Raymond Burr

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Raymond Burr was a handsome second-string actor who started his career in the late 1940s. He evolved into a movie villain (as in “Rear Window"), and then a heroic TV actor (as in “Perry Mason,” and later “Ironside”). He was handsome and broad-shouldered, with a deep gruff voice. He gained weight in the 1950s and 1960s, but it gave him gravity.

Also, he was gay.

He met an actor named Robert Benvenides while working on the “Perry Mason” show. They fell in love, and spent the rest of their lives together. Hollywood couldn’t endure this, of course, so the studios created a fiction about marriages and children. (Raymond was married to a woman for a while, back in the 1940s, but it ended in divorce and no children.)

He was reputed to be very generous. IMDB reports the story that Errol Flynn told him that, if he died with ten dollars in his pocket, he wouldn’t have done his job. It inspired him to be philanthropic, and he always helped his friends.

He died in 1992, and Benvenides was his sole heir, but Raymond’s family contested this. They failed, thank goodness.

How times have changed! Look at George Takei! And Neil Patrick Harris! And Ellen de Generes!

Partner and I have talked about marriage. Sadly, we’d end up paying more income tax married than we would as two “single” people. But our mutual employer, Brown University, regards us as Domestic Partners, so we enjoy some advantages that way. Also, we have not found any local institutions that discriminate against us. Lately (with all my health-related adventures) I simply introduce Partner to my doctors and nurses as “my life partner,” and he’s welcomed immediately.

How easy we have it, and how difficult Raymond Burr and his partner Robert Benvenides had it, only twenty years ago.

The world is moving in the right direction.

Slowly.

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Barilla pasta, homophobia. and my recipe for faux Fettucine Alfredo

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The CEO of Barilla Pasta, last week, made some very angry remarks about gay marriage, and said that he would never allow gay couples to appear in advertisements for his pasta. I paraphrase: “If people don’t like it, they can just buy another brand of pasta.”

Is he seriously out of his mind?

How many brands of pasta are there? I can think of six without stretching my brain too far. I generally buy what’s on sale, or what’s cheap, because – let’s face it – there’s not much difference. De Cecco is excellent (Mia Farrow and I agree on that); if I see it on sale, I buy it immediately, because it’s very certainly better than any other brand.

But is Barilla really better than Prince, or Bertolli, or Buitoni, or store brand, or Ronzoni, or anything else? Not really. Pasta is pasta, and I don’t need to buy pasta from a homophobe.

(Notes: the CEO of Barilla has sort of apologized, now that he’s realized how stupid he was. Also, other brands – like Buitoni and San Remo – have welcomed gay people to eat their pasta. Here’s a recent Buitoni advertisement:)

Now: who wants fettucine Alfredo a la Futureworld?

-         Cook 1 lb pasta (preferably fettucine, but any other pasta will do, so long as it’s not anything made by Barilla) al dente. Drain.

-         While cooking the pasta, mix up the following:

o   ½ - ¾ cup ricotta cheese

o   ½ cup Parmesan cheese

o   1 egg

o   2 T prepared chopped garlic (sold in jars)

o   2 T dried (or, better yet, fresh) parsley

o   Salt and pepper

-         Add ½ cheese mixture to empty saucepan over medium heat. Stir for a minute or two. Add pasta slowly, still stirring. Add remaining ½ cheese mixture. Taste, and correct salt / pepper / Parmesan / garlic.

-         Enjoy, with warm Italian bread and maybe a little extra Parmesan.

-         (And don’t buy Bertolli.)

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Blood types

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I have a moderately uncommon blood type: B-positive. Only about 8% of the American population shares it with me. Apollonia has O-positive, which is horribly common; Partner thinks he’s A-positive, which is also moderately frequent.

So I am more special than they are.

There are even rarer types. AB-positive is pretty rare, and as for AB-negative, only one-half of one percent of the American population has that one.

Back in the 1970s, I used to give blood on a regular basis. Why not? I’m a good citizen, and very altruistic.

But then, with the onset of HIV/AIDS, the government changed the rules. Gay men are no longer welcome to give blood in the United States, if we have ever been sexually active.

At all.

O my!

Many countries have changed this rule. In some countries, they ask about how sexually active you’ve been. In the United States, it doesn’t matter. If you’re a man who’s ever had sex with a man, they don’t want you to give blood.

