Where the American Dream is Alive and Well

We hear much about the American Dream becoming increasingly unobtainable.  There is some truth to the story line and most of it comes from decades of Republican efforts to undermine the social safety net and to take from the working and middle classes and give even more benefits to the extremely wealthy.  Add to this the GOP refusal to face modernity, including climate change and it is a recipe for disaster for many.  Sadly, the willingness of far too many whites to fall for GOP class to racism and religious based bigotry has only helped to exacerbate the negative impact on large numbers of Americans.

But the American Dream is still alive and attainable.  Where do you find it?  In the nation's immigrant communities.  This is where one finds a respect for education and great efforts to learn and gain degrees.  Perhaps most importantly, this is where a willingness to move to find opportunity and a dedication to hard work still flourishes. The immigrant community that I know best is the Indian/Hindu community from which I have many clients.  Last night the husband and I went to a house warming party for an Indian-American client's spectacular new home (it was an amazing party, by the way).  As expected, numerous other clients were among the guests.  Many of these individuals were not born in America, arrived with little other than a desire to better themselves and their families, and shared a willingness to attain an education and work hard.  Our host noted that for him, America is truly a wonderful country where hard work could still move one ahead and allow one to find success.  The same stories can be found in other many other immigrant communities, including the Hispanic community. As the post yesterday on the disability epidemic in with rural America, far too many whites - the majority of whom voted for Trump and the GOP - have forgotten what is known and valued by our immigrant communities.  I feel truly blessed to have come to know the Indian-American community.

Another aspect that struck us last night was that we as an openly gay couple were completely welcomed.  Sadly, in many circles in Hampton Roads such is still often not the case.   Rather than judge people by their character and contributions to the community, the "godly Christians" reject those who are different be it in terms of skin color, faith or sexual orientation.  These "Christians" act in a manner the opposite of the Gospel message they pretend to worship. Indeed, my own quest for the American dream too a huge hit when I was forced from a large local law firm for being gay. The powers that be at the firm did  not want to upset the sensibilities of their "conservative clients."  Thankfully, things are back on a positive track for me - in no small part due to the Indian-American community's embrace of me. 

To truly make America great again, we need more hard working immigrants who put a premium on education and fewer Trump-voting whites.  

Generation Y - What Made It so Gay Accepting

I have noted before how my three children are very gay accepting - and have been from when I first came out to then over a decade ago at this point.  But they are not unique in terms of their generation  - a fact I remind men who contact me  for advice during their coming out process.  So what explains this quantum leap from previous generations?  One reason is that more and more gays are coming out at earlier ages so that this generation knows actual gays who not surprisingly do not fit the ugly stereotype that the Christofascists like to disseminate.   But the mainstream media's depictions of gay characters has played a huge role as well.  A piece in Huffington Post looks at the phenomenon.  Here are excerpts:

You know you know gay people. You realize by now that they're all around. You've been on baseball teams and in locker rooms and rushed frats together. Whatever your religious take on them, we, as the impossible to define bunch known as Gen-Y, have become increasingly cool with our gay brothers and friends. We've ditched "no homo" for "yeah, bro" when hanging with our openly gay friends, and we're civilized enough to know that the "F" word makes us look even more absurd than when your crazy uncle throws the "N" word around after three drinks at Thanksgiving.

How did we get here? The answer is one that is only going to make our high school English teachers continue to curse our love of shiny things over books: TV and movies.

We started to see that all the crap we were fed from people older and more uptight than us was crap. Gay people aren't all pedophiles and monsters. They're real -- and often pretty damned hilarious and awesome. They're our friends, our neighbors, our teachers, our relatives. They stopped being a "them" -- and started being part of "us."


At the risk of typing the gayest sentence of my career: thank goodness for Glee. Say what you want about showtunes on prime time, but that show gives it to you how it is -- and doesn't once apologize for it. Not the singing and dancing part, but the teenage angst part that goes with trying to figure out who the hell you are. Glee, which is on Fox -- among the most uptight, ass backward networks on air -- puts a boy in a dress right next to the straight couple fighting a pregnancy scare. It may seem a bit ridiculous when they sing -- but the situations are real, and are happening in schools all over the country right now. Probably even in yours.

Our parents grew up in a time when gay actors in movies were giggled at for playing 'those guys.' But now Zach Quinto is kicking ass in outer space in Star Trek and Wentworth Miller was such the ultimate bad ass in Prison Break -- and no one cares who they're sleeping with. It's certainly not hurting their popularity. It's all because we care about content and character -- the way we should -- in both the shows we catch and the people we care about bringing into our lives.

Which takes us back to your ten best bros. Like I said, one of them is statistically gay. The thing that makes you, and the rest of Gen-Y, so damned great is that we don't care. We know there's a lot more to him to care about. So, yeah, he's gay -- he's also funny as hell, a killer Candy Crush player, your girlfriend's best friend (which probably can't hurt your sex life to know what she really wants) and he's just plain cool to be around.

If anything, they're just a little bit more awesome because you have a friend who has chosen to be completely real with you and doesn't need to keep any of the fronts up that we felt we had to for so long.

So, as one of your gay brothers who loves college football and playing Wii as much as he loves a good showtune, thanks for being awesome, my fellow Gen-Y'ers. Thanks for making "No homo" no more.

This trend, of course is terrifying to the Christofascist hate merchants.  Their anti-gay lies and screeds are falling on deaf ears.  Worse yet, many in Gneration Y have taken not only the step of being gay friendly, but they've taken the additional step of walking away from institutional religion.

