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The Grand Alliance. On April 20, a broad assortment of self-styled progressive groups (i.e., the hard Left) will gather in Washington to protest the war on terrorism, and to demand that "the needs of people and the planet are given top priority." Among the participating organizations are the Communist Party USA, the International Socialist Organization, the Young Communist League, and Queers for Racial & Economic Justice. Isn't inclusion grand?

And She's Not Even a Lesbian. According to an AP story, a judge in upstate New York has "ordered a smoker to stop lighting up at home or in her car if she wants continued visitation rights with her 13-year-old son." The judge's 22-page decision said the mother's puffing was not in the boy's "best interests." The father's attorney said the boy "was ashamed that his mother was a smoker," while the mother's attorney claims the boy's father and paternal granparents are behind his smoking complaints.

Dysfunctional family dynamics aside, is this the Northern PC reflection of those Southern judges who won't allow visits by gay or lesbian parents who refuse to hide their sexual orientation from the child? Or, to put it another way, has control over visitation by noncustodial parents become the latest manifestation of the cultural war between Left authoritarians and Right authoritarians?

Nash re-gayed. Advocate.com does a nifty job of going through Sylvia Naser's A Beautiful Mind, the biography of John Forbes Nash Jr. on which the Oscar winning film was based, and showing just how gay he really was -- despite recent protestations by both Nash and Naser.

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O'Reilly's Two Faces. In his March 20 syndicated column, conservative talkmaster Bill O"Reilly, host of Fox News's top-rated "The O"Reilly Factor," came out in favor of gay adoptions ("Good Bill"), but also in favor of the closet ("Bad Bill"). This reveals a great deal about the muddle in the minds of many who dislike bigotry (and thus oppose outright discrimination against gays and lesbians), but still don't GET IT. For example, "Good Bill" writes:

"Rosie O'Donnell will eventually win her fight to have the State of Florida legalize adoption by responsible homosexuals. Logic is on her side, as is human kindness, and it is just a matter of time before the legislature in the Sunshine State puts the welfare of hard-to-adopt kids ahead of gay fear. Most clear-thinking Americans realize it is better for a child to live in a nurturing home run by gays, than to be on the merry-go-round of foster care. -- [N]o matter what an individual believes, our Constitution dictates that an American homosexual cannot be deprived of basic rights."

Not bad, eh, for a darling of the right? Unfortunately, "Bad Bill" later opines:

"No good can come of discussing your sex life in public". It is a private matter. And that goes for heterosexuals as well. The singer Madonna has alienated many in America, in my opinion, because of her blatant sexual presentation. -- Many gays will tell you that they must "come out" to champion homosexual rights. That is bogus. You can champion anything in this country without putting your sex life on the table. It is no one's business what Ellen DeGeneres or Rosie O'Donnell do in private."

This is obviously unfair. Madonna does make blatantly sexual presentations. But of course Rosie has not. People like "Bad Bill" think that mentioning your partner is talking about your sex life, but heterosexuals have to actually talk about their sex lives to be accused of the same thing. Mentioning your wife -- or your children -- doesn't count.

O"Reilly is not a clod. Opposing discrimination AND urging gays to keep silent about our lives is common among Americans in the middle to center-right -- a huge demographic whose support we vitally need. The good news is that if a Bill O"Reilly can come as far as he has, taking the next leap and GETTING OVER a sense of queasiness over gays having actual relationships is probably not an insurmountable hurdle.

Note: Shouting "Bigot, bigot, go away," as the gay Left tends to do over expressions such as "Bad Bill" O"Reilly"s, achieves nothing.