This is a shame, because my B-positive blood is desirable.

It’s also ridiculous, because they test blood now to see if there’s anything dangerous in it, like HIV.

But still they won’t take my blood.

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has recently reopened this issue. I applaud her for it.

I want to give blood again.

I’m a B-positive who wants to help. And I’m pretty sure my blood is okay for public consumption.

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Movie review: "Creature from the Black Lagoon" (1954)

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“Creature From the Black Lagoon” came up on Turner Classic Movies not long ago. Apollonia shrieked when I mentioned it. “My favorite horror movie!” she said. “I was so scared when I first saw it!”

For those of you who haven’t seen it: it’s about a group of scientists who go to the Amazon to investigate some odd fossils they’ve found. There appears to be a humanoid creature with webbed appendages living down there. And you know what? There is!

The Creature is pretty tame, looked at from the standpoint of the year 2013. In its own time, however (I rely on Apollonia’s testimony for this), it was terrifying.

Now let’s talk about some of the other stuff going on here.

I don’t know if the director was gay, but the camera dwells upon the half-naked bodies of Richard Carlson and Richard Denning. There are lots of interesting views of the bodies of muscular men – Carlson and Denning, and others – all through the movie.

Hmm!

As I did research on this movie, the best surprise was the man who played the Creature. He was a diver / swimmer named Ricou Browning, and he was very handsome, and very well-built. Here’s a picture of him halfway in costume:

Browning was involved with a lot of water-related productions in Florida, including “Sea Hunt” and “Flipper.” He was a nice guy who was very serious about his underwater adventures.

And he looked good underwater.

Incidentally, the Creature is the only character in the movie who seems really interested in Julie Adams, the female lead. Denning and Carlson seem mostly interested in tussling with one another, and helping one another out of their scuba gear.

(There are lots of books about gay themes in cinema. I think someone needs to add a chapter about “Creature from the Black Lagoon.)

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Purple

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When I started at my current place of work, way back in 1987, I decided early on that I would use a red pen whenever possible. “Red for danger,” I thought.  Also, I remembered all my teachers who’d used red pen to correct, and comment, and chastise. It was my turn to see what it felt like.

Well, it is now almost twenty-five years later, and I keep a whole spectrum of colors of pen at my desk. Red is still my favorite: it stands out, and it’s hard to ignore, and sometimes (as when I’m correcting or amending an employee data document) it is absolutely essential.

But I bought some Flair pens on a whim some time back, and I am now completely enamored with purple.

Purple is rich and royal.  It’s also gay sometimes, depending on whom you ask. (Did you know that the creator of the modern pride flag, Gilbert Baker, assigned meanings to each of the colors? Purple is “spirit.” I like it.) “Lavender” has for a long time been a code word for the gay community.  (For a long time I wore a lavender star on my lapel, and told people it was the symbol for gay rights. One of my gay friends told me that I shouldn’t wear it because it might get people riled up. I laughed. “No one even knows what it means,” I said, and I was right, because – let’s face it – I’d made the meaning up.)

I need to buy some more purple Flair pens. They take me back to my childhood, when Flair pens were new. 

And I can tell people it’s a political statement, and they actually believe me!

People: purple is a color, for god’s sake!

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Three good things: refrigerator, DOMA, Proposition 8

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My poor heart can’t stand it. Three good things happened in one day!

First of all: our old feeble refrigerator got replaced. I wrote a mild email to our landlords two nights ago about how the food in our freezer didn’t seem to be freezing properly, and the landlords replaced the fridge the very next day! And it’s lovely, and they’re lovely people over at the landlord’s office, and we love them and thank them.

Also: the lovely folks in the Supreme Court – five of them, anyway – believe that they should not overturn the California Supreme Court’s rejection of Proposition 8, and as a result, gay marriage is once again legal in the great state of California (as of July 25, 2013, at any rate).

This is nothing to me really, because I’m not a citizen of California. I’m delighted, however, for the gay people who married in California while it was legal, and who are legal again; I’m also delighted for the other gay Californians who can now line up for marriage licenses. And I’m delighted to see one more state added to the illustrious roster of states (including Little Rhody) which have legalized gay marriage.

The third good thing that happened today was this: DOMA – the Defense of Marriage Act – was found, in essence, unconstitutional.

This is key.

