Foolish Thing Desire For gay men, the intersection of sex and race brings out the worst in a small number of people, who then make headaches for everyone else.
Deserve American Reducing citizenship to where you're born diminishes what it means to be an American for everyone.
This Land Is Your Land Journalist Jose Antonio Vargas came out as undocumented and challenged the nation on what it means to be American.
Daniel's Choice Faced with a decision between living with integrity or living a lie, West Point graduate and Iraq War veteran Lt. Daniel Choi chose honesty
Cross Cultural Cooking my first Thanksgiving dinner for my in-laws last year, things were going perfectly up until the point when I sliced off the tip of my finger.
I’m the co-publisher of Metro Weekly, Washington, DC’s biggest and best gay and lesbian publication. Over the course of my 40-something years, I've been a good little golden boy, a sub-Ivy-League college grad, an annoying activist, a very active party boy, a humorist and a journalist -- if those last two have any distinction. In addition to the magazine, I’m a freelance writer, car reviewer, book addict, gamer, amateur tennis player and reasonably successful husband. I have my hands full.
...a child born on the day Tim Kaine took office would still not be ready for nursery school....What a partnership Obama and Tim would make. A dreamer - and a doer.
Okay, fine. And a child born the day George W. Bush took office would have greater intellectual skills and moral fiber than the current gang of idiots running the country from Pennsylvania Ave.
Hyperbole -- anyone can do it!
Of course, it is The Corner, where if a liberal so much as farts in the general direction of a cathedral or an evangelical theocrat then Kathryn Jean Lopez comes down with a case of the vapors, but when a right-wing nutjob shoots up a gay-affirming church then...crickets.
A supermajority of Americans believes that gays and lesbians should be allowed to served in the military, yet Democrats who control Capitol Hill continue to act as if doing something positive about gay people in the armed forces spells instant electoral death.
I don't think the new legislative strategy in Maryland is the wisest political strategy: a bill that would abolish all civil marriages and replace them with domestic partnerships open to gays and straights.
Gay political activists think: Innovative idea!
Straight people think: Gay people want to destroy my marriage!
Given the recent polls showing strong support for gay relationships in Maryland, it's just hard to see what this type of strategy can accomplish other than a backlash and lots (and lots) of negative publicity among the very people we need to bring over to our side. Even if it's just symbolic, symbolism can have some long-lasting and negative effects on reaching the overall goal.
No, I'm not talking about Hillary and Bill again. I'm talking about my home state -- the home of horses, whiskey and women, at least as they would have it -- Kentucky. Although last November Kentuckians performed admirably in voting out a particularly idiotic and homophobic governor, the state legislature still has its fair share of backwoods moralizers. The state senate has just passed a bill banning public universities and state agencies from providing benefits to gay and lesbian partners. If passed, it would effectively strip benefits already offered by the University of Louisville and University of Kentucky.
How idiotic are some of the bill's sponsors? Let's take Sen. Vernie McGaha (R), who says, "I do not recognize domestic partnerships as being a correct thing....My Bible teaches against it." As to the argument from university administrators that this legislation would make it more difficult to recruit talented teachers and others, McGaha thinks the answer is simple:
"Keep recruiting," he said. "There's plenty out there."
I'm sure that's just what Jesus would do.
As Towleroad notes, Courier-Journal reporter Stephanie Steitzer*identifies Democratic opponent of the bill Sen. Ernesto Scorsone as "a homosexual," a rather surprisingly archaic and offensive usage from a newspaper that should know better.
Anyway, every time I visit home I get a bit wistful about all the things I miss about my native home. Then the people who actually run the place open their mouths and I thank god all over again that I moved the hell away. I just wish all the people who've chosen to stay could have an easier run of it.
*Based on a very nice e-mail from the reporter in question, I've struck my original reference. Sometimes what a reporter turns in isn't what makes it into print -- which still makes it a surprising moment for a respected paper such as the Courier-Journal to use "homosexual" as a noun as opposed to an adjective.
Sometimes I think the overarching theme of my blog should be why I haven't gotten around to blogging. In this case, I plead Pride. For professional homosexuals -- pro homos, if you will -- Pride is akin to retailers and Christmas. It's the time of year you have to get out and show your stuff. Although, I must admit, after seven years of it, it can get a little hard to muster enthusiasm. Luckily, once I get on the festival grounds and start talking to people, my mood changes. One of the more satisfying aspects of my job is hearing from people what they think of the magazine. Given that people rarely hesitate to complain about publications that disappoint or anger them in some way -- I've gotten my share of earfuls over the years -- getting out on the street for Pride is still a surprisingly positive experience for me as a writer and editor. I got zero complaints this year, and a lot of compliments, most of which are really generated by the work done by the Metro Weeklystaff.