Not So Beautiful. As for not talking about IT... Just in time for the Oscars, John Forbes Nash Jr. and his wife, Alicia, gave a joint interview to 60 Minutes in which the facts of John's past were, to say the least, subject to obfuscation. The man whose life was the basis for the award-winning film "A Beautiful Mind" has now been thoroughly de-gayed, at his own (and his wife"s) instigation . As I wrote in my Feb. 23 posting, Ron Howard's film came in for much criticism for omitting some of the same-sex escapades that were document in Sylvia Naser's biography (also titled "A Beautiful Mind"). In her book, Naser wrote of how Nash was arrested for a same-sex restroom come-on (thus losing his security clearance). Among several other incidents, she noted that Nash climbed into a fellow mathematician's bed and made a pass at him, and that Nash had commented about his long awaited 'gay liberation".

Now reunited with his wife and of advanced years, things are told differently. Much like Anne Heche, Nash (and wife) say he wasn't gay, that his behavior was just another symptom of his psychosis -- and he's better now. Author Naser, paid nicely for the film rights to her bio, is chiming along. She tells USA Today, "The book didn't say [Nash] was gay. I stuck to the facts I had. I don't know where people are getting all this." Maybe she should try re-reading her own work. It's another reason why you should never, ever attempt to make movies about living people.

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11005204

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A Wild & Crazy Guy. Richard Nixon was one of the scariest men ever to occupy 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Not widely reported, however, was his fixation with "homosexuals." According to a March 21 Washington Post story based on newly transcribed White House tapes (yes, he taped EVERYTHING -- for posterity), Tricky Dick launched into the following tirade in May of 1971, while top aides H.R. "Bob" Haldeman and John Ehrlichman laughed nervously at their bosses increasingly demented history lesson. Proclaimed Nixon:

"The point that I make is that, goddamn it, I do not think that you glorify on public television homosexuality. You don't glorify it, John, anymore than you glorify, uh, whores. -- I don't want to see this country to go that way. You know what happened to the Greeks. Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle was a homo, we all know that, so was Socrates."

Gosh, I guess those homos created classical civilization just so they could destroy it, huh? Nixon continues:

"Do you know what happened to the Romans? The last six Roman emperors were fags. . . . when the popes, when the Catholic Church went to hell in, I don't know, three or four centuries ago, it was homosexual. . . . Now, that's what happened to Britain, it happened earlier to France. And let's look at the strong societies. The Russians. Goddamn it, they root them out, they don't let 'em hang around at all. You know what I mean? I don't know what they do with them. Dope? Do you think the Russians allow dope? Hell no. Not if they can catch it, they send them up. You see, homosexuality, dope, uh, immorality in general: These are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the Communists and the left-wingers are pushing it. They're trying to destroy us."

One gets the clear sense that Nixon actually admired the efficiency of repression in the Soviet Union, the way the commissars simply made homosexuals and other undesirables disappear. It's just those damn commie hippies in the U.S. that were the problem.

Mitt's Not Dick. Fortunately, there has been progress since the 1970s, and that includes progress within the Grand Old Party. Businessman Mitt Romney, who spearheaded the recent, very successful Winter Olympic games, is now the likely GOP candidate for governor in Massachusetts (after the hapless Jane Swift, the unelected incumbent, dropped out of the primary). Here's something positive to report, from the Log Cabin Republican's "Inclusion Wins" e-newsletter:

"You might remember Romney as the Republican candidate who had Senator Ted Kennedy (D) on the run in 1994. For several weeks, national news stories ran about how Kennedy was in the fight of his life, and might be truly vulnerable for the first time since the Chappaquiddick incident. You might also recall that Romney gave a front-page interview to the gay newspaper, Bay Windows, the headline of which was: "I'll Be Better Than Ted Kennedy on Gay Rights." While Romney was unable to unseat Kennedy in the end, his race made waves in Republican politics in the state, and forged close ties with Log Cabin Republicans."

Sounds promising -- a hopefully non-RINO (Republican in Name Only) who also appears to be good on gays. Stay tuned.

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Wedding-bell Gender Blues. Look for more legal confusion over whom a transsexual may marry, if anyone. As reported in the Kansas City Star last week, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that male-to-female transsexual J'Noel Gardiner's marriage to her late husband, Marshall Gardiner, was invalid, thereby providing a victory to her husband's son, who successfully sought to deny J'Noel's inheritance of Marshall's $2.5 million estate. Not of particular relevance, but of salacious interest, J'Noel was 45 years junior to her 85-year-old-husband, who passed away less than a year after their nuptials (oh, what a plot fit for "Dynasty"!).

