A good time to be gay?, no, not just 4:20 Options

[PalePhoenix]

People of all stripe and creed can often be heard to say how much harder things were for whatever they are "way back when." Technically, you'd probably need to have been living long enough, be at least semi-involved, and self-admittedly homo to be able to put a barometer to Today vs. Yesterday. Too often, though, being gay [or bi, or black, or a woman, or Catholic...] is brought up to discuss the things which currently suck about it, and none of what's good or appreciated.

I feel quite certain that I'm a product of the actions and energies of the gay men that came before me (and not merely in front of me). A personality like mine probably couldn't have existed before the 1980s, and the rights I claim as my own would never even have been spoken aloud much before then.

We squabble over gay unions, whether characters on TV accurately portray us, and worry that our friends and families will disown us. Just when we think anti-gay violence is on the wane, we get a Matthew Shepard. XM isn't about being gay so much as it is about being a creative, more fully actualized and expressive person. It's hard to do that if you think the world's against you, and not that you're living in the best time for a homo there's ever been.

How half-full/empty is your glass?

[Archemini]

I'm gonna go with half full. While I do not experience the full swing of attacks on the gay lifestyle, I do see reason to be optimistic.

Common thought these days is much more liberal than 20 years ago. Our culture of indifference has created a generation that can care less about what people choose as their sexuality. The fights and legislation of today will eventually fall apart. We've already seen two states go ahead and approve of civil unions. Some are optimistic that this trend will continue along the path to eventually equal rights as any heterosexual person. Will this happen anytime soon? Who knows. I say be positive, stay strong, and deal with it like you have been. I highly doubt things will get worse, only better. But then again what the hell do I know?

[ganymede]

With all the crack-smokin' and meth-snortin', how can you look at gay life these days and say anything but "FAAAAAAAAAAABulous!!!"

Five minutes later though, "It suuuuuuucks!"

At least the discussion of marriage is out there. At least coming out is a billion times easier. There's something to come out TO, for starters. Even if guys don't want to, there's this Internet thing for info, hookups, and the previously mentioned crack rock parties in a bathroom off the interstate.

Gay men need self-respect or the rest is useless.

[JBlueEyes]

With all the crack-smokin' and meth-snortin', how can you look at gay life these days and say anything but "FAAAAAAAAAAABulous!!!"

Five minutes later though, "It suuuuuuucks!"

Larry Kramer just wrote another book about that:

http://www.queerday.com/2005/apr/21/larry_..._into_book.html

[ganymede]

Larry Kramer just wrote another book about that:

http://www.queerday.com/2005/apr/21/larry_..._into_book.html

I don't know what's more surprising, that ACT-UP founder Larry Kramer is a bitter, paranoid, cynical old queen, or that you read, JBE. (j/k)

To be blunt, I don't even know how to answer this. Every time I think my life is going swell, and I'm as grateful and happy for everything I have or have done, there's always some new suckage thrown my way by the gov't or the fat lady in the produce department who deliberately didn't move her cart outta my way. Bush, I can ignore, most often. Rude people who passively fuck with you b/c they "realize" you're gay are a daily nuisance. I like myself, and I reserve the right to go food shopping with a flamey friend when I want. We don't just wait tables. We eat dinner too, you know.

I told her it was never too late to start on that All Watercress Diet.

[circle6]

Well, after having a couple of BDWGs (big dumb white guys) in a shiny '62 Impala yell "FAGGOT!" at me last week as I walked up to work from the parking lot, I was going to say everything's peachy.

But it's not, really, having read the news today about Maine voters gathering enough votes to call a vote on the state's non-discrimination law protecting gays and lesbians on the November ballot -- FOR REPEAL.

And here at home, Governor Jenny is challenging state Attorney General Mike Cox(an ambitious, hard-driving, right-wing former Marine) on his determination that the newly-enacted law barring gay marriage also means that cities-- or any government agency -- can no longer offer domestic partner benefits. Because going forward, those relationships must not be legally recognized.

So right now, I'd have to say I'm still thinking Canada or the UK look nice.