Partner and I have long debated the issue of marriage. We’ve lived together for fourteen years, which makes us married in the eyes of any deity who matters. Rhode Island legalized gay marriage a few months ago – hooray! But would it be of any advantage to us to get married? Not if the federal government doesn’t recognize it. It would have no tax advantages, or estate advantages.

But now, after the Supreme Court’s snappy 5-4 decision, it’s a different story.

Do I hear wedding bells?

Or is it just our new (and more efficient) refrigerator humming?

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Colors

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For years I wore mostly dull colors: gray and brown and blue (especially blue, because it brings out my eyes, tee hee).

Then, some years ago, I made a breakthrough, and I began to wear red shirts, and orange, and yellow, and chartreuse.

Now I love bright colors. I have a marigold-orange shirt, very vivid, and when I wore it a few weeks ago – “ORANGE!” a coworker shrieked. “I look at you, and all I can think of is ORANGE!”

Colors are important. They’re all around us, and we need to appreciate them. This is Pride Month, after all, with a flag that looks like this:

The colors have meanings: red is life, orange is healing, yellow is sunlight, green is nature, blue is harmony, and purple is spirit.

(The original flag included pink for sexuality and turquoise for magic/art. I wish they were still included.)

To quote Vampire Weekend:

Did you stay up

To see the dawn

In the colors

Of Benetton?

I love that song. It’s full of life and art and magic and sunlight and spirituality. Let’s hear it:

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Gay marriage in Rhode Island

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Wonderful news! The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations has become the tenth state of the Union to legalize gay marriage!

It’s a great day. It’s not a universally great day, of course; the federal government still doesn’t recognize gay marriage, which means we’re still in the turbulent state-by-state era in which interracial couples used to live. (Imagine: it used to be illegal for black people to marry white people, and states – well, hmm, Southern states – could still forbid it. Imagine!)

Will Partner and I marry? I don’t know. Largely it will depend on whether the pros outweigh the cons. Will it have tax advantages? Maybe yes, maybe no. Will it guarantee us the right to visit one another in the hospital when we’re sick? Almost certainly yes. (This is a big plus, because we’re both getting older.) What about the rights to inheritance, and to determine what happens when either of us passes away? (Another big plus, and I don’t need to remind you once again that we’re getting older.) And if it isn't confirmed by Federal law, the whole thing can still be thrown out the window.

But don't worry. If we decide to get married, I’ll be sure to announce it well in advance.

And I warn you that I expect very lavish wedding gifts.

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Allies

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The Supreme Court heard arguments about two gay-marriage issues last week: California’s Proposition 8, which declares (by popular vote) that gay marriage is out of the question, and the Defense of Marriage Act, enacted by the usually-smarter Bill Clinton, which declares that (for federal purposes) marriage can only ever be between a man and a woman.

 

 

The passage of Proposition 8 implies that voters can grant or deny civil rights.

 

 

DOMA creates a situation in which married gay couples can still be denied federal benefits.

 

 

You can guess (if you don’t already know) where I stand on both issues, but here are some thoughts:

 

 

-         Can a referendum really decide a civil rights issue? I’m fine with the voters electing representatives, and deciding on bonds issues, and so forth. But I’m pretty sure that, if civil rights for black people had been put to a vote in the sovereign state of Mississippi in 1964, the vote would have gone badly for black people.

-         Much has been said and written about “marriage.” Isn’t “civil union” enough for gay people (in the states which grant it)? Well, not so much, since “civil union” almost never grants the same rights as “marriage.” If Partner and I were in a civil union, most or all of the local hospitals would be within their rights to deny either of us the right to visit the other. (Most or all of them don’t – Rhode Island is surprisingly gay-friendly – but the law permits them to be far more restrictive than they are. And the Catholic Diocese of Providence is extraordinarily gay-unfriendly.)

-         Someone on Facebook suggested “holy matrimony” as a substitute for the Catholic / Baptist / etc. word “marriage.” After all, pretty much every City Hall grants “marriage licenses,” and City Hall is no place for religious ceremony. So: if the Holy Roman Catholic Church doesn’t like gay marriage, it doesn’t have to perform them; that would be allowing two men to enter “holy matrimony.” But it must acknowledge that two men are civilly and legally “married,” just as they acknowledge Protestant marriages and Jewish marriages and Muslim marriages and purely-City-Hall marriages.

