Good news in Montana. From The Advocate:
The Montana university system's policy of denying employees' same-sex partners the health insurance available to heterosexual workers' spouses is unconstitutional, the Montana supreme court ruled in a 4-3 decision Thursday.
After being broadcast for a dozen years without incident, today NPR cut the gay Snowball flirtation scene from the David Sedaris reading of The Santaland Diaries on NPR. Via Outside the Tent, AmericaBlog, Eschaton.
Earlier books raised the question but didn't seem convincing. This one is. Unfortunately, it's tainted:
"In researching Lincoln, Mr. Tripp created a vast database of cross-indexed material, now available at the Lincoln Library in Springfield, Ill. He began the book working with the writer Philip Nobile, but they fell out. Mr. Nobile has charged that Mr. Tripp plagiarized material written by him and fabricated evidence of Lincoln's homosexuality. "Tripp's book is a fraud," Mr. Nobile said in an interview. He declined to say what was fraudulent, however, because he said he was writing his own article about it.
Nobile was part of the Doris Kearns Goodwin plagiarism story. I'll be interested to read his article.
Andrew Sullivan pointed to this column in the Advocate arguing that Bush's win is a victory for gays. From the first paragraph:
By supporting civil unions for gay couples—which, practically speaking, is the cutting-edge issue in the battle for equality—President Bush has become a leading advocate for gay rights.Say what? I don't think so. I read no further. My Republican friends probably will.
Update: My post could have left the impression that Andrew Sullivan endorsed the article he pointed to. The clickthrough was more ambiguous:
I wonder what Bush really meant when he said he wasn't against civil unions, even though his party platform opposes any legal protections for gay couples. Karl Rove said he meant nothing but some ad hoc legal arrangements, made by private contract, and unenforceable in court if challenged by other family members. I suspect it was merely politics. But I don't know. Why doesn't someone ask the president or McClellan what rights the president believes a civil union should contain. That might move the ball forward. But somehow I doubt we'd get a real answer.
A better blogger wouldn't have needed this clarification. I'll keep working at it.
A friend sent me this article about Atlanta police closing Naked Boys Singing. Fortunately, by the time I got to read it this story reported that the mayor had come to the rescue. I went to Southern Voice for details, but got distracted by Eminem's ass then somehow ended up here reading about the Dallas kid at the Christian Academy expelled for running a gay personals site. Television's not nearly so interesting.
A friend pointed me to this article about gay and lesbian couples seeking divorce in Massachusetts, a scant seven months after obtaining the right to legally marry there. You know the Right is going to have a field day with this. My answer is, what did you expect? The whole darned society works against stable gay relationships so I'd be surprised if this wasn't the result. Plenty of evidence of this was on display in the recent passage of all those anti-gay-marriage amendments and the attendant news coverage.
I agree with those who believe the marriage fight is central to gay and lesbian acceptance, but I've always said that even once we get the right to marry we have a long way to go. I went to a friend's wedding last year in Atlanta. It was a lavish affair with friends flown in from around the country, extended families on both sides, and presided over by a priest and a rabbi. Everyone was there to affirm and support that couple's commitment. Unfortunately, even if the laws are changed nationwide I won't have that. It will take a lot of time and education and work towards broad understanding and acceptance before that is available to me. I and most of my friends have struggled with relationships, at least in part, as a result.
So long as I'm doing out of date news, this is an oldie but goodie that deserves to be remembered. When I saw it, before I had finished building my blog, I immediately raised my TiVo rating for Chris Matthew's to three thumbs up! He interviewed Jerry Falwell on Hardball on Thursday, December 2nd. Wonkette quotes:
MATTHEWS: How old were you when you chose to be heterosexual? FALWELL: Oh, I don't remember that. MATTHEWS: Well, you must, because you say it's a big decision. FALWELL: Well, I started dating when I was about 13. MATTHEWS: And you had to decide between boys and girls. And you chose girls. FALWELL: I never had to decide. I never thought about it.
