Salvation Army, but Le Paul and I knew to stay the hell away from that too."
The Salvation Army delivered no salvation to a lot LGBT families. On its Web site, the Salvation
Army states: "Scripture forbids sexual intimacy between members of the same sex. The Salvation
Army believes, therefore, that Christians whose sexual orientation is primarily or exclusively samesex are called upon to embrace celibacy as a way of life. There is no scriptural support for samesex unions as equal to, or as an alternative to, heterosexual marriage."
With an administration that believes that restoring a spiritual foundation to American public life has
less to do with government involvement and more to do with the participation of faith-based groups,
Bush slashed needed government programs by calling on churches and faith-based agencies, at
taxpayers’ expense, to provide essential social services that would also impact the lives and wellbeing of its LGBT citizens.
Many LGBTQ families worried about being separated from each other since Louisiana does not
recognize same-sex unions. And some people associated with Bush’s faith-based relief programs
even blamed the wrath of Hurricane Katrina on LGBT people.
Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast just two days before Labor Day weekend, when New
Orleans's annual queer Southern Decadence festival was to begin. While floods are a natural part
of life in the lowlands of Louisiana, and hurricanes are regular occurrences all along the coastline,
Michael Marcavage, director of Repent America, an evangelical organization calling for "a nation in
rebellion toward God" to reverse itself, had this to say: "We believe that God is in control of the
weather. The day Bourbon Street and the French Quarter were flooded was the day that 125,000
homosexuals were going to be celebrating sin in the street. We're calling it an act of God."
For these conservative religious groups, the flood was a prayer finally answered and a sin finally
addressed. Never mind that neither Bourbon Street nor the French Quarter were ever flooded by
the storm.
Not all churches or organizations of faith were unwelcoming to LGBT people. Some churches,
albeit few, were opening and affirming parishes to LGBT people and their families before Katrina
hit.
"I wasn't going to the Superdome," said Angelamia Bachemin, an African-American lesbian
percussionist renowned throughout Boston’s queer and music communities for her pioneering style
of jazz hip-hop and a former professor of ethnomusicology at the Berklee School of Music before
returning home to her native New Orleans. "When my partner and I and the children fled, it was not
an issue for the folks at this Catholic church. The people at Epiphany Church just took us in, and
we began rolling with the evangelists during the relief effort. They paid money for the materials for
my roof. They have done more for me and my family than the government."
Bachemin is one of the lucky few LGBT families now in the long process of rebuilding their homes
and lives in New Orleans.
Leblanc isn't. His partner, who was in the last stages of full-blown AIDS, died two weeks after
Katrina.
Not legally married, Leblanc as a widower is not eligible for surviving-spouse Social Security
benefits. And because he is gay, he is also not eligible for any of the faith-based relief assistance
to help him get his life back in order.
While Katrina shamelessly showed the botched relief effort commanded by FEMA and the fault
lines of race and class in this country, it did not show the hidden abuses of heterosexism and
homophobia. Instead Bush's faith-based organizations did.
Consequently those at the margins of society became the center of the tragedy as Hurricane
Katrina nakedly exposed how Bush neither sees nor wants his administration to be the primary
source of assistance or compassion for Americans in crisis.
INCIDENT REPORT: DRIVER OBJECTS TO GAYS KISSING IN CAB
Covering: One man's story
The president of the PlanetOut Inc. division that owns The Advocate was asked to stop kissing his
partner by an angry cab driver. Has this ever happened to you?
Interviewed by Kellee Terrell
An Advocate.com exclusive posted October 29, 2006
As The Advocate was preparing its special report on "covering"—the pressure to downplay our
gay identities in public—a New York taxi ride turned into a upsetting covering incident for one of
our own. On the evening of October 2, Bob Cohen, president of the magazine division of PlanetOut
(our parent company) boarded a cab at Newark international airport along with his partner. On the
way to Manhattan, the couple were shocked when their cab driver angrily demanded—in the midst
of expressway traffic—that they stop showing affection for each other.
For Cohen, the episode raised broader questions about covering. Do most Advocate readers feel
safer expressing affection in public than they once did? Or has our visible progress simply put us at
greater risk of abuse by those who resent it? “I think these incidents may be on the upswing,”
Cohen said in an interview. “I’d like to know what our readers think.”
The cab driver actually demanded that the two of you stop showing affection?
As we reached the Lincoln Tunnel, I leaned in and gave my partner what I believed to be a very
chaste kiss on the cheek. The driver suddenly turned around and yelled, “Please stop doing that.
It's not allowed in my taxi!” I couldn't believe what I was hearing. “Excuse me?” I asked. He
answered, “I don't allow that kind of behavior in my cab. It shows disrespect.” Never did he straightout say “gay,” but I strongly doubt that if we were a straight couple he would have had an issue—
even though he claimed that didn't matter.
What happened next?
He slowed down in the middle of the expressway, still ranting. I thought he was going to kick us out
of the cab. While he sped up again, I kept talking. At this point my partner kicked me and motioned
me to stop agitating the driver—which I did. I sat back and became silent, and we stopped
touching. We finally got home and I paid the cabbie. I didn't want this to escalate to violence by
skipping out on the fare. But I didn't tip him.
What were you feeling during all this?
Of course, I was angry and shocked—this had never happened before, not to me, not to anyone
else I knew. I also felt shamed, like when you go to a foreign country and you don't realize
something is against their local custom, like, “You can't wear white on a Friday.” Sadly, I felt like an
abused second-class citizen. I was being told that I couldn't act out natural and normal acts. We
were being asked to modify our behavior because gay public displays of affection make others
uncomfortable. Who would think that in the back of a cab, in a metropolitan area, in the 21st
century, this would be happening?
Do you think that when you stopped being affectionate, the cabbie “won”?
No, he just reestablished control of the environment. He may have won this skirmish, but it's a long
war we are fighting here for equality.
Do you think this incident has anything to do with the fact that the driver hailed from the
Caribbean, which is not known for being especially gay-friendly?
As a great-grandchild of immigrants, I do celebrate diversity, but one of the consequences of that
is, clashing with people who come from more traditional, homophobic societies. Of course we want
to respect them, but if they operate within our American framework, they need to understand what
society they have entered.
Did you report what happened to the taxi and limousine commission?
We are in the process of making a complaint to the Newark Taxi cab company. We don't want him
to get fired; we want him to get reeducated.
How widespread do you think this is?
I think these incidents may be on the upswing. I’d like to know what our readers think.
TELL US YOUR STORY: Have you ever been forced to cover in a taxi—or in some other public
environment? In no more than 400 words, tell us what happened. Be sure to include your name,
age, occupation, and city of residence. If we decide to publish your story in the magazine, we will
ask you to send us a photo of yourself and your partner. Send your submission to
[email protected].
Evangelical Pastor Scandal 2006
Rev. Ted Haggard
|| Q & A ||
Haggard’s escort
In a gay press exclusive, Mike Jones, a male escort from Denver, tells The Advocate he revealed
his “sexual business relationship” with evangelical leader Ted Haggard to expose the hypocrisy in
Haggard’s support for a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. But he
says he doesn’t wish the prominent pastor, who resigned on November 2, any ill will.
By John Ireland
An Advocate.com exclusive posted November 3, 2006
Mike Jones, a male escort from Denver, says he revealed his “sexual business relationship” with
evangelical leader Ted Haggard (pictured) to expose the hypocrisy in Haggard’s support for a
proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. But he says he doesn’t wish the
prominent pastor any ill will.
Haggard, a married father of five and a close personal advisor to President Bush, resigned his post
as president of the 30-million member National Association of Evangelicals on November 2 and
has taken a leave from his job as pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado
Springs, Colo. He has since admitted to some “indiscretions,” including going to Jones for a
massage and later purchasing crystal meth from him, but has denied a sexual relationship.
Haggard put himself on leave from his church “to allow a panel of four senior pastors, ‘wise ones,’
and spiritual men to oversee the circumstances,” his attorney, Martin Nussbaum, told The
Advocate.
Jones alleges Haggard has been paying for sex with him and doing drugs for the last three years.
He spoke with The Advocate about his contact with Haggard, the first time he learned of Haggard’s
real identity, and why he came forward.
Why now, just days before the midterm election?
I really agonized over it for quite a while and finally decided I needed to say something. People
have accused me of trying to get money out of [Haggard]. I will tell you that if I wanted to get
money out of him, I could have blackmailed him. I chose not to do that, but to do this on principle,
for the gay community. We have two initiatives coming up on [the Colorado] ballot, one to amend
the constitution [to ban same-sex marriage] and one for domestic-partnership rights. People have
accused me of being a puppet, but I have had no contact with any political organization whatsoever
on this. I just did it myself.
