Category: LGBTQ

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World AIDS Day

Today is World AIDS Day.

Here’s a cool resource from the AIDS Memorial Quilt organization, showing various places in the US & events for World AIDS Day in your area, courtesy of Google Maps.

& Here’s Safe Sex info from Just Say Yes. (I love the little erection/condom .gif.)

I would love to hear from people as to why, say, the Quilt seems so different than the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Both are largely about the death of those we love. Yet they feel different, & I can’t quite put my finger on how.

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Movie Review: Milk

Here’s a review of Milk, about the life of Harvey Milk, by my friend Doug McKeown. (I haven’t seen it yet but will because of his review.)

Let’s get two questions out of the way. Is Milk entertaining? Without qualification. Is it important? Resoundingly. Also funny, tragic, endearing, and rousing. There is not one false note from any of the actors, nor from director Gus Van Sant, screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (I will be seeing this one again just for the screenplay), or photographer Harris Savides. A very complicated story unfolds with absolute clarity, a story as much about the city of San Francisco as about Harvey Milk. I’d say more than that — it’s about the actualization of democracy, about community organizing as the great force for social justice. Take that, Sarah Palin!

I was especially pleased that no attempt is made to be “delicate” about Milk’s personality, either his sex life or his out-sized ego, a forthrightness that makes him all the more heroic, I think. After a stunning opening sequence tossing us in medias res, and a conventional framing device (and foreshadowing), we quickly get to know Harvey Milk through the persona of Sean Penn, a smooth and easy task if there ever was one. He hooks up with a younger guy, Scott Smith, who has the movie star good looks of a — well, a James Franco. It is completely credible that Franco’s Scott goes for the self-deprecating charm of this man with a face so open it hides nothing, who is so comfortably flamboyant, and finally, irresistible. The camera captures not so much sex between them as lovemaking — which is to say, as much warmth as heat. There is even what I would call nuzzling, in close-up. What’s not to like? But there are inevitable strains. While we are ostensibly caught up in the difficulties of their relationship, the larger drama emerges as Scott withdraws into the background. An extraordinary moment in time elevates the Mayor of Castro Street to local hero.

Continue reading “Movie Review: Milk”

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Protest Prop 8

Tomorrow there are rallies against Prop 8 happening all over the country! Go to www.jointheimpact.com for more information about the rally near you.

There’s a Wiki so you can easily find your local contacts and events.

In NYC, the rally will happen at 1:30 at City Hall.

Get out there, people! Bring your friends, family, ministers, allies, teachers – whoever is willing.

(Although I have to say I’m sure I’m not the only one wondering why all this wasn’t happening before Election Day.)

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Dan Savage, Parent

Dan Savage in the NYT on the Arkansas ruling prohibiting unmarried couples – not just gay and lesbian ones – from adopting or fostering children:

That state’s Proposed Initiative Act No. 1, approved by nearly 57 percent of voters last week, bans people who are “cohabitating outside a valid marriage” from serving as foster parents or adopting children. While the measure bans both gay and straight members of cohabitating couples as foster or adoptive parents, the Arkansas Family Council wrote it expressly to thwart “the gay agenda.” Right now, there are 3,700 other children across Arkansas in state custody; 1,000 of them are available for adoption. The overwhelming majority of these children have been abused, neglected or abandoned by their heterosexual parents.

Even before the law passed, the state estimated that it had only about a quarter of the foster parents it needed. Beginning on Jan. 1, a grandmother in Arkansas cohabitating with her opposite-sex partner because marrying might reduce their pension benefits is barred from taking in her own grandchild; a gay man living with his male partner cannot adopt his deceased sister’s children.

I really do wonder how even people who hate gay folks think this is justified.

(thanks to Tina for the link!)

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10 Days, 10 Reasons

betty cast

I had the fantastic opportunity to listen in on a conference call from Obama Pride that was specifically about & for the trans community. Wow. It is so astonishing to hear people from so many states talk about what they’re doing in their own states, and what challenges we face. With Betty’s foot broken, I’m not sure we’ll get to canvas as much as I’d like, so in addition, I’ve decided to use a bunch of what I learned during that call to give you 10 reasons, in these last 10 days, to vote for Obama.

Thanks to Tobias Wolff and Marsha Botzer for hosting it.

Reason #10: Vote for Obama because the people of Omaha, Nebraska – that red state in a swath of red states – are trying to turn their district blue for the first time since 1964. Go Omaha! Gobama! Nebraska is only one of two states that allocates electoral votes by congressional district (the other is Maine), which is what makes this effort important.

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Trans for Obama: 12 Days

Goal Thermometer

The Trans for Obama campaign continues! It’s your time to stand up & be counted, trans democrats, independents, and republicans! If you’re voting for Obama, why not make your vote count twice?

First, here’s a reminder of an event way early in the campaign that has been forgotten by the “they’re both against gay marriage” set: Obama made a point of shutting down homophobic sentiments when he could have just let the moment pass. For those who think that them both being against gay marriage means there’s no difference between them when it comes to LGBT issues, please remember that McCain chose a running mate who is for “ex gay” therapy.

Then go look at these photos. I love that this photographer just kind of knew – as did Richard Avedon (watch till the end) – that Obama would become President Obama. Look at the one of his shoes. Of him cleaning up the drips from his ice cream. At the faces of the young people listening to and looking at him.

My firm belief is that Obama is an extraordinary president for extraordinary circumstances. That we are in the latter is in no doubt, considering this week’s economic news; there are lay-offs happening in all sectors of the economy. That the former is true – that Obama is the right president for this time – is only something I can be sure of in my head and heart. His decision to run when he did, his unbelievable good planning with making it to the nomination = all of these things, the odds he’s beat, tell me that his time is now.

And now it is yours. Go out and vote – early, if you can, to avoid the lines, or on November 4th.

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change.org

I was poking around recently, trying to find out about a PSA that we’d been discussing in the mHB forums lately which is about trying to discourage kids to say “that’s so gay” when they mean “that’s not cool” when I found that the PSA is part of a larger campaign by The Ad Council & GLSEN to “think b4 you speak.” I love the idea, and not just because “that’s so gay” is unnecessarily homophobic, but because I so wish people didn’t use language so carelessly.

As a result I found change.org, which is a huge social issues/activist-oriented collection of blogs on various issues. There’s a blog on women’s rights, animal rights, global warming, immigration, and of course gay rights, which – lo & behold! – has me on its recommended reading list. How cool is that?

Great resource for us social justice types, so do go check it out.