WATCH: Joe Biden Compares Selma and Stonewall, Disses Ben Carson
In a speech to the HRC, Biden discusses the unity of all civil rights movements and shakes his head at Carson’s ‘ridiculous assertion’ that being gay is a choice.
Trudy Ring
Category Archives: NEWS
Madonna: A Rebel With a Cause
Madonna: A Rebel With a Cause
Madonna is a sacred subject.
I learnt this last week when I penned an op-ed piece for Advocate arguing that Madonna’s latest album Rebel Heart was in itself an achievement. I wrote that whether or not the album had any musical, aesthetic, or cultural impact in today’s music scene was not important. The sheer act that Madonna (at 56) was releasing her thirteenth-studio album was enough for me.
Rebel Heart would demonstrate Madonna’s ability to subvert and break existing cultural narratives about women, music, and ageing. For me, it would be another watershed moment for the legendary singer.
Now that the actual “official” release of the album is only days away, it may be worth briefly backtracking the hype around Madonna’s 2015 record.
Although Rebel Heart has attracted much media attention because of the multiple leaks that has plagued it, Madonna has persevered in maintaining official dates for its release. Sometimes an online music “leak” is a ploy to generate interest and media attention in an artist’s forthcoming song or album.
In Madonna’s case, it was obvious that this was far from true. The singer took to Instagram to describe the experience as “artistic rape” and discussed the trauma in follow-up interviews, including a revealing one given to Rolling Stone.
Rebel Heart has been marked by multiple controversies, including Madonna’s reappropriation of images of civil rights and religious figures. This is not unfamiliar territory for the singer who has, for instance, been on the Roman Catholic Church’s hit list for decades. But her use of Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King on Instagram was seen as disrespectful and offensive. Some saw it as a poor reappropriation and one that was more an attempt to publicise her album than commemorate the deep and meaningful legacy of these humanitarian figures.
But the conceit behind Rebel Heart is really about the singer challenging the status quo. Madonna’s Instagram images have profiled a number of figures from history who were rebels who fought for political and social injustices and became heroes because of their civil and religious campaigns.
For fans of the Queen of Pop, the meaning of the album’s title is self-evident. Many of us have known the singer’s history of challenging and complicating the existing social, political, and cultural norms around women and sex and then injecting her own brand of transformative and performative style into these conventions.
Indeed Madonna has been a major “rebel” — the only? — of the music scene for the last thirty years. Just scanning the track list of Rebel Heart we see the album make explicit references to her rebellion with songs including the title track “Rebel Heart,” alongside “Bitch I’m Madonna (feat. Nicki Minaj),” and “Joan of Arc”.
While her previous two albums, 2008’s Hard Candy and 2012’s MDNA were apparently chasing the cultural and musical zeitgeist, Rebel Heart is not as preoccupied with emulating the existing musical and aesthetic energies of today’s music scene. Instead it feels more like self-reflective essay from the legendary singer, with dance tracks, ballads, and electro-pop songs marking each new “chapter” of her confessional dissertation.
Some fans cite 2005’s Confessions on a Dance Floor as her last great piece of musical triumph. Its disco-inspired sound, continuous flow from track-to-track, and iconic “Hung Up” music video offered fans a side to Madonna that took us back to her musical roots and revisited a defining moment of twentieth-century music.
But Rebel Heart is Madonna’s next masterpiece in the making.
The title track of the album “Rebel Heart” is striking in that many of the leaks of this song had more of an electro dance sound. (Sorry for listening to the leaks Madonna!) But the finished version of “Rebel Heart” opens with a series of strumming guitar sounds. This lends the song a sense of candour and intimacy as though the songstress is telling us that she is really opening up on her struggles and pains as the only iconoclast of modern music. She is telling us that she has always had a rebel heart and will continue to break the rules that others won’t.
In the same song she admits, “I’ve spent some time as a narcissist/…trying to be so provocative.” Madonna’s history of transgressing the traditional trajectory for pop stars and musicians has made her one of the singular icons of dissidence and female defiance in twentieth-century music. Compare “Rebel Heart” with “Unapologetic Bitch” and we see Madonna have some fun with this metaphor through the blendings of a reggae sound as she sings “sometimes I got to call it like it is”.
Other tracks like “Wash All Over Me,” “Ghostown,” and “Joan of Arc” are really moving and uplifting songs as they prioritise Madonna’s raw vocal talents and the singer’s desire to be more direct in communicating her intimate confessions to fans. Madonna is telling us that she is and has been a rebel of the music, art, and culture scene for decades and that sometimes she has hurt, ached, and burned with painful emotions.
But because she is Madonna she will continue to break the boundaries set on her identity as a singer, artist, and woman.
