Will Anti-Gay Republicans Now Back ENDA to License Anti-Gay Discrimination

As noted before, many of the leading LGBT rights organizations have withdrawn support for the Senate passed version of ENDA in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling in Hobby Lobby which granted Christofascists the right to ignore civil laws they claim violate their right of "religious freedom."  Why the switch?  Because the version of ENDA passed by the U.S. Senate has a religious exemption so broad that a fleet of 18 wheelers could drive through it.  The exemption, combined with Hobby Lobby could in theory undermine LGBT protections in even gay friendly states.  Now, some fear that anti-gay House Republicans may push to pass the Senate version of ENDA with precisely such a goal. A piece by Michelangelo Signorile in Huffington Post looks at this frightening possibility.  It needs to be noted that while gays are the current primary target of  the agenda of special rights from Christofascists, Muslims, Hindus and others could end up finding themselves open to discrimination based on false "religious freedom" claims.  Here are some article highlights:

Last week I wrote about the trap that gay groups may have set for themselves in a post-Hobby Lobby world, having previously backed a broad religious exemption in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). By week's end, most major groups had pulled their support for ENDA, following a few that pulled out before the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision. But believe it or not, right now some Republicans are working feverishly to get support for ENDA in the GOP and try to pass it in the House in this session, with the dangerous religious exemption that caused LGBT groups to withdraw support. 

The irony here is off the charts, but the idea being floated is that Republicans should realize that LGBT rights are inevitable, and that anti-gay GOPers should therefore grab at the chance to pass a bill that could broadly give an exception to religious organizations and the businesses they own and enshrine that discrimination forever. 

As an added bonus, the Supreme Court might view the exemption as a way to expand that allowable discrimination to "closely held," for-profit companies owned by people who have religious objections to gays, as it did in the Hobby Lobby case regarding religious objections to some forms of birth control.
HRC does still back passage of ENDA in this session (as does House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, openly lesbian Sen. Tammy Baldwin and other Democrats), but in response to the pulling of support by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Transgender Law Center and others, HRC president Chad Griffin wrote in an op-ed last week that the group wants to "narrow" the exemption and also said the community should "throw its weight behind" a comprehensive civil-rights bill.

If ENDA doesn't pass, he wrote, that bill would include employment as well as public accommodations, housing, education and credit -- something a lot of us have been demanding for a long time. However, Griffin didn't give any details or timeline regarding what would be an ambitious undertaking and a massive bill, and he refused to give interviews. And his group does still continue to lobby Republicans to support the current ENDA. 

It's highly unlikely that ENDA will get passed in the House via any option available, with or without the gay groups onboard (and HRC's idea of "narrowing" the exemption would mean going back to the Senate again), but wouldn't it be the nightmare scenario if it did pass, with this exemption, and then LGBT groups had to demand that President Obama veto a bill he and Democrats had heralded for months?

Again, it's highly improbable that it would get to that, but I write this to underscore how this entire episode was amateur hour for the LGBT community. . . . . ENDA should never have been pushed and passed in the Senate with a religious exemption, not in 2013 -- nor should we have even thought of doing that in 2012, 2011, 2010, or, frankly, 20-anything. HRC, in its usual arrogance, and with blinders on, refused to listen to the community and the growing chorus among the grass roots, the people who've experienced the progress we've made on marriage equality and support by the American public and who were saying "no" to an exemption for years.

HRC often needs a check on its myopic, access-driven, win-at-all-costs strategies, especially under a new leadership that refuses to even give interviews to the LGBT press, not responding to requests, its president only speaking to the community via vague, meticulously crafted op-eds.

It is disturbing that once again the egos of those at HRC are putting the rights of LGBT Americans at risk.  Perhaps I need to peel the HRC sticker off of my car!

Did Gay Rights Advocacy Cost Chris Kluwe His NFL Job?

I will admit that I did not get the sports gene - at least not in terms of liking football, basket ball and base ball.  And, I do not follow pro sports, especially football, which I see as a bunch of grossly over paid gladiators that provides no real positive contribution to society.  However, Chris Kluwe and his gay rights advocacy showed that some NFL players have a brain (OK, he's an exception, I know) and are willing to stand up for equality.  Now, however, some are speculating that Kluwe's advocacy may be part of what lead to his firing by the Minnesota Vikings.  A piece in Huffington Post looks at this development.  Here are highlights:

WASHINGTON -- The Minnesota Vikings released Chris Kluwe on Monday, leading to speculation that the move was motivated in part by the punter's prominent role advocating for gay rights.  "So long, Minnesota, and thanks for all the fish!" Kluwe tweeted Monday morning. "Thank you to all the fans, my teammates, and the Wilf family for the past 8.5 years. I wouldn't have traded it for anything."

Kluwe's release wasn't a complete surprise -- the Vikings drafted another punter late last month. But it's particularly notable because of Kluwe's increasingly high-profile role as an advocate for LGBT rights. 

"Regardless of whether they admit it, the Vikings are jettisoning Kluwe partly because they grew tired of his outspokenness," wrote Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist Chip Scoggins on Sunday. "It's naive to think the move is based solely on his age (31), salary ($1.45 million) or how he performed last season (inconsistently). Kluwe has become the most visible punter in NFL history because of his social activism."

Kluwe told Scoggins that if he were being jettisoned for his outspokenness, he would be fine with that outcome. 

"I think the sacrifice would be worth it," he said. "Now, I would hope that I would get the chance to play football again, because I think I can still play. But if it ends up being something that costs me that position, I think making people aware of an issue that is causing children to commit suicide is more important than kicking a leather ball."

Kluwe's release comes after the Baltimore Ravens released Brendon Ayanbadejo, another prominent gay-rights advocate. Both are part of the group Athlete Ally, which works to end homophobia in sports.  Shortly after his release, Ayanbadejo said he believed his advocacy played a role in the Ravens' decision to let him go.

Kudos to Kluwe and Ayanbadejo.  I wish them the best of luck in the future.  As for the NFL and its teams, I will continue to hold it and them in low regard and a huge waste of time and money.

The Cross in the Closet: How a Conservative Christian's Eyes Were Opened By Pretending to be Gay

You never really know what the lives of others are like until you walk in their shoes.  Or at least that was the premise of Timothy Kurek (pictured above center) who had graduated from Liberty University, in my opinion a Christianist blight on the Commonwealth of Virginia.  Kurek did something unthinkable for most Liberty graduates: for a year he pretended to be gay telling family, friends and others and getting to see society from the eyes of a gay man and getting a taste of the hate and vitriol that were face daily from "godly Christians."   In his book, "The Cross in the Closet," Kurek recounts his experience and had a conversion, if you will, and came to recognize the humanity of LGBT individuals - something lost on most of the Liberty University crowd, including Matt Staver and Matt Barber who pump out anti-gay lies virtually daily and make a strong case why one would not want to be a Christian.  Kurek says that the experience strengthen his faith even though it lost him many "friends" he had known during his days at Liberty University.  Here are excerpts from The Guardian that review Kurek's book and his experience:

Timothy Kurek grew up hating homosexuality. As a conservative Christian deep in America's Bible belt, he had been taught that being gay was an abomination before God. He went to his right-wing church, saw himself as a soldier for Christ and attended Liberty University, the "evangelical West Point".