This post has been edited by circle6: Jul 29 2005, 09:49 PM

[JeMagenotsen]

Well, I'm old as dirt. And I well remember gay life without the fear of AIDS. The 70's was the best time to be gay. Everyone loved each other. You could tell a straight guy you're gay and he'd be, "That's cool."

[PalePhoenix]

It will be good to have an [even more] mature perspective around here. I'm always trying to gauge where that sliding scale of social acceptance is at, and it seems like we've come so far in just my lifetime. There are setbacks, yes, and it's sometimes like there are five fundamentals douchebags for every one out, sensible, gay role model. Come to think of it, there aren't a whole lot of the latter.

That's part of the problem, I suppose. It's not that I think anyone ever needs to made a big deal of his or her sexuality, but just sit there now and try to think of six well-known homosexuals (other than Rosie or Ellen). Can you?

[Aeon]

I'll give gay a go, but sensible....Oh, and do they have to be living? I suppose so?

Uhm...

1. George Michael
2. Boy George
3. Elton John
4. kd lang
5. Melissa Etheridge
6. The Queer Eye crew

That's, what? Ten or eleven in all, technically? I never really counted how many of those Queer Eye guys there are.

[PalePhoenix]

There are five. Vanity Smurf, Shallow Halina, the Minister of Material Wealth, Queen of Clone Outfits, and Domesticity Dude. But things just keep getting better!

I should, perhaps, have refined my query. No, they do not have to be living, but that would help if we wanted to discuss their continuing impact on gay and lesbian youth. And they cannot ALL be from the entertainment industry.

It's not an easy task, I admit. You know how a Google search will come back with tens of thousands, if not millions of occurences? "Gay role models" brings in a lowly 961. You might be pleased to know, Aeon, that most of yours made this list, though I'd say many others on it are of dubious import. There's no real accounting for "allies" like Madonna or (urp) Ricki Lake, though that list would fortunately be more populous.

[JeMagenotsen]

You're right Pale. I can't think of any gay role models. Which is why I posted on another board I frequent that the gay community would benefit from a Gay Man of the Year award. It would be timed to coincide with Time's Person of the Year award. The criteria? I don't know. Maybe we can discuss it here. But I'll be there are a lot of civic-minded gays, possibly many gay heroes (like fire fighters), gay teachers, etc.

I'm thinking that the Gay Man of the Year would be our goodwill ambassador, a recognized face to the straight community, someone who could be widely quoted and advance the gay community.

[ganymede]

Which is why I posted on another board I frequent that the gay community would benefit from a Gay Man of the Year award. The criteria? I don't know. Maybe we can discuss it here. But I'll be there are a lot of civic-minded gays, possibly many gay heroes (like fire fighters), gay teachers, etc.

That's a terrific idea. Nominees? What would the award be called? We've got the Emmy, the Hugo, the Oscar... How about the Blanche?

[PalePhoenix]

At long last, proof that SomethingAwful.com is on a mission to turn every man gay...or at least miserably asexual and impotent.

Ugly girls and truth in car advertising. Muah-ha-hah.

[irishblessing]

R-O-C-K in the U-S-A? No, it's G-A-Y in the U-K.

On 28 July 1967, homosexual acts in private between two adult men aged 21 and over were made legal in England and Wales. Before this date, the maximum penalty for gay male sex in the UK had been life imprisonment.

The change in law was the start of a long road to legal equality for gay British men and women - leading, in recent years, to the overturn of a ban on openly gay personnel in the military (2000), an equal age of consent with heterosexuals (2001), the right for gay and lesbian couples to adopt (2002), laws preventing workplace discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation (2003), and finally the Civil Partnerships Act (2004), giving same-sex couples the legal rights, if not the title, of marriage.

To mark this 40th anniversary, the UK's Channel 4 has been showing what was called a “season” of films and documentaries on gay history and modern gay life. This “season” was slightly less substantial than the name might suggest, consisting of only five programs that were shown over the course of last week. Although two of the programs were genuinely interesting and thought provoking, the season overall felt disappointingly limited and shallow in scope... (read more)

Brought to you by the very same country that jailed Oscar Wilde for having the indecency to screw beneath his class.

