GLBT issues

Ryan Murphy does hate lesbians, apparently

Via Vulture magazine, some interesting commentary of last night’s Glee episode, which I have yet to see. Glee Recap: Carefully Chosen Bells and Whistles — Vulture.

Speaking of chaos, if you’re a casual Glee fan, you might have missed out on exactly how directly last night’s episode knocked down the fourth wall between it and the show’s more vocal fan base. It all starts when Sam leaves a trail of Cheerios for Brittany, which she eats off the floor as she makes his way to him. This is a rare moment of character-related continuity for Glee, since last season Brittany ate a candy bar right out of an actual cat’s actual litter box. Sam tells her that he likes her and they do a surprisingly nice rendition of “Something Stupid.” But when Sam leans in for a kiss, Brittany backs off, and when he asks what’s wrong, Brittany says, “It’s like all lesbians of the nation — I don’t know how they found out about Santana and I dating, but once they did, they started sending me tweets and Facebook messages on Lord Tubbington’s wall. I think it means a lot to them to see two super-hot, popular girls in love, and I worry if they find out about you and I dating, that they’ll turn on you and get really violent and hurt your beautiful face and mouth.”

Angry, violent lesbian stereotype aside, the problem with Brittany’s explanation is how transparent of a reference it is to the Twitter kerfuffle that’s been brewing lately between Ryan Murphy and some of the more ardent Brittany-Santana fans (a group that obviously isn’t comprised exclusively of angry lesbians). Essentially, it really is just that: a spat between fans who are mad at the creator of their favorite TV couple and the creator who’s mad at them for being mad. (The dispute gets more complicated when looked at against Murphy’s track record with lesbian characters on his shows.) Frankly, if I were Ryan Murphy, know what I’d do instead of getting into Twitter spats? I would float on a raft of rubies in a swimming pool full of melted-down gold while negotiating the purchase of the Boston Celtics.

If you don’t want me to watch your show, Ryan, that’s fine – just say so. No need to be a hateful jerk about it. I have better stuff to do anyway, like writing more fully-crafted thoughtful lesbian story lines of my own. I honestly would be perfectly happy with a Brittany/Sam storyline except that:

  1. The sum amount of screen time that Brittany and Santana got through their whole relationship was less than what they have shown for Brittany and Sam in one episode.
  2. Santana’s coming out story was really terrible in a whole bunch of ways.
  3. Ryan Murphy has been such a hateful bitch over twitter towards lesbian fans of Glee.

Glee has done wonders for gay male visibility on television with Kurt and Blaine’s story lines. They’ve been pretty shitty when it comes to lesbian story lines, however. Santana’s coming out storyline was a pretty sexist slap in the face to lesbian fans, and Murphy has been cranky about the backlash to that episode ever since.

All of our regular television programs have been languishing on our DVR since I’ve spent so much time writing lately, and we’ve been particularly neglectful of Glee given my ambivalence about it over the last year. Not even listening to Lea Michele singing can get me to turn on the show anymore. I haven’t quite deleted them, but I may be fast-forwarding through most of the episodes for the Rachel Berry scenes going forward. It feels weird to take that approach to a show that has actual gay characters, as opposed to mere heavy lesbian subtext like Rizzoli & Isles and Once Upon a Time. But being openly hostile to legitimate criticism about lesbian visibility is really problematic.

Continue ReadingRyan Murphy does hate lesbians, apparently

Schoolyard Taunts

Ann Coulter on Fox News:

“The word I used has nothing to do with sexual preference. It is a schoolyard taunt… It isn’t offensive to gays. It has nothing to do with gays.”

As I’ve said before, there are souls out there in the universe for whom the word faggot was the last word they heard as they were beaten to death.

One of my former roommates was brutally beaten in the alley outside Greg’s Place – and the men who beat him called him a faggot repeatedly while they beat him, before they tried to run over him with their car as they speed away from the scene of the crime.

I was called a dyke and a queer over and over again when I was raped.

These are not simply schoolyard taunts. They are offensive to gay people. That should go without saying, but apparently it doesn’t. They are words of hate, and they have no place in our public discourse. And if CPAC isn’t interested in denouncing Ann Coulter, then they get to take ownership the words of hate she spewed on their stage.

Continue ReadingSchoolyard Taunts

Alumni – Contact IU and Purdue about SJR-7

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The bill I’ve been writing so much about lately – SJR-7 – will have an affect on the domestic partnership benefits that are offered by state universities. Currently Purdue and IU have these benefits, and Ball State and other universities have been considering adopting them to remain competitive for the best faculty.