But when a Christian friend in a karaoke bar told him how her family had kicked her out when she revealed she was a lesbian, Kurek began to question profoundly his beliefs and religious teaching. Amazingly, the 26-year-old decided to "walk in the shoes" of a gay man in America by pretending to be homosexual.

For an entire year Kurek lived "under cover" as a homosexual in his home town of Nashville. He told his family he was gay, as well as his friends and his church. Only two pals and an aunt – used to keep an eye on how his mother coped with the news – knew his secret. One friend, a gay man called Shawn – whom Kurek describes as a "big black burly teddy bear" – pretended to be his boyfriend. Kurek got a job in a gay cafe, hung out in a gay bar and joined a gay softball league, all the while maintaining his inner identity as a straight Christian.

The result was a remarkable book called The Cross in the Closet, which follows on the tradition of other works such as Black Like Me, by a white man in the 1960s deep south passing as a black American, and 2006's Self-Made Man, by Norah Vincent, who details her time spent in disguise living as a man. "In order to walk in their shoes, I had to have the experience of being gay. I had to come out to my friends and family and the world as a gay man," he told the Observer.

Kurek's account of his year being gay is an emotional, honest and at times hilarious account of a journey that begins with him as a strait-laced yet questioning conservative, and ends up with him reaffirming his faith while also embracing the cause of gay equality.

Along the way he sheds many friends, especially from Liberty, who wrote emails to him after he came out asking that he repent of his sins and warning that he faced damnation. He does not regret their loss. "I now have lots of new gay friends," Kurek said.

However, there was a cost to the experiment. In order to gauge his mother's true reaction to the news that her son was gay, Kurek read her private journal. In it he found that she had written: "I'd rather have found out from a doctor that I had terminal cancer than I have a gay son." But Kurek's journey also became her own. Eventually she too was won over and changed her views. "My mom went from being a very conservative Christian to being an ally to the gay community. I am very proud of her," he said.

Kurek also experienced firsthand being called abusive names. Though he himself had once called gay protesters at Liberty "fags", he found himself on the other side of the fence of insults. During a softball practice session in Nashville, a man walking his dogs called Kurek and his team-mates "faggots".

Kurek also said that he felt his experience not only should show conservative Christians that gay people need equal rights and can be devout too, but that it can also reveal another side of evangelicals to the gay community.  "The vast majority of conservative Christians are not hateful bigots at all. It is just a vocal minority that gets noticed and attracts all the attention," he said.

I am sure that there are many decent conservative Christians.  However, as long as they remain timid and fail to loudly reclaim the Christian brand from hate merchants and professional Christians like those at FRC, AFA and other registered hate groups, they are little better than the "good Germans" who allowed Hitler to come to power and then silently allowed the Nazi atrocities to occur.   When you fail to act and stand up to hate and untruths, you become part of the problem.   Sadly, those who most need to learn the message of Kurek's book are those least likely to ever read it.  Indeed, I am certain many will condemn Kurek for his new found advocacy for LGBT equality.

Anne Hathaway - An Amazing Ally

Click image to enlarge

My oldest daughter posted this quote from Anne Hathaway that to my think states the real measure of common human decency - something lost to the Christianists and the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church.  Like myself, Hathaway is a former Catholic who had had enough of the Church's anti-gay bigotry and hypocrisy.

Whitewashing the Democrats' History on Gay Rights

While today's Republican Party has made it easy to picture that party as the party of anti-gay bigotry and intolerance in general, the Democrats have a less than pretty history of their attitude towards LGBT citizens if one looks back not all that far back in time. Indeed, some of the laws that continue to deny LGBT Americans full equality such as DOMA were put in place under a Democrat President and for cynical and calculating political purposes. Yes, the Democrats have improved and 21 U.S. Senators support making marriage equality part of the Democratic Party plank. But we need to ever mindful that politicians often do things for perceived political expediency as opposed to because it's the right thing to do. Many who now are viewed as champions of LGBT equality have a less than pretty past record and have shown that political expediency is their true god. Frank Rich has a long piece in New York Magazine that reminds us of the convenient amnesia that some Democrats like to exhibit. Here are some highlights:

When the news came last June that the New York State Senate had voted to legalize same-sex marriage, I was at a dinner party that felt like New Year’s Eve, only with genuine emotions. Everyone at the table—straight, gay, young, old—was elated. Later, as my wife and I headed home past an Empire State Building ablaze in the rainbow colors of Pride Week, we were still euphoric at having witnessed one of those rare nights when history is made. Same-sex-marriage adversaries constantly proclaim that gay unions threaten “traditional” marriage.

[T]he dawning of marital equality and the demise of “don’t ask, don’t tell” are twin peaks in the checkered cavalcade of American social justice. Since that night, the good news on gay civil rights has kept coming. This month alone, legislative and judicial actions have made same-sex marriage the law in Washington State and Maryland and nudged it closer to reality in California and, Chris Christie notwithstanding, New Jersey. A Valentine’s week New York Times–CBS News poll, echoing others over the past year, found that Americans now favor marriage over separate-and-unequal civil unions as the legal option for gay couples; less than a third of the public believes that gay families should be denied both.

Compared with the other civil-rights battles in America, especially the epic struggle over race that has stained and hobbled the nation since its birth, the fight over gay equality is remarkable for its relative ease, compact chronology, and the happiness of its pending resolution. There’s no happier ending to any plot than a wedding. But, as last June’s celebration has gradually given way to morning-after sobriety, it’s also clear that something is wrong with this cheery picture. Two things, actually.

The first is obvious: Full equality for gay Americans is nowhere near at hand. One of America’s two major political parties is still hell-bent on thwarting and even rolling back gay rights much as Goldwater Republicans and Dixie Democrats (on their way to joining the GOP) resisted civil-rights legislation and enforcement in the sixties. In most states, sexual orientation can still be used to deny not only marriage but also jobs and housing, as well as to curtail adoption rights. America’s dominant religions remain largely hostile to homosexuality, and America’s most cherished secular pastime, professional sports, is essentially a no-gay zone. The bullying of gay and transgendered children remains a national crisis.

