Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyJune 20th, 2011
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Marriage Vote?: New York. Today may well be a very big day for marriage equality in New York. According to marriage equality supporters, the state Senate only needs one more vote to pass a bill allowing marriage equality into law. Proponents rallied yesterday to pressure the Senate to bring the bill to a vote. The following Senators are still officially undecided.
Senator Gregory R. Ball of Putnam County (845) 279-3773, gball@nysenate.gov
Senator Charles J. Fuschillo Jr. of Suffolk County (516) 882-0630, fuschill@senate.state.ny.us
Senator J. Kemp Hannon of Nassau County (516) 739-1700, hannon@nysenate.gov
Senator Andrew J. Lanza of Staten Island (718) 984-4073, lanza@senate.state.ny.us
Senator Betty Little of Glens Falls (518) 743-0968, little@nysenate.gov
Senator Mark Grisanti of Erie County (518) 455-3240, grisanti@nysenate.gov
Senator Stephen M. Saland of Poughkeepsie (845) 463-0840, saland@nysenate.gov
Senator John Flanagan of Long Island (518) 455-2071, flanagan@senate.state.ny.us
Today is the last scheduled day of the legislative session. It’s go time.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
E Lynn Harris: 1955. He was born in Flint, Michigan, but was raised in Little Rock, Arkansas. When he attended the University of Arkansas, he became the first African-American editor of the university’s yearbook. After graduation, he worked in sales for IBM and Hewlett Packard, but quit after thirteen hears to pursue his first love, writing. His first novel, Invisible Life, followed an African-American man’s journey of self-discovery as gay man, and themes of the struggle between acceptance and shame among African-American men on the “down low” would become a recurring theme in Harris’s oeuvre. Invisible Life first failed to find a publisher, so Harris he published it himself in 1991 and sold it out of the trunk of his car before he was finally discovered by Anchor Books in 1994. After Invisible Life’s publication as a paperback, his career was set. He went on to author ten consecutive books
Harris died in 2009 in Los Angeles of heart disease. In 2010, the Los Angeles Times posthumously named Invisible Life as one of the top 20 “classic works of gay literature.”
If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).
June 19th, 2011
With a 74% turnout, Liechtenstein voters overwhelmingly approved a new Civil Partnership law for same-sex couples today with a 69% to 31%. The proposed law stops short of marriage equality however: registered same-sex unions are still barred from adopting children and from access to reproductive services. But it does open up inheritance, social security, pensions, immigration and naturalization, and tax law for same-sex couples to an equal status to married heterosexual couples. The new law takes effect on September 1, 2011.
June 19th, 2011
Today is a very light and slow day. Which makes it a good day to celebrate Father’s Day.
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations Today: Baltimore, MD; Bisbee, AZ; Bozeman, MT; Columbus, OH; Denver, CO; Flagstaff, AZ; Ft. Lauderdale, FL; Las Cruces, NM; Memphis, TN (Black Pride); Portland, ME and Portland, OR.
If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).
June 18th, 2011
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Protest Against Municipal Pool Which Barred Gay Swimmers: Hazard, KY. Earlier this week, an organized group of special needs clients from Mending Hearts, Inc., was asked to leave the Pavilion public pool during a special group outing when a city staff member discovered that two of the developmentally disabled men were gay. Shirlyn Perkins, executive director of Mending Hearts, said in a statement Monday that the Pavilion staff member used the Bible to order the couple to leave the facility. “My staff asked the Pavilion staff why they were being asked to leave, and they were informed that ‘gay people’ weren’t allowed to swim there,” she said. “My staff told this man that what he was trying to do was discrimination. The man stated that what he was doing was in the Bible and he could do it. My staff continued to argue with this man but was ultimately forced to leave. My clients, who already feel ridiculed and different, left the city-owned facility crying and embarrassed for trying to participate in ‘normal’ activities that everyday ‘normal’ people do.”