It would not be a true Madonna record without some Catholic symbolism thrown in for good measure. We find her “tast[ing] holy water” before encouraging us to genuflect and to “confess”. Madonna here returns to religious symbols she originally exploited in the 1980s (who can forget her greatest hits record The Immaculate Collection?), reminding us other disobedience toward the Roman-Catholic church and her own religious upbringing.
To me, whether or not the album itself is well received by her critics is unimportant. The very existence of Rebel Heart is exciting and gratifying enough.
With this thirteenth record, Madonna is telling us she has not, does not, and will not ever stop her campaign against breaking the rules of gender, sex, and the limits placed on her own humanity.
HRC National Corporate Partners Support Historic Amicus Brief
HRC National Corporate Partners Support Historic Amicus Brief
The 379 signatories represent a Who’s Who of American companies and organizations
HRC.org
CNN Looks at the Executions of Gays by ISIS, Interviews Gay Couple Who Fled Syria: VIDEO
CNN Looks at the Executions of Gays by ISIS, Interviews Gay Couple Who Fled Syria: VIDEO
CNN’s Arwa Damon reports on the series of videos in recent weeks of allegedly gay men being thrown from buildings and stoned to death by ISIS militants while crowds of villagers looks on, and what it means for gay men under threat in Syria and Iraq.
CNN also talks to Sami and his partner, who fled to Istanbul from Syria after someone tried to run them over with a car. They were subsequently threatened by someone on a phone call:
“There was a man that was, first he is saying this time you could have make it and you survived. But the next time you will not.”
But even their refuge in Istanbul was threatened. When the ISIS video of the gay killings emerged, one of their fellow housemates made remarks, Sami says:
“He made a very absurd joke about, he was so amused, and he had so much fun watching homosexuals. And he say now gay men can fly.”
Watch (note: portion of video repeats after 3:30) the disturbing interview, AFTER THE JUMP…
Andy Towle
Dan Savage Invites Ben Carson To Suck His D*** — To Prove A Point (Mostly)
Dan Savage Invites Ben Carson To Suck His D*** — To Prove A Point (Mostly)
Dear Dr. Carson,
If being gay is a choice, prove it. Choose it. Choose to be gay yourself. Show America how that’s done, Ben, show us how a man can choose to be gay. Suck my dick. Name the time and the place and I’ll bring my dick and a camera crew and you can suck me off and win the argument.
Very sincerely yours,
— Syndicated sex columnist and ornery gay Dan Savage challenging noted presidential hopeful and actual doctor, Ben Carson, to submit the receipts following his comments that prison (presumably among other things) makes one gay.
Les Fabian Brathwaite
Rape Happens In Gay Relationships Too
Rape Happens In Gay Relationships Too
About two years ago I moved in with my boyfriend of three years. We were gross—the kind of couple you hate standing behind in a line. I couldn’t walk down the street without being attached to him in some way. He was my first love, and I’ll never forget or be able to fully explain the feeling of wholeness just walking around with him brought me.
13 Guaranteed Ways To Fail At Picking Up Someone Up At A Bar From A Castro Bartender
13 Guaranteed Ways To Fail At Picking Up Someone Up At A Bar From A Castro Bartender
For a nearly a decade Yuri Kagan, author Vodka & Limelight, has slung drinks at watering holes, from the gay male variety to the sexually ambiguous sort.
He collected some of his best tips on how to get lucky or go home alone…
1. Boy you must be tired… of running through my mind all night… Those cheeks look good enough to eat off.
So your once trusty pickup-lines are now greeted by an awkward stare? Stop using them. There are great conversation starters, others linger like bad gas. A great pickup-line that works for both sexes: You look familiar, do I know you from somewhere? It works even if you know you have never met. It’s an easy way to start a conversation, casually flirt and put feelers out with little risk. If after two words you aren’t into it just apologize and go back to fishing the cherry out of the bottom of your drink. Awkwardness minimized.
2. While on a date where booze is involved don’t blame booze for everything you fuck up.
I didn’t mean to grab your butt, I’m drunk. First off, know your limits and take responsibility for your own actions. Second, blaming booze doesn’t make sense. I wouldn’t blame Sake for Pearl Harbor or Tequila for stealing American jobs so leave booze alone. On this topic, if you don’t live in dorms don’t act like it. It’s not a drinking competition. No one cares how much you drink unless they have to take care of you.
3. Don’t send anyone to do the flirting for you.
This is true for any type of relationship. You aren’t in study hall anymore so don’t send your gal pal up to tell me how you think I’m cute and ask what I think. If you want to know, do it yourself or live wondering forever.