The second thing that’s wrong with the picture is far less obvious because it has been willfully obscured. In the outpouring of provincial self-congratulation that greeted the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York, some of the discomforting history that preceded that joyous day has been rewritten, whitewashed, or tossed into a memory hole. We—and by we, I mean liberal New Yorkers like me, whether straight or gay, and their fellow travelers throughout America—would like to believe that the sole obstacles to gay civil rights have been the usual suspects: hidebound religious leaders both white and black, conservative politicians (mostly Republican), fundamentalist Christian and Muslim zealots, and unreconstructed bigots. What’s been lost in this morality play is the role that many liberal politicians and institutions have also played in slowing and at some junctures halting gay civil rights in recent decades.

It was, after all, the trustees of the Smithsonian Institution, not a Bible Belt cultural outpost, who bowed to pressure from the militant Catholic League just fifteen months ago to censor the work of a gay American artist who had already been silenced, long ago, by AIDS. It was a Democratic president, with wide support from Democrats on Capitol Hill, who in 1996 signed the Defense of Marriage Act, one of the most discriminatory laws ever to come out of Washington. It’s precisely because of DOMA that to this day same-sex marriages cannot be more than what you might call placebo marriages in the eight states (plus the District of Columbia) that have legalized them.

The history of liberal culpability in such government-mandated discrimination should not be locked in a closet now. To forget any history is to risk repeating it. To forget this particular history is to minimize or erase the struggles of gay men and lesbians whose lives and fundamental rights were trampled routinely for decades in America, with cruel and sometimes deadly results.

Remembering what happened is essential if politicians, particularly liberal politicians, are to be prodded or, if need be, shamed into bringing the unfinished tasks of equality to the finish line.

One relevant chapter of this often-obscured past unfolded during the not-so-distant year of 1977. . . . It was also in 1977 that Anita Bryant, a pop singer and onetime Miss America runner-up, mounted her “Save Our Children” campaign to repeal a Miami ordinance protecting homosexuals from discrimination in jobs and housing. Bryant called gay people “an abomination,” but such invective didn’t prevent her cause from winning the endorsement of the Dade County Democratic Party—or of Florida’s governor, Reubin Askew, a Democrat so progressive that George McGovern had offered him the vice-presidential slot on the 1972 ticket. The anti-gay rage whipped up around Miami by this crusade inspired the bumper sticker KILL A QUEER FOR CHRIST and the beating and hospitalization of a gay man.

What most New Yorkers did not know about gay people in 1977 could — and did—fill a five - column article in the Times (albeit relegated to page 41). It breathlessly reported that “increasingly, the homosexual community is very much one of lawyers, physicians, teachers, politicians, clergymen, and other upper-class professional men and women,” many of whom “tend to live like their heterosexual counterparts.”

In 1978, The Village Voice published a front-page polemic arguing that gay civil rights shouldn’t be a matter of public concern.

It’s this atmosphere that explains why another woman of Miss America fame—Bess Myerson, who, unlike Anita Bryant, had won the crown—was dragged into a New York mayoral contest between two liberals. Koch was a Greenwich Village bachelor, at the time a scarlet letter of assumed homosexuality second only to being a hairdresser. Myerson was drafted as his steady campaign companion—if not a girlfriend, exactly, a hand-holding BFF—to stave off the accusation that dare not speak its name except in below-the-radar whispers. . . . As Election Day approached, posters of mysterious provenance reading VOTE FOR CUOMO, NOT THE HOMO appeared in Brooklyn and Queens.

Both Cuomos have long denied having anything to do with those posters. They could not, however, deny their ostentatious playing of the “family man” card. Whatever went down in 1977 was enough to move Andrew Cuomo to later apologize privately to Koch for the tone of the race.

What we do know is that Andrew Cuomo deserves every bit of credit he has received for making same-sex marriage a top priority of his young governorship and for moving heaven and earth—deep-pocketed donors, recalcitrant Albany politicians, and sometimes-disorganized gay activists—to get the job done. If that feat of governance, among others, makes Cuomo a likely presidential prospect for the post-Obama Democratic Party, it’s well earned. But it doesn’t obliterate the record of what came before, including his standoffish relationship to gay-civil-rights battles for much of his preceding three-decade public career.

By the time Cuomo could act as governor, the issue was a win-win for him in Democratic politics, locally and nationally, the path having been paved by other fighters before him and by fast-moving polls confirming an ever more gay-friendly America. Yet even the preeminent gay magazine The Advocate failed to confront him on his record in its worshipful cover story marking New York’s marriage law; that past was journalistically Photoshopped out of existence.

Bill Clinton has also worked hard to spin and skate away from his history on gay issues. His presidential record looks good only when contrasted with the literally lethal passivity of Ronald Reagan, who didn’t think AIDS warranted a speech until 1987, six years into the epidemic and his presidency. Reagan is a very low bar, and that lets Clinton off the hook for a legacy that’s had a far more lasting and egregious impact than any failings, youthful or otherwise, of Andrew Cuomo. Clinton knows it, too. In his thousand-page memoir, My Life, he somehow didn’t find the space to so much as mention the Defense of Marriage Act.

The bill was strictly a right-wing political ploy cooked up for the year of Clinton’s re-election campaign. It had no other justification. In the spring of 1996, same-sex marriage wasn’t legal anywhere in the country or a top-tier cause for many gay leaders; it was solely in play in a slow-moving court case in Hawaii. But fear and demonization of gay men was off the charts: In 1995, a record 50,877 Americans with AIDS died—a one-year count rivaling the 58,000 Americans lost in the entire Vietnam War. The Christian Coalition, under the Machiavellian guidance of the yet-to-be-disgraced Ralph Reed, saw an opening to exploit homophobia to galvanize a Republican base unenthusiastic about Bob Dole. In a consummate display of bad taste, Clinton announced that he would sign DOMA that spring just two days after the Supreme Court, in a rare national victory for gay rights, struck down a Colorado constitutional amendment that had barred anti-discrimination laws benefiting gay men and lesbians. In the months to come, Clinton’s stand on DOMA gave political permission to many nominally liberal Democrats to join Rick Santorum, Jesse Helms, and Larry Craig in voting for the bill that September—among them Charles Schumer (then in the House) and the senators Joe Biden, Tom Harkin, Frank Lautenberg, Patrick Leahy, Joe ­Lieberman, Carl Levin, Barbara Mikulski, Patty Murray, and Harry Reid. Only fourteen senators, also Democrats, had the courage to vote against it.

Two years later, Matthew Shepard would be strung up in Wyoming, and a decade later George W. Bush, in league with Karl Rove, would make a statement almost identical to Clinton’s when he endorsed a constitutional marriage amendment in a similar election-year pander. “As this debate goes forward,” Bush intoned in 2006, “every American deserves to be treated with tolerance and respect and dignity.” Like Clinton, he knew he was enabling the exact opposite.