[PalePhoenix]

Just when I thought the state couldn't get much redder, a little bit of blue makes for a lavender lining to some very dark clouds:

Scottsdale passes workplace protections for LGBT city workers

The Scottsdale, Ariz., city council voted 4–3 Tuesday to include workplace protections for LGBT city employees. Mayor Mary Manross joined council members Betty Drake and Robert Littlefield and Vice Mayor Wayne Ecton in voting for the ordinance, while council members Ron McCullagh, Tony Nelssen, and W.J. "Jim" Lane opposed it, according to a press release from LGBT rights group Equality Arizona.

The measure adds protections for gender identity and sexual orientation under the city's antidiscrimination law.

"A broad collaboration of civil rights, faith, business, and community leaders united in this effort to ensure all people are guaranteed equality," Equality Arizona executive director Barbara McCullough-Jones said in the release. "We are grateful to those who supported our efforts and look forward to strengthening our relationships with our allies as we continue to advance the movement for equality in Arizona." (source: Gay.com)

To be sure, it affirms anti-discrimination protections for state workers. As in any other municipality, the civil service sector is a narrowly populated band of bureaucratic offices and state programs (welfare, child protection, some utilities, etc.). If my experience with employment law in Arizona is any indication, it's a long way from helping anyone in the private sector. We're still a "right to work" state, which basically means that they never have to say why they're firing you.

While a step in the right direction, I think it will be some time before we see roving gangs of pink-clad vigilantes beating corrupt and discriminatory employers and politicians with sticks (but with the number of call centers per square mile in the Metro Phoenix area, we might as well be in India).

[Galahad]

Turns out, a "good time to be gay" IS 4:20. In Oregon.

Judge's ruling lifts stay on civil unions

A federal judge this afternoon threw out a lawsuit against Oregon's domestic partnership law, allowing the legislation to go into effect about 4:20 p.m.

The verdict was greeted with honking horns and shouts of joy outside the federal courthouse in downtown Portland. Grinning amid a scrum of reporters, Jeana Frazzini, executive director of Basic Right Oregon, a gay rights group, called the decision "thrilling."

"Not only did we win on the merits of the case, we really won new rights," she told a gaggle of reporters outside the federal courthouse in Portland.

Frazzini urged same sex couples to head immediately to county offices around the state to begin registering their civil unions, to obtain a slew of legal rights formerly available only to married opposite sex couples... (read more)

Couples will still have to wait until Monday morning to head to the courthouse, provided there are no other sneaky, religion-motivated legal moves by SSM opponents before then.

[irishblessing]

New York will recognize and honor same-sex unions from elsewhere

Although lesbian and gay citizens of New York cannot marry, those who marry elsewhere in the world will be supported by the state.

According to The New York Times: "...the appellate court in Rochester held that a gay couple’s 2004 marriage in Canada must be respected under the state’s longstanding marriage recognition rule..."

Filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union, it's the first appellate court decision in New York - and the first known decision in the country - to hold that the state must recognize a same-sex union certified elsewhere. (read more)

Like the teenager of the house who never wants to do anything like anybody else, New York State is shoving a wedge into the eventual approval of gay marriage. How many years have we gone around about this now? Ten? Twenty? Because it sounds ludicrous to recognize the unions of people from just across some invisible line, but not your own citizens, expect Albany to ratify SSMs this year or next.

Then we'll finally be free to wed those trees, dogs, and fifteen child-brides everyone has been worried about. Ha, ha.

[Galahad]

The City of Stonewall is collecting our history (herstory?) for later generations:

Preserving Gay and Lesbian History

Tens of thousands of New Yorkers celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising in 1994 discovered to their happy surprise that there was an enormous archive of gay and lesbian social history in an elegant building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.

It was called the New York Public Library.

The library’s exhibition on lesbian and gay life, “Becoming Visible: The Legacy of Stonewall,” drew a record-breaking 17,258 visitors in its first week. One man, who cried as he walked through the Gottesman Exhibition Hall, said that such a show in such a setting made him feel he had “a place, a legitimate place, in the fabric of this country.”

The show also underscored the depth of the library’s holdings, which now include the archives of Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Act Up New York, the People With AIDS Coalition, and the personal papers of leading figures in the gay and lesbian civil-rights movement like Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen.