Currently, the right-wing sponsors of SJR-7 are lying their faces off to universities and trying to convince them that the bill won’t have any affect on these benefits. Chris Douglas has a really good post about how wrong they are, and Gary Welsh also talks about the legal analysis while talking about the recent Associated Press article on this very subject.

If you are an IU or Purdue faculty member, staff member, student or alum, please contact the trustees by phone or e-mail immediately to ask them to voice opposition to SJR7. Also, please forward this information to any of your friends or acquaintances who are IU or Purdue faculty, staff, students or alums. (At the end of this [pos is a sample letter to the trustees, for your consideration.). Contact information for IU is below the fold. I don’t have info hand on Purdue, but it should be easy to look up.

If you wish to send an e-mail to a single address, the trustees’ secretary Robin Gress will forward messages: rgress@indiana.edu; tel. 812-855-3762; fax 812-855-5959.

If you wish to address all of the trustees in person, here are their e-mail addresses:

Clarence W. Boone, Sr.: cwboone@indiana.edu
William R. Cast: wcast@comcast.net
Jeffrey S. Cohen: cohenj@stifel.com
Casey B. Cox: cbcox@indiana.edu
Philip N. Eskey, Jr.: philannsq@aol.com
Stephen L. Ferguson: bdot@indiana.edu
Thomas E. Reilly, Jr.: tomreillyjr@hotmail.com
Patrick A. Shoulders: pshoulders@zsws.com
Sue H. Talbot: shtalbot@indiana.edu

Their individual phone numbers are listed at: http://www.indiana.edu/~trustees/contact.shtml
I suggest you also copy the university Provost–Michael A. McRobbie–and the director of University Human Resource Services–Dan Rives. Their e-mail addresses are: mcrobbie@indiana.edu and drives@indiana.edu.

Below is the text of a sample letter you could tweak and use, courtesy of John Clower from Indiana Equality.

Dear Trustees of Indiana University:

I am writing to urge you as a body to oppose Senate Joint Resolution 7. SJR7 is a proposed amendment to the Indiana Constitution that would deny rights and legal protections associated with marriage to all unmarried couples, same-sex or otherwise.

Passage of SJR7 would have a chilling and deterrent effect on efforts to attract and retain the best IU faculty, staff and students. It would signal a statewide intolerance of diversity and work against IU’s efforts to create new economic opportunities in partnership with the private sector, particularly in the life sciences.
The quality-of-life issues and family protections that SJR7 could affect extend beyond health-care coverage to fee courtesy, emergency family leave, hospital visitation rights, inheritance decisions, family tax benefits and adoption rights. Moreover, SJR7 violates the spirit of IU’s nondiscrimination policy as well as the proud legacy of equality bequeathed to us by former IU President Herman B Wells.

Although some lawyers are apparently counseling you that Indiana’s public universities “might not” or “probably won’t” be affected by SJR7, other lawyers think that public universities would indeed be affected. Playing Russian Roulette with quality of life and family protections for unmarried couples and their children at IU is simply not acceptable.

Please voice your public opposition to SJR7, and please authorize IU’s statehouse lobbyist to carry that message to Governor Daniels and to the leaders of the Indiana House and Senate.
Respectfully,
[Your name]

Continue ReadingAlumni – Contact IU and Purdue about SJR-7

Nigerian Advisor: Same-sex relationships make you retarded

From Tide Online:

About four percent of Nigerians are involved in same sex relationship, Special Adviser to the President, Prof Friday Okonofua, has said.
Okonofa disclosed this at a public hearing on a bill to prohibit same sex marriage and relationship, organised by the House of Representatives Committee on Women Affairs, in Abuja.
He said the number cut across all sexes and ages.
Such relationship, he said, had exposed those engaged in it to high risk of contacting sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), HIV/AIDS and cancer.
The same sex relationships, he said, caused mental retardation, depression and high tendency to commit suicide.
In his remarks, Deputy Speaker Austin Opara assured that in passing the bills, the House would be guided by the respect for the nation’s religious and cultural values.
“We have values which really frown at the same sex marriage or union and we will certainly consider those values in our deliberations on the bill,” Opara said.
In her address, the chairman of the House Committee on Women Affairs, Rep Saudatu Sani, said such relationship was non-existent in most cultures across the world, and Nigeria would therefore not be in the minority nations practicing it.
The bill, Sani said, sought to provide a legal basis against same sex marriage and the proscription of adoption of children by same sex couples.
She said prohibition of same sex marriage was not only justifiable, but also a necessary step to protect public morality.