It’s Clinton who has done the rewriting, and not slightly, claiming that DOMA was “a reasonable compromise in the environment of the time.” Reasonable for his own political calculation, yes, but hardly for the gay Americans who have paid for it ever since.

Andrew Cuomo has traveled far from the late seventies—as so many of us have—and so has Bill Clinton from the nineties. The former president came out for same-sex marriage in 2009. But words are cheap. Clinton’s lip service might actually mean something if he spent his own current financial and political capital to help undo the second-class citizenship for gay Americans that was codified on his watch. Whatever his good works overseas, it’s past time for the entrepreneur of the Clinton Global Initiative to phone home—and to galvanize the liberal Democrats who followed his lead in ratifying DOMA, many of them still in office.

We are now in another election year, and one in which both leading presidential candidates in the GOP preach the most hard-line anti-gay positions of their respective churches. Nothing is ever certain in politics and, unlikely as it may seem, one of them could win. . . . . Though a cadre of conservative financiers, at least one with a gay son, helped bankroll Cuomo’s successful strong-arming of Republican same-sex-marriage votes in Albany, there doesn’t seem to be a single major Republican donor or leader, or even a mainstream conservative pundit, with the guts to call out these candidates or the party’s congressional leadership on their corrosive anti-gay rhetoric and agenda.

The GOP is on the wrong side of history for sure, with gays no less than Hispanics and every other minority group. Generational and demographic turnover is remaking America even as the right tries to turn back the clock. But over the shorter term, the party’s hard line will continue to inflict real injustice on citizens of all stripes—not just on gay adults (whether they are seeking marriage or not), but on gay kids struggling to find a safe place for themselves in the world and straight children who love their gay parents. So uninhibited is the animus of the Republican base that it thought nothing of booing a gay Army captain serving in Iraq when he presumed to ask a polite question via YouTube during a campaign debate on Fox News. Not one of the nine presidential candidates onstage spoke up to defend the soldier.

That’s why the celebrations in New York last June, while merited, must be seen as provisional. That’s also why Democratic leaders who profess fierce advocacy of gay civil rights must be held to account. Back in a day that was only yesterday, too many of them also fell silent—and when it counted most.

Rich makes many good points and the reality s that LGBT citizens need to be vigilant and ALWAYS go out in vote. Bitching amongst themselves doesn't cut it if they've stayed home on their ass while the Christofascists have gone out in droves on a modern day anti-gay crusade. And it's important that Democrats know that we are only too aware of their past failings and we are watching their every move.

Anne Rice on the Allure of Vampires

I will confess that I have read every one of Anne Rice's vampire novels. I love the homoerotic subplots and I identify with the need to deal with being "other" that the main characters such as Lestat grapple with. While the vampire genre had always been around, Rice was one of the first authors to take it to new levels with The Vampire Chronicles. In an interview with The Daily Beast, Rice talks about the derivation of her own books and her thoughts on the burgeoning genre in the form of True Blood and the Twilight series. It is noteworthy what she has to say about the parallels between gays and vampires in society. Here are some highlights from the interview:

So what’s your take on the Twilight series? It really does seem to go against the grain in its depiction of vampires.

I think the concept is so rich in itself. It’s like the concept of the cowboy or the detective. Vampires have become almost like a genre, like the Western. What I see happening, with writers like Charlaine Harris and Stephenie Meyer, is the domestication of the vampire. I was more interested in a powerful, Old World figure that had a lot of knowledge, experience, and was surrounded by a lot of glamour and mystery. I wanted to keep the romance. I loved the idea of these people gaining wisdom as they aged, and how that might cause them to be ever more tormented by the fact that they don’t really belong in the world and they prey on human beings, who they’ve really come to appreciate. Charlaine Harris is doing something different by imagining what it’s like if vampires are legal and you have them living in your Southern town, and I think she gets a tremendous amount of energy out of that.

True Blood is set in your native Louisiana, and it really uses vampirism as a metaphor for outsiders, including the gay community. What are your thoughts on using vampirism as a metaphor for the disenfranchised?

It’s a given! The vampire is an outsider. He’s the perfect metaphor for those things. He’s someone who looks human and sounds human, but is not human, so he’s always on the margins. When I write and assume the point of view of the vampire, I understand the agony of being a public outcast—someone who doesn’t belong anywhere, yet longs to be part of something and gravitates to other outcasts of his own kind. I remember the year Interview With the Vampire was published, a young man came to me at Berkeley and told me he thought Interview With the Vampire was “the longest sustained gay allegory in the English language.” I was kind of amazed and honored that he was unpacking that from it, but it wasn’t a conscious thing.

I saw your cheeky Facebook post about how your vampires would “feel sorry for vampires that sparkle in the sun.”

[Laughs] Oh, I was just joking. People ask me what I think about that, and I finally pretended that Lestat and Louis were real and gave their opinion on what they thought of the vampires in Twilight. Unfortunately, I think some of Stephenie Meyer readers took it the wrong way, came to my Facebook page, and were quite unpleasant. But I think they’re very … young. It was quite a ruckus!

Back to True Blood, how do you feel about the show’s depiction of vampires as these uninhibited, primal, sexual beings?

I’m a fan of the show. I see it as a logical part of it all. [Harris] has expanded the sexuality that’s inherent in that idea. I didn’t think of that, but as my books went on, I involved my vampires in more sexuality. But I couldn’t go as far as Charlaine Harris did, because I had said that my vampires can’t have sex; that the act of drinking blood is orgasmic for them. She’s doing it a different way. She’s saying that this blood drinker must also be dynamite in bed. Makes sense!

Cocktails With John Waters and Weekend Reflections

My frequency in posting has been down this week largely because I've had something going on every evening: Hampton Roads Pride board meeting on Monday; dinner with a client of the boyfriend on Tuesday; HRBOR board meeting on Wednesday; ODU Gay Cultural Studies private reception after John Waters' presentation at Old Dominion University on Thursday. Last night was finally a free night and the boyfriend and I simply chilled, watched the this week's Glee episode and afterwards fell asleep on the sofa. Tonight we are attending a black tie fundraiser for the An Achievable Dream Foundation, a charity founded by one the boyfriend's clients that describes it's vision as follows:

AAD is a nonprofit, year-round, extended day public school borne out of its founder’s belief that all children can learn and succeed regardless of their socioeconomic backgrounds; and that education can break the cycle of poverty. We strive to close the achievement gap that currently exists in American education and to ensure our students become productive citizens contributing positively to society.

An Achievable Dream offers healthcare for our students' families through the Achievable Dream/Riverside Health Improvement Center located at the school. In addition, An Achievable Dream offers adult education classes and seminars for parents and families to help them achieve their dreams, as well.