Gay Democrats' New Visibility

While little has changed in the GOP political world for gay Americans - we are still viewed and treated as a threat to morality and even Western civilization - it has been nothing short of a revolution for gays involved in Democratic political circles.  This bold new world was highly visible at the just ended Democratic convention in Charlotte.  Even in Virginia (hardly a state in the forefront of anything progressive) one can see the change and the boyfriend and I have often been sought out to be on host committees as an openly gay couple.   I'm sure that in local GOP circles that include anti-gay bigots like Scott Rigell, George Allen and Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli we'd be directed to hide our unfortunate "lifestyle choice" assuming we were self-loathing enough to support a political party that seeks to stigmatize us and keep us legally inferior.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the new world of Democratic political activism.  Here are excerpts:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — After years of struggling for attention and recognition from the nation’s political parties, gays and lesbians have catapulted to the forefront of the Democratic convention here, prominent on the stage, in speeches, in the platform and at parties that go on after the proceedings have finished.

The turnaround has surprised even gay leaders, who just four years ago were frustrated in their attempt to get same-sex marriage mentioned in prime time. Many spent the first two years of the Obama presidency criticizing President Obama for failing to move to fulfill a campaign promise to eliminate the ban on gays serving openly in the military. 

Eric Marcus, an author who has written extensively about gay history, said: “I used to think I was bold in being as out as I am, but now I feel like our straight supporters have zoomed past me in their enthusiasm and their out-ness about being pro-gay. They’re actually wearing their pro-gay agenda as a badge of honor. What a transformed world from my youth.” 

One of the Democrats’ first acts was adopting a party platform that for the first time endorsed same-sex marriage. Gay rights — whether they be same-sex marriage, the lifting of the ban on gays in the military, or anti-discrimination measures — have been mentioned in nearly every speech, including one by Michelle Obama.

The higher profile of gays extended beyond the arena. It was not uncommon to see same-sex couples walking hand in hand down Tryon Street, in the heart of Uptown. Parties sponsored by gay and lesbian groups have become as sought after as the ones sponsored by Google and by the Illinois delegation. 

The contrast with the Republican convention last week in Florida was striking. In Tampa, there were no openly gay people speaking from the stage, and minimal discussion of gay issues, though there were small contingents of gay delegates and celebrations in more obscure venues. That said, gay delegates there noted that unlike past conventions, there was no chorus of attacks on gay rights from the stage. 

There's much more in the article, but the highlights above make the point: with the younger up and coming generations supporting LGBT rights and same sex marriage by large majorities, the Democrats seem to have eagerly grasps the future whereas the GOP remains mired in trying to recreate a past that in many ways never really existed.  By focusing almost solely on the demands of angry white conservatives (many of whom will have literally have died off in a little more than a decade, the GOP to me seems to have a death wish.

Sweltering Heat and Morning Reflections

The sweltering heat continues in Hampton Roads and even though the official high temperature yesterday was 98 at the Norfolk airport that sits near Chesapeake Bay (and is moderated temperature wise by the Bay's proximity), the thermometer in the back yard topped out at 105 in the shade.  Definitely too hot even for a sun worshiper like me to stand.  So why didn't I blog more yesterday?  Apparently the heat took its toll on our local Internet provider and the Internet went into sleep mode or some other melt down mode and ground to a near halt.  I couldn't even get the blog "new post" option to load.   I took solace in reading a new archeology/thriller novel stretched out under a ceiling fan.

But I did have time to think about some of the good things about are life in Virginia - an often wretched state to live in if one is an LGBT individual.  And what's good comes down to our friends, and not just our gay friends.  Friday night the boyfriend and I took three of his widowed clients out to steak night at The Wave - a Norfolk gay bar - and then for dessert at Sassi Cakes and Sweets in Ghent area of Norfolk.  These women are outrageous fun and were right at home in a gay club.  They indeed have a resilience and spark right out of "Steel Magnolias."  It was a wonderful evening and they are game for another night out with the gay boys.

Then last night we had an older couple over who are truly remarkable both in terms of their achievements over the course of their lives and their sense of fun and open mindedness.  The purpose of the dinner was to celebrate the husband's 78th birthday.  Would that more Virginians had their style, love of life and spirit of acceptance of others.  I truly treasure them and they have become surrogate parents of sorts for me now that both of my parents are gone.

This afternoon, we will take refuge by a friend's pool (see below) and most likely have a libation or two - or three.  Friends do make the difference in one's life.  The boyfriend and I are blessed to have wonderful friends even in a backwards place like Virginia.

Old Dominion University to Offer Designated Gay Student Housing

While Virginia in general remains a region plagued by gay-hating Neanderthals - especially amongst the Republican Party of Virginia - some of the state universities offer pockets of tolerance and acceptance both because it is the right thing to do and also because it helps with their recruiting efforts. Serving on the advisory board for the ODU Cultural Studies initiative, I have seen the strides being made at Old Dominion University. Now, ODU will offer designated housing on campus for gay and gay supportive students beginning in the fall. While the majority of students I have encountered are gay accepting, this new effort will help insure LGBT students have a supportive atmosphere. Here are highlights from the Virginian Pilot (it goes without saying that there are some nasty anti-gay comments on the article from local knuckle draggers who invariably want special rights for Christians - did I mention how much I hate Virginia in general?):

This fall, for the first time, Old Dominion University will offer dedicated on-campus housing for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students and their supporters.

ODU will be the third Virginia university to offer such housing, joining George Mason University and the University of Richmond. Elsewhere in the Southeast, only Duke University, in Durham, N.C., offers it.

The dedicated housing, called Lavender House, is intended to be a place where gay and lesbian students can feel safer and more accepted, ODU said in an announcement Thursday.

Charles Lowman, ODU's assistant director for housing and residence life, said Lavender House will build on efforts to match gay and lesbian students with roommates who will be comfortable with them. "Having a dedicated residence space will make that matching easier, because Lavender House will be self-selecting," he said.

The dedicated living quarters will meet a need identified by gay and lesbian students in a survey last spring, ODU said. Other groups have appealed to the Office of Housing and Residence Life for dedicated housing spaces, and Army ROTC will have a reserved space this fall as well, the university said.