Um, I think there’s some retardation involved, but I think it’s more on the Nigerian Government’s end, rather than gay people’s.

Continue ReadingNigerian Advisor: Same-sex relationships make you retarded

Soulforce urges people to write compassionate letters to Haggard

Soulforce is urging gay people to write compassionate letters to Ted Haggard now that he’s being targeted for “spiritual restoration.”

In response to the news that Rev. Ted Haggard has been dismissed by New Life Church and resigned as President of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), Soulforce has urged the gay community to respond compassionately.
We acknowledge that many in our community feel legitimate anger toward Haggard and the NAE for their history of religion-based bigotry.
However, Haggard has now been referred to the same “spiritual restoration” therapy that has threatened the mental and spiritual wellbeing of so many gay men and lesbians.
Don’t let the voices of spiritual violence and intolerance be the only voices that he hears in this time of personal, familial, and professional crisis.
We urge you to write to Ted Haggard in a spirit of empathy and welcoming. Let him know that there are alternatives to ex-gay therapy, and that LGBT people can live loving, honest, and purposeful lives.

Continue ReadingSoulforce urges people to write compassionate letters to Haggard

The “dangerous” gay community

From today’s Indianapolis Star:

But lawmakers and judges are a different matter. Legislators have been carrying guns into the Capitol for years, exercising what they say is their Second Amendment right to bear arms. Twenty-five of Indiana’s 150 senators and representatives had permits to carry concealed weapons in 2003, according to a study published by The Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne.
Sen. Brent Waltz is among the elected officials licensed to carry a sidearm under his coat. He supports the security measures and does not plan to bring his gun to the office after the new steps are implemented.
“I’d probably check it at the door,” Waltz said. “I think it is not a bad thing to have fewer firearms in the Capitol.”
Waltz, R-Greenwood, said he is not worried about his safety inside the Statehouse, but his trip to and from the building sometimes makes him a little nervous.
Lawmakers, Waltz said, vote on emotionally charged issues — such as proposals to ban gay marriage or abortion — and occasionally receive death threats from those who disagree with their positions.
“Certainly there’s a level of risk anyone involved in public life takes,” Waltz said. “It’s important for government to try to reduce those risks as much as possible.”

I sent this email to Senator Brent Waltz’ office:
Since you brought up gay marriage as one of the “emotionally charged issues” that must mean you’ve received a death threat from someone in the gay community, right?
I’ll be giving your office a call in the next few days to get more information on the death threat you received. I write for an online paper, and I’m going to do a story on this. I’d like to talk to Senator Waltz, and with any police that investigated the threat to find out more about where it came from and what follow up occurred.

Continue ReadingThe “dangerous” gay community

Christian terrorist says Gays have sex with infants

A few days ago, Guy Adams, Deputy National Grassroots Director of RenewAmerica appeared on the right wing talk show of fundamentalist activist Stacey Harp, and during the interview, committed blood libel against gay Americans. Pam’s House Blend summarizes some of what was said:

* Gays have sex with infants (He says its “The New trend”)
* sex in the street in Chicago out in the open
* Gays have sex with animals
* Gay relationships only last about a year and 1/2
* Gays have 200 to 300 partners in their lifetime
* Gays have made no contibution to society (except AIDS)
* He says Dr. John Diggs in the foremost medical authority on AIDS. (not true its Ken Meyer from Boston, Diggs is a quack refuted in detail)
* Quote: “There are not alot of really good gays”
* Says we are working towards hate speech laws

I’m sorry — I was in Chicago for the gay games, and we were in Boystown and Andersonville — no one was having sex in the streets. Please. Lovely. Adams goes on to say this:

Dear bloggers, It is important to separate the person from the behavior and let God judge the person. Having said that, we must now devote our attention to the greatest danger facing America since possibly the Civil War – the homosexual agenda. Why is this dangerous? Because it threatens the established morality that has proved stable over thousands of years and esp because of the ensuing “hate-speech” laws that can effectively silence the Church. That is what the gays want. They want to silence any and all opposition to their perverted lifestyle and most of this opposition comes from the Church at large.