So, anyway, Pride was a good thing, though I'm so unbelievably glad that it's once again over. After packing up from the festival, driving home and flopping on the couch to watch the French Open, I slowly got back into paying attention to the outside world that had nothing to do with Pride, Metro Weekly or my getting hitched.
All of which just reminded me that I should avoid watching television news.
Really, are these people on the payroll of the Office of National Drug Control Policy and MADD? I remember catching about 30 seconds of Katie Couric a couple of months ago, reporting on a big DEA drug bust on an international cocaine shipment that she launched into with: "Score one for the good guys!" Really, Katie? Thanks for reminding me why I don't watch the evening news anymore.
Local news is even worse -- yet another militarized police raid that turns out to be on the wrong apartment, but no one bothers to point out just how common these are, how many people are wrongly killed, and how the "war on drugs" has fueled out-of-control SWAT team raids that endanger police and citizens alike (for that you have to go to people like Radley Balko at Hit and Run -- when you see a catalog of what goes on under the guise of the drug war, it's enough to make you cry if you actually give a shit about civil liberties and the Constitution).
Then there was the demonization of the Virginia mother who dared to provide beer to her teenage son and some friends for a party in her own home, with the idea of keeping the kids off the roads. She took their keys, a fact I didn't get from Channel 9, but from a newspaper story -- and people wonder why I have a print-snob complex sometimes. Allowing kids that weren't her own to drink might not be the wisest thing to do, but to spend two years of her life in jail, away from her sons, for having a party that resulted in not one of the attendees drinking and driving? That's just nuts. And it's so good for the children. MADD, which has gone from a valuable organization that highlighted a serious problem to a neo-prohibitionist bunch of Carrie Nations, thinks it's fabu. Not surprising, given that we're a country that asks 18 year olds to vote, to die in wars and to take legal responsibility for their actions, fair or foul, yet not be able to make basic, adult decisions.
Look, if you're old enough to get your legs blown off in Iraq as part of Bush's misadventure and then undergo substandard medical treatment at Walter Reed, then you're old enough to have a fucking beer. The reason drinking is the so-called "right of passage" that neo-prohibitionists lament is because of the very rules against it.
Do I sound pissy? I kind of feel pissy.
Then there's been the story about the lesbian suing eHarmony because the online dating service won't do matches for homosexuals. Apparently, judging from a lot of the gay news and web sites I read, I'm supposed to be quite exercised by eHarmony's exclusion, a policy born of fundamentalist Christianism. You know, I don't care. If a bunch of heterosexual Christians want to put together a dating business that focuses only on straight couples, fine. Why? Because it's the fucking internet, for god's sake. The whole point of the web is that if there's a site that doesn't want you, there are going to be five others that do. Either grow up, or start advocating for m4m to offer dating services for straight Christians.
Good lord, I could go on, but I need to stop before I get so riled up I can't get to sleep. Suffice it to say that I've learned my lesson. From now on my television is just for watching So You Think You Can Dance -- go Hok!!!! -- and playing Guitar Hero. Unless Christopher Hitchens goes up against Hannity again -- you've likely seen it, but man is it worth watching again -- I am so there for that.
I hadn't really planned on writing anything about Jerry Falwell, given that the whole gamut of lamentations and celebrations hit the the web about 60 seconds after his death was announced. I ran across something this morning, however -- a blog-post from CourageMan, a Catholic blogger, taking Blade editor Kevin Naff to task for his break-out-the-Champagne celebration of Falwell's passing. CourageMan dug up an interview we did at Metro Weekly a few years back with Tammy Faye Messner, in which she talks about her forgiveness of Falwell (as well as her husband, Jim Bakker). That was an interview I didn't expect a lot from, but got a lot out of -- and she's always seemed perfectly sincere in her forgiveness, even as she explains how hurt and betrayed she felt. Anyway, CourageMan's point seems to be that if Tammy Faye can forgive Falwell, people like Naff might want to give her the benefit of the doubt.