The state Supreme Court's unanimous ruling said that despite her sex change surgery and body altering treatments, J'Noel remained a man for purposes of marriage. It thus overturned a decision by the Kansas Court of Appeals, which approved the marriage as valid after finding there's more to gender than "simply what the individual's chromosomes were or were not at the time of birth."

Here's the tricky part -- various courts in other states have reached different conclusions on whether transsexuals may legally wed members of their same birth sex or not. And, according to a New York Times story posted on gaylawnet, several legal experts believe if male-to-female transsexuals are barred from marrying men, they are consequently allowed to marry women -- despite the fact that their legal identification (including, in many cases, a revised birth certificate) lists their gender as female. In fact, after a Texas court invalidated a marriage similar to the Gardiner's, at least two male-to-female transsexuals have married (other) women in that state. Are these marriages, then, legal lesbian unions? It's at least debatable.

Pro and con advocates on same-sex marriages, of course, are having their say. In the gaylawnet article, Jennifer Middleton of the Lambda Legal Defense Fund asks, "How much of what we think of as appropriate for a woman or a man is biologically determined versus socially constructed?" However, I'm not sure the premise that sexuality is a social construct is going to win the day outside of the academy. On the other side, as quoted in the Kansas City Star, Bill Duncan of the Catholic University of America's Marriage Law Project declares, "We have a mission to reaffirm the legal definition of marriage as a man and a woman," noting, "but we haven't thought that much about what makes a man a man and a woman a woman." And with transsexuals, squaring that circle ain't so easy. The solution, of course, would be to allow any two consenting adults who are not incestuously related to wed -- but, apparently, that's TOO easy.

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The Abuse of Authority

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Originally appeared March 20, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.

The recent disclosure of improper sexual contacts between Catholic youths and Catholic priests in the Boston archdiocese and elsewhere is what journalists call a "developing story" - one that is still unfolding, in which new information can be expected on a weekly if not daily basis, and whose implications have not yet fully been grasped.

Yet even at this early stage it seems worthwhile to try to separate out some of the basic issues involved, if only to avoid succumbing to the enormous amounts of "spin" promoted by the archdiocese, the Vatican and various interest groups.

Sexual contacts between priests and young people seem improper for at least three reasons:

1. Priests, as priests, promise to live a life of celibacy, commonly understood by laymen to mean abstinence from sexual relations or sexually arousing contacts.

Sexual contacts with young people seem to violate the very letter of that promise. In addition, they seem to do so in a clandestine, even secretive fashion, targeting those who are not only the most pliant and suggestible, but also the easiest to intimidate, shame or bribe into silence. More than one accuser has told of a priest blessing him after their sexual contacts.

To be sure, we all know of Catholic clerics who interpret the promise of celibacy more narrowly to mean abstinence from sexual intercourse proper, or abstinence from intercourse with women or simply remaining unmarried. And, to be sure, clerical celibacy was originally imposed primarily to prevent priests from having (legitimate) children they might wish to pass on property to.

But to the extent that the church promotes or allows a sharp divergence between lay and clerical understanding - on this as on so many other matters - instances where priestly behavior publicly contradicts popular understanding are an understandable cause for that gravest of all clerical sins, "scandalizing the faithful."

2. Priests are in a position of responsibility, delegated by parents, when dealing with young people.

Catholic parents often teach their children to trust and obey the priest, confident that priests have their children's interests at heart as much as the parents do, will treat the youths with respect and dignity, and will do their best to guide and protect them.

When parents find that priests' behavior with youths are for their own benefit - viz. erotic gratification of whatever sort - rather than for the children's benefit, parents justifiably feel that priests have betrayed their trust, the more offensively so because the parents taught it to the youths, never thinking that they needed to warn or caution their children about priests.

