BuggBlog

The Tale of Two Closets

Michael Triplett raises some good questions about my Metro Weekly op-ed comparing Jose Antonio Vargas’s life in the “undocumented immigrant” closet to life in the gay closet, and specifically my argument that the telling of lies necessitated by either closet don’t necessarily imply some sort of serial mendacity once someone comes out of the closet. I said, “By [Slate’s Jack] Shafer’s logic, formerly closeted gay journalists are no more than confessed liars who can’t be trusted.” 

At NLGJA’s Re:Act blog, Triplett counters:

It’s a fascinating argument, although I’m not sure it completely holds up.  Admittedly, it’s the lawyer in me (who has written about immigration issues in the workplace) that bristles at the suggestion that being “in the closet” about your immigration status is comparable to being “in the closet” about your sexual orientation.  Lying about who you are dating doesn’t put your employer in jeopardy for violating a host of federal laws.  Lying about who your gender identity doesn’t represent a fraud that can result in your being permanently removed from the country.

What I was really focusing on in my argument is the case of undocumented immigrants such as Vargas, who were brought or sent to the U.S. when young and have as adults become, in every way but legal, Americans. The choices they have to make — lie and stay in their home nation or “come out” and risk be deported to an essentially foreign nation — are morally comparable to the closet LGBT people face. And while the closet certainly exacts a psychological price on all of us who experience it, it’s beyond the pale for Shafer and others to claim that the closet has converted those who come out into pathological liars. (And, just a legalistic nitpick: While it may not result in deportation, lying about your gender identity could certainly have some “fraud” implications depending on which U.S. state you happen to be in.)

This is why the characterization of Shafer’s anti-Vargas argument as “Let them pick fruit,” has some truth. It’s okay for undocumented workers to skirt the system to farm midwestern fields or nurse upper-class infants, but to lie to the Washington Post? Well, that just a step too far.

Pardon, but bullshit. It would be easy to make a sarcastic call for an investigation of the child rearing, lawn care and home improvement labor employed by the management of our major media outlets, but it would miss the point. There simply is no one in the D.C. metro area — or any other metropolitan area — whose daily life isn’t touched in some way by an undocumented worker.

Of course, I’m really focusing on immigrants who come here as children — those the DREAM Act would provide a legal path to citizenship — because that’s Vargas’s story, and it’s the story of other people in my life I care about. Those are also the stories where the two closets, undocumented and gay, most closely correlate.

I admit my argument breaks down if you’re looking at, say, undocumented immigrants who came here as adults — that’s a choice made by adults, and choice is what takes it out of the realm of the closet. (There is a counter to that counter: Gay and lesbian adults staying in the country illegally because they can’t get citizenship through marriage in the same way that heterosexual couples can — although that’s getting a little deep in the weeds for this particular argument.)

But the core truth, and the one I was trying to get at, is that all of us as LGBT people start out in a closet not of our choice or design. Undocumented immigrants who are brought or sent here as kids are put into a closet not of their choice. It’s the lack of choice that’s key and why Shafer’s argument is so wrong-headed and dismissive. 

 

The big tease: 2010 Coverboy of the Year trailer

If it's December, it means one thing -- the Metro Weekly Coverboy of the Year contest. It's one of those things that makes my job so, so difficult. Here's the teaser trailer for this year's finalists -- one of these three men will be our tenth annual coverboy of the year. Tune in Thursday, Dec. 16 at Metro Weekly to find out who won.

 

 

 

GOProud's flexible approach to political games

From GOProud's Sept. 20, 2010 press release "GOProud to Harry Reid - Stop Using Gay Soldiers as Political Pawns" this statement from the group's executive director Jimmy LaSalvia, in response to Reid's inclusion of the DREAM Act in the NDAA:

“Harry Reid should stop using gay soldiers as political pawns in a cynical attempt to win votes for his re-election and keep his liberal special interests happy.  The votes are there to pass Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal; unfortunately, Senator Reid is shoe-horning controversial amendments dealing with amnesty for illegals and abortion into the Defense Authorization bill – a move that is jeopardizing the future of the bill.