The Lavender House announcement comes at a time when gay rights and other social issues have assumed a high profile in the Virginia General Assembly. The news drew a range of reactions in Richmond. Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, the only openly gay member of the Assembly, was glad to hear it.

Del. Bob Marshall, R-Prince William County, one of the Assembly's most outspoken social conservatives, called the move a wrongheaded distraction from the university's academic mission.

So far, 18 students have signed up to live in Lavender House this fall. Students who are interested in applying for a room, or would like more information about Lavender House and the Safe Space Committee, can email safespace@odu.edu.

For those who may not recall, Del. Marshall has publicly stated that he'd be happy to drive all LGBT citizens from Virginia. The man is a monster and for those who say he's charming in person, similar statements were made about Hitler. Actions speak louder than pleasant conversation.

Is The End of the Christian Right Approaching?

I have often noted that the Republican Party is - at least in my opinion - committing a slow, long term form of suicide in its quest to prostitute itself to Christianists and what might be best described as those who are tantamount to white supremacists. As the older generations literally die off, the base to which the GOP is prostituting itself is literally dying off. And the GOP is positioning itself to have no one aligned with the party to replace the deceased haters and Christofascists. A piece in the New Republic looks at the possible sunset days of the Christian Right and what it may mean for the GOP. With luck, the GOP will not wake up until it's too late to avert the consequences of its disgusting pandering to a dwindling influence in the political realm. Here are some article highlights:

Is the Christian Right still a power in American politics? The lavish coverage which its partisans and their favorite issues have received during the current Republican campaign certainly leave that impression. Yet all this attention is akin to the dazzling glow of a setting sun. In fact, the Christian Right is a fading force in American life, one which has little chance of achieving its cherished goals.

Yes, pious conservatives earned the underfunded Rick Santorum a virtual tie in the Iowa caucuses, and, last week, a large gathering of evangelical leaders nodded fervently in his direction. Every GOP candidate still in the race speaks of Planned Parenthood as if it were a band of terrorists and vows to stop the largest and oldest reproductive rights group in the country from winning even a dollar of federal funding—and all of them except Ron Paul has signed a firm pledge to support a constitutional amendment that would essentially ban same-sex marriage.

[W]hatever their influence on the Republican primary, the Christian Right is fighting a losing battle with the rest of the country — above all, when it comes to abortion and same-sex marriage, the issues they care most about. A strong majority of Americans backs abortion in the early months of a pregnancy.

Meanwhile, support for gay rights is rising, quite swiftly. Same-sex marriage tops fifty percent in some recent polls, and the remarkably placid response to New York’s recent legalization of the practice will make it easier for other states to follow suit. With over two-thirds of Americans now endorsing the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the debate on that once controversial issue is now a matter for historians to analyze.

In the modern U.S., once a demand for justice gets widely accepted as an individual right, its victory becomes all but certain. As the woman suffrage, birth control, and black freedom movements triumphed, so will those who campaign for legalizing gay marriage.

At Glenn Beck’s prayer meeting cum political rally in August 2010, the average age of the participants was somewhere in the late fifties or older: White and gray hair and spreading midriffs predominated in the nearly all-white crowd.

Put simply, the Christian Right is getting old. According to the largest and most recent study we have of American religion and politics, by Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, almost twice as many people 18 to 29 confess to no faith at all as adhere to evangelical Protestantism. Young people who have attended college, a growing percentage of the population, are more secular still.

If they still hope to transform our pluralistic, profane culture into a new Jerusalem, Christian conservatives will have to find new holy battles to wage. The old ones and their crusaders are rapidly aging.

The death of the Christian Right as any sort of force in politics and/or society cannot come soon enough in my book. Hate, intolerance and division are not forces that will move America forward. The Christian Right needs to be buried with its soon to expire base and the nation needs to embrace science,knowledge and inclusion as opposed to ignorance and bigotry. I hope I live long enough to see the Christian Right become utterly irrelevant in the political realm.

Princeton Review's List of Least Gay Friendly Colleges

For any younger readers looking to go to college or for parents of LGBT students soon to be headed off to college, Princeton Review has released its latest rankings of the colleges to be avoided because of the LGBT unfriendly atmospheres. The top ten worse choices for LGBT students are as follows:

1. Wheaton College in Illinois
2. Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania
3. Brigham Young University in Utah (not exactly a surprise if you ask me)
4. Hampden-Sydney College here in Virginia (again, no surprise)
5. College of the Ozarks in Arkansas
6. University of Notre Dame in Indiana
7. Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, California
8. Boston College in Massachusetts
9. University of Dallas in Irving, Texas
10. Texas A&M University in College Station, Tecas.

Obviously, it's no surprise that three out of the top ten least LGBT institutions are Catholic institutions. With the Church, gay sex is fine as long as its confined to priests molesting same sex victims far younger than themselves. On the other end of the spectrum ar the colleges and universities that are the most gay friendly. Here are the top ten institutions in this category:

1. New York University in New York, New york
2. Stanford University in Stanford, California
3. Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts
4. Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts
5. Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont
6. University of Wisconsin - Madison, in Madison, Wisconsin
7. Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota
8. New College of Florida
9. Prescott College in Prescott Arizona
10. Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York

There are many things to consider in selecting a college. However, no one needs to go to a college or university where they need to hide in the closet and otherwise be miserable or treated badly.

Support for Legal Gay Relations Hits New High

Yet another new poll - this time by Gallup - underscores the fact that the Christianists are loosing the culture wars no matter what Jim Daly tries to claim to the contrary as he tries to appease the Christianist extremists. Gallup reveals that 56% of Americans deem gay relationships morally acceptable:
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Americans are somewhat less likely to consider gay or lesbian relations to be morally acceptable than to say they should be legal. However, the 56% who consider gay or lesbian relations morally acceptable is the highest Gallup has measured since this question was first asked in 2001.
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On the less positive side, the public continues to fall for the bullshit ex-gay myth disseminated by the professional Christian set and the registered "family values" hate groups:
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Though public acceptance of gay and lesbian relations has increased, Americans remain divided as to the origins of same-sex orientation. Forty-two percent say being gay or lesbian is "due to factors such as upbringing and environment," while 40% believe it is "something a person is born with." Prior to 2001, Americans were more inclined to think being gay or lesbian was a product of one's environment.