 

 

Over the past few weeks, a lot of my straight Facebook friends have posted pro-gay marriage messages and images. People at work whom I’ve known casually for five, or ten, or twenty years, have suddenly come forward and hugged me. (Partner reports similar behavior in his office.)

 

 

These are “allies”: straight people, people whose rights are not in question, who are coming forward to say that they support our right to marry.

 

 

I thank all our allies: Mary, and Diane, and Paul, and the rest. They are wonderful people.

 

 

And who cares what the Supreme Court decides?

 

 

We know we’re right.

 

 

And we will win in the end.

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My wife

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I was out in the lobby at work the other day, talking to Mike the mailman about our recent trip to France. “Did your wife enjoy it too?” he asked.

 

 

 

I saw Chelsea, the student working at the front desk, give a sudden spasmodic jerk of her head as Mike said the word “wife.” She was wondering what I’d say next.

 

 

 

And, after a whirlwind review of my options, I said: “Yes, she enjoyed it very much.”

 

 

 

Okay. You know I’m gay, and that Partner is a man. Here are excerpts from the angel/devil dialogue that whirled through my head in that moment:

 

 

 

-         He’s the mailman. He doesn’t need to know our business.

-         What are you, afraid to come out to the mailman? He’s like three inches shorter than you, and chubby.

-         But it gets tiresome coming out all the time. Sometimes you should just give in and let people assume whatever they like.

-         That’s no way to think. This could be a teachable moment. This could be the tipping point at which Mike the mailman thinks: Hey! Loren’s gay! Gay people are okay!

-         Or not.

-         Are you ashamed of being gay, after all these years? I hope not.

-         But you love being accepted by all these big macho men: all these repairmen and policemen and construction workers and moving men you work with. You need to keep up appearances, don’t you?

-         The parking cops know that you’re gay, and they don’t seem to mind. They bring you Twinkies and Snowballs. And they both used to be prison guards.

-         Well, maybe they’re trying to tell you something with all those Twinkies and Snowballs.

-         Oh, shut up.

 

 

 

 

Anyway: coming out is a very long complicated process.

 

 

 

I’ll let you know once I’ve gone through it completely.

 

 

 

But I can tell you right now that it’s exhausting.

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The American Christian politician

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Todd Akin, last week, made his concession speech in the name of God. I think his point was that God is allowing America to become more and more sinful, so that he (God, not Todd Akin) can destroy it with impunity, a la Sodom and Gomorrah.

 

 

I picked up a local Christian newspaper last week, just to catch up on the Good News Today. I used to enjoy these papers: they have cute features, like Bible riddles (Who’s the shortest man in the Old Testament? Bildad the Shuhite!) and little homilies about grace and forgiveness.

 

 

But this little newspaper was full of vitriol. Mostly it was about abortion and gay marriage. These are the two worst things happening in the United States, in case you’re wondering.

 

 

Do you remember Jesus, in the New Testament, doing anything or saying anything about either of these issues? He did not. He fed people, and healed people. But apparently health care and world hunger are not important issues for modern fundamentalists.

 

 

I am so sorry that, for so many modern Christians, “social issues” consist of abortion and gay marriage. Why don’t they address health care, and hunger, and housing, and poverty? Their Saviour addressed all those things.

 

 

I don’t believe that Jesus was the son of God. But Jesus the man, as depicted in the Gospels, had a lot of good ideas. 

 

 

Such as: Don’t worry so much about how sinful your neighbor is.

 

 

Just make sure he’s fed and housed and warm.

 

 

Let the rest take care of itself.

 

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Lessons from the 2012 Presidential campaign

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It has taken me a little while to compose myself after Election Night 2012.  Now that I’ve stopped screaming with joy, however, I’ve jotted down a few things I’ve learned over the past few weeks and months.

 

 

As follows:

 

 

Probably you shouldn’t try to redefine the word “rape.” It doesn’t make you many friends. (Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock: hear me?)

 

 

Money doesn’t necessarily win elections.  When it’s quite evident that you’re trying to buy a House/Senate seat (McMahon in Connecticut, Hinckley in Rhode Island), you will probably lose. And Donald Trump publicly mocked Karl Rove for wasting millions of dollars of PAC money on candidates who lost. (As a Tumblr commentator said: Who knows more than Donald Trump about wasting money?)