Did the scandal surrounding former congressman Mark Foley influence your decision?
No.
When did you first meet Ted Haggard?
Roughly three years ago. I never asked him how he found my number, but I guess it was from a
Web site or a newspaper somewhere, because I was advertising at the time as a male escort.
When I answered the phone, he indicated he was visiting from Kansas City and that his name was
Art. For the first year, he called from a blocked number, then mostly from pay phones from the
Colorado Springs area.
When did you first realize who he was?
In the spring of 2006. I was lying on the couch, relaxing, watching the History Channel—a show on
the DaVinci Code and the antichrist. All of a sudden, his face came up. They were interviewing
him. It was Art. I didn’t get his name, so in my mind I was thinking, I’m going to order a copy of this
show, just so I can see who this guy is. To me it was a coincidence. The very next morning at 5
a.m., I was at the gym working out on the treadmill. Somebody the night before had turned the TV
to the religious channel and there he was. When I got home and looked him up on the computer, I
was like, “Ted Haggard…oh, crap…this guy’s huge.”
What happened next?
The Federal Marriage Amendment was coming up in the [U.S.] Senate and I e-mailed [New Life
Church] to find out what their stance was. Pastor Joseph Winger replied to my e-mail: “We do think
that the Federal Marriage Amendment as endorsed by President Bush is a positive step for our
nation. Regarding our views on homosexuality, we believe the Bible promotes marriage as a one
man, one woman relationship.” That pissed me off. Then I looked a little closer at some of
Haggard’s writings. He was preaching against gay marriage, that our lifestyle “is not what God
wants.” I started stewing over it.
When was the last time you saw him?
August 7 or 8. I had seen him two or three times after I knew who he was. It was weird. I was really
contemplating telling him, “Hey, I know who you are.” I didn’t. I never brought it up to him. And of
course, he never offered. He was not emotional at all. He’d pop on over, we’d [have sex]. It was
pretty bland. He was never here more than an hour. The only thing he divulged to me at one time
was that he was married. He did not seem nervous to me at all.
When did drugs come into the picture?
About two years ago he asked, “Hey, Mike, what do you know about meth?" I don’t do it personally,
but I know people who do. I told him that some people think it enhances their sexual experience.
He asked if I could help him get some. I located someone he could connect with. After that, he got
it on his own. The last time he saw me, he was trying to get some and couldn’t, which resulted in
him sending me money though the mail in August, postmarked Colorado Springs. He wrote “Art” on
the corner of the envelope. I just read that his middle name is Arthur.
As a Christian, have you struggled with your own homosexuality?
I’m not ashamed of it. I’ve never been one to wear a flag on the bumper of my car or on my
forehead. I don't go around advertising that I am gay, but I am not ashamed of it. I would stand up
and voice my opinion. It’s interesting. I’m pretty well built. Generally, people don’t mess with me
when they see my body. If I come out and say, “I’m gay and I don’t appreciate those comments,” I
usually get an apology. I’m very manly. People think that we’re all nelly or in drag. I’m just here to
say, “I happen to be gay and I could kick your ass.”
Do you think this will have a widespread impact on the nation?
I don’t know where this is going to end. We’re all sinners, in some way. Since we’re all really the
same, don't try to prevent other people from having an enjoyable life. Let other people have a
chance to get married, have a family of some type, whether it’s adoption or whatever…and have a
home and enjoy their love for their partner. If you’re going to be up there as an example, you have
to lead by example, and I think Haggard failed that.
What are your hopes, if any, for Ted Haggard?
You know, I wish him peace. I wish him happiness. I hope whatever happens with this that he’s
able to continue on in whatever function in the church that he wants to. I do not wish him ill. I’m
sorry that his wife and kids are going to have to suffer through this; I feel terrible about that. But I
never contacted him. He contacted me. So, he initiated it.
Gay Views: Religious Leader Disgraced
|| COMMENTARY ||
Understanding Haggard's fall from grace
It's easy to delight in disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard’s very public humiliation. Perhaps
he deserves that and more. But to stay in harsh judgment would do a great disservice to ourselves
and to our hard-won self-respect.
By John Sonego
Sonego is a writer, AIDS activist, and former staff member for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance
Against Defamation. He is currently raising four children with his partner, Michael, in Los
Angeles.
An Advocate.com exclusive posted November 8, 2006
I once went out with a guy who called his penis “Jackson.” Out of nowhere, he’d say, “Jackson
likes this,” or “Jackson likes that,” as if the appendage were actually a separate entity. It didn’t take
long for Jackson, his handler, and me to part company, and not just because I wasn’t interested in
three-ways. Jackson was the only part of him that wasn’t ashamed to be gay.
I thought of Jackson when evangelical leader Ted Haggard and his three-year relationship with a
gay hooker made the headlines. Until he was dismissed in disgrace by his church on November 4,
Haggard danced around the fundamental questions of just who he is and what he has done like a
champ, dodging and weaving to keep from acknowledging a truth he could no longer avoid.
Haggard and Jackson’s handler had one thing in common—they came from evangelical churches
where there was no tolerance for gay sex. Taught that homosexuality is shameful and evil, they did
their best to keep a tight lid on impulses that percolated just under the surface. As a coping
mechanism, Jackson’s handler could block out that he’d just had sex seconds after the act was
done; listening to Haggard’s emphatic denials, I wouldn’t be surprised if pastor Ted did exactly the
same thing.
No one may know what actually happened during his trysts with escort Mike Jones, but it was
telling to hear Haggard acknowledge what he perceived as smaller sins, buying meth and paying
for massages, and studiously denying the big question about a sexual relationship. His was the
posture of an addict in denial.
I’ve known too many evangelical men who learn to survive the same way. They live a terrible
contradiction with no easy way out. They love God and want to serve him. But they are taught that
God hates homosexuality. In such a construct they have no choice. To serve God they must
suppress that part of their identity, locking it away in a Pandora’s box.
At some point many of them self-destruct, unable to maintain a life of deception and self-denial.
They take greater and greater risks, unconsciously longing for exposure so they can be released
from a prison of their own making. The opening prayer to Haggard’s last sermon before the
scandal broke says it all: “Father, we pray lies would be exposed and deception exposed.”
The exposure he prayed for came within the week; it took him down, along with his shell-shocked
wife and children. The children are the innocent victims of their father’s deceit; in one video clip,
you can see the terror in their eyes when dozens of reporters’ microphones were thrust through the
windows of the family minivan. Theirs will be a long, hard road.
I feel for them, for Mrs. Haggard, and even for pastor Ted. While there’s no excuse for his
endorsement of antigay amendments and condemnation of homosexual behavior from the pulpit,
imagine how he must feel knowing what his deception has done to his family.
I’ve been there, done that, albeit on a much smaller scale. After a conversion experience in
college, I joined an evangelical campus ministry, eventually serving as a campus pastor after
graduation. I saw the ministry and my church as a safety net, a way to keep in check the attraction
I had to other men.
I told myself that if I believed strongly enough, prayed hard enough, served diligently enough, God
would take these feelings away. But the feelings never left. And like pastor Ted, I acted out in
secret.
All through college and after I engaged in anonymous sex in the restrooms of one of the campus
buildings, along with dozens of other men who hung out there in late afternoons. I’d leave each
encounter ashamed, and if I ever saw someone I’d met on campus, I’d turn the other way. To
acknowledge the other party as a real person would make those anonymous acts too personal and
too real, no longer an abstraction I could walk away from.
When my neighbor Neera invited me to dinner with her gay friend Tom, he was the first out gay
man I’d ever actually talked to. He was a sweet and gentle guy, and suddenly I found myself
desperate for a connection to someone who could understand what I’d hidden away for so long.
With Neera looking on like a satisfied yenta, we talked nonstop through dessert and beyond. I
thought I was falling in love.
That reality provoked the greatest crisis of faith if my young life. I shared my dilemma with my very
Christian roommate, who warned me I was on the road to destruction and demanded that I never
see Tom again. I couldn’t make that promise; I’d tasted the forbidden fruit and found it good. So my
roommate, in the name of Christian charity, called my supervisor at the ministry where I worked
and the pastor of my church.
The next day, I was jobless and expelled from my church. At the ripe old age of 26, suddenly
friendless and without a job, I felt like my life had ended. But it was the greatest gift I could have
been given.
I was forced to face myself: a gay man who was spiritual, a spiritual man who happened to be gay.
I couldn’t begin to imagine how my sexuality and spirituality could fit together—but the long process
of integration had begun.
For a lot of gay people, especially those who have experienced rejection at the hands of
evangelical churches, it is easy to delight in Haggard’s very public humiliation. Perhaps he
deserves that and more.