The greatest danger since the civil war? Wow, you guys should come over and visit the powder keg that is our new house — what with all the baby-eatin’, dog-sex havin’, church-burnin’, orgy-hosting we do, you should have a really fun time. Yep.
[note to religious nutjobs — that’s a joke. We spend most of our time reading books and drinking lemonade on the porch. Oooh, Scary.]

Continue ReadingChristian terrorist says Gays have sex with infants

Freedom From Religion

From Good As You:

I mean just the other day this was chatting with this Jewish friend of mine who keeps kosher, and he was all like, ” Ya know, my religious beliefs tell me that consuming pork is not in my best interest, so I think I’m gonna take that belief to the public, church/state separated realm of governance and try and get pork banned for all.” You can check here to know more about the merit of prayer and the support it provides. After grabbing a hot dog, I then trekked down to visit my Muslin chum, who told me about this new “one woman, one head cover” bill he’s hoping to have enforced on people of all faiths. After briefly imagining the career death of virtually every female celebrity under 30, I continued to my Scientologist pal’s mansion, where he told me to stop being “glib” and start helping him ban psychiatric medicine and drugs in this country. Weirded out, I finally swung by my Atheist friend’s home, where she eagerly told me about her “One nation under self-replicating molecules” changes she was proposing for this nation’s pledge of allegiance.
It was only after visiting all of these folks that I finally realized, “Hey, why let the facts that there are many different beliefs and that we, as Americans, have the right to subscribe to any or none of them stop each of us from pushing our own versions of moral fitness onto the public at large?” My world view has been changed at the hand of extremist religious conviction!

Continue ReadingFreedom From Religion

Back Home Again

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We got home yesterday mid-day from Chicago, and we’ve been hanging out and relaxing. We ended up not going to Ikea on Thursday — we sat in traffic for 3 hours, and finally ended up giving up and going directly to the rink so Stephanie could prepare for her show. We went on Friday instead — and again due to traffic, it took a long time and we skipped coming back Friday night and came back Saturday instead so we could at least make one trip where we weren’t both ready to fall asleep.
We met some of our neighbors at a garage sale down the street, which was neat. And we took a tour of our neighbor’s gigantic house. Pretty cool. We went to MacNiven’s on Massachusetts Avenue for dinner — that was nice. We both had big salads and wings. I’d like to go back there; it was fun. Lots of Scottish foods, big vintage golf advert posters on the walls.
We went to our friend Mike’s last night to see his band play — the same band that played at my house two years ago. They were great; much more polished. Today we’ve puttered around, put together some of our furniture from Ikea and unpacked, got caught up on our e-mail and blog reading and watched a ton of TV.
I still haven’t uploaded my pictures; I’ll try to do that tomorrow.
I forgot to shut off the recordings of Degrassi: The Next Generation, so we maxed out our DVR space while we were gone. Oops. Here’s what I’ve been watching lately —
Degrassi: The Next Generation — I never heard of the show until I read about the current version on AfterEllen.com, where they reviewed the positive treatment of gay characters on the show. Stephanie was familiar with the original series from back in the 1980’s, but I was a bit too old for that version and never saw it. We’re now addicted to this version and have been watching the re-runs this summer on The N. For those who aren’t familiar; the original was set in Degrassi Junior High, then Degrassi High School. The current series is about the kids of the original characters, set in the same school, which is now a combined junior and senior high. The show tackles some edgy subjects in a very educated and non-preachy manner, which they can do because it’s a Canadian show, set in a Canada, where people don’t freak out about showing realistic issues on television. In fact some of the episodes were censored when they originally aired here. There are six seasons of DTNG, so we’ve been doing a lot of catch-up on the storylines, and they’ve aired shows from all the seasons in re-run. We’ve seen a lot of the episodes where Dylan and Marco (the boy gay couple) have a relationship, but we’re still waiting for the episodes where Paige and Alex (the girl gay couple) get together.
Deadwood
Entourage
Lucky Louie
Rescue Me
Saved
The Closer
Big Brother
Windfall (although we’re way behind on this series)
I seem to have an overly testosterone-driven viewing schedule. I wish Sex and the City was still around to balance it out.
Obviously, there’s a lot going on in the news, but I’m not sure how to even comment on it. Bush’s behavior at the G-8 summit makes it pretty clear that American foreign policy is pretty much fucked, and our ability to influence events in the middle east or with Korea is pretty much meaningless at this point. I’m praying that we can make it through the next few years without World War III spiraling into the end of civilization. Although there are quite a few people who are cheering for that to happen, and there’s some question about whether Bush is one of those people.

Continue ReadingBack Home Again