In response, Kentucky Equality Federation is planning a protest at the Pavilion on Deaton Street in Hazard, beginning at 2:00 p.m. Jordan Palmer of the Kentucky Equality Federation told the AP that he received several angry emails, including one that said Palmer would leave the protest “with a bullet in his head.” With attitudes like that, a strong show of support is urged for anyone in the area. Folks in Huntington, Charleston, Lexington, Knoxville, Asheville, and Johnson City — you’re really not that far away.
Trans Youth Summit: Boston, MA. This summit is for youth 24 and under from Massachusetts/New England who identify with, or could fall under, the label ‘transgender’ or youth who are in some way connected to the transgender youth community, such as partners/friends. The goal of this summit is for youth to meet and connect with other transgender and gender variant youth. Young people will have the opportunity to share ideas, learn about their legal rights, learn about the larger transgender community, participate in workshops and fun activities. The summit takes place at Fenway Health, 1340 Boylston St, Boston, and will take place from 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Symposium: Waltham MA. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) will hold a symposium on suicide prevention in the LGBT community, “A Call to Action.” The symposium will educate attendees and propose interventions aimed at reducing suicidal behavior and suicide risk in the LGBT community, which has been receiving more attention recently in the news but has been a health crisis for decades. The symposium will also call to reduce the stigma against seeking mental health services, as well as for the funding necessary for health research and for changes in discriminatory laws that stigmatize people based on their LGBT identities. The symposium will be held at Bentley University at the LaCava Conference Center in Waltham, Massachusetts, from 12:00 noon to 6:00 p.m.
AIDS Walk: Oakland, CA.
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Baltimore, MD; Bisbee, AZ; Boise, ID; Bozeman, MT; Calderdale, UK; Columbus, OH; Denver, CO; Flagstaff, AZ; Ft. Lauderdale, FL; Grand Rapids, MI; Iowa City, IA; Lancaster, PA; Las Cruces, NM; Louisville, Ky; Memphis, TN (Black Pride); Nashville, TN; Norwalk, CT; Portland, ME; Portland, OR; Providence, RI; Syracuse, NY; Tijuana, BC and Vienna, Austria.
Agnes Goodsir (left), Girl With Cigarette, 1925 (right)
TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Agnes Goodsir: 1864. An Austria Australia-born painter, Agness Goodsir joined a mass exodus of Austrian artists seeking the artistic stimulation and freedom that had blossomed in Paris in the early 20th century. That’s where Goodsir studied at the Académie Delécluse, the Académie Julian and then the Académie Colarossi. Her constant companion was Rachel Dunn, depicted in several of her paintings, including Morning Tea (1925), Girl with Cigarette (1925), The Letter (1926) and The Chinese Skirt (1933). She was best known for her portraits including, reportedly, one of Mussolini. When she died in 1939, she left her remaining paintings to Rachel Dunn, who sent about forty to Agnes’s family in Australia and others to Australian galleries. The Agnes Goodsir memorial scholarship at the Bendigo Art Gallery where her work first appeared is named in her memory.
If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).
June 17th, 2011
This is what passes for intellect among the anti-gays in California. In a response to the Central California District of the US Bankruptcy Court finding DOMA to violate the constitution, OneNewsNow ran this:
Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com, says the ruling is another attack against traditional marriage.
Randy Thomasson”These federal judges should be fired. They are violating their oath of office to uphold the federal law. They are saying they just don’t see any reason for the federal law. They’re not obeying it,” he laments. “It’s not up to them to judge whether they like a law or not — it’s their job to enforce the law.”
The Los Angeles-based court came to the defense of the same-sex couple, who filed the petition after the Obama administration announced it would no longer defend DOMA. The ruling said that DOMA “deprives [the debtors] of the equal protection of the law to which they are entitled.” Thomasson offers this prediction:
“It’s going to go to the U.S. Supreme Court,” he says. “And I predict a 5-4 ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court with Anthony [Anthony] Kennedy being the swing vote.”
(pssst Randy… they aren’t appealing)
June 17th, 2011
A survey with +/- 0% margin of error has found that the best ice-cream is rocky-road. Yeah, probably Haagen-Dazs.