But to stay in that harsh judgment would do a great disservice to ourselves and to our hard-won
self-respect. True, Haggard’s a hypocrite; true, he lied and covered up and lied again. But at its
core his story is that of a man who was so thoroughly enmeshed in self-denial that he has no clue
where to start to learn to live with and accept who he is.
For that he deserves our pity. And perhaps a helping hand, an offer from fellow travelers who know
something of the road he must now walk.
Sonego is a writer, AIDS activist, and former staff member for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance
Against Defamation. He is currently raising four children with his partner, Michael, in Los
Angeles.
|| COMMENTARY ||
Mark Foley’s follies and the Republicans’ quest for power
The Mark Foley sex scandal is less about his illness and more about the Republicans’ sickness for
power, because the scandal exposes a GOP political machine exploiting queers and children to
maintain dominance by any means necessary.
By the Reverend Irene Monroe
Monroe is a Massachusetts-based religion columnist, public theologian, and motivational
speaker.
An Advocate.com exclusive posted October 11, 2006
The wedge issue that won the Republicans control of Congress back in the ‘90s will be the same
issue that will bring them down this year—queer civil rights.
With the ball now in the GOP’s court, thanks to Florida Republican Mark Foley’s shenanigans with
underage congressional pages as his hopeful boy toys, the house that homophobia built for the
Republicans is now crumbling like a house of cards.
And with voter confidence in Republicans propitiously diving just weeks before the midterm election
and a media frenzy having fun with the story like children playing in autumn leaves, the Foley sex
scandal is less about his illness and more about the Republicans’ sickness for power.
In mounting a family values platform where no child is left behind, the Republicans were criminal in
their knowing neglect of their pages.
And to equate the problem of Foley’s predatory penchant for young boys to his sexual orientation
ignores the gravity of the illness and the overwhelming evidence that shows the preponderance of
pedophiles are heterosexual.
But it also ignores the Republicans’ egregious violation of queer civil rights as well as their hubris
not to expect the issue on which they willfully trampled to show up again in a way that would
embarrass them and possibly lose them seats in the upcoming midterm election.
While I think it’s God writing straight with crooked lines, Gerri Outlaw of Governors State University
in Illinois said of the latest news, “I think it’s funny that Republicans have a scandal of this nature
and it won’t go away.”
Foley is certainly culpable for his action and should be punished for it. But the real reason the sex
scandal won’t go away is because Foley is not the main issue here.
Instead, Foley is the prism through which we see a Republican political machine exploiting queers
and children to maintain dominance by any means necessary.
When the question was posed to the Republican speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert of Illinois,
about when he knew of Foley’s behavior, the query suggests that others knew that a right course of
action could have been pursued. While it also suggests that only a few were privy to Foley’s dark
side, many knew at least three years ago. Jim Kolbe, Congress’s only openly gay Republican
member, reportedly knew six years ago.
So why did no one speak up?
“History suggests that once a political party achieves sweeping power, it will only be a matter of
time before the power becomes the entire point,” editorialized The Boston Globe last week. “Policy,
ideology, and ethics all gradually fall away, replaced by a political machine that exists to win
elections and dispense the goodies that come as a result.”
Foley also was the “right” queer puppet Republicans needed—politically closeted and ambitiously
driven.
His 1996 vote supporting the antigay Defense of Marriage Act would lead you to think he was
antiqueer. But Foley’s congressional record suggests otherwise with his pro-queer position on
AIDS funding and domestic-partner benefits, his office being a queer-friendly safe zone, and a
Human Rights Campaign voting score of 80-plus out of 100. And in his personal life, Foley was out.
But Foley was nonetheless a gatekeeper for the Republicans. His error is not that he is
Republican. Foley's error is that he dissociated his queerness from his political ambition.
Politically closeted in order to maintain his voting constituency in a so-called red state, Foley
participated in the Republicans’ homophobic drive for political dominance. And now Foley not only
finds himself to be expendable to them, but he also finds himself to be their fall guy—as queers
were designed to be in this present-day political administration.
When President Bush did not win the popular vote in the 2000 election and it was discovered that
at least 3 million conservative evangelicals stayed at home, Bush advisor Karl Rove decided “to
expand the base of religious voters with a sharper, harder, more direct message to invigorate the
faithful—maybe throw a little sex and fear into the mixture. Bush needed to win reelection, and Karl
Rove did not care who had to suffer on the road to victory. Victims were a part of the process. And
homosexuals, he concluded, were the perfect enemy,” James Moore and Wayne Slater wrote in
this year’s bestseller The Architect: Karl Rove and the Master Plan for Absolute Power.
Many conservative evangelicals blame Foley for his personal immorality and the disgrace he has
brought onto the Republican Party.
But the immorality and disgrace is how the Republican Party unabashedly will use children and
queers to reach its political goal.
And the institutional dysfunctionality of the Republican Party’s addiction to political dominance
reminds me of Lord Acton’s famous statement: “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts
absolutely.”
The Republican Party lost its soul to gain the world.
|| NEWS FEATURE ||
Investigating "the congressional closet"
Congressman Jim Kolbe
In September 1996 The Advocate ran a story titled "On the record," which has been repeatedly
cited as the deliberate outing of congressmen Jim Kolbe and Mark Foley. Decide for yourself.
Here's the original text of that now infamous investigation.
By J. Jennings Moss
An Advocate.com exclusive posted October 10, 2006
On the record
Heated debate over House approval of the antigay Defense of Marriage Act shines a wary spotlight
on the congressional closet.
They spoke to their colleagues—and the nation—from experience. They argued that by passing a
bill that defines marriage strictly as a union between a man and a woman, the House was trampling
on the civil rights of gays and lesbians. They were talking about their own rights as gay men. And
everybody knew it.
Steve Gunderson, Barney Frank, and Gerry Studds made their status as gay men relevant to the
debate that took place in July. Arguably, the marital status and sexual orientation of every member
of Congress was at issue when the House voted 342–67 to approve the Defense of Marriage Act
(DOMA), a bill that would allow states to avoid recognizing same-sex marriages granted in other
states. (Hawaii could be the first to legalize such unions.)
Reporters quizzed Rep. Bob Barr, a Georgia Republican and a chief sponsor of the bill, about his
three marriages. But they stayed away from approaching lawmakers long thought by many to be
gay to ask why they voted the way they did. Gay rights activists, however—including many who
abhor the practice of outing—argued that given the current climate and an issue as crucial and
controversial as gay marriage, such questions were fair.
"If it's relevant to the issue, why not ask?" said Mindy A. Daniels, founder and executive director of
the National Lesbian Political Action Committee. Or as Torie Osborn, former head of the National
Gay and Lesbian Task Force, put it: "Anything's a fair line of inquiry that's involving a public debate
about morality and politics."
However, gay opinion makers were far from consensus on the issue. Frank, the Massachusetts
Democrat who disclosed his sexual orientation in 1987, was among those who expressed
reservations. While Frank had threatened to out closeted House Republicans if the GOP tried to
reinstate sexual orientation as a reason to deny someone government security clearance and while
he conceded that gay marriage opens the door to asking lawmakers questions about sexual
orientation, he argued that boundaries remain. "If you're not a hypocrite or misleading people," he
said, "you have the right to be quiet about [being gay]."
The Advocate has a policy against outing, which the magazine defines as "the initial disclosure in a
public medium or forum of someone's sexual orientation without his or her permission." For this
story The Advocate followed up on prior reports in other media and on the Internet about closeted
lawmakers where their names were mentioned. If these reports could be independently verified—
that is, if at least three sources with professional or personal relationships with a lawmaker said
they considered the lawmaker to be gay—the next step was to approach the lawmaker in question.
They were verified, and The Advocate contacted Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona and Rep. Mark Foley
of Florida, both Republicans, to ask them to explain their votes in favor of DOMA as well as to talk
about their sexual orientation.
Both men objected to the latter line of questioning. "Even members of Congress should be allowed
to have personal lives," Kolbe, 54, said in a telephone interview. "The issue of my sexuality has
nothing to do with the votes I cast in Congress or my work for the constituents of Arizona's fifth
congressional district." Upon reflection, however, Kolbe decided to come out soon after talking to
The Advocate, saying the magazine's questioning of him was a chief factor. Foley, in written
answers to The Advocate's questions, stated his belief that "a lawmaker's sexual orientation
is...irrelevant."
But while Kolbe and Foley told The Advocate that a member of Congress's sexual orientation
should not be an issue, activists were saying otherwise. Michael Petrelis—who gained notoriety for
throwing a drink on Gunderson at a gay bar in 1991 and then publicizing the incident in an attempt
to force the congressman to come out—used his computer to raise questions about several
lawmakers he said were in the closet. Petrelis sent his own reports or forwarded others to a mailing
list that included more than 100 activists, writers, and publications.