New Washington Post-ABC Poll: Slim Majority Back Gay Marriage

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll has again shown that the Christianists are slowly losing their war against LGBT citizens and same sex marriage in particular. We can expect the shrill hysteria from self-enriching political whore Maggie Gallagher, KKK loving Tony Perkins (who must be incensed by the mixed race couple in the photo above), self-loathing closet case Bob Knight, and, of course white supremacist/homophobe manipulated black pastors, to increase much like anti-black hysteria increased in the South in the early 1960's (sadly, I'm old enough to recall watching TV coverage of segregationist violence in my pre-teen and teenage years). In the longer term, one can only hope that the increased stridency and untruthfulness of the opponents of equality will help to hasten the demise of their support in the larger public. The day cannot come soon enough in my book when the vast majority of the population will realize that if a Christianist's lips are moving, the safest assumption is to presume the statements being made are deliberate lies and/or reflect a religious extremism akin to that of the Taliban. The Washington Post has coverage on the poll and here are some highlights:
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A slim majority of Americans now support gay marriage, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. The results underscore the nation’s increasingly tolerant views about homosexuals, and parallel a string of recent legal and legislative victories for gay rights advocates.
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Five years ago, at 36 percent, support for gay marriage barely topped a third of all Americans. Now, 53 percent say gay marriage should be legal, marking the first time in Post-ABC polling that a majority has said so.
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“This is very consistent with a lot of other polling data we’ve seen and the general momentum we’ve seen over the past year and a half,” said Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, a leading pro-gay-marriage group. “As people have come to understand this is about loving, committed families dealing, like everyone, with tough times, they understand how unfair it is to treat them differently.”
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Opponents of same-sex marriage took issue with the poll, which asks respondents: “Do you think it should be legal or illegal for gay and lesbian couples to get married?”
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Post-ABC News polls have used the same “legal or illegal” wording in every poll about same-sex marriage since 2003. Other surveys by the Pew Research Center, the Associated Press and CNN show similar trends.
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Men, who previously were less supportive of same-sex marriage than women, now back it at the same rate. Support among college-educated whites, political independents and people who do not consider themselves religious also rose substantially. Republicans, conservatives and white evangelical Christians remain the groups most opposed to legalizing gay marriage.
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This week, Democrats introduced bills to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and noted how the tables have turned. “What do I say to the idea that this is a wedge issue? I say ‘Hallelujah,’ ” Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who is gay, told reporters, according to the liberal Web site Talking Points Memo. “The fact that we’ve now evolved to the point where the Republicans are complaining about the fact that we introduced this bill because it causes them political problems is a great sign of progress. It used to be the other way around.”

More Americans Support than Oppose Same-Sex Marriage

Despite set backs and lost battles, the tide of the culture wars is trending against the Christianists and their allied hate merchants on the battle for civil law recognition of same sex unions. That's not to say the Maggie Gallaghers and similar self-enriching political prostitutes of the far right will not become increasingly shrill in their anti-gay diatribes. But long term, they have lost the battle for the hearts and minds of average Americans as evidence by the chart set out above. Here are some highlights from Religion Dispatches:
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Sociologist Darren Sherkat of Southern Illinois University has taken a close look at the General Social Survey data and found that in 2010, for the first time, more Americans support than oppose same-sex marriage.
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When you look at that graph, the shift is dramatic; in 1988, just 22 years ago, only 12% of Americans supported gay marriage. In 2010, it was 46%, with only 40% opposed. And it's even a big shift from 2008 to 2010: support went up seven points, and opposition trended downward seven points.
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"Our findings suggest that in a little over a decade the majority of Americans will support the legalization of same-sex marriage." While the 2010 data doesn't show an over-50% majority, it does show, far more quickly than Sherkat expected, support outpacing opposition.
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Overall, attitudes are indeed shifting. But the zealousness of political and religious conservatives to continue to battle LGBT rights, even facing an absence of overall public support, makes it unlikely that they will retreat anytime soon.

It's DADT That's Immoral - Not Homosexuality

I often complain that gay friendly Christians are too silent while yielding the field to gay-hating modern day Pharisees. In fact, at a wedding I had an interesting conversation with a liberal Baptist minister who understood that we are ALL God's creation whether gay or straight. Recently, at least other two individuals who, in my opinion, are real Christians spoke out for LGBT equality and confirmed our humanity. One was Fr. Jeff Farrow (pictured above) who spoke out against the Roman Catholic Church's support of Proposition 8 and was rewarded by the hate-filled fossils in the Church hierarchy by removal from his parish and suspension as a priest. Yesterday, Farrows was one of the 13 protesters who chained themselves to the White House fence and was arrested as a result of a demonstration urging DADT repeal. I salute Fr. Farrow. Another is Debra W. Haffner, an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister and Executive director of the Religious Institute, a multifaith organization dedicated to sexual health and justice, who has a piece in the Washington Post that condemns the immorality of DADT. Here are some highlights:
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Despite public and military support for overturning Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the legislation which bans openly gay service members, political, military and religious leaders cite a variety of objections to changing the law.
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Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) worries that allowing gays to serve openly would impact troop "morale;" Marine Corp Commandant Gen. James Amos says that a policy change may affect "unit cohesion" and "combat effectiveness." Among the religious leaders opposed to overturning Don't Ask, Don't Tell is Catholic Archbishop for the Military Services Timothy J. Broglio, who fears that chaplains would be forced to compromise their principles in accepting "objectively disordered" homosexuality, adding that he "can never condone -even silently -homosexual behavior."
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What beliefs are behind banning gays in the military? What's the role of religion in this debate?
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More than a decade of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" has forced my gay friends to live in the military closet, even as they affirm their sexual orientation in other parts of their lives. My colleagues who are chaplains in the military are forced to compromise their religious principles in counseling young military people to stay in that closet rather than upholding their religious commitment that sexual and gender diversity is part of God's blessing.
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Those on the right who use four to seven clobber texts in the Bible to buttress their support for "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" violate the overarching messages of the Scriptures. As I wrote on these pages in mid-October, "using the Bible to exclude or condemn people violates the very spirit of our traditions. I choose to uphold those texts that recognize that there are many forms of blessed relationships, that invite us to welcome those who are different, and view all people as created in God's image."
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More than 3500 religious leaders from more than 50 faith traditions are members of the Religious Institute network, affirming full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender persons, and millions of people of faith stand with them. To those who would use religion to deny LGBT people their rights, I say the sin is not homosexuality but homophobia, the denigration of our neighbors because they are physically and emotionally attracted to people of the same sex. The sin is heterosexism, the presumption that heterosexuality is normative for all people and morally superior. The sin is forcing people to deny their God-given gift of their sexuality and to suffer to try to live their lives in a way that is antithetical to who they really are - or to force them to live in silence. The sin is violence and discrimination against women and GLBT persons and denial of their rights.
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It is time to end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". The American people think so, the military chiefs of staff think so, and the rank and file service people think so. . . . The military and society will be strengthened when all people are able to live fully and express their gender and their sexuality with holiness and integrity. It's past time for that to happen.