3. Priests are in a position of authority when dealing with all parishioners, but especially young people in their charge.

Many Catholic youths are taught that the priest is the person who can teach them what is right and moral, perhaps even more reliably than their parents, and who is obligated in his own conduct to exemplify those virtues, even more reliably than their parents. We might say that that is pretty much the basic job description for a priest; the rest is ritual and ceremony.

If young people feel a priest's conduct toward them violates that assumption, then their whole idea of who and what is a valid source of moral and ethical information seems falsified, in fact, completely reversed. Either the authority of the teachers or the teaching is called into question, perhaps both in a mutually destructive contradiction.

Specifically, just as parents resent their children being imposed upon, so too young people must find it deeply disturbing to realize - either gradually or in a sudden realization - that the priest is not treating them as a person for whom he has concern but as a means for his own gratification. This can hardly fit with the view of a priest as caring and benevolent.

In addition, people such as priests can, merely by virtue of their authority but also because of their greater age, be felt as applying great pressure to do as they say even against a younger, more vulnerable person's better judgment and personal inclination. That perceived pressure to violate one's own judgment and inclination is what can harm young people psychologically.

If we turn to various explanations of how these incidents come about and how to prevent them, we face a babel of opinions.

Pope John Paul II's personal spokesperson Joaquin Navarro-Valls has tried to place the blame on homosexual priests, claiming that gay men should not be priests at all. But if estimates of the large proportion of homosexuals in the American priesthood are anywhere near correct, even if "homosexual" priests were involved, it would be only a small proportion who behaved improperly.

But more to the point, and contrary to Navarro-Valls, it seems likely that priests who are attracted to other adult men, to say nothing of priests actually involved with other adult men, are not likely to seek involvement with immature males.

Some liberal critics suggest that an (ostensibly) celibate priesthood is somehow responsible. That may be true but not because self-aware, self-accepting robustly heterosexual youths are unlikely to volunteer for a celibate priesthood. After all, self-aware, self-accepting homosexual youths would seem no more likely to be drawn to a celibate priesthood.

The Catholic church will have to search wider and deeper into its doctrines and its history for the sources of its current troubles.

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Future without Shock

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Originally appeared March 20, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.

I have seen the post-gay world, and it serves really good beer.

My girlfriend and I were having dinner at a restaurant and bar nestled on the edge of the gay-friendly Chicago neighborhood of Andersonville, when we looked around.

The barkeep was a transwoman. There was a gay waiter and a lesbian chef. A group of gay men were flirting on the high barstools.

But something was missing.

There was no rainbow sticker on the door. Or neon rainbow in the window. Or anything external to denote this establishment as a gay bar.

And do you know why?

It isn't one.

T's calls itself a place "for everyone" and surprisingly, it really is. The same night we were there, two straight couples were playing pool. In fact, T's manages to be a place where it is as comfortable to bring your parents for dinner or straight friends for a drink as it is to flirt with a same-sex stranger or kiss your girlfriend. Perhaps even more amazingly, it is equally welcome to men and women-unlike a majority of places in gay ghettos, where gay men are often made uncomfortable in lesbian bars and vice versa.

T's is able to be most things to most people because it intentionally reaches out to all of its constituencies. It hosts regular womens' nights, sponsors gay sports teams and employs gay staff - but it also employs straight staff, and has events that also appeal to straight folks, such as Superbowl Sunday parties and the recent run of a quirky play devoted to drinking and writing.

In fact, T's is a pretty good representation of what it might be like to live in an (ideal) post-gay world.

What do I mean by post gay? I mean a world where gay couples aren't stared at, commented on or (heaven forbid) battered as they walk down the street holding hands or kissing.

I mean a world where being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered is interesting in the same way that learning that someone is left-handed or a twin is interesting - it is a fact about the individual that affects their worldview, but says nothing about his or her character, interests or politics.

By post gay, I mean a world where a lesbian marriage or a gay man in the military or a transgendered president is barely even remarked upon by the media gauntlet.