Shortly afterward a gay broadcast journalist in New England, Kurt Wolfe, discussed both Kolbe's
and Foley's sexual orientation publicly. In late July, in a story on the congressional closet, Wolfe
reported on WBAI radio in New York and on the cable television program Out in New England that
Kolbe is gay. In a follow-up report August 8 on his television show, Wolfe also reported that Foley
is gay.
In the past both Kolbe and Foley probably would not have experienced the kind of scrutiny now
thrust upon them. Activists used the standard that if a lawmaker or senior government official acted
in a hypocritical way and was actually gay, then he or she was fair game for outing. What changed
the rules for some activists was the gay-marriage issue. Gays and lesbians shuddered when
Republicans introduced DOMA, threatened to rebel when President Clinton backed it, and
demanded accountability when the House passed it. All eyes now are on the Senate, which is
expected to take up the measure in September.
Apart from their controversial votes on DOMA, however, Kolbe and Foley are two of the most progay Republicans in the House. They have voted consistently in the minority of their party to support
gay rights and efforts to fight AIDS. Both signed pledges saying that their congressional offices
would not discriminate based on sexual orientation, and Kolbe is cosponsor of a bill to outlaw
antigay discrimination in the workplace.
Among those who were particularly pained by the House debate on gay marriage was Tracy
Thorne, a former Navy lieutenant who made history in 1992 when he disclosed his homosexuality
on national television. Thorne's family lives in Foley's district and has helped Foley in his political
career. While Thorne said he respected the rights of people who choose to remain in the closet, he
said a different standard applies to people who hold positions of power: "What I cannot respect or
tolerate is one who makes that choice and then, in the name of self-promotion, climbs on the very
backs of those who need help the most."
Both Kolbe and Foley defended their votes in favor of DOMA. Kolbe said he backed the measure
because he wanted to preserve a state's right to decide whether to accept gay marriages. He noted
that he had also backed an effort to conduct a government study about the legal problems samesex couples face. Foley criticized those who used the debate to "bash" gays and lesbians but
added that "there were many people who voted for this legislation—myself included—because they
have genuine reservations about tampering with an institution many Americans regard as sacred."
As to how their personal lives influenced their votes, neither man offered explanations. "That I am a
gay person has never affected the way that I legislate," Kolbe said in a written statement in which
he came out to his constituents on August 1. "I am the same person, one who has spent many
years struggling to relieve the tax burden for families, balance the budget for our children's future,
and improve the quality of life we cherish in southern Arizona."
Coming out was a relatively short step for Kolbe, a six-term lawmaker from Tucson who four years
ago ran against an openly gay Democrat and who was arguably the most open closeted member
of Congress. He held parties at his home attended by such prominent gay men in Washington as
Rich Tafel of the national gay group Log Cabin Republicans and Daniel Zingale, political director
for the Human Rights Campaign, a gay lobbying organization, according to guests who attended
the events. He occasionally visited Trumpets, a gay bar in Washington.
For Foley, questions about his sexual orientation first surfaced publicly when he ran for the House
of Representatives in 1994. His conservative primary opponent John Anastasio implied that Foley
was gay, but the strategy received little attention, and Foley won the primary with 61% of the vote.
In interviews for this story, several people close to the 41-year-old representative from West Palm
Beach said they knew him as a gay man, although one also said he dated women.
"Frankly, I don't think what kind of personal relationships I have in my private life is of any
relevance to anyone else," Foley said without defining how he characterizes himself. "I know one
thing for certain: When I travel around the district every weekend, the people who attend my town
meetings and stop me on the street corner certainly are a lot more concerned with issues like how I
voted on welfare reform or whether or not Medicare is going to be there when they need it—not the
details of whom I choose to have a relationship with."
The very thought of a return to outing angered some gay political operatives. "I don't think it's ever
appropriate," said Zingale. Even though a vote for DOMA was a "disgrace and a moral failure,"
Zingale said, the vote was not grounds for outing. Mark Agrast, legislative aide to Representative
Studds, said he could "think of many circumstances when outing is a great temptation but none in
which is morally acceptable. It is a form of psychological terror."
Others tried to turn the spotlight on the congressional closet without naming names. "To all
closeted gay and lesbian members of Congress," read a full-page ad in the July 26 issue of The
Washington Blade, a gay weekly. "We call upon you to end your silence and defend your
community in this time of unprecedented hostility."
Said Joel Lawson, a former staffer on Capitol Hill who helped create the ad: "Someone has got to
call them on this. There is no excuse for their vote. They might lose an election. They might not be
as popular as they were. But these are tough times, and courage is never easy or risk-free."
Some of the 29 people who signed the ad, like Jeff Coudriet, a congressional staffer and president
of Washington, D.C.'s Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, said they fully supported outing. "I think we
are at war up here," said Coudriet, "and if you hold back some of your troops, you're colluding with
the enemy."
William Waybourn, managing director of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and a
signatory of the ad, said that while he is opposed to activists' outing people, he believes the press
has a different responsibility. "There are no unfair questions for anyone in public life," Waybourn
said. If lawmakers go to gay events, patronize gay businesses, live in a gay environment, but vote
in an antigay way, Waybourn believes they should be called on it. "They're asking to be outed," he
said. "They're not leading a secret life. They're fooling themselves."
Reporters routinely ask Catholic lawmakers to justify votes in favor of abortion rights. They
question African-American legislators who back an end to affirmative action. They ask smallbusiness owners now in Congress to shed light on tax legislation that would benefit entrepreneurs.
So scrutinizing closeted gay members about their voting records on gay and lesbian issues just
seems to follow, Waybourn said.
Other prominent gays and lesbians interviewed for this article agreed. "We're approaching a time
when the closet is no longer respected," said Osborn. "Fifteen years ago the closet was OK, even
for gay people. The closet used to stand for privacy. Now the closet stands for prison."
Daniels also argued that members of Congress have chosen to live by different standards than
private citizens. "They put themselves out there as public figures," she said. "You're taking all your
stuff with you, including your skeletons. If you're not ready for that, don't go out there."
|| Q & A ||
We told you so...10 years ago
Disgraced former congressman Mark Foley came out as a gay man on October 3 amid an Internet
sex scandal. Journalist Kurt Wolfe says he gave Foley the opportunity 10 years ago.
By John Caldwell
An Advocate.com exclusive posted October 10, 2006
By the time journalist Kurt Wolfe was being cited by The Advocate for a now-infamous article about
the congressional closet in summer 1996, he had already outed congressmen Mark Foley and Jim
Kolbe on a New York City radio station, then on a cable-access television show he produced titled
Out in New England. Using Wolfe as one of several credible sources, The Advocate contacted
Kolbe and Foley, asking about their sexual orientation. Both men said it wasn’t relevant. Kolbe
came out publicly within a week of Wolfe’s reports. Foley, who resigned on September 29 amid
allegations that he made sexual advances toward underage male pages, did not.
Wolfe, 56, is now a freelance reporter in Georgia.
Why did you decide to out Foley and Kolbe?
We decided to look into the voting records of congressmen who had voted for the [1996] Defense
of Marriage Act and see if we could find out who was gay and closeted. We weren’t in the business
of outing. For us it was an issue of hypocrisy. We needed three independent sources. We were
able to get those on Foley.
What kind of sources?
One of our sources for Foley had been a [congressional] page. He was an adult when I was
speaking to him, but he was a minor when he was a page. He told me that he had been the
recipient of many inappropriate sexual communications from Foley. That changed the whole story.
I contacted [Foley’s] offices for comment. I told them that we were running the story and that one of
our sources was a former male page. The response was pretty nasty and ended with a hang-up.
Now the angle is now “who knew what, when.” I can’t [attest] to the current [GOP] leadership
[knowledge], but I can [attest] to Foley’s staff. They were notified.
The story you ran was on Foley’s homosexuality and his DOMA vote, not on the page. Why?
I couldn’t get another source to substantiate it, and this young man would not come forward. He
was terrified. Had he been a minor when I spoke to him, I would have gone to the police. But he
was an adult. I’m going to contact my local congressman and tell him that if they have a
congressional hearing, I’m willing to testify under oath about this.
What happened after Kolbe came out?
I got a call from his press secretary about eight months later thanking us for the story. They wanted
to let me know that everything was cool and that he had never been happier. To his great credit,
Jim Kolbe did the right thing and his voting record changed.
Another congressman you investigated was antigay Louisiana Republican Jim McCrery,
who was the subject of a 1992 Advocate cover story. How do you think the Foley story will
affect other closeted members of Congress?
I think closeted gay people in Congress are looking at [the Foley scandal] to see what happens.