Irish President Says "No" to NYC St. Patrick's Day Parade Due to Gay Ban

The reality is that many nations are moving ahead of the USA in terms of granting ALL of their citizens full equality and are leaving religious based anti-gay discrimination on the trash heap of history. Increasingly, bigotry carries a real price. This fact is frequently lost on self-righteous and self-congratulatory religious bigots until they have someone give them the equivalent of a hard smack across the face. The latest bigots to receive such a slap are the organizers of the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade down 5th Avenue in New York City. Next year will be the parade's 250th anniversary and I'm sure they wanted to do something special. Thus, Irish president Mary McAleese (pictured at left) was invited to be Grand Marshal of the 250th St.Patrick’s Day parade in New York. I'm sure much to the shock of the parade organizers - who ban LGBT Irish groups from the parade - Ms. McAleese said no. It seems that she does not countenance discrimination and has no desire to be a part of the parade's exclusionary practices. Irish Central has details of the story. Here are some highlights:
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Irish President Mary McAleese has turned down an invitation to be grand marshal of the New York City St. Patrick’s Day parade in 2011, the historic 250th anniversary of the event. The turn down is said to be connected to the issue of gays being refused the right to march in the parade under their own banners, and McAleese’s strong relationship with gay and lesbian organizations in Ireland.
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McAleese’s refusal to accept the grand marshal invite will come as major blow to parade officials who were intent on making the day an historic showcase.
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Despite a reputation as a conservative Catholic when she took office, McAleese has become a firm advocate for marginalized groups in Irish societies including gay groups. She is very popular with such groups and was risking putting one of the signature accomplishments of her presidency at risk if she accepted the New York invite to lead the parade.
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The parade committee has been way out of step with modern Irish sensibility on this issue and this is now reflected in the McAleese decision which came as no shock to those who know her.

Is Hollywood Opening Its Arms to Gay Characters and Families?

By many accounts it is still taboo in Hollywood for a gay or lesbian actor to be openly gay because the powers that be worry that being gay may hurt an actor's star quality. This stereotype may be true with movie goers and TV viewers over 60 who would discriminate against a gay or lesbian actor, but in therms of the younger generations - generations like that of my children - I suspect that they could care less. If the actor is good and the story line is well written, I suspect that most could care less about who the actor goes home to at the end of the day. Look at Neil Patrick Harris and his two new Emmy nominations as a case in point. Yes, things are different within the ranks of the Christo-fascists - Peter LaBarbarea and Tony Perkins nearly wet themselves at the mere mention of openly gay actors or - the horror - gay related story lines. Whatever is motivating Hollywood, I applaud it because every show or movie that depicts LGBT citizens as normal Americans undercuts the hate and lies disseminated by our enemies. USA Today makes the case that the battle against Hollywood's acceptance of gay characters and gay families has already been lost notwithstanding the hysterics and threatened boycotts of the professional bigot, I mean Christian set. Here are highlights for an article in today's issue of USA Today (BTW, the photo is from eonline.com which reports that Kurt on Glee is going to have a new b/f in the coming season):
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When it comes to gay marriage and gay families, politicians are still bickering and courts are still deliberating. But in entertainment, it's all over but the shouting. Hollywood, which once routinely depicted gay people as miserable, dysfunctional or tragic, now produces movies and TV shows — such as this summer's film The Kids Are All Right, ABC's Modern Family and Fox's Glee — in which gay relationships and gay families are portrayed as just like other families — normal, unremarkable, no big deal.
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"The general trajectory has them transitioning from minstrel acts and punch lines to relatable everyday characters," says David Hauslaib, founder of Queerty, a media-watching blog "by and for the queer community." He adds, "It's a new era where (being a gay family) is no longer a significant part of the story." Why is this happening now? Is Hollywood following the culture, or is the culture following Hollywood?
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Jarrett Barrios, president of GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, says it's no accident that positive depictions of gay families are increasing. "These stories are interesting, they're edgy, they make for good entertainment," he says. "Hollywood is a business, so they're telling good stories because it's good business. Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people have stories that are capturing the imaginations of Americans because fundamentally, we're as American as everyone else."
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"It shows how regular our families are; it goes a long way toward gay and lesbian families introducing ourselves to straight families as not that much different," says Dustin Lance Black, the writer/director who won an Oscar for the screenplay of Milk, about murdered San Francisco politician Harvey Milk (played by straight actor Sean Penn, who won an Oscar). Milk was the first openly gay man elected to public office in California. "And unlike in Milk and so many (past) gay movies, the lead characters don't die," Black adds.
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"The overarching movement is in the culture," says Stephanie Coontz, history professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., and an expert on contemporary families. "Hollywood never had the courage or strength or ability to get positive portrayals of gays until things began to change in the culture at large. "When it did, Hollywood jumped on it. But they couldn't do it unless marketers and investors realized there's an audience for it."