“Now is not the time for political games.  If Senator Reid refuses to drop these controversial provisions it will send a clear message to gay voters that Reid and the Democratic majority in the Senate cares more about pacifying the pro-abortion and pro-amnesty lobby than they do in protecting the brave gay men and women serving in our military.”

From GOProud's Dec. 1, 2010 press release "Do Democrats Want Tax Hikes More Than Repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?" this statement from LaSalvia, in response to the threat by Republican senators to block DADT repeal if Democrats don't extend the Bush tax cuts:

“Senate Republicans are absolutely right.  It is time that Democrats in the Senate stop playing political games with our economy.  If Democrats are truly interested in getting to other important lame-duck issues, like the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, then they should act immediately to prevent jobs-killing tax increases.  The American people are watching, now is the time for Democrats to decide what they want more – tax increases or repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  The choice is theirs.”

 Well, the priorities are clear, even if the logic isn't.

I have no Porsche and I must scream

In the Halloween spirit, here's a Porsche that daily haunts the parking garage at my gym.

My dad did some some custom artistic paint jobs when I was a kid -- Martian landscapes on the tailgate of an El Camino, that sort of the thing. But, you know, it was the fucking '70s so it was expected and accepted.

It's not the '70s anymore. So knock it off. We don't need German sports cars painted with all the taste and class of Chevy vans with carpeted dashboards and waterbeds in the back.

Seriously, who looks at a Porsche with a spoiler out of the back pages of J.C. Whitney and airbrushed anguished faces on the bumper burning in the pits of Hell and says, "You know what this really needs? A dragon!"

It hurts my heart, a little.

(Post title for non-SF geeks explained here.)

PIxellated Morality

As I was playing through what I hope is the endgame of Fable 2 -- I finally got back around to the game when I realized the imminent release of Fable 3, which I can’t justify buying if I haven’t finished the second one -- I came upon another of the games moral choices. Namely, do I force a young woman to sacrifice her youth and keep myself healthy in order to better complete my mythic quest, or do I make the sacrifice on my own and deal with the consequences?

This was to be a weighty choice, a moment where I should be living up to my in-game reputation as a paragon of virtue. I was, after all, running around the vaguely European fantasy world of Albion with a literal halo over my head as the result of my conscientious approach to helping those in need, giving to the poor and eating a health diet of mostly vegetables. I had worked hard at saintliness.

Still, I found myself unable to give a good goddamn any longer, so I made her get old and decrepit so I could hurry up and finish this damn game already.

Probably not the choice context Peter Molyneux was shooting for.

In which I become an asshat

I can think of at least a few people thinking, "Become?"

Past asshattery (asshaberdashery?) aside, what I mean is that I have become the very thing which I once hated with a passion: the parking lot asshat. You know, the guy who parks across two spaces in the grocery store parking lot? The one you curse when you're looking for a spot -- or even when you're not looking you just curse out of general principle?

I was not immediately an asshat after I got the Camaro, a piece of property for which I still have an inordinate amount of excitement and adoration. In my zeal to maintain a dent-less and scratch-free paint job, my general approach has been to park as far away from the entrance of any place I go, on the theory that if I park in a distant section with about 50 empty spaces around me, then I won't have to worry about dickwads slamming doors into my car.

And, almost without fail, every time I do so, some asswipe in a 20-year-old fucking Honda beater or Toyota minivan with Hello Kitty stickers has parked right next to me, completely oblivious to the fifty fucking other spots available not only within the immediate area, but right next to the fucking entrance.

Seriously, what the fuck is up with you people? Is there some gene that causes your brain to fire off endorphins at the knowledge you're parking your shitty ass sludge-mobile right on top of any car that looks like it's been maintained with a modicum of care? Do you get hard when your clunker comes within inches of a car that's had more regularly scheduled oil changes than you have hairs on your calloused wide-berth ass?

(Obviously, when I say "you" I don't mean you. Unless you've shoved your grimy, faded, "Kerry 2004"-bumper-sticker-festooned Prius up my ass in a parking lot recently, in which case, yes, I mean you.)

Solution: Two parking spaces, thank you. It's not perfect, because I can't bring myself to take up two spaces in a crowded parking lot. I'm asshat with limits.