4. See that bitch at Starbucks on his phone even while ordering coffee?
The one where it’s hard to tell who she is talking to or about? The barista has to ask this person to repeat their drink so you just roll your eyes. Don’t be that person on a date. Put the phone away period.
5. Do not talk about you exes, people you have slept with, your painful corns, the co-worker that always steals your parking spot, your opinion on abortion, the death of your sister or cat.
Keep your baggage to yourself like that bald spot you may have and only you notice. Like Santa, slowly gift your baggage out of your large bag of crap one item per date. It’s too much to hear all of another person’s problems in one sitting because we are usually more preoccupied with ourselves.
6. You know what’s hot on a date? Tipping.
Seriously, people that visibly tip get more play. It shows they are generous and care enough to pay for service. Bartenders don’t make the rules, it’s just the way it is. Also, don’t tell the other person how to tip. No one likes a backseat tipper.
7. Don’t ask the so why ya’ single? question unless you want to stay single.
It’s a pretty dumb question to which there is no good answer. No one wants to hear the response to which is the truth about how the love of your life dumped you at Ikea because you didn’t like his taste in paisley sheets.
8. Offer to pay now and again.
It’s about offering — with the freedom-based, rule free gay culture it’s sometimes hard to figure out the rules. Here is how it goes: If you invite the person out, you should at least offer to buy them a drink even if you know he will pay because of that great job as a Facebook programmer or Apple engineer. It’s about manners. This goes for both gay and straight relationships. Nothing is harder to watch then a woman who assumed her date was buying her a drink and doesn’t have enough cash. Also, if someone buys you drinks you don’t technically owe him anything but it could be considered common courtesy to let them at least cop a feel or more if you are feeling it after a few of those drinks.
9. Again, get off that phone!
Straight, gay or greedy it doesn’t matter. If you are out at a bar or place with a lot of single people, get off of Tindr, Grindr, Hookd or any variation/combination. It’s a bit redundant to be in a virtual bar in a real bar. Save that for when you’re at home or at work and there is slim-pickin if you are not interested in the boy next door or your roomie. No one want to walk up to you if you are absorbed in your phone, especially if you are on one of those apps chatting up the guy at the bar next door or in the townhouse up the street. We all know what you are doing as your finger slides across that screen. It’s especially annoying if we walk right past you and see a dick photo on your phone of a guy who is literally across the room.
10. Don’t talk to the bartender more than the person you are with.
Also, make eye-contact. Not the creepy, couple seconds too long eye-contact. Just enough to show you care. On a side note: You won’t go home with the bartender so stop being rude.
11. Don’t be too quick to casually announce you don’t believe in condoms.
First off it could be considered irresponsible, depending on the circumstances, and is a case of putting the cart before the stallion or something like that.
12. A date is not the time to officially come out.
If you are new to gay, we already know cause you still have that new car smell.
13. Don’t pretend not to eat.
You aren’t a Ken doll. Nothing is more sad then watching a woman or a gay man out on a date with a tiny salad while their date has the surf n’ turf. We know you are stuffing your fat gourd behind closed doors so keep it real.
Check out Yuri Kagan’s Vodka & Limelight on Amazon
Chris Bull
Former Romney Advisor Backs Away From Gay Marriage Advocacy As He Preps Jeb Bush's 2016 White House Run
Former Romney Advisor Backs Away From Gay Marriage Advocacy As He Preps Jeb Bush's 2016 White House Run
Dave Kochel, a former Mitt Romney advisor who came out for marriage equality in 2013 saying “the culture wars are over…and the Republicans, largely, lost,” is backing away from his outspoken support of same-sex marriage as he prepares to lead former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign, TIME reports:
Kochel, an Iowa-based veteran of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns, signed a Supreme Court friend of the court brief when justices overturned California’s gay marriage ban in 2013. But this week Kochel’s name was off the list when more than 300 Republicans signed another amicus brief this week in support of legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.
In an email to TIME, Kochel, who is currently working for Bush’s Right to Rise PAC, said he was stepping back from his public role. “In my full time role at the PAC, I have decided not to sign advocacy petitions of any kind,” he said.
At CPAC last week, Bush touted his anti-gay views a crowded audience, saying “I believe in traditional marriage.“
Kyler Geoffroy
9 of Ellen's Cutest Animal Jokes on Instagram
9 of Ellen's Cutest Animal Jokes on Instagram
Need a dose of adorable? Ellen’s got you covered.
Allegra Ringo
www.advocate.com/pets/2015/03/07/9-ellens-cutest-animal-jokes-instagram
HRC Remembers Selma’s Bloody Sunday
HRC Remembers Selma’s Bloody Sunday
Today, HRC honors the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama.
HRC.org
www.hrc.org/blog/entry/hrc-remembers-selmas-bloody-sunday?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed