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Like it or not, LGBT Americans are slowly winning the culture wars and folks like Peter LaBarbera and Victoria Cobb at The Family Foundation are becoming more and more an anachronism. Yes, they will continue to pitch a fit and spew hatred and religious based bigotry, but their constituency is fortunately dying off. They'll become more hysterical and hate filled before their cause withers away - and they are forced to get real jobs as opposed to acting as parasitic opportunists. But the good news is that time and education are on the side of equality under the civil laws.

What Women Want: Gay Male Sex

Sometimes I guess I live under a rock or something. The newest issue of Out Magazine has a long article (sorry, it's not available online) on what is apparently the newest rage with many straight women: gay romance novels with lots of male to male sex and romance. Even more surprising, many of the top authors of the genre are outwardly straight married women. One such author is Alex Beecroft, an English housewife turned author who wrote the apparently extremely popular False Colors, set in the 1700's and featuring beautiful sailors. Who would have known? The trend has been going on for a while and may be another aspect of homosexuality going more mainstream - especially if this is what more and more middle class straight women are reading. An article in the Baltimore City Paper looked at the phenomenon over a year ago. Here are some highlights:
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The romance novel, a static and predictable genre, is undergoing an evolution of sorts: storylines written by straight women for straight women . . . about gay men. Gay men are allowed to read them, of course--there's no gender ID check. But the authors want the books shelved with romance novels, not gay literature, and they are straight women writing the stories that they would want to read. Alex Beecroft, the author of False Colors, an "m/m romance" set in the mid-18th century British navy, doesn't see what the big deal is. "Whether your romance is m/f or m/m, love is the same," she writes in an e-mail from her home in England, "two people, heart and soul, fighting for something beautiful, something worth fighting for." Yes, but is it really a romance novel if there's not a heaving bosom?
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It seems strange on the surface--gay male romance novels for straight women--but maybe this is just the latest iteration of the age-old against-the-odds, forbidden fruit love story. Whether it's the Capulet who can't be with the Montague, the princess who can't be with the stable boy, the beauty who can't be with the beast, the countless Hollywood leading couples who can't be together because someone is getting ready to marry another, or the two Georgian naval officers who will be hanged if they are discovered, isn't it the same basic story inspiring the romantic imaginations of women through the ages? They can't be together, so they must.

Another thing that seems strange is a straight woman writer who would leave her sex out of her love stories. Who is this woman with the gender-neutral name? Beecroft is a married mother of two. It was her idea, not some editor's or publisher's, to write these kind of stories. "I find it curious that people are surprised that a straight woman would want to write m/m romance, because for me it's such a natural thing," she writes. "It wasn't suggested to me by anyone. In fact, I started imagining stories in which the two heroes would get together pretty much as soon as I hit puberty."
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Beecroft also sees her stories as opportunities for her to play with and transcend traditional gender roles. "M/M romance can be used to examine relationships which don't suffer from the same sort of built in power imbalances and gender role constraints that make m/f romance such a minefield," she writes.
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So the evolution is underway, complete with all the false starts and dead ends change brings. But the change is deceptively superficial. Whether m/m or m/f or f/f, the prosaic romance novel is still about escaping with characters who are, above all, true to themselves. Whether they have heaving bosoms or straining packages is of less consequence than whether they are heaving and straining against an oppressive society that would keep them apart. And if their equipment matches, the oppression multiplies, and the romantic-at-heart just might root for them even more.

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Since I like historical novels and tend to be a romantic, yours truly may have to check the local Barnes & Noble to see what they're stocking. Of course, there's always Amazon as a fall back.

The Continuing Process of "Coming Out"

I have said before that coming out is not a one time event or something that even takes a few months - especially when one lives in a region like southeastern Virginia. Sometimes perhaps, I/we even put far more pressure on ourselves than others do and we sometimes need to take a deep breath and relax. Sometimes it's necessary to allow others more credit for acceptance than one might expect. Tonight was likely one such occasion.

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Typically, I am pretty comfortable in a crowded room and can hold my own in conversations (much to the amazement of those who knew me as shy and quiet in high school). Nevertheless, I felt like I was coming out all over again tonight (three gin and tonics definitely helped). We were at a beautiful social event thrown at the home of one of the boyfriend's clients from a prominent local family here on the Virginia Peninsula. As seems to happen with regularity, the boyfriend and I were the only gay couple at the heavily attended event. The boyfriend had the advantage in that he had done the hair of a significant percentage of the women in the crowd - as well as some of the husbands - at some point in time or another. In contrast, yours truly knew very few people since until moving in with the boyfriend most of my social interaction was always on the southside of Hampton Roads which socially is a different universe.

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Everyone was very gracious and with out exception, the boyfriend introduced me as his partner. Indeed, no one seemed to bat an eye even though we were the only same sex couple - and wearing matching wedding bands. The lesson? Be yourself and give others an opportunity to accept you. If they don't, it's their loss. If they do, then chalk it up as another foray into the process of demonstrating that we in the LGBT community are really not so different than anyone else.