It's a vision that I whole heatedly support because education is the great equalizer. At AAD's school, locate in one of the worse parts of neighboring Newport News, miracles do happen. Donations to the effort can be made here. In an Inside Business article earlier in the year, AAD's founder described his motivation for starting teh foundation as follows:

That desire, he said, comes from his Jewish faith and his father. "The Jewish faith teaches us that if I save one life, then I have saved the world," he said. The teaching has convinced Segaloff that everyone has an opportunity to make such a difference.

The courage to create such a bold program came from his late father, Charles, who felt strongly about judging people on their character rather than their color or religious beliefs.

"My father was building a new store in downtown Newport News. Back then it was the law that there had to be segregated sets of restrooms - one for blacks and one for whites. Even though it was jeopardizing his business, he refused. This held up his building permit. The building commissioner said it was the law. So finally they reached a compromise. My father put a set of restrooms on the first floor and on the second floor. However, he never labeled them black or white.

"It all comes down to, if you know something is right, would you have the courage to do it?" he said.

Just imagine if all of the money utilized by NOM and other "pro-family" organizations used to demonize gays, immigrants and those they deem "other" was used for programs such as AAD. Frankly, it's no small irony that Segaloff is Jewish. Nowadays, it seems that conservative Christians ignore the Gospel message while others are the ones to put the principles into action.

Back to John Waters. His lecture entitled "Filthy" was hysterically funny and he did not hold back on his gay rights positions. Most in the packed audience seemed to love his wit and wild sense of humor. At the small private reception afterwards in a fellow ODU Gay Cultural Studies board member, it was a unique experience talking to Waters about everything from politics to travel, and a number of other topics. Better yet, the reception raised several thousand dollars for the endowment that we are building.

Brad Pitt'sLatest Statement on Marriage Equality

I will confess that I have been a fan of Brad Pitt ever since I first saw him on the big screen. His social consciousness and philanthropic endeavors certainly help seal the deal. The icing on the cake is his strong stance on marriage equality. Pitt has released the following statement to People magazine in the wake of the New York marriage equality vote on June 24th. Here is the statement:

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"It is encouraging that New York has joined the movement to grant equal marriage rights to its citizens. But it is each American's Constitutional right to marry the person they love, no matter what state they inhabit. No state should decide who can marry and who cannot. Thanks to the tireless work of so many, someday soon this discrimination will end and every American will be able to enjoy their equal right to marriage."
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Pitt has previously stated that he and Angelina Jolie will not get married until everyone had the same right.

Elizabeth Taylor - Death of a Legend

There have been countless tributes and columns written about the death of Elizabeth Taylor yesterday. I will not try to out do them, but felt it appropriate to post a few thoughts and reflections. Taylor was a legendary actress and won two best actress Oscars in the course of making over 50 films. Yes, she had an often turbulent love life and multiple marriages. On one issue, however, she stood out even more: her willingness to use her fame and star power for a cause she truly believed in even when it was not popular in the 1980's. The cause, was HIV/AIDS research and treatment and one news clipped noted that she had helped raise over $120 million. Not only did she help found amfAR, but she also had her own foundation as well.

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As for her film's, it is hard to pick a favorite. As a history major, I always liked her in Cleopatra which wasn't a box office success, yet was pretty accurate to history, especially for Hollywood in that era. I also remember A Place in the Sun in which she stared with Montgomery Cliff because the movie was based on a real incident that happened on Big Moose Lake in the Adirondack Mountains not too far from our summer home.
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And politically, for a while she was a definite presence in Virginia as former U.S. Senator John Warner's wife. While I was no longer in Virginia Beach at the time, she even attended a Warner fundraiser at a home down the street from my parent's long time home.
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She will be missed and it's outrageous that the Westboro Baptist Church says that it will demonstrate at her funeral because she was "queen of the fag hags." One can hope the funeral will be on private property so that the false Christians and bigots from Westboro can be arrested for trespass charges. Then again, Westboro deserves credit for demonstrating time and time again the ugly face of Christianity as practiced by gay hating denominations of which it is one of many.

Richmond Times-Dispatch Profiles LGBT activist Guy Kinman

Richmond, Virginia is not the most progressive of cities when it comes to LGBT rights and equality (although it now has a LGBT tourism page on its convention and visitors center web page unlike even more backwards Hampton Roads). Nor is the Richmond Times-Dispatch what one would exactly describe as a liberal news outlet. Actually, it often borders on the near reactionary. Hence my surprise to find a lengthy and positive piece in today's publication on Guy Kinman, now 93, a long time activist in the Richmond LGBT community. Like me, Kinman came out later in life - actually a decade later than I did - and had been married. As he describes it, he tried to live up to other people's expectations. Something that I suspect so many of us in the LGBT community have done for varying periods of time until we finally face the fact that it's not working and that we are lying to ourselves and those we love. Here are some profile highlights:
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More than a quarter-century later, Guy M. Kinman Jr. looks back on what he calls "the greatest moment in my life" and remains amazed that he was a part of it.
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It was December 1985, and Kinman, the new president of the Richmond-Virginia Gay Alliance, led a campaign in which billboards were placed across Richmond with gently provocative messages such as: Someone You Know Is Gay … Maybe Someone You Love. For Richmond at the time, it bordered on extraordinary.
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The billboards marked a remarkable personal awakening for Kinman after a lifetime of gradual self-discovery, largely spent trying to fulfill other people's expectations. The former Presbyterian minster and Air Force chaplain, who had been married for 10 years before divorcing, didn't come to terms with the fact he was gay until his 50s.
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In his 60s, he stepped forward in a very public way to spearhead the billboard campaign, bringing an innate confidence and hard-earned fearlessness, along with a can't-we-all-just-get-along nature to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement.
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"Guy is the institutional memory for the Richmond LGBT community," said Jay Squires, president of the Gay Community Center of Richmond. "I don't have any hesitation at all to call Guy one of the most committed activists that I know. He's really a deep thinker about our issues."
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An introspective sort, Kinman has thought a lot about the billboard project and his life in recent months, since the Virginia Historical Society and the Gay Community Center of Richmond created the Guy Kinman Research Award to promote historical scholarship on LGBT issues.
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[D]uring the Korean War he was accepted into the Air Force as a chaplain. He enjoyed the work better than preaching and earned commendations, but he still didn't feel at home with his job or himself. Near the end of his six years as a chaplain, he realized he was "not the authentic person that God had intended me to be."