I first started imagining a post-gay world when I learned that a friend who worked part time as an advisor to a lesbitrans community at a Boston-area women's college no longer had a job.

"The students decided there was no need for an advisor anymore," my friend's life-partner told me. "They fit in fine and they just want to be students, not lesbian students or bi students."

The lesbians at this particular college can do this because their needs are being met. They face little discrimination or prejudice from the student body or administration. In fact, there is constant outreach to their community from faculty, staff and administrators. If students need something or are concerned about something, it is not difficult to find a friendly ear tuned to their frequency. They don't have to stay in their emotional or physical gay ghetto to be safe, because they feel safe where ever they are on campus.

For these lucky students, there's nothing to fight for and so they don't have to fight - they can just be.

There are pockets of places around the world like this - not only my own neighborhood of Andersonville (and upon closer reflection, most of it seems to be post-gay, not just this one bar), but also the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, the small college towns of Northampon, Mass. and Madison, Wis., parts of New York and Paris and most of San Francisco, Amsterdam and Stockholm.

The entire world, unfortunately, will likely never be post-gay. There will always be small redneck towns and large, unfriendly cities where gay people are not welcome. That's because post-gay places need a combination of things to make them possible: anti-discrimination laws, a strong gay and lesbian community, and a marketplace and political establishment that's responsive and pro-active to our needs. Being post-gay is more than cold tolerance; it is an understanding that GLBTs offer unique contributions that benefit everyone and should be sought out.

A post-gay world, which can only happen after the end of discrimination, isn't a place where we are all the same - it is a place where the needs of each of us are met equally. A place where we all feel safe and welcome. So in a post-gay bar, a lesbian might come to play pool after softball and a gay man might be flirting with his new lover while sitting next to a straight man doing the same thing.

A post-gay world is one where we are all just folks, sitting around talking and having a really good beer.

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Coming Out for a Cause

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Originally appeared March 20, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.

Celebrities, like ordinary folks, come out for a variety of reasons.

Some do it because they are tired of hiding and the psychological pressure of concealing their true identity becomes too much.

Some do it because they have no choice-they were outed.

Some do it to seem cooler to younger people, or to give a shot of adrenaline to a faltering career.

Some do it because they have been swayed by the strong argument that America's comfort with gays and lesbians is dependent on our visibility. And then we have Rosie.

For years, many of us have been calling on Rosie O'Donnell to come out. We mentioned the sly way she alluded to being a lesbian; we noted that she appeared with her partner in public. People like her, we said. With Rosie on our side, people might not be so quick to say that they don't know any gays or lesbians.

Yet for the longest time, Rosie didn't come out. She wouldn't come out. She would joke and hint and wink, but the word "lesbian" didn't cross her lips when she was speaking to the public.

And so we were mad at her.

But it seems that Rosie knew best all along. Because by picking her moment, she has sparked a national conversation about gay and lesbian adoption. Now she is proving that if anyone can change hearts in the heartland when it comes to adopting children, it is Rosie.

Last week, Rosie, who has three young, adopted children, spoke honestly and openly to Diane Sawyer about why it is unfair that gays and lesbians can't adopt children in Florida.

"I don't think it negates your skills as a parent if you1re homosexual," she said in her friendly, straightforward way. "I do think the kids will get teased and in some capacity that's very sad, and eventually I think that it will stop. ... Would it be easier for them if I were married to a man? It probably would. But as I said to my son, Parker, if you were to have a daddy, you wouldn't have me as a mommy. Because I'm the kind of mommy who wants another mommy."

Rosie is coming forward now because she recently learned that even though she can parent foster children in Florida, where she keeps a second home, a 1977 law prohibits adoption of those same children by any gays and lesbians, including herself.

Then she learned of a gay couple, Steve Lofton and Roger Croteau, who are in a similar predicament.