Need A Job? Try Canada

I first visited Canada as child of about five with my mothers parents, crossing into Ontario near the Seaway Locks in northern New York. Later as a teenager I crossed the border with friends at Niagara Falls and visited the beautiful beaches on the north shore of Lake Erie. But I fully fell in love with Canada - and British Columbia in particular _ when my son (pictured in the photo above at Whistler) and I visited Vancouver, Whistler, Victoria and other parts of British Columbia in July, 2004. Not only is Canada relatively gay friendly - it's utopia compared to Virginia - but now, Canada has much more to offer economically. Canada - even tough far, far smaller than the USA - is producing more new jobs that the USA, but it also has a vibrant housing market. The loons of the far right and Christianist controlled GOP may malign Canada, but the USA has much it should learn from our neighbor to the north. I can honestly state that if our circumstances were different, Canada could well be a possible destination should we decide to emigrate. Here are highlights from a piece at Huffington Post:
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Stubbornly high unemployment rates got you down? Not sold on the economic recovery? Look no further than America's polite neighbor to the north, where jobs numbers are surging and home prices have been rising steadily for nearly a year.
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Last month, Canada, a nation with roughly one tenth of our population, created about 10,000 more new jobs than America.
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Yes, Canada's economic recovery is outpacing our own. In terms of sheer job creation, June saw Canada create jobs at a pace that was five times the rate predicted by economists, Bloomberg News reports. Canada added 93,200 jobs in June, while U.S. private employers added just 83,000.
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Thanks to strong hiring in the service sector, Canada's unemployment rate fell to 7.9 from 8.1 percent, while America's unemployment rate came in at 9.5 percent in June, falling only because of a large exodus of Americans looking for work.
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Canadian real estate broker Royal LePage predicts Canada's home prices could rise an average of 6.8 percent in 2010. Meanwhile, the IMF, though remaining relatively upbeat on the U.S. housing and job markets, warned that the foreclosure crisis could lead to a double-dip in home prices.
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With gay marriage rights - British Columbia was one of the first provinces to approve gay marriage - and a far more robust economy and tolerant society, Canada has far more to offer LGBT Americans that does the USA where religious based discrimination - even though unconstitutional under a straight forward reading of the Constitution - remains the norm in the majority of states.

Two Weddings, a Divorce and ‘Glee’

I should have known better than to expect Frank Rich at the New York Times to let Rush Limbaugh's FOURTH marriage go by without comment. It seems that "El Rushbo" is working to challenge Liz Taylor' serial marriage barring an early death from obesity, a heart attack or drug overdose. You also have to wonder what kind of woman would want to marry Limbaugh - I guess she got a good pre-nuptial deal. The hypocrisy of the "family values" crowd which often tends to have the highest divorce rate of any group - as opposed to the homo-lovers in Massachusetts - is indeed beyond belief. Their mantra that "marriage is between one man and one woman" needs to have the words "at a time" appended to the end of it. Not surprisingly, Frank Rich cannot help but note the disconnect between the multiple divorces and remarriages of the straight set and the denial of marriage to loving and committed same sex couples. Personally, what kills me is the intellectual dishonesty of those who cite the Bible's supposed condemnation of homosexuality yet utterly ignore the condemnation of divorce which is attributed to Christ himself. Hello? Anyone home in there? Rich also takes a detailed look at Perry v. Schwarzenegger which hopefully will strike down Proposition 8. Here are some highlights from Rich's column:
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THOSE of us left off the guest list could only fantasize about Rush Limbaugh’s nuptials last weekend. Now cruising into marriage No. 4 — an impressive total for a guy not quite 60 — Rush staged a lavish luau at the Breakers in Palm Beach. The revelers included what some might regard as the Rat Pack from hell — Sean Hannity, Rudy Giuliani, James Carville and Clarence Thomas. The scriptural readings remain a mystery. But we did learn the identity of the pop deity anointed as the wedding singer. That would be Elton John, whose last, albeit second-class, wedding was a civil union with David Furnish in 2005.
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Why would America’s right-wing radio king hire an openly gay entertainer to star at his wedding? And why would one of the world’s foremost AIDS activists sing “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” for a gay-baiting provocateur who has trivialized AIDS and speculated that same-sex marriage could lead people to marry dogs? Sir Elton’s fee was reported to be a cool $1 million. Which goes to show that pop music and cash have the power to make even stranger bedfellows than politics.
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[T]here is a shadow over marriage in America just the same. The Gores and Limbaughs are free to marry, for better or for worse, and free to enjoy all the rights (and make all the mistakes) that marriage entails. Gay and lesbian couples are still fighting for those rights. That’s why the most significant marital event of June 2010 is the one taking place in San Francisco this Wednesday, when a Federal District Court judge is scheduled to hear the closing arguments in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the landmark case challenging Proposition 8, California’s same-sex marriage ban. A verdict will soon follow, setting off an appeals process that is likely to land in the Supreme Court, possibly by the 2011-12 term.

When the former Bush v. Gore legal adversaries, Ted Olson and David Boies, teamed up to mount the assault on Prop 8, it was front-page news. But you may not know much about the trial that followed unless you made a point of finding out as it unfolded in January. Their efforts in this case, unlike the 2000 election battle, were denied the essential publicity oxygen of television. The judge had planned to post video of the proceedings daily on YouTube, but the Prop 8 forces won a 5-to-4 Supreme Court ruling to keep cameras out.
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Their stated reason for opposing a television record was fear that their witnesses might be harassed. But in the end the Prop 8 defenders mustered only two witnesses, just one of them a controversial culture warrior. That “expert” was David Blankenhorn, president of the so-called Institute for American Values. Blankenhorn holds no degree in such seemingly relevant fields as psychology, psychiatry or sociology. But his pretrial research did include reading a specious treatise by George Rekers, the antigay evangelist now notorious for his recent 10-day European trip with a young male companion procured from Rentboy.com.
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You can’t blame the Prop 8 advocates for wanting to keep Blankenhorn off camera. Boies demolished him during cross-examination. (Read the transcripts at equalrightsfoundation.org.) Another likely motive for opposing cameras at the trial was to shield viewers from the sympathetic gay plaintiffs — ordinary tax-paying Americans whose families, including four children, were often in the courtroom.
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Gays are far from the only Americans still facing discrimination, but as Boies said when I interviewed him about the Prop 8 case last week, the ban on same-sex marriage “is the last area in which the state is taking an active role in enforcing discrimination.”
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[A]s long as gay Americans are denied the same right to marry as everyone else, they are branded as sub-citizens, less equal and less deserving than everyone else. That government-sanctioned stigma inevitably leaves them vulnerable to other slights and discrimination, both subtle and explicit. The damage is particularly acute for children, who must not only wonder why their parents are regarded as defective by the law but must also bear this scarlet letter of inferiority when among their peers.
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It’s not news that same-sex marriage is a settled issue for most young people. But the growing adult acceptance of unconventional family models can be found in the phenomenon of “Glee,” the prime-time hit on Rupert Murdoch’s Fox, no less, that unexpectedly became this year’s most watched new scripted series on television for the 18-to-49 demographic. . . The leading teenage characters in “Glee” have single parents (both widowed), absentee parents and, in one case, two gay dads.
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Until the law catches up to the culture, the collective American soul should find even June’s wedding Champagne a bit flat.