 

 

Lying is very traditional in American presidential elections, but it’s getting easier and easier to disprove a lie. Probably people should try to lie less (or at least more cleverly). And they should not openly flout the fact-checkers.

 

 

In a state where people traditionally hate and fear state troopers (like Rhode Island, for example), the opposition party shouldn’t nominate a state trooper as their candidate. (Bye-bye, Brendan Doherty.)

 

 

Don’t make fun of your opponent. It makes you look small. (This one goes out to former Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts, who insisted on belittling his opponent Elizabeth Warren as a liar, as ugly, as untrustworthy, as a “college professor.” It didn’t work, did it, Scotty?)

 

 

Do not, in your concession speech, imply that God made your opponent win in order to make the Apocalypse happen sooner. (Okay, Mr. God-be-the-glory Todd Akin?)

 

 

Don’t assume that gay marriage is a passing fad. Before Tuesday, every popular referendum on gay marriage had failed, and the Republicans / social conservatives were convinced they had a failsafe way to defeat gay marriage: bring it to a popular vote. Well, on Tuesday, four states voted, and three (Washington, Maine, and Maryland) upheld gay marriage. You can be sure the GOP will be less confident in future about this particular strategy. (So Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee can take their Chick-fil-A sandwiches and jam them up one another’s asses. And they can make sure those sandwiches are up there real tight, too.)

 

 

And finally:

 

 

The country is changing. We are more diverse, and more tolerant, as a whole. (A commentator in 2008, shortly after Obama’s first election, said that bigotry and intolerance in the USA would decrease over time, but (like seawater evaporating) they would become more concentrated and intense. I remember thinking this was a very wise thing to say. Now, after four years of concentrated intense vicious hatred of Obama and the liberal agenda, I see how prescient he was.) But we are not Sarah Palin’s America, and we are not Mitt Romney’s America (whatever the hell that was supposed to be about). We are a multicolored America. We do not care to be ruled by Christian law, or Sharia law, or any kind of religious law for that matter. We like our marijuana. We like being married to our common-law partners. We like Planned Parenthood. We like knowing that, if we become ill, we will not go into bankruptcy if we go to the doctor. We have no problem with electing women, and gays, and differently-abled people; in fact, we’re proud to be represented by them.

 

 

Let the right-wing nuts shriek about socialism and the Death of America, kids. They’ll tucker themselves out in a while, and we can have some peace, maybe even through Inauguration Day.

 

 

And I’m sure the 2016 campaign won’t begin before June or July of 2013.

 

 

(I plan to vote for Hillary. How about you?)

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Blog extra: Hurricane Isaac

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Just a quickie between regular posts.

 

 

The above illustration is a weathermap of Hurricane Isaac's projected path up through the Gulf of Mexico.

 

 

Gay conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan opined that Isaac was definitely not a Republican hurricane, since it resembled a large purple penis surrounded by a rainbow halo.

 

 

This was pretty hilarious, until I read another comment today, from a woman blogger, sayiing that it looks much more like a uterus than a penis.

 

 

Either way, it works for me. 

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For Sunday: the Scissor Sisters sing "Let's Have a Kiki"

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Information first: a “kiki” can be a chat, or a gossip session, or an impromptu party.

 

 

Now (not suitable for work! Not suitable for small children!): here’s the Scissor Sisters telling you: “Let’s Have a Kiki!”

 

 

(Seriously: this song has changed my life. I’m singing it all the time. It cheers me up tremendously. I hope it does the same for you.)

 

 

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Sally Ride, gay marriage, the Muppets, and Chick-fil-A

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I was saddened when I read that Sally Ride, first American woman in space, passed away a few days ago. She was a role model, certainly; back in 1983, science and engineering were still distinctly woman-unfriendly disciplines. (The Russians had Valentina Tereshkova all those decades ago, but never really closed the gender gap.)

 

 

Astronauts were never really my heroes. They were too bland. When I was a kid in the 1960s, I used to be irritated when all those Gemini missions kept preempting my favorite programs. And then – these guys went into space, and came back, and never had anything interesting to say!

 

 

Then, the other day, I learned that Sally was in a relationship with a woman, Tam O’Shaughnessy, for the last 27 years of her life.

 

 

Now I’m interested.