That’s all fine and good, but its useless unless you know that the survey consisted of asking myself what ice-cream I would like at the moment.
Although… maybe strawberry… hmmmm
Well back to my point.
The Alliance Defense Fund has released a new Surprising and Shocking Survey that pretends to report that Americans really-o truly-o don’t want Teh Gheys to marry:
Contrary to recently released studies that suggest increasing support for homosexual “marriage,” an extensive national survey reveals just the opposite.
Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) commissioned the study through Public Opinion Strategies. It reveals that 62 percent of Americans believe “marriage should be defined only as a union between one man and one woman.” Fifty-three percent of Americans participating in the study “strongly” agreed.
Well, gosh, that should shake things up. Right?
Except, of course, that the reputation of Alliance Defense Fund is so abysmal that everyone assumes that they are just lying. That’s what liars do, after all.
So no media has even blinked. None.
Well, the Christian Post, Charisma News, and the ever-wacky Dakota Voice all trotted it out as though it were legit (when will Christian media tire of being patsies of political operatives pretending to be religious?). And several alternative media sources have reported the story about ADF’s bogus polling and how it is nothing more than propaganda. And the Sacramento Bee ran the press release in their “unedited press release” section.
But no mainstream press, not even very conservative mainstream press, ran with this story. It simply isn’t credible. As the Colorado Independent noted:
The group says 53 percent of Americans strongly agreed with the statement and only 35 percent disagreed.
But CitizenLink provides little other data on methodology. There is no list of questions asked, no tabs breaking down how various constituencies were chosen or how they answered and in what percentages.
The poll was reportedly commissioned last month by the conservative Alliance Defense Fund. The firm that conducted the survey, Polling firm Public Opinion Strategies, is tied to Republican Party causes and has been linked to unethical election campaign strategies in the past. According to Raw Story, the firm was charged with violating Virginia polling disclosure laws and was accused of using push polls to influence elections in favor of Republican candidates.
You know, it must be embarrassing to realize that everyone knows that you are lying. Everyone.
June 17th, 2011
TODAY’S AGENDA:
AIDS Walk: Oakland, CA.
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Baltimore, MD; Bisbee, AZ; Boise, ID; Bozeman, MT; Calderdale, UK; Columbus, OH; Denver, CO; Flagstaff, AZ; Ft. Lauderdale, FL; Grand Rapids, MI; Iowa City, IA; Lancaster, PA; Las Cruces, NM; Louisville, Ky; Memphis, TN (Black Pride); Nashville, TN; Norwalk, CT; Portland, ME; Portland, OR; Providence, RI; Syracuse, NY; Tijuana, BC and Vienna, Austria.
TODAY IN HISTORY:
The Queen: 1968. The documentary The Queen makes its premiere in theaters. The film, shot almost entirely with hand-held cameras, is a primitive pre-Stonewall prequel to Paris is Burning, The film follows the preparations and behind the scenes action of the Miss All-America Camp Beauty Pageant – a competition between some of New York City’s drag queens. If you are ever lucky enough to see it, keep a very sharp eye out whenever the camera pans to the audience. You might just get a quick glimpse of Andy Warhol in his trademark platinum wig.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Carl Van Vechten: 1880. A writer and a photographer, Carl Van Vechten was fascinated with African-American culture and became a patron on the Harlem Renaissance. In 1926, he published his controversial novel Nigger Heaven, which portrayed the intellectuals, political activists, workers, and others who inhabited the “great black walled city” of Harlem. The book split Harlem down the middle: Langston Hughes was among the book’s fans and defenders (Hughes even wrote new poems to replace the songs used in the book’s first printing), while W. E. B. Du Bois and Alain Locke condemned it as an “affront to the hospitality of black folks.” Although Van Vechten had married the Russian-born actress Fania Marinoff in 1914, Van Vechten was gay. This was evident when his papers were unsealed twenty-five years after his death in 1964:
As the 25-year mark drew near, scholars assumed they were about to unveil Van Vechten’s diaries. “They said, ‘Of course, this is going to be exciting, and let’s open those journals and have a party,’ and the curator said, ‘Well, I don’t think so…’ It was a good instinct.” The few people who did attend the 1989 opening, including Willis, were shocked by what they found: 18 scrapbooks of graphic homoeroticism, full of mischief and devoid of explanation.