So you think you're a columnist

I blame Sex and the City.

Well, that’s a little too vague, since there’s a lot you can blame on Sex and the City: vapid consumerism masquerading as feminism, everyone wanting to be Samantha, the Sex and the City movie and, oh dear god help us, the second Sex and the City movie.

I’m actually talking about columnists. Specifically, that so many people want to be one.

Editing a gay magazine and all, I get a number of inquiries every year from writers pitching weekly columns, and 75 percent of them mention THAT SHOW directly or indirectly (the latter is generally easy to tease out from “a weekly column about my life in the big city and nightclubs and fashion and sex”). I’ve been getting a lot more than usual lately. Not being a fan of the show -- hey, I didn’t like Queer as Folk and I don’t like Glee either, so shoot me -- it’s not the surest-fire way to get my attention.

It doesn’t help that I already wrote that kind of weekly column myself, back in the mid-90s, years before THAT SHOW ever appeared (he says with his nose held aloft). I wrote enough of them that I have a collection of them coming out shortly that I’m sure I’ve mentioned a few times before.

So, you know, it’s been done.

That doesn’t mean it can’t be done again. I’m actually not trying to stomp on creativity, drive and spunk. Well, maybe the spunk in this case, but the creativity and drive I’m all for. The problem is that I generally receive these pitches from writers who’ve never actually written a regular column -- or, often, any a column at all. 

When I started writing the “Back Room,” it was essentially a one-off -- I wrote a column that I managed to sell to a small, local start-up mag. It was well-received, so I ended up writing a few more in the same tawdry, twenty-something gay way I had at the time, and those went well. I’d also sold some other writing to other magazines and had some full-time experience working as a journalist.

In short, I knew what I was doing and I was willing to prove that I knew what I was doing by, you know, doing it a few times in a row. Next thing I knew, I had a weekly columnist spot.

The point being that I love seeing new writers do good work and get published -- I really love helping them break into print at my own magazine, when possible -- but I want to encourage a lot of those writers to maybe scale back their pitch a bit. Don’t send me an e-mail telling me you have a great idea for a weekly column when you’ve never actually written or published one. Write a column -- and make it the best damn column you possibly can. Make it funny, make it maudlin, make it serious, make it provocative -- but make it good. 

If you can do it once, you may convince me or another editor that you can do it again.

So, go do it again.

Does Ann Coulter charge by the minute or the hour?

I'm kind of wondering how much GOProud paid Ann Coulter to show up at their HomoCon event and trash every gay equality issue known to man. Because, really, hookers generally charge extra to dish out that kind of verbal abuse.

Boy Does World, coming soon! (Fingers crossed)

Really, if you want to publish a book you'd better have an intense desire to do so* because the process is guaranteed to deplete your reserves of sanity -- not a good thing for people like me who were running low in the first place. That said, the long and winding road of making Boy Does World: 15 Years of Bad Behaviors, Bad Attitudes and Happy Endings a real, physical, pulp-and-glue product is almost finished. If everything holds for now, the book will be available for order within the next two to three weeks. 

The cover you see here is the next to final version (which should give you a hint of what the hold-up has been). 

I chose to go a non-traditional route for this, using iUniverse to create a print-on-demand book that could ordered through major online outlets as well as stocked in traditional bookstores. I figured that with my own experience in publishing for and marketing to a gay audience, the process might work better for me. While I'm reserving judgment until this whole project is finished, I would recommend to anyone considering the same path to learn more about the publishing industry than you ever wanted to know.

I would also recommend reading (and re-reading) this bit of advice from John Scalzi. Sage, it is.

*The ability and stamina to write one is also quite helpful.

What once was, no longer is

Andrew Sullivan yesterday posted a face of the day that reached back into his own past -- namely, a smiling, tow-headed little toddler in a gray sweater vest who would one day grow up to lead the charge for gay marriage and beat the drum for a misguided war in Iraq.

Though you don't really get all that future stuff from the picture -- all you really see is a chubby cheeked tyke in a vaguely halcyon English backyard and, in a second pic, a backyard family get-together that doesn't look all that different from some of my own family's pictures from the '60s. 