And it’s going to really hit the fan if they were involved in the kind of behavior that Foley was
involved in.
Do you have any regrets about outing people?
Yes, my inability to get the nongay press to pay attention. I really got blasted for outing these
congressman. We weren’t outing them as gay; we were outing them as hypocrites. Either people
thought it was sensational or they were pissed off. Most of the people who were angry at me were
gay. I’m still angry that we couldn’t get people interested in this.
NOVEMBER 2006
Nationwide Results
NEWS ||
November 17, 2006
Numbers show gays may have handed Democrats the Senate
Remember how some Democrats blamed LGBT people's push for marriage equality for the 2004
election results? Perhaps gays are now owed an apology.
The effort to defeat Virginia's proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage
apparently pulled thousands of progressive voters out to the polls, sending Democrat James Webb
to the U.S. Senate by the thinnest of margins and handing the upper chamber to the Democrats for
the next two years. A 10-to-1 spending edge by gays and their allies depressed the final majority in
favor of the amendment to 57%, a far cry from the 75% support that has typified amendment
election results in the past.
A glance at the six most populous left-of-center counties and urban areas tells the story. Roughly
588,000 people voted on the marriage amendment in these regions, with nearly 60%, or about
350,000, people voting no. The other two relatively uncontroversial ballot measures passed
handily. But they passed without
the participation of roughly 25,000 voters who weighed in on the marriage amendment but took no
stand on the other questions one way or another.
Did those voters also vote for James Webb? It appears they did. Webb won the six regions 64%–
36%, taking 377,000 out of 593,000 Senate votes cast in these locations.
Statewide, Webb beat incumbent George Allen 1,175,606 to 1,166,277, a difference of fewer than
10,000 votes. (Ann Rostow, The Advocate)
Advocate election returns
November 7, 2006: Check here for up-to-the-minute returns to selected elections and ballot
questions important to gays and lesbians across the country.
An Advocate.com exclusive posted November 7, 2006
Election returns for selected races and referendums as of 12:26 p.m. Wednesday EST: Nov. 8th
U.S. House of Representatives
Massachusetts, 4th congressional district
Barney Frank (gay/Democratic incumbent)
(Running unopposed)
Wisconsin, 2nd congressional district
Tammy Baldwin (gay/Democratic incumbent): 63%
David Magnum (Republican challenger): 37%
(100% of precincts reporting)
California, 27th congressional district
Peter Hankwitz (gay/Republican challenger): 31%
Brad Sherman (Democrat): 69%
(100% of precincts reporting)
California, 52nd congressional district
John Rinaldi (gay/Democratic challenger): 31%
Duncan Hunter (Republican): 66%
(82% of precincts reporting)
Ohio, 1st congressional district
John Cranley (Democratic challenger): 47%
Steve Chabot (Republican incumbent): 53%
(100% of precincts reporting)
Minnesota, 6th congressional district
Patty Wetterling (Democrat): 42%
Michele Bachmann (Republican): 50%
(97% of precincts reporting)
Colorado, 4th congressional district
Marilyn Musgrave (Republican incumbent): 46%
Angie Paccione (Democratic challenger): 43%
(99% of precincts reporting)
U.S. Senate
Pennsylvania
Bob Casey Jr. (Democratic challenger): 59%
Rick Santorum (Republican incumbent): 41% ( outspoken anti-gay marriage conservative )
(99% of precincts reporting)
Gubernatorial
California
Phil Angelides (Democratic challenger): 39%
Arnold Schwarzenegger (Republican incumbent): 56%
(93% of precincts reporting)
New York
Eliot Spitzer (Democrat): 69%
John Faso (Republican): 29%
(99% of precincts reporting)
Massachusetts
Deval Patrick (Democrat): 56% (1st African American elected governor of this state )
Kerry Healey (Republican): 35%
(100% of precincts reporting)
Illinois
Rod Blagojevich (Democrat): 49%
Judy Baar Topinka (Republican): 40%
(98% of precincts reporting)
Prosposed state constitutional bans on same-sex marriage and, in some instances, all legal
recognition of unmarried couples
“YES” result means voters in that state decided against legalizing gay marriage.
Arizona, Proposition 107
Yes: 49%
No: 51%
(99% of precincts reporting)
Colorado, Amendment 43
Yes: 56%
No: 44%
(88% of precincts reporting)
Idaho, Amendment 2
Yes: 63%
No: 37%
(92% of precincts reporting)
South Carolina, Amendment 1
Yes: 78%
No: 22%
(99% of precincts reporting)
South Dakota, Amendment C
Yes: 52%
No: 48%
(100% precincts reporting)
Tennessee, Amendment 1
Yes: 81%
No: 19%
(99% of precincts reporting)
Virginia, Amendment 1
Yes: 57% No: 43%
(99% of precincts reporting)
Wisconsin, Question 1
Yes: 59%
No: 41%
(99% precincts reporting)
State referendums that would provide legal recognition to same-sex couples
Colorado, Referendum I: Domestic Partnership
Yes: 47%
No: 53%
(88% of precincts reporting)
|| COMMENTARY || ON GAY MARRIAGE QUESTION
BY FORMER GAY GOVERNOR
Stumping for marriage in New Jersey
The New Jersey supreme court did the right thing at the right time. Now it's up to us to stop
worrying about the election and demand full marriage equality.
By James McGreevey
An Advocate.com exclusive posted November 7, 2006
The New Jersey supreme court decision was an important step in the right direction toward
recognizing marital equality for our community. Having previously supported pro-gay legislation in
matters of adoption and child care, the court understood that a simple question was before it:
Namely, should gay New Jerseyans be afforded the right to marry (with its attendant privileges,
rights, and obligations) just as straight Americans are?
The court claimed the responsibility to ensure that committed gay couples receive a legal
mechanism identical to marriage, but stated that it was for the state legislature and governor to
decide if marriage as a term of art would be used.
Marriage as an institution, word, and symbol is inextricably linked to the concept of a committed,
monogamous relationship. Among our most cherished national institutions, marriage, at its best,
conjures ideas of warmth, love, and nurturing. Marriage ought to be enshrined in legislation for our
gay community.
To use any word other than marriage for committed, monogamous gay relationships implies that
our status, whether single or committed, is something less than that of straight people and
their relationships. Words and rhetoric are critically important in denoting meaning and for
imparting notions of societal worth.
We must work toward the use of the word marriage in state legislation. Justice Barry Albin,
who wrote the opinion, is a brilliant jurist whom I had the honor of appointing years ago. My hope is
that the gay rights group Garden State Equality, ably led by Steven Goldstein, will be able to
marshal the necessary support to secure marriage as a right and a name.
Some progressives have worried about the timing of the court's decision, coming right before an
important election. But the unequivocally right thing about this victory is the timing of its
announcement. It was not political. The state supreme court announced the decision because of
the mandatory resignation date of the chief justice, not because of an election. It would have been
wrong and injurious to the state supreme court's reputation to hold the decision until after the
election, or to announce it prior, because of electoral concerns.
The court's decision will have de minimis impact upon New Jersey's U.S. Senate election. The war
in Iraq, stem cell research, a woman's right to choose, and U.S. Supreme Court nominees will all
play a more prominent role than the court's "gay marriage" decision in the calculus of New
Jersey voters.
The New Jersey supreme court rephrased the debate over same-sex marriage as a question of
equality. It will be our responsibility to frame it as a matter of conscience.
Entertainment News : Media & Community
November 17, 2006
Logo begins production on lesbian sitcom
Exes and Ohs, the Logo channel's new lesbian comedy series, has begun production in
Vancouver, Canada, network president Brian Graden announced Thursday.
Exes and Ohs follows the romantic entanglements of Jennifer (Michelle Paradise) and her gay pals
in caffeinated Seattle. One of those friends is Crutch, a wannabe rock star played by gay actress
Heather Matarazzo.
The sitcom is based on the short film The Ten Rules: A Lesbian Survival Guide. Paradise, Lee
Friedlander, Billy Grundfest, and Blueprint Productions serve as executive producers on the show.
The six-episode, half-hour series will premiere in 2007. (The Advocate)
November 17, 2006
Longoria denies lesbian role with Beyoncé
Eva Longoria has denied rumors that she and Beyoncé Knowles would play a lesbian couple in the
film version of Tipping the Velvet. The film, which is to be directed by Sofia Coppola, is based on a
Sarah Waters novel about an 1890s music star and her female lover.
The London Daily Star reported that the two were taking on the roles and quoted Knowles as
saying there should be a lesbian version of Brokeback Mountain.
Longoria said that while she would like to work with Knowles, she has never confirmed she would
work on Tipping the Velvet. "This is definitely not something we are doing together," she said. "It's
completely and absolutely not true."