…Van Vechten collected newspaper clippings chronicling Harlem drag balls, early sex-change operations (“GI Who Turned Woman is a Happy Beauty”), court cases for “morals charges,” and abuse incidents. He assembled more restrained, if still theatrical, black and white photographs of male nudes, both Caucasian and African American, which most scholars think are mostly or entirely the work of Van Vechten. Nothing escaped him: Photos of ambiguously homoerotic Greek vases, labeled in childishly rounded handwriting, nestle against newspaper cutouts of male wrestlers locked in combat.
If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).
June 16th, 2011
Yesterday the New York Assembly voted 80 to 63 to give same-sex couples the same access to state rights, responsibilities, and obligations of marriage as it allows its citizens in opposite sex relationships (15 Democrats voted “no” and 3 Republicans voted “yes”).
Currently there are 31 of the state’s 62 senators who have pledged their support for the marriage equality bill. Only one Democrat (Pentecostal minister Ruben Diaz) is opposed, two Republicans have indicated support and at least four more are “undecided”.
And the media is all ablaze with the entirely wrong question.
They are breathlessly wondering whether a necessary third Republican Senator can be found to vote for marriage equality. But those who seem most situated to know seem to agree that more than one of the “undecided” will vote favorably on the bill. That isn’t the question, and none of the undecided will make the decision as to whether marriage equality will come to New York.
Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos will be the person who decides if marriage equality will be achieved.
In the New York Senate, the Majority Leader holds tremendous power. He can singly block a piece of legislation by refusing to schedule a vote. The votes may be there, but they won’t be counted unless he says so.
Skelos has said that he will defer to the will of the Republican caucus. If his Senators want a vote, he’ll have one, if they don’t he won’t. And for the past two days they have been caucusing, only to announce that they have no decision. They will meet again tomorrow.
But this too is a bit less democratic than it might seem. A party leader can, in many circumstances, inform his caucus that they need to rally around and support his decision.
Much of the decision as to whether the New York State Senate will vote on, and pass, the marriage equality bill will be based on whether Skelos determines that allowing the bill will be less politically damaging than blocking the bill.
If he allows a vote, some of the Party’s “base” will blame him and other senators for not serving the conservative cause. But in a state where marriage is popular, and rapidly becoming more so, blocking the vote could ring a sour note with the voters and leave them with the image of an obstructionist party. And a good many people who are not all that vested one way or the other are sympathetic to the complaint, “They wouldn’t even let me vote!”
And to complicate matters more, the largest donors to Republicans in the State of New York are decidedly on the side of equality. Mayor Bloomberg, the single largest contributor to Republicans in the state, has been applying pressure, and other contributors have been showing where their alliances fall through financial support for the legal team seeking to overturn Proposition 8.
AT some point tomorrow Dean Skelos will announce the decision that he believes will best continue the Republican control of the Senate, and his leadership there.
It is, of course, only a guess but I think that the winds are blowing in our favor. Skelos can step out of a caucus tomorrow and announce that a majority felt the need to vote on the matter. No one will know who to blame, and each can say “but I voted no.” The sophisticated contributor will know that this decision allowed marriage equality to come to pass, and the less so can be comforted by knowing that their own Senator stood for the good ol’ values they sent him there to support.
June 16th, 2011
I don’t tweet. Lady Gaga does.
Which means, if I understand this correctly, those of you who decide to check BTB will get my opinion when you get around to reading it, while 10,958,546 people get Gaga’s opinion more-or-less immediately.
And here is what they have been reading today:
June 16th, 2011
“I need a new bike,” Joey told his father. “I’m getting to big for this one and sometimes my knees hit the handlebars.”