Although I have to ask, is it wrong that I'm thinking Andrew's dad's kind of hot? 

Anyhoo, while the topic and Andrew's blog predictably turned into a whole thing about Sarah Palin, what's more interesting to me, at least, is the unformed nature of our childhoods and how we tend to imprint our adult experiences onto our blank(ish) slates. "Ooo, he was so cute when he was little! What on earth went wrong?" 

Just look at this picture of me and my mom -- how could you ever expect such a cuddly, sweet little thing to grow up to be the jaded, cynical monster I've become?

 

Or, from Christmas 1972 (or thereabouts), looking cute as a button and not at all like the guy who would go on to write obnoxiously opinionated columns and carry placards and agitate for all that gay stuff. In case you're wondering, I'm the boy on the right, next to my sleepy sister.

Things were so much easier then, especially because I wasn't always expected to wear pants.

A slightly counterintuitive argument on the antigay Republican politics of Virginia

Just to be clear about this before I start: I was appalled that Republican Bob McDonnell could be elected governor of Virginia and absolutely horrified that Ken Cuccinelli was elected attorney general.  In fact, I can’t even remember who else ran for attorney general -- all I know is that I voted for the candidate that was NOT Ken Cuccinelli. As a current Virginia resident who also happened to go to college in the state lo these many years ago, I’m mortified that Cuccinelli has wasted little time exercising his anti-gay bias by asking to Virginia’s public colleges and universities to end their anti-discrimination policies for LGBT staff and students.

So, I’m horrified, most reasonable people are at least perplexed, and Virginia is once again looking foolish on the national stage. On one level, I’m outraged and, like Equality Virginia, want Gov. McDonnell to step in and support an employment discrimination bill (the lack of which he claims makes Cuccinelli’s “request” appropriate).

Then again, I’m not so sure I want him to.

Don’t forget, McDonnell went out of his way to run a smiling-face, moderate-middle campaign -- despite his long ties to Pat Robertson and not-so-long-ago writings about the evils of homosexuality and other social conservative hobby horses. That impression helped get him elected (as did, to be sure, an inept Democratic campaign). Cuccinelli seems to have been crazed from day one, but apparently those middle-of-the-road voters were willing to take a chance.

Long point short, on some level we should want Cuccinelli and McDonnell to show the full crazy on gay issues that we know they have. We’ve certainly spent time warning everyone that McDonnell was not moderate, that he was beholden to the Pat Robertson school of religion that believes natural disasters are the result of God’s fits of pique. Given that we’ve warned everyone what would happen if they elected this dynamic duo, don’t we kind of want/need them to do exactly what we said they were going to do?

I say that not because I want LGBT Virginians to suffer. I say it because I want the old guard, homophobic Republican guard of Virginia to suffer. These guys are political maniacs who, to a large extent, are confined to state legislative districts. Having some of their own boys in charge as the governor and attorney general is a chance to highlight exactly how retrograde their attitudes are.

If you want to get rid of them, you have to encourage them.

I really do believe that most people -- particularly those in the every-growing Northern Virginia area, but people in the state beyond as well -- are not hard core bigots and homophobes. Of those people who are willing to vote either Democrat or Republican depending on issues and context, I believe most don’t care much for the aggressive anti-gay tactics of the far right (hence McDonnell’s carefully centrist, “I’m from NoVa” campaign”).

I also believe that McDonnell and, especially, Cuccinelli, have deep-rooted animus towards LGBT people -- towards me, my husband and my family. We should all protest and campaign and lobby to combat them. But, in the end, I don’t want them to hide it -- I want them to own it, and pursue it. Sooner, rather than later, it will make it easier to hold them, and their party, accountable.

All that said, looking back on the debacle that was the Democratic primary and general campaign for the governorship, I still wouldn’t have voted for effin’ Terry McAuliffe. Note to Democrats: Better candidates next time, please.

Voices of reason and honor on repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

I've been lucky enough to interview both Dr. Nathaniel Frank -- researcher with the Palm Center at University of California and author of Unfriendly Fire -- and Lt. Daniel Choi -- co-founder of Knights Out, an organization for LGBT West Point alumni and a prominent activist for repealing"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" -- and given the current efforts to finally end this blatantly discriminatory policy that harms our national security as much as it harms the soldiers caught in its hypocrisy, I hope everyone takes a moment or more to listen to what they have to say.