Longoria went on to say she was more upset that fabricated quotes attributed to Knowles and her
were used to confirm their involvement in the project. (The Advocate)
Oprah's lipstick lesbians respond to Scarborough and company
When partners Nikki Weiss and Carole Antouri appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show earlier this
month, they had a great time. That is, until they heard themselves discussed on the MSNBC talk
show Scarborough Country. Now the women respond.
By Paul Florez
An Advocate.com exclusive posted October 26, 2006
Partners Carole Antouri and Nikki Weiss appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show on October 2 for
an episode about women who have left their husbands for other women. In addition to telling
Oprah about their life together, they showed the talk-show diva their "lipstick kiss," the thoroughly
innocent air kiss they do so as not to ruin their lipstick.
Antouri and Weiss, who work in marketing and PR and are based in Los Angeles, enjoyed the
experience and received plenty of positive feedback. However, when conservative TV
personality Joe Scarborough hosted a discussion of the Oprah episode a few days later on his
nightly MSNBC program, Scarborough Country, the feedback took a different tone. Talking with
two reporters, one from Us Weekly and one from The Star, as well as a representative of the
conservative group Citizens for Community Values, Scarborough raised objections to the sight of
lesbians on TV at a time when kids could be watching. But the outrageous moment came when the
representative from CCV stated her belief that gay parenting is the ultimate form of child abuse.
Antouri and Weiss respond.
How did you find out about the Scarborough coverage?
Weiss: We had gotten calls that night from friends of ours who said, "You are all over the news."
And I said, “For what? The show?” And they said, "Oh, yeah, MSNBC."
Antouri: And, honestly, that night we didn't look up. We didn't think anything of it. But the next day,
more calls, so we finally went online and watched the clip.
Was it emotional to watch it?
Antouri: I wasn't even offended. Sometimes you have to consider the source. I felt sorry for them—I
thought, They're very isolated. Do they think the clerk at the grocery story is straight? Do they think
the chef at their favorite restaurant is definitely straight? I just figure they are uneducated. I don't
want to say anything that sounds angry because that doesn't make me any better, but I just think
they didn't educate themselves.
Weiss : The only thing that really bothered me was the statement if you have children and you are
gay, that's abusive. That is what put me over the edge. That's why I wanted to do this interview.
What do you make of Scarborough's claim that lesbians shouldn't be seen on daytime TV?
Weiss : I think this show, unto itself, would have been very educational for a child and they
probably would have asked a lot of good questions—and not grown up being afraid [of
homosexuality] and accepting it.
And what about your "lipstick kiss"? They were obsessed with it—and it was so innocent!
Weiss : They were very focused on the whole lipstick kiss. Yet you have shows like The Bachelor
where they're making out with different women, maybe five a night, and that’s OK. But Carole and I
have real feelings for each other, so I think it’s a little bit threatening for people.
Do you know if Oprah said anything about this?
Weiss : What we do know from Oprah is that she really enjoyed the show, as did all of her staff.
And we heard there might be a follow-up show because there has been so much attention. She
was very thrilled with the show.
Florez is an intern in The Advocate's New York office.
November 17, 2006
Delta Burke, Leslie Jordan disinvited from Nashville talk show
A local Nashville television talk show rescinded an invitation to Delta Burke and Leslie Jordan to
appear on the program, saying the show's conservative viewership could be offended by a
discussion of their current work, according to celebrity site TMZ.
The two are currently starring in a Del Shores revival tour that recently won accolades from the
L.A. Stage Alliance Ovation Awards and they were scheduled to appear on Talk of the Town on
November 10. But the show's producer e-mailed them saying that after reviewing the subject
matter of the plays, he "decided that it would not be in the best interest of Talk of the Town to
[have] an actor come on the show to discuss the plays. We are dealing with a very conservative
viewership who we feel would be offended by the show's titles and their topics."
Tennessee native Leslie Jordan, who won an Emmy award for his appearance on Will & Grace,
called the incident a slap in the face.
Del Shores said the show is underestimating its audience. "Somehow I think that the people of
Nashville are a little more diverse and open-minded than the producers of Talk of the Town are
giving them credit for," he said. "At least that's been my experience in one of my favorite cities."
(The Advocate)
Race's first gay casualty
By Neal Broverman
An Advocate.com exclusive posted October 2, 2006
So Lauren and Duke, last night was the airing of your final trip on The Amazing Race . How
are you two reflecting on your experience?
Duke: The experience is so difficult to articulate, you actually have to live it, there are no words to
explain it really. We are very fortunate and grateful to have been on the show. The friendships we
made with all the other team members were just priceless.
Lauren: I had a truly amazing experience traveling with my dad, encountering new cultures that I
wouldn’t have encountered otherwise. And even though we didn’t win that million-dollar prize, I
know that together we came out on top. Had it not been for the show, we might not have had the
opportunity to bond in the special way that we did. The memories we made together are priceless,
and they will stay with me forever. Our relationship can only get better from here and I’m really
excited for us to learn from one another and continue becoming friends. He will always be my dad,
but he’s no longer just my dad, he really is a friend.
Do you have any regrets about the show?
L: I guess last night when we were together with all the other contestants and asked for directions
to find the coal [part of the show’s Detour challenge]. Then, all of a sudden, it seemed like they
vanished into thin air. So, we weren’t able to find the coal before we stumbled upon the bird cage.
Despite that, we completed the task and worked really well together, as we did with every other
task. We were both very supportive and helpful to each other and we never argued during tasks
since that really doesn’t get you anywhere.
D: We worked really well as a team. I was always impressed by her and I think that came through
on the show.
L: We endured some of the most stressful situations that anyone could ever face. So it’s been
great to take home that knowledge that I can work with my dad through those difficult situations
What made you decide to audition in the first place?
L: Well, I had originally applied for Survivor, and since I made it through many rounds of
interviewing, they learned how my dad and I were just recently starting to end our estrangement
and work on our relationship. Then [CBS officials] approached me and suggested we apply for The
Amazing Race together to see if the race could bring us any closer. So I called my dad and told
him what they had told me, and since we were both big fans of the show there wasn’t much to
consider. It was really the opportunity of a lifetime.
How much of the estrangement was due to your coming out?
L: I’d say about 95% of it. My dad just had a really hard time coping with and accepting my being
gay. And it was really difficult because we went years without talking to each other and going to
family functions without seeing each other. But I understood that he had his own process for
dealing with it that I couldn’t change, just like I had to go through my own process when I came out
to myself. I always hoped he would come to accept it and not just see me as Lauren his lesbian
daughter, but as his daughter Lauren, who happens to be a lesbian.
So how has your relationship changed since doing the show?
L: It has changed dramatically; it’s really been amazing. We’ve really bonded and become
incredibly close, and if it weren’t for the race we probably wouldn’t have had this time to work on
and strengthen our relationship. And it really did pay off for us.
Duke?
D: I completely agree with Lauren. It took me a long time to come to terms with things, but the race
literally brought us closer together. I’m so happy and grateful that it did. All of my previous issues
are really behind me now and I’m glad I can keep them there.
L: I think this opportunity has inspired us to enjoy life’s journey and appreciate things in the present
tense rather than concentrating on issues from the past. We have started living life to the fullest
and we now appreciate each other much more as people.
Of the teams left on the show, whom are you rooting for? Who do you think will win?
D: I think we’re both rooting for Peter and Sarah; we became good friends with them on the race
and think the world of them.
L: They’ve got what it takes; they’re very strong both physically and mentally.
D: It’s no secret, though, that we thought we would be in the final three with them and Tyler and
James.
Do you think Peter and Sarah will pull through?
D and L: We hope so!
|| FILM REVIEW ||
Queens reigns
Nobody has more fun than the characters in a Spanish comedy, and that holds true for this fictional
story of the first 10 gay couples to be legally wed in Spain, in a spectacle broadcast live on TV.
By Marc Breindel
An Advocate.com exclusive posted August 11, 2006
When I'm reborn, I want to come back as the heroine of a Spanish comedy like Reinas. Nobody
has more fun than the characters in a Spanish comedy, especially the women!
Spanish comedies typically involve sex, dancing, crazy mixups, ultramodern decor, sex changes,
sex with inlaws and sexy, outrageous fashions. It's not unusual for a character to wake up and
discover that her gigolo lover may be her long-lost son, except it's really the gigolo's gay roommate
she gave up, so she can divorce her husband, run off with the gigolo and send her gay son a
postcard from Morocco. ¡Viva España!
Reinas fits squarely in that colorful, naughty Spanish comedy mode, with the gay sons front and
center this time out. Reinas tells the fictional story of the first 10 gay couples to be legally wed in
Spain, in a spectacle broadcast live on TV.