 

 

The astronaut business was intensely macho. The original astronauts – Mercury, Gemini, Apollo – were mostly test pilots and Air Force hotshots, and most of them were insufferable boors. (My favorite reference text on this subject is Michael Collins’s lovely book “Carrying the Fire,” about his own time as an astronaut. He was the guy who circled the moon back in 1969 while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were traipsing around in the Sea of Tranquility.  He describes the psychological tests, and the physical training, and the sometimes-not-very-friendly sparring between the astronauts.)

 

 

 

Now: imagine being Sally Ride, competing in that macho environment.

 

 

I would have wilted in five seconds under that pressure. In the words of Tony Kushner, daisies would have sprouted out of my ears.

 

 

But Sally made it. She even married (for a few years in the 1980s) one of the other astronauts, Steve Hawley, who seems nice enough.

 

 

But she ended up with Tam O’Shaughnessy, who lived with her for over two decades, and worked with her, and co-authored several books with her, and was with her through her final illness

 

.

Bravo to her.

 

 

And what does Tam get?

 

 

Why, nothing! No death benefits. The U. S. Gummint don’t recognize non-traditional relationships.

 

 

(Mitt Romney recently posted a fatuous/obvious comment on Twitter about Sally being a “pioneer.” Here’s how that went:)

 

 

 

Which brings me to Chick-fil-A.

 

 

We don’t have this particular chain in Rhode Island, thank goodness. I say “thank goodness” because Dan Cathy, the company’s CEO, recently made a large donation to an anti-gay-marriage cause, and made some nasty comments to accompany his contribution.

 

 

The Jim Henson Company, which made toys for Chick-fil-A’s kids’ meals, broke with them over this. They made a wonderful statement about it, and they gave the money they’d earned from Chick-fil-A to GLAAD, a gay organization.

 

 

Tee hee!

 

 

And here’s a pictorial version of the victory:

 

 

 

 

All of this means we still have a very long way to go.

 

 

But there’s light on the horizon.

 

 

Maybe.

 

 

(Rest in peace, Sally. Tam: best wishes, and stay strong. Lisa Henson: you go, girl. Dan Cathy of Chick-fil-A: go to hell, rapidly, now.)

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Anderson Cooper

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I was pleasantly surprised to hear on TV the other morning that my darling boy Anderson Cooper has come out of the closet.

 

 

Not that this is a surprise, mind you. I think I (and many others) have pretty much always known that Anderson is on our team. I am always delighted when a celebrity comes out of the closet. As I’ve said before: the more the merrier. It makes it that much easier for a teenager in Two Dot, Montana to come to terms with his / her own sexuality.

 

 

 

And I do like the words Anderson chose, for their breezy casualness: “The fact is, I’m gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn’t be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud . . . By remaining silent on certain aspects of my personal life for so long, I have given some the mistaken impression that I am trying to hide something — something that makes me uncomfortable, ashamed or even afraid. This is distressing because it is simply not true.”

 

 

 

Do yourself a favor and go read Anderson’s whole letter on Andrew Sullivan’s blog.

 

 

It addresses, nicely and neatly, the question: Is there ever a good reason to stay in the closet?

 

 

For Anderson, there were two: the desire to have a private life, and the desire – as a journalist – to maintain objectivity. (“I want to report the news, not be the news,” he said.) Not that there’s any question about his objectivity; I find his reporting very balanced. But then, I’m a fan. But his deeper point is worth pondering. If you’re a member of the radical right, what do you think of Rachel Maddow? Smart? Incisive? Nah. She’s that lesbian on MSNBC. See, for a lot of people, you can’t be gay and objective. You’re always advancing the gay agenda.

 

 

(As I'm advancing it now. As in: gay people are part of society. Always have been, always will be.  And, increasingly, we are choosing not to live in celibate seclusion. So go deal with it.)

 

 

As a journalist, Anderson was confident of his own objectivity, but was (understandably) reluctant to give critics any reason to doubt his objectivity. Appearances aren’t everything, but they’re not nothing.

 

 

But sometimes the mere fact that you’ve come out – Here I am! You wanna make something of it? – is a worthwhile and powerful statement.  It goes to prove that “gay,” like “Asian-American” or “Californian,” is just one of many attributes, and it doesn’t define or inform your entire life. He’s not Anderson Cooper the gay journalist; he’s Anderson Cooper the journalist.  (Example: Neil Patrick Harris is super gay. But he plays a womanizer on a stupid CBS sitcom, and people love it. And I love him for doing it.)