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He left the ministry, took a sales job and moved to Richmond. He fell in love and in 1962 married a Richmond woman and became a stepfather to her three children. He remained married for a decade, but like the ministry, it was never a comfortable fit. The word "gay" never came up during the marriage, Kinman said, but he said it was clear he didn't belong in that sort of relationship.
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"It was best for both of us," he said. "I walked out with a great sense of freedom. Not freedom that she had been a burden, because she was a wonderful woman, but having to be a heterosexual man had been impossible."
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He was in a unique position compared with younger members of the LGBT community. He had no parents to disown him, and because he was retired, he didn't have to worry about an employer finding out. He didn't care if people knew he was gay. In fact, he was glad to tell them. He didn't mind going on television or presenting himself at newspaper editors' offices. He was happy to have his name associated with the project, even fielding the calls that came in on the phone number printed on the billboards.
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Something he's thought a lot about is the advancement of the LGBT movement in the past 25 years — the greater standing of gays and lesbians legally and in society in general, chief among them. He's thrilled and gratified at the recent repeal of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that barred openly gay individuals from serving. He's also glad to be around to witness it.
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It's sad that so many - especially Christianists - are so afraid of living an authentic life as the person God made them to be. Instead, they hide behind religion as an excuse for self-hatred and the hatred on others. Kudos to Kinman for having the guts to be who he is. From my own experience, it is such a liberating feeling and hopefully sets an example for others.

HRBOR's February Third Thursday Networking Event

As noted in the post below, a great way to start next Thursday evening would be to attend Hampton Roads Business Outreach's February Third Thursday event sponsored by RBC Bank. The event wll be at 37th & Zen located between Old Dominion University and Ghent. After the HRBOR event, hit the special showing of I Love You Phillip Morris at the Naro. Here are details on the HRBOR event.

February's Third Thursday will be hosted by Kathleen Nicholas of RBC Bank (USA) at 37th and Zen Restaurant and Lounge in Norfolk.

Kathleen Nicholas Banking Center Manager RBC Bank (USA)

Pacific Avenue Office T.

757-892-2261 F. 757-892-2265

3012 Pacific Ave Virginia Beach, VA 23451

Who: Hampton Roads Business Outreach

What: Third Thursday Business Net-working Event

Where: 37th and Zen Restaurant & Lounge

When: Thursday, February 17, 2011 from 6:00 to 8:00 PM

Ugandan LGBT Advocate Murdered

The American Christianists who have inspired and supported the anti-gay jihad in Uganda have more blood on their hands as reports confirm that Ugandan LGBT advocate David Kato Kisulle was murdered in his home in Kampala. Kato had been one of the Ugandan gays targeted in a September issue of the Ugandan rag Rolling Stone (no affiliation with the USA Rolling Stone) which sought to incite violence against LGBT individuals in Uganda. Kato's photo was prominently featured on the front page of the publication. Scott Lively, Barack Obama's BFF Rick Warren, and other American Christo-fascists have donated time and large amounts of money to help fuel the growing anti-gay up swell in East Africa and these individuals, in my view, are nothing more than the equivalent of terrorists who are advocating genocide. The U. S. government needs to stop this export of hatred and bigotry to less developed nations where ignorance and lack of education makes the populace an easy target for these typically self-promoting hate merchants. Here are highlights from Box Turtle Bulletin's coverage on the murder:
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We have learned that Ugandan LGBT advocate David Kato Kisulle was murdered today at his home in Kampala. Frank Mugisha of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) has confirmed *that the David’s body was identified at a hospital.
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Witnesses told police that a man entered Kato’s home in Mukono at around 1 p.m. on January 26, 2011, hit him twice in the head and departed in a vehicle. Kato died on his way to Kawolo hospital. Police told Kato’s lawyer that they had the registration number of the vehicle and were looking for it.
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David Kato was a spokesperson for Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) and one of the plaintiffs (or applicants) in the successful lawsuit seeking a permanent injunction against the Ugandan tabloid Rolling Stone (no relation to the U.S. publication of the same name). Kato was one of three applicants who had been named by the tabloid under a headline tagged “Hang Them!” His photo appeared on the tabloid’s front cover.
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This horrendous murder adds to the fears that LGBT Ugandans regularly face over their safety. Brenda Namigadde, a lesbian asylum seeker in the U.K. has been threatened with deportation back to Uganda. Just yesterday, she received an ominous message from M.P. David Bahati, the author of the infamous Anti-Homosexuality Bill, in which he said that Brenda must “repent or reform” when she returns home: Brenda is welcome in Uganda if she will abandon or repent her behaviour. Here in Uganda, homosexuality is not a human right. It is behaviour that is learned and it can be unlearned. We wouldn’t want Brenda to be painting a wrong picture of Uganda, that we are harassing homosexuals. M.P. Bahati may be technically correct. They are simply killing homosexuals, not harassing them.
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Mourners are posting message on David’s facebook wall.

Joe Solmonese Needs to Resign

As readers know well, I am no fan of the folks at HRC who are only too happy to suck up LGBT money, describe themselves as the largest LHBT civil rights organization, and then do nothing but ass kiss politicians so as not to get stricken from the D.C. cocktail party circuit list. Oh yes, a "stern" letter or two will be issued on occasion but HRC never moves to attach severe consequences to the failure of politicians to deliver on promises. In fact, HRC's main role seems to be providing cover to lying and disingenuous politicians. And leading this clusterf*ck organization is Joe Solmonese - one of DC's best dressed - who promised back in February that he'd deliver DADT repeal this year Here's the video:


Mr. Solmonese needs to resign if DADT does not occur and I would even argue return his salary since he surely has not earned it. Pam Spaulding has likewise had enough of HRC's and Solmonese's bullshit and lays out the case for Solmonese's resignation. Here are highlights:

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It's time for the Human Rights Campaign's Joe Solmonese to tender his resignation. By any sane performance metrics, he has failed to successfully lead. Promises like those made in the "This year we are going to bring down DADT" video at the HRC Carolinas dinner on Feb. 27 were used to extract money from low-info, fat wallet attendees. It's rinse and repeat at events like that around the country and there is precious little to show for it in terms of the major promises made by Solmonese -- and this President.

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Joe Solmonese should do the honorable thing and step down. It is shameful to cash all those checks without the follow through on the job. The White House was never put under serious pressure; the late calls now in the e-blasts for the President to do something ring hollow after the toadying that has gone on for two years.

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It's a big f'ing mess because there has been piss-poor leadership by those who are lobbied in government. In turn it's the unelected, highly marketed, well-tailored representative of the entire LGBT community, Joe Solmonese of HRC, who also has to be held accountable for these failures. It's clear that those in power had no fear of the vast war chest of HRC being used to turn up the heat. No, the heat came from less well-heeled activists who didn't have the access to power, only voices and fearlessness to call out the purposeful foot-dragging and inaction.

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[F]or HRC to become the organization the community needs it to be in terms of a lobbying organization with access to our elected power brokers, it will take more than Joe Solmonese's resignation. The organization is multi-faceted and is populated with well-meaning, hard working people who deserve better leadership -- and the buck stops at Joe's desk.