Spain legalized same-sex marriage while Reinas was in production in 2005, which makes you
wonder: Would it help America to make Brokeback Mountain II: Cowboy Wedding . . . ? It couldn't
hurt to have the stars of Reinas on our side. Reinas is Spanish for "queens," referring to the
gorgeous gay grooms of the film, but even more so to their fabulous "queen" mothers. There's no
question who rules this queendom: The boys are very pretty, but it's the women who command the
throne.
Take Magda, the steely owner of a Madrid boutique hotel so edgy you could cut yourself just
looking at it. Magda's was the first hotel in Spain to cater exclusively to lesbians and gay men,
years before her son Miguel came out, and now the franchise is going global. Carmen Maura (a
favorite actress of Oscar-winning gay director Pedro Almodóvar) plays Magda as a delectably
brittle ice queen, vulnerable in love but almost always in control. Even when her hotel's head chef
goes on strike just days before the wedding, Magda blows off steam by having angry sex with said
chef, labor strike and spouses at home be damned!
For a more sweet, seductive but equally potent queenly sighting, gaze upon heavenly diva Reyes
(Marisa Paredes), mother and movie star, as she descends the stairs in slow motion to the tune of
Peggy Lee's "Fever." Paredes, the star of Almodóvar's All About My Mother, may be 60 years old,
but that doesn't stop Reyes from slinking her way into the bed of her handsome younger gardener
(Lluís Homar of Almodóvar's Bad Education). Like mother, like son: Reyes's boy Rafa (Raúl
Jiménez) is engaged to the gardener's even-hunkier kid Jonás (Hugo Silva).
And on it goes. The frisky queen mothers indulge themselves with strangers on trains, their
children's therapists, fellow queen mamas and even one of the gay grooms himself the night before
the wedding. Same-sex marriage has opened up a whole new world of sexual temptations for
Spanish comedies to explore.
As delicious as the dames are, the guys are even hotter, although they're less interesting when
they open their mouths. Hotel heir Miguel (Unax Ugalde) and his masseur fiancé, Oscar, (Daniel
Hendler) make the sexiest pair, and also the stiffest. Miguel looks like a golden trophy with his chic,
severe white-blonde hair and spa-smooth copper skin. Oscar is Miguel's beastly beautiful
complement, a hairy god with hypnotic grey eyes. Unfortunately, they fight like an old married
couple through most of the film, stopping only to have sex as an act of defiance against Oscar's
meddlesome -- and adorable! -- mother, Ofelia (Betiana Blum). Oscar does a fierce stage dance to
"Unchain My Heart" at the bachelor party, but otherwise, he and Miguel, along with their fellow gay
grooms, are just straight men for the royal queen mums.
Europeans have always gone to sunny Spain for fantasy vacations, and now we can all enjoy a
carefree Spanish fling with some of the world's most fabulous leading ladies, right in the comfort an
air-conditioned local movie theater. Reinas is the perfect virtual honeymoon for queer moviegoers
awaiting our own big gay wedding.
|| EVENTS ||
November 17, 2006
West Coast premiere of All the Rage in L.A., November 10–December 16
Event date: November 10, 2006 - December 16, 2006
The ATTIC Theatre and Film Center in Los Angeles will debut Keith Reddin's queer-inclusive dark
comedy All the Rage on Friday, November 10, at 8 p.m. The play, which was first performed at the
Goodman Theatre in Chicago to numerous accolades before premiering at the 12 Mile West
Theatre Company in New Jersey, was also made into a feature film with Joan Allen and Jeff
Daniels in 1999 under the title It's the Rage. The ATTIC's production, helmed by Brian Shnipper,
the director who headed the New Jersey run, will be performed Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.
through December 16.
Tickets are $20 and can be purchased by calling (310) 525-0600, ext. 2, or by visiting
www.attictheatre.org.
|| COMMENTARY ||
Why should being gay be a crime?
In 75 countries being gay is still a crime. French activist Louis-George Tin, founder of the
International Day Against Homophobia, hopes to change that by having the United Nations adopt a
resolution calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality worldwide. Tin spoke to The Advocate
ahead of a press conference in Paris where he announced the news.
By Doug Ireland
An Advocate.com exclusive posted November 15, 2006On November 17 the Paris-based
International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) will launch a global campaign for a United Nations
resolution declaring that homosexuality should no longer be considered a crime anywhere in the
world.
The proposed U.N. resolution is the brainchild of IDAHO’s founder, Louis-Georges Tin, 32, a
professor and author of a number of books (including the Dictionary of Homophobia) who is also a
rising star of France’s emerging black movement for equality.
Tin will simultaneously release a list of hundreds of VIP endorsers of the proposed U.N. resolution,
including a gaggle of Nobel Prize winners (among them, Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa,
Dario Fo of Italy, Elfriede Jelinek of Austria, and Amartya Sen of India); political leaders, including
two former French prime ministers (Laurent Fabius and Michel Rocard); academics (such
as Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman and world-famous sociologist Richard Sennett);
entertainers (such as Academy Award-winning actress Meryl Streep, David Bowie, Edward Norton,
Mike Nichols, Lily Tomlin, actor-playwright Wallace Shawn, humorist Bruce Vilanch, and Spanish
actress Victoria Abril); and a host of renowned writers, including Doug Wright, Jon Robin Baitz,
Salman Rushdie, Gore Vidal, Sir Tom Stoppard, Tony Kushner, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Russell
Banks, Bernard-Henri Levy, John Berendt,
Lady Antonia Fraser, Christopher Hitchens, Michael Chambon, Peter Carey, and Edmund White.
Getting the U.N. to commit to universal decriminalization of homosexuality is destined to become
the central objective of the international LGBT movement for the next decade. Tin spoke to The
Advocate.
What chance do you think this resolution has of passing the U.N.?
Many people believe such a resolution is beyond reach. I personally don't. Why? Because there is
already U.N. jurisprudence in our favor. In 1994, Mr. Toonen, a citizen of Tasmania, who had been
condemned for same-sex relationships, won his case in what was then the U.N. Commission on
Human Rights—it said his arrest was a breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
of the right of privacy. So we just ask the U.N. to extend this jurisprudence to other countries—75
in the world!—where same-sex relationships are still forbidden. There’s recent evidence that this is
not as utopian a project as it might seem at first glance: In October this year, the U.N. Working
Group on Arbitrary Detention declared that the imprisonment in Cameroon of 11 men who’d been
caught in a raid on a gay bar on charges of homosexuality was "an arbitrary deprivation of liberty"
that violates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. That’s encouraging.
How will you and IDAHO work for its passage?
The campaign for the U.N. resolution will have two main components. An external media campaign
to raise awareness within public opinion and governments will begin with the November 17
unveiling of a petition—for which VIP signatures are now being gathered—on IDAHO’s Web site,
www.idahomophobia.org. Also, a host of international and country organizations have already
signed on as cosponsors of the campaign for the resolution, like the International Lesbian and Gay
Association and France‘s Ligue des Droits de l‘Homme. The second battle has to be waged within
the new U.N. Council on Human Rights. We have to lobby the states that are members and ask
them to support the resolution or at least not to vote against it. We are talking with the government
of South Africa, which is a member of the council to sponsor the resolution. South Africa was the
first country in the world to include the principle of nondiscrimination against gays and lesbians in
its constitution—and their sponsorship would show that LGBT rights are not just a "Western issue."
What exactly does the resolution say?
The text I wrote asks for a universal decriminalization of homosexuality. It is very clear, easy, and
simple, and based solely on the articles of the U.N.‘s Universal Declaration of Human Rights that
were used to justify the decision in the Toonen case. I did not want to write a philosophical text on
the issue, because an argument that may be relevant in one country will certainly be irrelevant in
another one. We need a common language to support human rights. What could be more relevant
and more international than the Universal Declaration of Human Rights itself?
Why did you choose this moment to launch this campaign?
The Toonen case was ruled on 12 years ago, so I thought it was high time that LGBT organizations
decided to take advantage of it at the U.N. To be honest, I fail to see any issue that could be more
important than this one for LGBT organizations. On May 17, 1990, the World Health Organization
decided that homosexuality could no longer be regarded as a disease, which is why I chose that
date for the International Day Against Homophobia. The first IDAHO was only celebrated in 2005,
so we really couldn’t do anything before that—but now our organization has spread to more than
50 countries and been endorsed by the European Parliament, so I think we are ready to go farther.
Look, gays and lesbians around the world cannot wait any longer for their love to cease being
made a crime. Many are in jail, or at risk of being jailed. Some are being killed. This has to stop
now.