“I was aware that we were amassing one of the greatest collections ever,” said Paul LeClerc, the president of the library. “I really wanted an enormous amount of important social history to be written out of the collections of the library...” (read more)

It's a terrific gesture, don't you think? And not just a little overdue...

Modern gay life may have begun in the streets of the West Village (outside a bar, no less), but it's not as if we just magically appeared out of nowhere on that evening. Many different groups, before the plague, were making visibility a top priority, and finally we get a notice, but it's not necessarily in a museum, but the permanent collection of the public library? Well, I guess we should be glad for any favors, even if it is a bitch to get a copy of "Heather Has Two Mommies."

[Bryan9000]

It's not a good time to be gay in Africa, specifically Gambia, where flirting with your taxi driver can get you deported within twenty-four hours. International guests to the tiny nation get a bit of a reprieve as two Spanish tourists got out with their skins intact.

[irishblessing]

This article in Slate explains the "ground-breaking" Supreme Court case of Lawrence v, Texas (the ruling that struck sodomy off the books, for the most part). I don't understand all the ramifications, and while it's easy to see that Scalia is a scumbag, some of the repercussions he expected never came to pass. I'd say it's definitely a better time to "be gay" now that this case has entered history.

[Semperfidel]

Apparently, being a gay man makes you a bad driver. In Italy, at least.

Italian wins gay driving ban case

An Italian court has ordered the government to pay 100,000 euros (£79,919) to a man who had to retake his driving test because he was gay. Danilo Giuffrida, now 26, told doctors he was homosexual during a medical examination for military service. The information was passed to the defence and transport ministries.

Mr Giuffrida was told to repeat his driving test or have his licence suspended because of his "sexual identity disturbance". Mr Giuffrida passed his test for the second time but his licence was renewed for just one year rather than the usual 10 years because of his homosexuality.

A court in Catania, Sicily, ordered the ministries to pay damages on the basis that Mr Giuffrida's constitutional rights had been breached and that homosexuality could not be considered a "mental illness". The judge said the actions of the ministries showed "evident sexual discrimination".

Mr Giuffrida welcomed the sentence as "a step forwards for civil rights."

[Bryan9000]

Titty Von Tramp explains it all for you: "Pride is a celebration for me. It’s a time for the gay community to unite and celebrate their sexuality in such a way that they don't have to be afraid. I'm really looking forward to the Pride march. It's such a carnival atmosphere, the biggest parade in Northern Ireland outside of the Twelfth of July marches, and we get support from so many people."

[Semperfidel]

I heard Orson Scott Card had suddenly gone antigay, or at least anti-marriage. How goes it?

[irishblessing]

A Senegalese man was recently granted asylum in the US because of his sexual orientation. It was only one of a handful of cases in the past decade where a gay or lesbian fleeing persecution has been given safe haven here. When we count our blessings as part of the GLBTQ community in this country, we should add to it being thankful we're already here.

[PalePhoenix]

But there are gay penguins (stealing straight couples' eggs!) and fake lesbian polar bears, too!

[Galahad]

Anti-discrimination bills expands protections for gay youth in California

Two anti-discrimination bills go into effect today providing expanded protections for gay and lesbian youth - with legislation requiring sensitivity training and instruction on the state's anti-harassment laws.

The bills that go into effect today:

AB 3015 requires administrators and licensed foster parents receive training about state laws that call on schools to be free of harassment and violence.

Assembly Bill 2654 shores up the state's anti-discrimination statutes by creating consistency across state code in the Unruh Civil Rights Act, which states, “all persons within the jurisdiction of this state are free and equal.” (source)

It was time for some good news.

[JBlueEyes]

The Chinese Year of the Ox doesn't looks so hot. Gorgon also says Pluto is in Capricorn. Antidepressants for everybody!

[Xaotrix]

The Chinese Year of the Ox doesn't looks so hot. Gorgon also says Pluto is in Capricorn. Antidepressants for everybody!

I don't take any of that prescription junk, but I imagine there are a lot of gay men on it. A lot of depressed gay men. I just hope they're not depressed because they're gay. I think that's a crock of shit, but I know it happens. Too much of America is on something, and I think that freedom with passing out pills is spreading to the UK and the rest of the Western World.