 

 

(And here’s another thing: it’s not always safe to be openly gay. Read this excellent piece by Kathy Griffin on the subject. She points out, very neatly, that gay people are subjected to hatred and violence in much of the world – including the United States.  She praises Anderson’s bravery, and rightly so.)

 

 

All things considered, I think Anderson made the right decision. And I like that he did it right after the end of Pride Month. Here’s the message I got from that: Pride doesn’t end on June 30. It’s a yearlong activity.

 

 

Long live Anderson Cooper.

 

 

And his eyes, which (as Anderson tells Pee-Wee Herman at the end of this wonderful video) are a national treasure.

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The gay Oreo

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The Nabisco company recently put the above picture on their website, with the innocuous / sweet caption: “Proudly support love!”

 

 

And, naturally, the company was immediately attacked by bigots and conservatives.

 

 

On account of what? A double-double-double stuffed cookie? I would have thought that a cookie like this would sell like hotcakes in the Bible Belt. Especially with all those bright colors.

 

 

But – despite this redneck protest – more and more companies are showing their true (rainbow) colors, and good for them: Target, J. C. Penney, Starbucks. Even Cheerios!

 

 

But the bigots and the religious right are thrashing around in anger, and threatening boycott.

 

 

Let them thrash, brothers and sisters.

 

 

See, I figure, for every religious / conservative kook who decides to boycott one of the above companies (and there are many more gay-tolerant and gay-friendly companies than this, as you’ll see if you follow this link), there’s at least one gay person or gay-tolerant person who’s charmed and delighted by those companies’ bravery.

 

 

(And do you know what one of the main complaints on the (mostly tolerant) Internet is? It's that these gigantically-stuffed cookies aren't actually available for sale.)

 

 

 

I haven’t been to Starbucks in a while. I should pay them a visit.

 

 

Do you suppose they sell Oreos?

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Pride 2012

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Pride is with us again. (Notice we don’t say “Gay Pride Month” anymore. I’m good with that: pride is pride. If straight people want to march with us because they’re proud of being straight, that’s okay. It’s all about not being ashamed of how you were born.)


I love what’s happening in the celebritysphere. Some months ago, a hate group calling itself “One Million Moms” launched an attack on JCPenney, because they were using Ellen DeGeneres as a spokeswoman. Horrible pervert! they said.  And JCPenney CEO Ron Johnson, Krishna bless him, said:


"We stand squarely behind Ellen as our spokesperson and that's a great thing. Because she shares the same values that we do in our company. Our company was founded 110 years ago on The Golden Rule, which is about treating people fair and square, just like you would like to be treated yourself. And we think Ellen represents the values of our company and the values that we share." 


No kiddin’!


Next time you’re down at your local Social Security Office, ask them for a brochure, or a bookmark. You know who’ll be on it? Patty Duke and George Takei, bless them both. Patty is straight; George is (very publicly) gay, and married to his partner Brad. He’s all over Facebook and Tumblr, and he’s very funny, and no-nonsense.


And have you watched the Tonys lately? And seen Neil Patrick Harris? He rules Broadway, like Patti Lupone used to do.  And Neil is (surprise!) gay. And he is still capable of playing an oily womanizer on “How I Met Your Mother” on CBS every week, and a sweet shy straight supervillain in Joss Whedon’s “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.”


We’re out there, people.


It’s June. It’s time for Pride.


We’re among you. We’re your kids and uncles and aunts and even (sometimes) parents. We’re your teachers and bosses and employees. We’re your congressmen and your constituents. There are a lot of us – probably more than you’d think. And, as the social barriers drop, more and more of us are going to stop hiding. Many of us already have.


But it’s taken us a while to get here.


Which is why, every June, we have a little parade or two, to reward ourselves.


And then maybe some disco music.

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“Thor”: a second look

 

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My friend Tab and I were having one of those meandering conversations the other day. We went from RuPaul to Laura Linney to “The Big C” to Idris Elba, the extremely versatile (and very handsome) actor who played Laura’s hotter-than-hell boyfriend in the first season of “The Big C.”  “I appreciate him,” I said. “Wow, do I appreciate him. It’s a shame they covered him up with so much fabric and costume jewelry in ‘Thor.’”