I've been tracking some conversations among some gays and lesbians urging restraint in response to Falwell's death, because big death celebrations don't play well politically in the mainstream. That in turn generates defiant calls to "Fuck that shit, anyone up for some nude grave dancing?" I'm with the former, and not because I have any great need to "forgive" Falwell for his detestable actions against gays, of which there are many. It's because I'm uncomfortable with the celebration of death. Perhaps that's because in my disbelieving agnosticism, I strongly suspect that death is the end -- no afterlife, no reincarnation, no second chances. That makes even the death of a rank bastard something to be at least maudlin about.
Also, while I find Falwell's political and religious activism to be reprehensible, perhaps grave dancing could be saved for those more truly monstrous in their crimes -- Slobodan Milosevic, Pol Pot, the genocidaires of Rwanda, and too many others to count. In Falwell's case, toasting the Grim Reaper is a bit of, um, overkill.
Judging from the uneven output on my part, you'd have to think that the most common topic 'round the parts would be "Why I haven't been posting in, like, forever." Short answer is, I've been overwhelmed by tossing a wedding into the annual spring work rush at the magazine, plus a couple of other projects I've been working on. Oh, all right. I've also gotten sucked into playing Guitar Hero II. But now that I've reached the limits of dexterity in my digits, I can get back to more important things, like intense navel-gazing on the web.
But really, other than work and noodling around on a toy guitar -- on which I rawk, by the way -- my focus really is on trying to get my wedding planned and implemented. I have to reiterate that I've been really taken aback by the attitude of people I've dealt with in Virginia, from cake makers to store clerks to bankers. After picking up my new suit at Nordstrom's this weekend, one of the sales guys was showing ties and shirts to me and Cavin. The sales guy asked me at one point, while Cavin was off searching for a better blue tie, what the bride would be wearing, so he could find something that would match.
Perplexed, because I was honestly not paying enough attention, I said something like, "We're not going to match. He's wearing a pinstripe suit."
"Your friend said it was your wedding," said the sales guy, confused.
"It is," I said. "It's his wedding, too."
Blank look.
"We're marrying each other."
Light bulb!
"Are you both wearing boutonnieres, or do you need pocket squares?"
I've said it before and I'll say it again, capitalism and self-interest make commissioned sales people so much easier to deal with.
Anyway, I'm now at T-minus 11 days until the big ceremony. I have a handful of family coming in -- possibly including one of my grandmothers. If she does come, I just find it fascinating to consider that in all her life, she probably never entertained the idea that one day she would be traveling to D.C. for the gay, Buddhist wedding ceremony of her first grandson. It's a big, strange world. And thank god for that.
No, it's not just because I blog these days with the regularity of a senior citizen on an all macaroni & cheese diet. It's because I come across something of great interest to me -- more information on the murder a few weeks back of two Iraqi tennis players. I first heard of the story through Andrew Sullivan on his blog, so I think, Hey, Andrew's not a tennis fanatic like me and likely won't see this on his own, so I should just send this right along. So, I did that and he linked to it and now many, many more people know the apparent facts behind this truly appalling incident.
So, why does that make me suck? Because I forgot that in blogworld I was supposed to write something about something that someone else already wrote before passing that something plus my something along to a big famous Googlicious blog such as Andrew's so I could shamelessly blogwhore myself begging for a hat tip to drive traffic to my poor, little underused blog. Because it's not about the ideas, it's about tricking people into linking to you. So, here's a lame entry with a trackback to half-assedly make up for it.
While I'm at it -- please go read the first link in particular. Pointless self-referential joking aside, what happened to those Iraqi players was truly vile. As a gay person in the U.S., it's way too easy to think that dangerous religious fundamentalism only comes in the shape of a cross. If you have the time and inclination, you should also look at attending the D.C. protest on July 19 that's part of the International Day of Action Against Homophobic Persecution in Iran -- 5 p.m. at Dupont Circle (contact Rob Anderson at [email protected]). I commented about the hanging of gay teens in Iran last year and the "don't rock the boat" approach so wrongly advocated by too many when it comes to criticizing homophobic and theocratic governments (outside of the U.S. and Europe, of course).
No, I'm not talking about Hillary and Bill again. I'm talking about my home state -- the home of horses, whiskey and women, at least as they would have it -- Kentucky. Although last November Kentuckians performed admirably in voting out 
Then there was the demonization of the Virginia mother who dared to provide beer to her teenage son and some friends for a party in her own home, with the idea of keeping the kids off the roads. She took their keys, a fact I didn't get from Channel 9, but from
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