Ya ain't nothin' but a two-bit blog whore!

Given a deep analysis of my blog traffic over the past couple of days -- "deep analysis" meaning "I got some" -- I've determined that from now on I will blog exclusively about John Scalzi and Fernando Verdasco. The latter is in a new Calvin Klein ad campaign (I do not believe Scalzi is a part of it):

This may be hilarious only to me, but I love the fact that Verdasco's web  site lists Tommy Robredo's as a "Sister Site." With a heart.

Europeans are so, so different.

Dear John Scalzi, could you stop being such a good homo?

Really, there is no way to my heart faster than laughter. A writer who can make me laugh goes to the top of the queue, ahead of those who make me cry or cringe or yell in anger. That rule also got me my husband, so I'm confident that it's a fairly efficient way in which to approach life.

It's also the rule that made me a huge John Scalzi fan -- and you should be one, too.

I actually first noticed Scalzi from some of his videogame writing, because I'm totally geeky that way. But it wasn't until a couple of links from Andrew Sullivan that I started reading Scalzi's novels (Old Man's War and The Ghost Brigades, to start) and, more relevant to the post at hand, his blog, Whatever.

Dude is funny. Far funnier, I hate to say, than a lot of the gay and lesbian bloggers I read on a daily basis (myself included, truth be told). I never go looking for affirmations of my orientation from straight people, but I certainly appreciate them when I find them. And while he's funnier than most bloggers -- okay, not the hugest achievement -- his arguments for gay marriage and equality are just as impassioned and moving as any I've heard from my own "side," and come with the bonus of reminding me that it's not just all about me and my family. It's about everyone, straight and gay, who believes in equality for all Americans...and humans.

Scalzi's collection of Whatever blog posts, Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded, was just released in mass market paperback. I'd like to say something witty about it, but, you know, he has a blog post titled "Jesus' Dickheads," so I think he kind of speaks for himself. But, I have to say, it's disconcerting to have a straight writer making such good arguments on my own behalf. It makes me feel like a slacking homosexual. John Scalzi, you're making me look bad. Knock it off.

Anyway...

His writing about what it means to live in poverty is eye-opening. His thoughts on being a father are heartwarming, as are his lovely recountings of meeting (and marrying) his wife. And if you have any thought of being a professional writer -- god help you -- his thoughts on the business are indispensable.

Oh, for god's sake, just go buy the book already, okay?

Debating whether gays are welcome in conservative politics

The Metro Weekly video above is my first broadcast news experience since, well, college. Naturally, I chose something I'm particularly interested in: Whether there's room among conservatives for gay and lesbian people. Naturally, with Andrew Sullivan and Maggie Gallagher on the panel, things got a little heated.

You can catch a videocast of the entire forum at the Cato Institute site.

Why I will buy an iPad (and why someone you love probably will, too)

Yesterday morning, as I was digging my way out of deadline and eagerly awaiting the start of Apple's holy tablet presentation, I got a panicked call from my mother. She had some important legal documents she needed to print and sign, but she couldn't get them to open. The Word format documents were trying to open in Word, naturally, but Word was a trial version -- the docs should have been opening in Pages. Somehow, perhaps during the OS upgrade, the defaults had gotten reset.

So I did my tech support thing, slowly walking her through the steps to fix the problem (her connection is too slow and intermittent for me just to take control of her screen remotely). It's easy to forget from my semi-nerdy little enclave with ScanSnaps and terabyte drives and specialized applications that just because it's a MacBook doesn't mean it's instantly understandable to anyone.

Though I do take great comfort that my family is now completely off Windows, although those panicked calls to me for help were easier to handle: "I dunno."

Anyway, when I read some of the underwhelmed reactions to the iPad yesterday, I was already primed to see what they were missing. Sure, for a geeky person, the lack of multi-tasking is a pain -- hell, I wish my damn iPhone would implement some limited multi-tasking so I could keep my time management system running constantly, rather than having to fire it up repeatedly after making a call or checking in with another app. But for someone like my mom, who can sometimes still gets flustered and frustrated by applications that move and hide and disappear and reappear, the one-thing-at-a-time approach of the iPad and its stripped down interface would likely be a huge relief.