She's got the full exchange here with lots more and links to the show transcript.
As best I can remember it was the summer of 1979 that I worked at The Monster in Cherry Grove on Fire Island. I was a waiter. Warren Gluck was the DJ and would let me work the dance floor lights. Sherwood ("I'm Sherwood and I sure-would!") tended bar. My best friend at the time, my first friend in New York City, Michael Stulberg, took me out there and showed me the ropes. We worked together at The Copacabana. When it burned (mysteriously, of course) I got the job at The Monster. Michael went to The Pines and worked at The Pavillion. Calvin Klein's houseboy was a childhood friend, so we spent time in his Pines beachfront home; never got around to a dip in his black swimming pool that was lit at night with red lights.
The summer before we had been to the closing party of The Sandpiper, the small restaurant/disco on the bay in The Pines. We had many great times there, so mourned its passing. But when the Pavillion opened The Sandpiper was quickly forgotten. It seemed to me that The Pavillion would change forever the dynamic between The Pines and The Grove. Prior to The Pavillion the biggest dance venue on the island was The Ice Palace in Cherry Grove. On Saturday night everyone came. I remember Cher hanging out on the deck as the sun came up after a long night of dancing. Now The Pavillion was the venue and there was little reason for Pines people to come visit the funkier Grove.
From the summer of '77 through the summer of '82 I had the time of my life on Fire Island. There was no paradise more beautiful. But when we left on the ferry that last summer (I no longer went out there to work, but I helped Michael move in and out), somehow I knew that time was over. In December Michael died of the newly named AIDS. Nearly everyone I knew then would contract the disease. Fire Island wasn't fun anymore. Provincetown became my summer resort destination of choice.
Last month my boss, the legendary owner of The Monster, Joe Scialo died. Sam, a friend from then who shares the memories, sent me an email telling me last night. Thanks Sam.
I just finished the 20/20 on Matthew Shepard. It had been sitting on my TiVo for nearly 2 weeks as I avoided it. I thought I had to watch it in order to form an opinion, but I knew I'd be annoyed by it, as much for the formulaic network garbage as for the particular content of this episode. It lived up to and exceeded expectations. I think the network did what networks do, sensationalize and pander to the mood of the moment to get a big audience. I just hate that America watches it!
So, as to content, click here to see what Judy Shepherd has to say, and here for GLAAD's take on the questions that should have been asked. Both are worth a read. Andrew Sullivan should have been identified as a conservative instead of just a "prominent gay advocate." He is a prominent gay advocate, but far from the generic brand. The show used innuendo and interviews of self-confessed liars and killers to try to say that it wasn't a hate crime; I still belive it was, the moral values crowd never did. This certainly plays to them. What I saw in Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson were a couple of lying thugs covering their butts.
My biggest reaction though is to note that these days homophobes are getting away with denying that they have any antipathy to gay people at all. Aaron McKinney saying that he had gay friends. Yeah right. Why didn't 20/20 interview one? His definition of "friend" is he's seen one around and not beat him up! It's like racists saying they have black friends because they like the black woman who waits on them at Waffle House. That's so broad a definition of friend as to be meaningless.
Now we have Jerry Falwell and James Dobson saying that they have no animosity towards gay people. At first I thought this a good thing: they've been forced by the success of the lesbian and gay civil rights movement to hide their homophobia. But now it worries me. What they're really doing is cloaking their homo hatred in tolerance and compassion. Others are taking their lead. Many of them voted for the anti-gay marriage amendments, comfortable that they're still tolerant and compassionate. For all the complaints about political correctness, it seems to me the Right has learned to twist it so that it works well as a tool to preserve and protect their intolerance and bigotry.
UPDATE -- Frank Rich had a great colmn in the New York Times on Sunday commenting on the pandering to the right that network television news is doing these days. The 20/20 Matthew Shepard piece was a case in point. blogACTIVE applauds him for it.