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It is not divisive to ask what have we gotten for the $80 million that flowed into the coffers of the Human Rights Campaign when it comes to leadership. . . . For those who simmer with anger and immediately call any criticism the "circular firing squad", that's disingenuous. There have been plenty of kudos for what has been accomplished (including those Cinderella Crumbs); but we're talking about a long list of major issues (DADT, ENDA, etc.) that were not seriously pushed after the promises were made.

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That can only change if there is a thorough shake-up, even if only a symbolic one such as Solmonese's departure, that can signal an understanding of the magnitude of disconnect, discord and failure to lead that needs to be addressed. How that occurs is up to the board of HRC - so my little call for a change at the top is of little significance other than it's just me sharing my two cents and you all reacting to it in the comments.

The Schism in the LGBT Rights Movement

There's been a good deal of debate and discussion across the blogosphere about the schism if you will within the LGBT community on tactics and where to go from here given that, in the view of many, the incrementalist approach seems to have hit a brick wall. Many - and I am one of them - accuse HRC and other groups who claim to be our "leaders" of having sold out the rest of us in order to maintain their "access" to the White House, remain on the cocktail circuit invite list, be named among Washington's best dressed, etc. As a result, instead of playing hard ball with politicians and others who block progress, these organizations provide cover for those who gladly take our money and our votes and then refuse to deliver on promises - Barack Obama, are you listening? Zack Ford has a thoughtful piece on his blog that deserves a reading. He's not tearing down the old guard, but definitely makes the case for rethinking strategy and tactics. Those who are frustrated about the failure to achieve anything significant during the nearly two years of the Obama administration should check it out.

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In my view, part of the problem lies in the fact that too many self-anointed leaders live in Washington, D.C., and more progressive states where much has changed. Unfortunately, for even more of us in states like Virginia, very little has changed except that now we (1) are not deemed mentally ill by mental health experts and (2) the state cannot prosecute us at will under the old sodomy statutes. Personally, I am NOT satisfied with so little progress. In looking at the recent wave of gay suicides, John Aravosis sums up what I deem to be the circustances rather well:

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I think a lot of people who aren't gay, and even many who are, like to think that we're all rich and live in big welcoming cities where being gay is about as big a handicap as being left-handed. We say we want our civil rights, but I think a lot of people think we've got things pretty good, and behind closed doors, they probably call us whiners too.

And I'm sure our lives are pretty good, and just as good as straight people's, except for the part about not being able to get married, have children in many states, keep a job - oh yeah, and that nagging desire to kill ourselves because so many of us grew up thinking we were horrible people who would never be loved, or find love.

I think it's this kind of attitude that leads people to lecture us about "keeping the long view in mind" with regards to getting our civil rights. I wrote in response, just yesterday, "to paraphrase Keynes, in the long view we're all dead."

Gay civil rights isn't a "social issue." It's our lives. A lot of us, myself included, grew up thinking we'd never see the age of 30 because we'd have to kill ourselves once people found out we were gay. A lot of people have no idea how hard it is to grow up being gay. To grow up thinking God made you wrong. Thinking you will never find love. Thinking your own family and friends will disown you once they know who you really are. And hearing the President of the United States - one of the "good" guys - say that you don't deserve the right to marry the person you love.

And when politicians make promises to us, then lecture us to "stop whining" because the other guy would hurt us even worse, it really hits a raw nerve. It suggests that they don't think our struggle is a struggle. They don't think it's as important as the "important" issues the country faces. It tells us that they think we're just another special interest, no different than the corporate lobbyist trying to get another tax break.

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Our enemies among the Christianists and professional Christian set are relentless in their lies and untruths and the LGBT community needs to be just as relentless in its push back and its demands that politicians keep their promises. Too many lives are being needlessly lost while our "leaders" argue for a take it slow approach. I pledge to do my best to push relentlessly for FULL legal equality.

Robyn Deane - McDonnell's Transgender Former Brother-in-Law -Speaks Out for Gay Rights

I've met Robyn Deane - we had a nice talk at the Commonwealth Dinner back on May 1, 2010, and she reads this blog - and candidly I thinks she's terrific. She also has a unique perspective on Virginia's current Governor, Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell as his former brother-in-law before divorcing Maureen McDonnell's younger sister and transitioning. I welcome her decision to become more involved in advocacy for LGBT equality in Virginia and nationally.

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Personally, what I find so odd about McDonnell is that he has know a number of gays - former Congressman Ed Schrock and myself are but two others gays McDonnell has known for far more than a decade - and, hence, ought to realize that we're fully human and should be less homophobic. Bob, remember helping me on my political campaign in 1994? The time when we were alone and talked one on one at John Langlois' office? Remember my children who you always treated nicely? Sadly, instead of showing tolerance, McDonnell seems more and more a puppet for the nastiest elements of the Christian Right in Virginia (e.g., The Family Foundation and Pat Robertson) who, if given their way, would turn the state into a theocracy akin to Massachusetts under the Puritans. Frankly, I don't understand it. Bob, what are you so afraid of? Meanwhile, the Washington Post has a great story on Robyn. Here are some highlights:
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"I am father to three of the present governor's nephews and nieces," she announced to the more than 100 people trying to shield themselves from the rain. "Whoa," someone muttered. "I'm also uncle to five of his children, so that puts me kind of close," Deane continued. "He is my former brother-in-law. . . . He witnessed the impact that all of this coming out can have on one's life. He had a front-row-center seat."
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Deane's declaration was the first step in her second coming out, this time as an activist attempting to leverage her past association to McDonnell to promote a cause that has become dear to her: the advancement of gay and transgender rights. In particular, Deane wants Virginia and national lawmakers to pass legislation that prevents discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. She also wants to persuade McDonnell to speak publicly about how people should accept those who are gay or transgender.
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Deane said she decided to announce her relationship to McDonnell on April 21 because she feels that her situation hardened some of his views on sexual orientation. The governor opposes same-sex marriage and has not backed measures that protect gay state workers from discrimination. "Maybe I sealed an anger in him toward people like us," she said at the rally.
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Though Deane has not spoken to McDonnell in more than a decade, her activities threaten to become a nuisance and embarrassment to the governor and could cause trouble with social conservatives if he were to engage Deane.
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McDonnell, who has turned down invitations from Deane to meet and has not spoken publicly about her, declined to comment for this article. "This is a personal matter," said his spokesman, Tucker Martin. "The governor wishes Robyn the very best."
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Deane and McDonnell, who met when they were 22 and began dating sisters from a large Northern Virginia family, became close despite religious and philosophical differences as they raised their families, Deane said.
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Deane has emerged after a pair of high-profile controversies over gay rights that have caused trouble for McDonnell. The governor alienated gay rights activists shortly after taking office when he excluded sexual orientation from an executive order that barred discrimination in the state workforce, a break in tradition from his Democratic predecessors.
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Deane scoffs at the notion that she will hurt the cause. She insists she can only help, particularly now that gay rights have taken much more of a role in the state policy debate than in recent years.
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"I raised my kids to question everything -- always challenge status-quo thinking and make a difference,'' she said. "I wouldn't be true to those values if I felt this way but stayed over here, worried about what this, this, this person thinks. Nothing would ever change. "I think the voice needs to be heard," she said. "I can't sit back and wait."
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I hope Robyn remains engaged. I also find it ironic that some of the self-appointed "leaders" of the LGBT rights movement are critical. Seriously, they sure as Hell have not accomplished a whole lot for us. In fact, things have become worse on their watch. As for McDonnell, he needs to come clean as to why he treats those gays that he knows and has known so badly. Is it only to curry favor with the Christianists or something else?