I don't know what the situation would be with printing attached documents, but I do think that the simple email and browsing that she primarily uses her laptop for would be better handled through the iPad.

For myself, aside from my natural Apple fanboy instinct of see-want-must-have, I've been more anxiously awaiting the arrival of the iPad ever since my first-generation Kindle bit the dust. I actually like a lot about the Kindle, but there was lots to dislike as well (*cough* idiotic page navigation *cough*). I'm glad I waited -- the iBooks interface looks like it will be a lot more in tune with how I read these days. Plus, even I've grown tired of lugging my MacBook into the living room simply to surf web sites while watching TV, something my iPhone is too small for. I'm not totally sold on the movie playback, yet, but then again I've been watching widescreen movies on my iPhone while on the elliptical machine for a long time now, and any increase in size, even small, might be welcome.

The only real question is, can I wait until the second generation iPad?

Sir, back away from the fries

This Washington Post article on a new effort to limit fast-food restaurants in Prince George's County is full of the kind of silly statements that makes my inner libertarian want to scream. This one's a classic of the genre:

Turner said that his group identified Panera Bread and Chipotle as preferable alternatives to a fast-food burger restaurant and that he plans to seek similar compromises with other developers.

"I'm not saying it's healthy, but it's more healthy," said Turner, who said he thinks the access to french fries has contributed to his weight struggle. "You don't see any deep fryers in Panera."

1. It's not the access to, it's the eating of french fries. I lost about 35 pounds at the end of last year in large part because I stopped going to McDonald's all the damn time. (Going to the gym helped, too.) It's cheap, it's convenient and it's even tasty, but if you're going to lard-butt in there every day for a large double-quarter-pounder with cheese meal, you have no one to blame but yourself.

2. For what I spend buying a Cobb salad and iced tea at Panera I could feed an adult and two small children at McDonald's. And I'm willing to bet that ingesting a daily Chipotle burrito with guac and sour cream will have the same ass-broadening, girth expanding properties as those french fries -- it'll just make the wallet lighter.

I hold no special respect for fast-food joints -- Taco Bell's recent marketing of a Drive-Thru Diet as a weight-loss option a la Subway's Jared was a moment of spectacular stupidity only surpassed by the fact that some people probably fell for it -- but for the most part they offer edible food for cheap prices.

If there are no grocery stores in a neighborhood, that's possibly something a local government should be looking at, and probably more effective than trying to get people to trade in their Baconators for overpriced (yet tasty!) panini.

All the lies you told about me they were totally, totally, totally true

Like some famous dude once said, I will return. And soon. In the meantime, here's a favorite video that manages to encompass at least 15 things that I totally, totally adore.

Editors, wonks and Nightlife Coverboys

One of the great perks of my job is that I get to focus on both the wonky — marriage equality, federal domestic partner legislation, etc. — and the simply fun, such as our Nightlife Coverboy of the Year. I realize that for many people in D.C. the wonky stuff actually is the fun stuff, but I'm not really that kind of person. Don't get me wrong, because I love me some wonk, but I like to keep them a little separate in my mind.

Anyway, tomorrow's Metro Weekly will feature our 9th annual Nightlife Coverboy of the Year. In a departure from tradition, we're debuting the short video I directed about the photo shoot tonight at JR.'s at 10 p.m. — meaning that if you come down and join us you'll be among the first to know who the winner is, well in advance of tomorrow's issue. (Check out the post below for a quick teaser of our three finalists, each of whom would make a fine winner.)

So come on out and be as wonky as you wanna be.

2009 Metro Weekly Coverboy of the Year: The Top Three

The photo shoot for the 2009 Metro Weekly Coverboy of the Year was this past Saturday at the Donovan House in downtown DC, a great location for a really fun shoot. I got to flex my my old film/video experience shooting a brief documentary on the process. Here's a teaser for this Thursday's big reveal of the winner:

Personally, I think they all deserve to win -- but I suppose I'm a little biased.