Gay Best Friends Crowned Prom King and Queen

All too often I and other bloggers look at wrongs in the world, especially wrongs done to GLBT individuals. But sometimes - often to our surprise - some things get done right. A case in point is the crowning of two gay boys as prom king and queen at a high school in Hudson, New York located roughly half way between New York City and Albany. Like much of upstate New York (through high school I lived in the Syracuse area), Hudson is light years from the world of New York City. Yet the students at Hudson High School got it right and voted for the boys by a near landslide. Would that the older generation could look beyond stereotypes and religious based bigotry. Congratulations to Charlie Ferrusi and Timmy Howard - and their peers who had the ability to see them as fully human and worthy of equal treatment. Here are some highlights from Hudson Register-Star:
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The Hudson High School prom made history this past Saturday when openly gay best friends were named prom king and queen. Seniors Charlie Ferrusi and Timmy Howard won their respective crown and tiara by a landslide Saturday and said the support they received from their peers and school administration has been fun and humbling.
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“It’s a really big step for Hudson but also for the gay community in general,” Howard said Wednesday. “To have this happen in our city is pretty exciting.”
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By prom night the overwhelming majority of students cast their votes in the open ballot race. They won by such a wide margin the school didn’t crown any runners up.
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In 2008 Augie Abatecola ran and won the race for Hudson prom queen but he was denied the crown by school officials. This time around Ferrusi and Howard decided to run their plan by advisors and Principal Steven Spicer beforehand. The school officials said they wouldn’t interfere with the student body’s vote and gave the boys their blessing.
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Incidences of young men winning prom king or queen do occur but two gay friends taking both crowns without incident is rare. Ferrusi and Howard’s crowning was appropriately timed, as Hudson will hold its first ever gay pride parade on Sunday, June 20. They said they plan on riding down Warren Street in the back of a truck with their crowns and homemade sashes.
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The Hudson Pride celebration will include a talk by Ed Beatty who was a part of the Stonewall riot in 1969 where gays at the Stonewall bar in New York City clashed with police trying to disperse their gathering.
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That riot was one of the major events that led to the abolition of a law banning gays to congregate. Star said recognizing those events and Ferrusi and Howard’s achievement in the same event is really significant. “It’s a brave new word,” Star said. “It’s a brave new Hudson.”
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Not surprisingly, some of the comments on the news story were not pretty, proving that there are still many Neanderthals out there. Fortunately, they are dying off just like the Neanderthals in prehistory.

The Christianist Anti-Gay Message is Failing

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The trend is definitely in our favor. Thus, expect the shrillness and hysteria of our enemies to increase as they rightly slide toward the trash heap of history. It's unfortunate that our politicians lag behind the public at large.

Jessica Sandlin - 2nd District Non-Gay Hating Republican

On June 8, 2010 the Republican Party will hold a primary to nominate the candidate for the GOP ticket to oppose incumbent Democrat Glenn Nye. Under Virginia's election laws any registered voter can vote in this primary - something that I encourage every reader in the 2nd District to do. The field of primary candidates consists of five men - including Ken Cuccinelli want to be Scott Rigell - and one woman, Jessica Sandlin. At last Thursday's third anniversary event of HRBOR, Jessica was the only Republican candidate to attend. Unlike the male contenders, Jessica Sandlin is a moderate on social issues and does not see the LGBT community as a group that should be kept as second class citizens.

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Between speaking with her at the HRBOR event, reviewing her campaign website, and a telephone interview today, Jessica Sandlin comes across as the type of Republican that I was myself a number of years ago before I left the GOP after it began to be co-opted by the Christian Right. Indeed, she's the type of Republican my entire family once was before the religious extremists turned the GOP into a defacto sectarian party. The AltDaily has a good interview with Jessica that I also recommend that can be found here. Here are highlights from Jessica's response on LGBT rights issues:
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If we get the government out of the marriage business altogether, and we call it civil unions, we can leave “marriage” for churches. I support equality- equal access to the courthouse. The church calls marriage a vocation, a work, and it is a powerful institution. I believe that two adults who love each other should be able to enter this institution, but having said that I do not want to legislate our churches. We are purely talking about the civil side.
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We know that spouses take care of each other and take a burden off the taxpayer dollars, and so it is the fiscally conservative position to support two people who want to live as spouses. It is part of the American tradition to foster self-sufficiency; we don’t believe in letting government do as much- we’d rather encourage volunteerism and let people write off donations to non-profits. Given this, it makes societal sense to support spousal relationships- they improve the welfare of all of society.
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I think the fact that the gay and lesbian community cannot ID one phrase for this union (civil marriage, civil union, domestic partnership) points out the difficulty. I don’t care what we call it. I am just for equal and equal. I am pro-family.
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I plan on voting for Jessica on primary day and hope that others will join me in doing so. We do not need more religious extremists and macho ex-seals in Congress. Likewise, we do not need another anti-gay Republican seeking political office.