 

 

 

“Who was he in ‘Thor’?” Tab asked curiously.

 

 

“He was Heimdall,” I said, both proud of my knowledge and ashamed to show how much of a comic-book geek I am. “The guardian of the Rainbow Bridge.”

 

 

Tab giggled. “Rainbow Bridge,” he said. “Seriously. How gay can you get? All the gods and warriors are wearing accessories.”

 

 

I began to see his point. “Asgard’s sort of the biggest baddest gay club ever,” I said. “It fairly pulses with bad house music. And Heimdall’s the bouncer.”

 

 

“And,” Tab said, “do you remember that beam they travelled around in? I mean, my god, how phallic was that?”

 

“Also,” I mused, “Thor has a very big hammer. And he likes to hit things with it. Also he likes to go out drinking.”

 

 

(Side note: Thor does seem to like girls, or at least Natalie Portman. Natalie Portman is, however, a little – hm – boyish, especially with that short haircut. Also there’s a brief scene in the movie of Natalie and Thor serving their friends breakfast. Or could it be – gasp! – brunch?)

 

 

My god. Why didn’t I realize all this before?

 

 

No wonder I liked that movie so much.

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Teaching children to belittle gay people

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John Jackson, the president of Bishop Hendricken High School in Warwick, Rhode Island (which describes itself on its website as a “Catholic, all male, college preparatory high school”) wrote a letter to the editors of the Providence Journal the other day.

The letter contains no real surprises. Jackson (in line with his church) condemns gay marriage, and says that President Obama is assisting in the continuing moral decay of our great country by countenancing gay marriage. He calls gay activity “disordered and immoral.” He resorts to the old “hate the sin, not the sinner” ploy: same-sex love is okay, but gay sexual activity is not, since it doesn’t lead to procreation.  He ends the letter with this grave pronouncement: “As the song goes, ‘God is watching us,’ and I can assure you he is not happy.”

 

 

(How does he know this? I wonder. How do these bejeezly idiots always know for sure what God is thinking?)

 

 

Anyway:

 

 

Well, this Church flunky is getting his face rubbed in it. Parents and alumni of Hendricken are slamming him in print and on Facebook. The point made most often is that his letter comes pretty close to hate speech, and that he is helping to create a negative atmosphere for gay students at Hendricken. (Assuming, of course, there are some. Gosh! Do you think that’s possible?)

 

 

Jackson, on Saturday, apologized for the tone of his letter. Not for his message, mind you, but for his tone.

 

 

The Church still doesn’t understand a thing. They don’t realize that “Catholic priest” has become a virtual synonym for “pedophile” in the public mind, and that Catholic prelates, as portrayed in movies and TV these days, are shown in the same way that Nazi officers were portrayed back in my childhood: stupid, pompous, mindlessly bureaucratic, and cruel.

 

 

Jackson thought (I assume) that he was helping reaffirm morality and good behavior. He did nothing of the sort. He showed himself to be a bigot. And I tell you, if there are any incidents of anti-gay bullying on the Hendricken campus this year, we will hear about them, and little Mister Jackson will be roasted properly. (He will probably be protected by his Catholic-prelate bosses, up to a point. But he’s a layman, so they’ll probably toss him out on his ear if it goes too far.)

 

 

(This is a link, by the way, to the song he referred to above, with the lyric “God is watching us.” It’s a beautiful lyrical song, sung by Bette Midler, about how local and sectarian differences break down when viewed from far away, and that God looks down from Heaven and loves us all. Funny how Jackson got a different message from it.)

 

 

Finally: let’s remember (as Stephen Colbert reminded us recently) that the Jesus portrayed in the New Testament said not word one about homosexuality.

 

 

The Jesus of the New Testament did, however, say the following:

 

Mark 10:14 Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God.15 Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. 16 And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.

Mt 18:6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. 

Mt 18:10 Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. 

Mt 18:14 Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.

Mr 9:42 And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. 

Lu 17:2 It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. 

 

 

Now let us think about the Church’s record on pedophilia, and the way in which they continue to protect pedophile priests, and the way they treated young girls in Ireland. Let’s add to the list the fact that John Jackson, President of Bishop Hendricken High School, is telling his students - children! - that gay people are “disordered and immoral,” thus encouraging a hostile environment for gay students at his school.

 

 

He is teaching children to hate other children.

 

 

Better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck.

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