Mike Rogers - Portrait of a Friend and Activist Mentor

Between starting to blog in 2007 and unanticipated involvement in situations involving the exposure of hypocrites harmful to the rights of of other gay citizens in 2003 and 2004 - i.e., ex-gay fraud Michael Johnston and former Congressman Ed Schrock - I unexpectedly was fortunate enough to get to know two activists who are never ceasing in their efforts to win full legal equality for LGBT Americans. One was Mike Rogers with whom I collaborated on the Ed Schrock story. While there are those who do not agree with Mike's campaign to "out" closeted politic ans who vote against their fellow LGBT citizens even as they solicit secret trysts for gay sex. I on the other hand applaud Mike's effort. If someone wants to remain in the closet, that's their decision - UNLESS they are actively seeking to impair my rights as a citizen and the rights of other gay Americans. Metro Weekly has a profile piece on Mike Rogers that looks at the many other things Mike does for the LGBT community in our struggle. The piece also looks at how Mike has mentored budding activists and helped create an amazing network for communications between activist, journalists and others via the invitation only list-serv that he maintains. Between putting together the 2008 LGBT Blogger Summit in Washington, D.C., which I was lucky enough to attend, and inviting me to the list-serv, Mike has helped me and my desire to make things better for our community to a huge extent. I hope everyone will read the full Metro Weekly piece. Here are some highlights:
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He's not much of a grandstander. In person, he's unassuming. He can laugh heartily, but he's otherwise fairly soft-spoken. His roots are in suburban New York, where he was raised in a two-parent household with two older siblings. And this is the guy the Washington Post dubbed ''the most feared man on the Hill?''
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Blow the whistle on a few closeted gay politicians and political operatives who are working to counter LGBT equality, and the title sticks. But while some corners of Washington may hate Rogers, he in turn loves the city.
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METRO WEEKLY: What's your involvement with Netroots Nation, exactly?
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MICHAEL ROGERS: I've been involved in Netroots Nation now going on my fourth year. The short of it is it's the national convention of new media, bloggers, activists – kind of the whole progressive left has been coming together at this convention that started out as more of an online blogger kind of thing. I do a number of things related to it. I run the LGBT caucus.
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I'm the director of the [independent] National Blogger and Citizen Journalist Initiative. We raise money and send LGBT bloggers to these conferences. On this one, we're doing $16,000 in scholarships. I'm also running the first pre-convention day for the LGBT community. The 25 recipients of our scholarships will be there. Representatives of LGBT organizations are coming in – everyone from Get Equal to HRC, across the spectrum.
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In 2008, with Netroots and bloggers, I brought together 60 bloggers here in D.C. for a long weekend of training, support, education, networking. We also did some joint events with the Victory Fund conference that coincided with it. We took that and said, ''We have this whole bunch of people who've been reading each other.'' But nobody knew each other. What's key here is taking ''online'' and bringing it ''offline,'' bringing that connection.
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There's a great gain in that. Look at voices like Pam Spaulding. Where would Pam be without the blogosphere? Here's a woman in the Raleigh-Durham [N.C.] area, working at a university, and now she's a really important voice in the community.
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MW: Although the outings can get pretty nasty – McKelway's interview, for example – there's another platform you're involved with that I've also seen get pretty nasty. You manage a listserv with hundreds of LGBT activists, journalists, movement leaders, etc. Sometimes that list gets pretty contentious.
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ROGERS: The reason I created the list was because no one knew who I was. I was looked at as, ''Who the hell is this? Who is this guy, showing up and dragging people out of the closet?'' I realized that in the movement there were so many people that don't understand what they're doing, where they come from.
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[The list] is a wonderful thing for the various parts of our community. . . . When I founded the list, my goal was to bring together all of these different viewpoints and perspectives. You have some viewpoints that are more liberal, some are relatively conservative. But I'm more interested in perspectives. What makes the list really unique is not only does it have activists and leaders of professional things, but it also reaches into every state. . . . It's really a response to a need to have a rapid-fire communication system.
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MW: So you're an organizer at heart?
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ROGERS: I'm a change agent at heart. Yes, organizing is a huge piece of that, but so is reporting and telling the truth. So is fundraising.

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Mike, thanks for all you have done to help me do more to try to make things better. Keep up the great work that you do.

Equality Virginia's Hampton Roads Legends Event

Once again I am serving on the steering committee for Equality Virginia's Legends Event which will be held on November 6th, 2010, at the Renaissance Hotel in Portsmouth, Virginia. Since the events inception, it has honored local individuals who have stood up for the equality of all Virginians, but especially the rights of the LGBT community. This year two good friends are the individual honorees and, for the first time, a community organization will also be honored. The organization selected to be honored is St. Mark's Episcopal Church here in Hampton, which has long been ahead of the curve in terms of supporting gay rights and the dignity of all in the community. Indeed, St. Marks is co-hosting tomorrow's Diversity and Pride event in downtown Hampton - the city's first ever Pride event. I encourage local readers to consider attending. Better yet, be a sponsor or get involved with the committee. Here are more details on the event:

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The EV Legends Event is Hampton Roads Premiere Black-Tie gathering for the LGBT community and their supporters. Each year, this event attracts several hundred guests and is promoted throughout the entire community. Your 2010 sponsorship will ensure that your business is promoted to LGBT and LGBT supporters throughout Hampton Roads. Being a dinner sponsor is a great way to contribute to today’s important and historical movement towards equality, while opening the doors of your business to the large and loyal audience of LGBT and LGBT-friendly patrons.

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Click here to learn more about sponsoring EV Legends and supporting equality to all Virginians.
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P. S. Another way to become involved is to host a house party. Throughout the summer and fall, EV will be sponsoring a series of house and community parties in Hampton Roads. Our house parties are fun and educational and are a great way to find out what EV is doing and bring awareness to your friends and family at the parties.