Oh,” his father replied, “instead of a new bike, how about a trip to Disneyland for vacation?”
Joey thought for a moment. A new bike would be something he could enjoy for a long time, but he’d been longing to go to the Magic Kingdom ever since his neighbor came back last year with tales of boat rides through pirate caves and whizzing through the Alps past yeti.
Finally, he said, “I can ride the bike I have now for a while longer. Let’s go to Disneyland!!”
That night Joey could hardly sleep. Vacation was only a few weeks away and visions of flying elephants, mansions full of ghosts, and a car just his size that he could drive filled his dreams and his imagination. The next day at school he bragged to his friends and basked in their envy. Joey promised to bring each of them back a souvenir from his trip.
But on the morning when Joey was all ready to pack for his trip, his father made an announcement.
“Change of plans,” said Joey’s dad, “We’re going to stay home for vacation. There’s a swingset in the park and you have your videogames. I’ve decided I need the money for new golf clubs.”
Everyone can agree that in this story the father is cruel and selfish. He offers a choice, but when one is selected it is snatched away and replaced with something far inferior. The Disneyland option wasn’t real, it was just a flash and promise offered to distract Joey from what he needed.
In this same way, anti-gay activists have gone about confusing and distracting voters.
No, you don’t want equality, they say. Instead why don’t you select “traditional marriage”, and “every child deserves a mom and a dad” and “the way its been for 5000 years”.
Buses roll by with pictures of two opposite-sex adults with a little boy and a girl. Ads run of happy families sharing a meal in a bright upper-middle-class kitchen nook.
All of this is possible, but only if you limit marriage to heterosexuals. And, they said, if instead you choose gay marriage then all of this goes away. Allowing gay folks to marry will destroy the very foundations of society.
That really isn’t that difficult of a decision. If the choice were truly between allowing a small percentage of people the right to be included in the institution of marriage and thereby destroying civilization or instead having a nation of people in a stable family structure, I would vote for stable families. And you would do the same.
And so American voters in 31 states looked at those two options and decided to delay the equality that they really need in exchange for a bright shiny Cinderella fairy tale.
But now that they’ve selected “every child needs a mom and a dad” and “marriage as its always been” and the nuclear family in the upper-middle-class kitchen nook, what have they received?
Well it’s certainly not the ideal television family structure they were promised. In fact, it looks a lot more like a swingset in the park than a glass slipper in a magical carriage. The Pew Research Center has released a new analysis that illustrates just how dishonest of a bait and switch game that the National Organization for Marriage and other anti-gays have played.
In 1960, only 11% of children in the U.S. lived apart from their fathers. By 2010, that share had risen to 27%. The share of minor children living apart from their mothers increased only modestly, from 4% in 1960 to 8% in 2010.
According to a new Pew Research Center analysis of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), more than one-in-four fathers with children 18 or younger now live apart from their children—with 11% living apart from some of their children and 16% living apart from all of their children.
And on closer inspection, it looks like the swingset may be broken…
…nearly one-third of fathers who do not live with their children say they talk or exchange email with them less than once a month. Similarly, one-in-five absent fathers say they visit their children more than once a week, but an even greater share (27%) say they have not seen their children at all in the past year.
…and there may be cat poop in the sandbox.
According to the NSFG, nearly half of all fathers (46%) now report that at least one of their children was born out of wedlock, and 31% report that all of their children were born out of wedlock. In addition, some 17% of men with biological children have fathered those children with more than one woman.
This is not what NOM promised.
And to add insult to injury, evidence seems to suggest that those areas in which marriage equality has been established have an increased respect for the institution. And further, when gay people are allowed to establish socially recognized families, they are stepping in to repair some of the damage done in heterosexual families. (NYTimes)
… the percentage of same-sex parents with adopted children has risen sharply. About 19 percent of same-sex couples raising children reported having an adopted child in the house in 2009, up from just 8 percent in 2000, according to Gary Gates, a demographer at the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“The trend line is absolutely straight up,” said Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, a nonprofit organization working to change adoption policy and practice. “It’s now a reality on the ground.”
