Queer. Contrarian. Lover of beer.
© 2010 Rick Powell
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And no, it’s not a flexing muscle twink this time.
Click the pic to watch.
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Andrew Sullivan isn’t the only good gay blogger in the world, nor he is always the one I agree with the most consistently on matters of politics, but he is the most interesting as a character, a thinker and a writer and I don’t care who thinks I am somehow a traitor to leftist causes because I feel that way. Leftist causes never had much use for my brand of contrarianism anyway.
I’m quite proud that an out and proud, married, 4o-something gay man has become known as much for his tireless and uncompromising coverage of torture and The Green Revolution in Iran as he is for pounding the drums, almost daily, for marriage equality. No other gay blogger engages me so completely or compels me to read him every frakin’ day. Indeed, my tumblelog can sometimes deserve the subhead, Quotes from the Mind of Andrew Sullivan.
Still, he’s right more often than he’s not. He was right about marriage equality being the civil rights issues of our times, despite the reluctance of our national gay rights leaders to ever take it on. In this video, he lambastes Joe Solmonese, the director of the broadly named Human Rights Campaign Fund, for basically saying that gay folks have no right to criticize Obama for failing to fulfill his promises to the gay community until 2017, after the expected two terms.
What bullshit. What presumption. What cowardice.
I’m with Sullivan: Solmonese is craven. That statement proves he’s a tool of the Democratic Party establishment and that he should resign.
(And who’s that handsome older daddy interviewing him? Hubba hubba!)
My buddy Craig, of GayVentures, makes The Daily Dish:
DOMA should be renamed the “Homosexual Discrimination Act of 1996″ or HDA. It is the most discriminatory piece of legislation passed in the last 50 years, and a Democrat signed it into law. DOMA’s reach is vast and affects legislation even today.
Read more: The Poison Of DOMA
And yes, I’m jealous.
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“Even the lesbians get it!”
via The Bilerico Project.
This simple, subtle video was shot using the camera-store set for Gus Van Sant’s film Milk; the voiceover is a will, of sorts, recorded by Harvey Milk shortly before he was assassinated. He touches on his usual themes: Hope, the importance of everyone coming out, the emphasis on collective action as opposed to a personal politics based on ego.
575 Castro St. from FilmInFocus on Vimeo.
His tone of voice rarely waivers, and in fact, wanes droning throughout most of it, until he disowns the idea of having a service of any kind after his death, any kind of religious service, he specifies. That’s when he raises his voice and starts preaching, berating the churches, and of course, Anita fucking Bryant, for refusing to stand up for what’s right.
30 years later, it’s not that much different. The Mormon Church, in alliance with the backwards Catholic hierarchy, was the principal mover to get Proposition 8 passed. The United Church of Christ, incidentally and notably, our President-elect’s denomination, was a notable, vocal exception [PDF]. The UCC recently joined in the lawsuit against Proposition 8.
Milk was Jewish, but I’m sure it would have made him smile.
The gods saves us from fundamentalists. A Buddhist chaplain attempts to defend a comatose lesbian woman (and her partner) from her estranged, deranged Christianist family:
Buddhist Channel | Buddhism News, Headlines | Opinion | Prop 8: What really matters
They would hold loud rituals in the patient’s room in an attempt to “exorcise the demon of homosexuality” from the comatose woman, until we made them stop because they were disturbing the other patients as well as the staff. And they were always trying to convert other people in the hospital to their brand of Christianity, which, they assured everyone, was the only “true” version of Christ’s doctrine (don’t ask what they thought of the others, especially “Papists”).
The chaplain then goes on to explain both his ethical and legal objections to Proposition 8. A lovely and well-reasoned essay from an unexpected source. Tina Turner was always saying she didn’t understand why more queers weren’t Buddhists. Maybe there’s something to that.
Photograph of a gay Iranian tortured by the morality police.
This quote is from an article on a Tampa Bay newspaper’s Web site. The articles discusses how the LGBT community’s attempt to reclaim the city of Ybor City created alliances between government, businesses and citizen, both gay straight.
The article is positive and intelligent; some of the comments are not. Some librul het folks rip the trolls a new asshole.
Where where these people when I was growing up?
Despite Marriage Ban, Support Grows For Gay People
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
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