Ireland is a veteran political journalist who can be reached through his blog, DIRELAND, at
Direland.typepad.com/direland/. Photo by Alix.
|| ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT ||
Getting Real gay once again
The Advocate catches up with MTV's newest gay Real Worlder, a Southern boy who bucks
stereotypes and defies labels from Marietta to Buenos Aires.
By Daniel Blau
An Advocate.com exclusive posted November 13, 2006As MTV's mainstay reality show The Real
World relocates to Denver for its 18th season (premiering November 22), The Advocate checks in
with its latest gay cast member, 23-year-old Davis from Marietta, Ga. While a gay or lesbian
character is a staple archetype in almost every season of the show, Davis wants the world to know
he is no ordinary reality show fag. We caught up with him vacationing with his boyfriend in sunny
Buenos Aires to let him explain in his own words his feelings about homosexuality, conservative
Christianity, reality TV typecasting, and what it feels like to come out to your grandmother.
What are you doing in Buenos Aires?
One of my really good friends is down here. Actually, it¹s my boyfriend. He's studying down here,
and so I'm down here visiting him.
Having seen previous seasons of The Real World, which usually feature one gay or lesbian
cast member, did you feel like you were "the gay one"? Did that matter to you?
I feel like they always have...not always, but a lot of times there's a gay character. And I had to do
a lot of talking to myself, like, Am I only cast for this show because I'm gay? But there are tons of
gay people who try out every season for this show, so obviously there must be something different
about me from the rest of them. In life, I'm a real straight-acting kind of gay guy. I'm in a fraternity,
I've barely been to any gay bars. I hardly even went when I was in Denver. Most of my friends, if
not all of them, are straight. I have a few gay friends. And so, for me, I thought maybe I was being
cast for being more like the "straight gay guy." They hadn't really cast a ton of those before. But I
didn't want to have to come in and, like, come out immediately to everyone. 'Cause I felt like the
guys would immediately label me as "the gay character." And I just came out a year ago. So it was
kinda tough, coming in knowing that people are gonna expect someone to be gay, and fingers
might be pointed at me, and what are they gonna think? And are they gonna still be my friends?
That sort of stuff was going through my head.
So you were not out in the house immediately upon arriving there.
No. I mean, I didn't come in and be like, "I¹m gay!" It took some time. Unfortunately, because this is
a show that usually has a gay character, people were asking, "Is there somebody gay?" And I
wasn't gonna lie and be like, "Oh, I¹m not," and then tell everyone a month later. So if I was ever
confronted, I did [come out], but it wasn't all, like, [from] day one.
What was the response from the other housemates?
The girls had no issues. In fact, one of them was craving a gay character. Some of the guys had
issues with it, homophobic issues. I mean, that¹s probably why they were chosen. I'm from a really
strong Christian family, so we had a lot of talks about, like, "Is this a choice?" And, what are my
views about, you know, if you condemn drinking in the Bible, how is that any different from
condemning being gay in the Bible, when my Christian friends are drinking, you know? So it was
things like that. One of my favorite persons in the house is one of the guys, and we have become
really good friends because of it. So I don't feel like it was a typical "gay guy that only is friends with
girls" scenario.
Talk about your upbringing in Marietta.
I'm from a really strong Baptist family. My grandfather is a pastor. My dad and my mom met as
youth group leaders. And my parents are both Sunday school teachers on the weekends. I used to
work at a Christian bookstore in high school, as well as I went on choir tours and mission tours for
spring break.The whole shebang. I was at church most of the days of the week. I was a really,
really, really, really, really strong Christian in high school. ButI knew I was gay from about the time I
hit puberty, and it was always a struggle for me because I felt like, This is so wrong. I'm going to
hell. Like, Am I even a Christian? I was always dealing with that. You remember that movie with
Mandy Moore about Christianity?
Saved.
I grew up in that environment. So many people from my high school went to church. If someone
was caught smoking on the weekend, oh, my God, they were ousted from our friendship. I was so
afraid that if anyone found out that I was gay, I would be kicked out of the group. And I was popular
in high school for the fact that I was a church kid and really, you know, good. ButI knew I was gay.
So it was a really tough environment to grow up in, because you worry a lot about what people are
gonna think about you.
So when did you actually come out?
I came out a year ago this past summer. I went to Florida for college, to try to get away from the
conservative South, and I thought, Florida¹s more liberal-minded, and it was. I went to a small
Baptist school that had lost its affiliation 10 years ago, so it wasn't really clinging to that anymore.
And there weren't really any gay people at my school that were out, really. It was a really small
school. But I got really confident in who I was, in the sense that I was popular, I had a lot of friends,
everyone liked me. I was at a point where I could tell people I was gay and I wouldn't lose any
friends, and it happened. I had true friendships that weren't based about religion and judgmental
things; they were just about people liking each other. And when I came out, it was a really positive
experience, and I got more popular because of it. And I got more confident in the fact that being
gay isn't such a horrible thing. And I actually tried out for the show from all this positive feedback I
was getting from my friends. 'Cause I was like, Wow, you know, this isn't as awful as I thought it
was. For some people, this show is actually gonna make me come out to them. A lot of my friends
from high school don't know about it yet.
When you came out, was it just to your family and close friends?
When I came out, it was just to my friends. And then, as I got accepted for this show, I made a list
of about 25 people from home who wouldn¹t have heard through the rumor mill going around in
college, and I called them up one by one and just told them. And I got really great feedback from
my Christian friends. The next thing you know, it was like, Wow, my Christian friends aren¹t really
responding the same way I thought they would. They were like, ³I love you, Davis. This is an issue
I¹m starting to change my mind about, and maybe I don¹t think that it¹s a choice. Maybe I don¹t
think it¹s condemnable to hell,² and all these sort of things that I was afraid I would be getting when
I was in high school. My brother had known for a couple years; he¹d overheard me and my mom
fighting about it, and that¹s how he found out. And I told my mom and dad when I was in early high
school, late middle school.
It's good that you took such positive steps to let your loved ones know before going on the
show.
I didn¹t want anyone like my really close family to have to find out on TV, so I told them all. I even
told my grandmother before I came on the show.
How was that?
She comes from an older time. She¹s not as religious as my parents are, so she wasn¹t having
issues with, like, "Oh, no, you¹re going to go to hell." But she was like, "You¹re never gonna get a
job. People aren¹t going to respect you. People make fun of gay people." That was sort of her
thing.
What do you think will be the general reaction of your community when you go back to
Marietta?
I don't know. I have gotten to the point in my life where I just want to be happy. I want to be in a
relationship with a guy because that makes me happy, and I want to just be proud of who I am and
not ashamed of anything anymore. I don't really care what my friends from my school who may not
be my friends anymore think.
What can you tell us about your relationship?
We've been dating now for nine months. We actually went to high school together. We're from
neighborhoods just down the street from each other. He's really into baseball, he's in a fraternity.
He's sort of a guy's guy. I knew him in high school but not knowing he was gay, and I think the
same thing went for him with me. So we were hanging out over Christmas break, someone
mentioned to him that I was gay and thought we should hang out. I guess he'd come out to one
friend, and that friend set us up. And then,through the process, he's actually gotten more confident
and proud of who he is, and he started to come out to lots of people, and this show will be a similar
experience for him, in that a lot of his friends from college and high school don't know that he's gay.
But he made an appearance [on the show], so it'll be an experience for him. We'll be going through
it together.
Since you're about to be thrust into the public eye, do you see yourself as becoming a kind
of role model or 'gay icon'?
Well, I don't have aspirations of being a gay icon or gay role model. I think I did at one point in time,
when I was trying out for the show. I thought that would be really cool. Right now...I mean, if it
happens, that¹s awesome. I've always thought about talking to people that are struggling with
religious families [and who] are having a hard time coming out. I have a friend in college who works
with runaways, and a lot of runaways are homosexual kids who run away from their families
because they¹re afraid to come out. And I thought this would be a great experience for me to
maybe...I don't know. I want to do something with it positive.
You've seen Danny Roberts from The Real World: New Orleans, and how he¹s made a career
out of speaking up. Do you see yourself doing anything like that?
I'd love to. I'm a little young to watch Danny¹s season, I didn't ever catch any of it. but I've heard a
lot about him. People have compared me to him. But whatever he¹s doing, I¹d love to follow in his
footsteps. Making people feel more confident and not ashamed about their sexuality, and if they've
been in a place where people have really said negative things to them about it, like I have [been], I
would love to be able to speak to them. I just think, once you come to terms with your sexuality,
once you come out of the closet, it's an amazing experience. It's like a new day for you. This is day
one for me for the rest of my life. I would love to be able to talk to people about that experience and
make them feel more confident.
Daniel Blau has worked as a writer for America's Next Top Model and is a staff writer for
TelevisionWithoutPity.com. Photos courtesy MTV