That reality has been shaped by what advocates for gay families say are two distinct trends: the need for homes for children currently waiting for adoption — now about 115,000 in the United States — and the increased acceptance of gays and lesbians in American society.
It’s almost as if Joey’s dad hid from him a promotion at the bike store: buy a new bike and get a free trip to Disneyland.
But there are a few bright points to give us hope.
The same analysis found that those fathers that are in the household are spending more time fathering. Joey’s dad may be on the golf course, but others are not.
In 1965, married fathers with children under age 18 living in their household spent an average of 2.6 hours per week caring for those children. Fathers’ time spent caring for their children rose gradually over the next two decades—to 2.7 hours per week in 1975 and 3 hours per week in 1985. From 1985 to 2000, the amount of time married fathers spent with their children more than doubled – to 6.5 hours in 2000.
So there is hope that while perhaps fewer heterosexuals appreciate the value of a stable two-parent family, those who do are taking it seriously.
And the second bright point is that people are coming to realize that they’ve been sold on a false dream. They look around and see that things have gotten worse instead of better for the “traditional family” since they voted to ban gay marriage. They are coming to realize that Brian and Maggie are horrible ‘parents’ who lied to them and distracted them with promises that they had no ability to keep.
It has been, I believe, a painful awakening for some. They will never again trust their parental figures in church and politics in the way that they had. There are some Joeys who have become sadly disillusioned.
June 16th, 2011
Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, one of the founding members of legendary hip-hop icons Run-D.M.C., recorded a message for the NOH8 campaign calling on fellow rap and hip-hop artists to speak out against homophobia:
June 16th, 2011
Joseph Nicolosi, co-founder and past president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), was interviewed by conservative dissident Anglican activist David Virtue. (It’s worth pointing out that Virtue has uncritically championed the discredited research of Nazi-sympathizer Paul Cameron.) This interview came about in response to last week’s revelations here on BTB and on CNN that George Rekers’s most famous case study and success story, a four-year-old boy named “Kraig” (Rekers’s pseudonym for Kirk Murphy) had actually grown up to be a gay man who family and friends say was severely damaged by the treatment. He tried to commit suicide when he was seventeen and finally hanged himself at the age of 38. Nicolosi appeared on the third segment of CNN’s three-part series, in which he hailed Rekers’s “pioneering work in this for many, many years.”
In Nicolosi’s interview with Virtue, he asserted that gays were inherently pathological and incapable of forming legitimate romantic relationships with each other. Nicolosi then went on to stretch that assertion to include non-romantic and non-sexual friendships:
Homosexually oriented men tend to find themselves entwined in excessively close friendships with women-particularly, with narcissistic women who do not understand that men cannot in a healthy way, be their “best friends” – and this reactivates old, negative memories of unhealthy entanglement with their mothers.
But back to the subject of Rekers’s, Nicolosi again brushed off the allegations against Rekers, both in the Kirk Murphy case as well as last year’s scandal in which it was learned that Rekers had returned from a European vacation in the company of a male escort.
VIRTUEONLINE: Turning to the AC360 TV series, was the “Sissy Boy” experiment aimed at changing him? That is making feminine boys more masculine? It seems he was deeply damaged all his life and much later committed suicide. Was this a result of therapy gone wrong?
NICOLOSI: Who can know what happened in his case? But to put it in context, homosexually oriented people have a much higher rate of psychological problems, substance abuse, disordered family backgrounds, and suicide attempts. This is a known fact. Why did the show not reveal this fact?
…
VIRTUEONLINE: George Rekers who worked for NARTH as a therapist was cited in a lot of your research as “gays who can overcome their same-sex attractions” yet in the end he was seen taking a young man with him on a trip to Europe who later said he had “massage sex” with Rekers. Does that invalidate all his research?
NICOLOSI: If it happened, it was a grave indiscretion, but I will stay out of that controversy. The real issue is, does Dr. Rekers’ research stand up? Do his theories make sense?