Lofton and Croteau are raising five HIV-positive children. Three of those are foster children; two were adopted in Oregon. But one of the foster children, Bert, 10, no longer tests positive for HIV. And because he is under 14, says the ACLU, "he is now considered �adoptable." Which means that the state of Florida is actively seeking another home for Bert, even though he has been raised by Lofton and Croteau since he was nine weeks old.

Lofton and Croteau have joined other parents in a lawsuit fighting against Florida's law against gay adoption, the most conservative adoption law in the country. Now, "for the first time ever," says an ACLU statement, "a federal appeals court is weighing the constitutionality of banning gay adoption."

Florida's law against gay and lesbian adoption - even when those same gays and lesbians are approved foster parents - would be simply silly if it didn't break so many hearts and break up so many loving families.

There are a half million children in foster care in the United States, and 3,400 who are waiting for adoption in Florida. Nationally, 25,000 kids a year leave the foster care system not because they were adopted, but because they became too old. Few people want to adopt physically or mentally ill children.

Croteau and Lofton are two of those few. There is no logical reason why they can't adopt the children they have raised. It is simply anti-gay bigotry.

In her interview, Rosie made this clear. "It takes a lot to become a foster parent," she told Sawyer. "You have to really want to save a child who others have deemed unsaveable. And for the state of Florida to tell anyone who's willing, capable, and able to do that, that they're unworthy, is wrong."

Rosie's interview has already changed minds.

On ABC's web page, one viewer commented, "Before tonight's show, I would say I was definitely against gay adoption. I do believe the gay life style is a sin. However ... I believe [some] sins do not carry more weight than others. So with that in mind, carrying out Florida's thinking, people who commit adultery are not fit to be parents, people who take the Lord's name in vain should not parents. Ideally, I would like to see kids with a mom and a dad, but it doesn't look likely for most foster kids. So any permanent loving and nurturing home is better than none."

That someone who seems to be a Christian fundamentalist would move that far in his or her position on gay adoption in the space of a two-hour interview is nothing short of a miracle.

By waiting to come out until she felt like she had a compelling reason, by worrying less about her public than about a vital cause, Rosie O'Donnell has done a great good. She has taken it upon herself to give the abstract idea of "gay parents" a human face - and better, a beloved face.

"I don't think America knows what a gay parent looks like: I am the gay parent," Rosie said.

All we can hope for is that America will take her message to heart the way they have taken her television show into their homes.

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10861814

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Too Much Choice! There are those PC types who feel it's wrong to let McDonald's set up outlets in developing nations because "the people" might be seduced into eating there, and thus become victims of globalized exploitation. Similarly, some of the arguments those on the Left are making against the proposed new 24-hour gay cable channel (a joint venture between Showtime and MTV) seem to imply with trepidation that gay people might, well, choose to watch it. Take Rick Whitaker's opinion piece, We've Come to Far to Be Reduced to the Small Screen, in the March 17 Washington Post. Of the new channel, and television in general, he writes: -- "the words 'lowest common denominator' come to mind -- along with 'corporate exploitation' and 'crass commercialism'." Want more? How about this bit of history:

"The gay movement will have gone from bottle-throwing militants at the 1969 Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village, which sparked the gay pride movement, to the manipulated consumer niche of around-the-clock commercial television in less than 35 years. It's hard to imagine a more backward evolution."

But here's the gist of his opposition:

""the gay characters on prime-time shows are not there because television executives have a conscience; they're there because they contribute to the lucrative popularity of the shows. Viacom's goal is to make money, not to serve the gay community, of course. A gay channel is not a step forward. It is a form of control -- and an embarrassing one at that."

Whew. It seems those conniving capitalists are (shudder) out to MAKE MONEY, and not to advance the Left's political agenda. And they've come up with yet another evil scheme -- creating a gay cable channel that gay folks might watch and enjoy, thus feeding the greed machine. Why, it's the new opium of the people!


Now there are, in fact, some reasonable arguments for questioning whether an all-gay channel would promote cultural integration or be a new sort of media ghetto. But can't this be debated without resulting to knee-jerk attacks against the very free market/consumer choice system that's been the engine not only of Western prosperity, but of our open and, yes, increasingly tolerant society to boot?