Of course, if we threw out the work of every gay-activist researcher accused of being involved in a personal scandal, there would be no literature on their side of the issue, would there?
Dr. Rekers dedicated 30 years of his life to very important work which has become a well-respected part of the scientific literature.
June 16th, 2011
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Netroots Nation: Minneapolis, MN. The annual gathering of progressive activists, politicians, and citizen journalists begins today. As the conference continues through Sunday, participants will hear from Sen. Russ Feingold, Sen. Al Franken, Gov. Howard Dean, Van Jones, Sen. Ben Cardin, Rep. Keith Ellison, Rep. Donna Edwards, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Rep. Tim Walz, State Sen. Chris Larson and many, many more.
AIDS Walk: Oakland, CA.
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Baltimore, MD; Bisbee, AZ; Boise, ID; Bozeman, MT; Calderdale, UK; Columbus, OH; Denver, CO; Flagstaff, AZ; Ft. Lauderdale, FL; Grand Rapids, MI; Iowa City, IA; Lancaster, PA; Las Cruces, NM; Louisville, Ky; Memphis, TN (Black Pride); Nashville, TN; Norwalk, CT; Portland, ME; Portland, OR; Providence, RI; Syracuse, NY; Tijuana, BC and Vienna, Austria.
TODAY IN HISTORY:
Rocky Horror Show: 1973. The stage musical The Rocky Horror Showpremiered in London at the Royal Court’s Theatre Upstairs, a tiny 63-seat venue set aside as a project space for new works. Starring Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter — a the “sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania” — the musical (set in Ohio!) follows the adventures of young lovers Brad Majors and Janet Weiss when they enter the doctor’s castle, needing to call a cab when their car develops a flat tire. The production features lots of catchy songs (“Time Warp” and “Science Fiction, Double Feature”), risqué sexuality and of course, lots of makeup. The show was an instant hit, and the cast was signed for a soundtrack album right after the show’s second night. By the time the show closed seven years and four venues later, it has gone through 2,960 performances and picked up several added songs along the way.
The Rocky Horror Show opened on Broadway on March 10, 1975, but critics panned it and the show closed just three weeks later. That same year, the play was adapted for the film, retitled The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It becomes a must-see cult classic that has kept art houses in business for the next 36 years. Because it is still officially in limited release, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is the longest-running theatrical release in film history.
If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).
June 15th, 2011
I mean, not as in literally incapable of perceiving reality. She’s not actually mentally challenged.
Right?
I mean, surely it would be obvious. Surely someone in the Republican leadership would say, “hey, she’s not just opinionated, she’s actually certifiably nuts!”
Right?
But I just have no other way of explaining this story:
In April 2005, Pamela Arnold wanted to talk to her state senator, Michele Bachmann, who was then running for Congress. A 46-year-old who worked at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Arnold lived with her partner, the famed Arctic explorer Ann Bancroft, on a farm in Scandia, Minnesota. Bachmann was then leading the fight against gay marriage in the state. She’d recently been in the news for hiding in the bushes to observe a gay-rights rally at the Capitol. So when members of the Scandia gay community decided to attend one of Bachmann’s constituent forums, Arnold, wanting to make herself visible to her representative, joined them.
A few dozen people showed up at the town hall for the April 9 event, and Bachmann greeted them warmly. But when, during the question and answer session, the topic turned to same-sex marriage, Bachmann ended the meeting 20 minutes early and rushed to the bathroom. Hoping to speak to her, Arnold and another middle-aged woman, a former nun, followed her. As Bachmann washed her hands and Arnold looked on, the ex-nun tried to talk to her about theology. Suddenly, after less than a minute, Bachmann let out a shriek. “Help!” she screamed. “Help! I’m being held against my will!”
Arnold, who is just over 5 feet tall, was stunned, and hurried to open the door. Bachmann bolted out and fled, crying, to an SUV outside. Then she called the police, saying, according to the police report, that she was “absolutely terrified and has never been that terrorized before as she had no idea what those two women were going to do to her.” The Washington County attorney, however, declined to press charges, writing in a memo, “It seems clear from the statements given by both women that they simply wanted to discuss certain issues further with Ms. Bachmann.”
Ya know, you can be a little eccentric and still be elected to Congress. It might even help. And you can be, shall we say, less than fully informed about the minutia of American History (okay, you may not have the faintest clue about much of anything including where Russia is located and what Paul Revere’s ride was all about) and still have many Americans give you the benefit of the doubt.
But while we like Aww Shucks home folk and Good ‘ol People like us, Americans aren’t so fond of crazy. And we really don’t like it when you demonstrate irrational fears of little ol’ nuns (or killer rabbits). We want our presidents to have irrational bravery instead. We expect our presidents to take a bullet and walk to the hospital. We want them to stare into the cameras and demand that African presidents resign. We like them best when they take on the Challenges of The Day in a bigger, grander, and definitely braver way than we would. It’s gravitas.
So if Michele Bachmann hopes to win the Republican nomination for 2012 Loser to Obama, she’d best be reeling in the crazy, especially the paranoid fear of tiny women. It just doesn’t seem… presidential.
(Read the entire Daily Beast article here. Go on. Read it.)
June 15th, 2011
I may have misjudged Chris Christie when he won the Republican nomination for Governor of New Jersey:
Christie is no friend of our community.
Statements he has now made to Piers Morgan suggest a man who is less antagonistic than I presumed.
While this is still a position that is a disappointment for New Jersey, where marriage seemed a likelihood a few years ago, I’m sure there are plenty of gay folk who would happily trade their governor for him.
What is interesting about this interview is that Christie felt no need to note that his view was “perhaps in disagreement with others in the party” nor did Morgan seem shocked by the “liberal” stance. And this bodes well for the future of our rights. While the current batch of clowns dancing around the calliope hoping to get the privilege of losing to Obama in 2012 are all dedicated to heterosexual supremacy, Christie’s position gives recognition – and permission – to the growing number of Republican politicians who are abandoning the rhetoric of sin.
Featured Reports
In this original BTB Investigation, we unveil the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, a four-year-old boy who was treated for “cross-gender disturbance” in 1970 by a young grad student by the name of George Rekers. This story is a stark reminder that there are severe and damaging consequences when therapists try to ensure that boys will be boys.
When we first reported on three American anti-gay activists traveling to Kampala for a three-day conference, we had no idea that it would be the first report of a long string of events leading to a proposal to institute the death penalty for LGBT people. But that is exactly what happened. In this report, we review our collection of more than 500 posts to tell the story of one nation’s embrace of hatred toward gay people. This report will be updated continuously as events continue to unfold. Check here for the latest updates.
In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany.” What the SPLC didn”t know was Cameron doesn’t just “echo” Nazi Germany. He quoted extensively from one of the Final Solution’s architects. This puts his fascination with quarantines, mandatory tattoos, and extermination being a “plausible idea” in a whole new and deeply disturbing light.
On February 10, I attended an all-day “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix, put on by Focus on the Family and Exodus International. In this series of reports, I talk about what I learned there: the people who go to these conferences, the things that they hear, and what this all means for them, their families and for the rest of us.
Prologue: Why I Went To “Love Won Out”
Part 1: What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Part 2: Parents Struggle With “No Exceptions”
Part 3: A Whole New Dialect
Part 4: It Depends On How The Meaning of the Word "Change" Changes
Part 5: A Candid Explanation For "Change"
At last, the truth can now be told.
Using the same research methods employed by most anti-gay political pressure groups, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality. Download your copy today!
And don‘t miss our companion report, How To Write An Anti-Gay Tract In Fifteen Easy Steps.
Anti-gay activists often charge that gay men and women pose a threat to children. In this report, we explore the supposed connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse, the conclusions reached by the most knowledgeable professionals in the field, and how anti-gay activists continue to ignore their findings. This has tremendous consequences, not just for gay men and women, but more importantly for the safety of all our children.
Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship. In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true.
Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage. We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council.
The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.
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