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Everything's Coming Up Rosie. No question, Rosie O"Donnell is the Next Big [Gay] Thing, following her much publicized, nationally televised coming out last Thursday in a mega-interview with ABC-TV's Diane Sawyer. As I wrote previously ("Really Rosie", March 4), I"ve had issues with O"Donnell, but her current crusade on behalf of overturning Florida's odious ban on gay-parent adoptions is a noble crusade. As ACLU rep Eric Ferrero told the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, "Twenty-five years ago, celebrity helped get support for the gay adoption ban," referring to singer/anti-gay rights activist Anita Bryant's push to pass the law in 1977. "If the power of celebrity can now help turn that around, that's fine."

When a spokeswoman for Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was asked for a comment, she would only say that "the state of Florida is complying with current law." Jeb's gonna have to do better than that -- either he"ll be forced to defend a hateful and hurtful law that nevertheless may be supported by most of the state's GOP establishment, or he'll rise to the occasion and take a principled stand -- for the controversial position that gays and lesbians deserve equality under the state's laws.

Frozen in Time? My partner just received a mailing from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force inviting him to become a new member. What's interesting is that this could have been mailed 10 years ago. The big draw is a photo and quote from Jerry Falwell. Sure, he's still saying nasty things, but get real -- he no longer has any measurable political influence. The mailing dredges up Lou Sheldon as well, as if the RADICAL RIGHT were about to storm the gates, take over the nation, and send us all to the camps.

Also of interest: I didn't see the word "gay" used anywhere in the 4 pager other than in the organization's own name. It's all "GLBT people." That may be standard activistspeak these days, but what do Gary Gay Guy and Laurie Lesbian make of it?

Changing Times. Last week, the White House's Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS held a wine-and-cheese reception in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and invited members of AIDS Action, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), and other AIDS advocacy groups so that, according to an official memo, "members of the community might meet members of the Council and so that members of the Council might get better acquainted with each other." Scott Evertz, head of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy (and the former head of the Wisconsin chapter of the Log Cabin Republicans) was also at the meeting. OK, no big deal. Except that this is the sort of routine interaction that we were told would NEVER, EVER happen if George W. were elected -- a sentiment expressed during the campaign by many of those relaxing and shmoozing with top Administration AIDS-policy officials last week.

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10721358

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A Measure of Progress. The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a Wisconsin public school teacher, Tommy Schroeder, who claimed he suffered years of crude anti-gay heckling by elementary and middle-school students. Schroeder sued the school board, charging it had refused to require sensitivity training and did not adequately punish harassers (the board claimed it did punish students who could be identified, and that Schroeder exaggerated the problem).
I don't necessarily agree that the suit lacked merit, but I found it significant that one of the judges who ruled with the majority opinion to dismiss, Reagan appointee Richard A. Posner, wrote the following:

"Homosexuals have not been accorded the constitutional status of blacks or women. This does not make them constitutional outlaws. Any group"has a right not to be victimized by an irrational withdrawal of state protection."

For a conservative federal judge to be moved to affirm that the law protects gays -- even if finding that in this instance a gay claimant had no case -- is a sign that, despite a few neanderthal state judges, we"re making irrefutable progress toward achieving equality under the law.

Unqueer. Keith Boykin is a black gay writer/activist and a man "of the left." Still, I enjoyed reading his recent article "Queer as White Folk" in which he takes on the use of the Q word. "Despite the claim that "queer" is more inclusive than "gay" and simpler than "LGBT," the word "queer" is just as white as the television show that bears its name," Boykin writes. "It does not represent the vast majority of black homosexuals and bisexuals." He concludes, ""progressive activists should think twice before promoting the term "queer" as inclusive language, especially to blacks." I hope that ruffles a few feathers on the "more correct than thou" gay academic left, and helps derail once and for all the "call us queer" bandwagon.

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