Op-ed: Don't Mention Aaron Schock's Belt Ever Again
Aaron Schock’s rise and fall shows that even gay people still cling to gay stereotypes.
Matt Baume
Category Archives: NEWS
Anderson Cooper Grills Andy Cohen On If He's Ever Had Sex In the 'Watch What Happens Live!' Clubhouse: VIDEO
Anderson Cooper Grills Andy Cohen On If He's Ever Had Sex In the 'Watch What Happens Live!' Clubhouse: VIDEO
During his guest appearance on Watch What Happens Live! this past week, Anderson Cooper switched things up and decided to grill host Andy Cohen on a series of questions for a special one-on-one interview before the two headed off to Boston over the weekend for their “unscripted, uncensored and unforgettable night of conversation.”
Questions the silver fox asked included:
Which star’s entourage has annoyed Cohen the most?
Does Cohen think AC’s giggles too much?
Has Cohen ever hooked up with someone in his office or in the WWHL Clubhouse?
Would Cohen rather have sex with Cher or Madonna?
Hillary Clinton or Michelle Obama?
Find out Cohen’s answers, AFTER THE JUMP…
Kyler Geoffroy
When Miss America Met The Biggest Star in the World
When Miss America Met The Biggest Star in the World
Queery editor Mark S. King shares this remembrance of a night filled with celebrities — and the man who was the biggest star of them all.
It wasn’t easy keeping my composure when I interviewed for my first job for an AIDS agency in 1987. Sitting across from me was Daniel P. Warner, the founder of the first AIDS organization in Los Angeles, LA Shanti. Daniel was achingly beautiful. He had brown eyes as big as serving platters and muscles that fought the confines of the safe sex t-shirt he was wearing.
At 26 years old, with my red hair and freckles that had not yet faded, I wasn’t used to having conversations with the kind of gorgeous man you might spy across a gay bar and wonder plaintively what it might be like to have him as a friend. But Daniel, one of legions of people who had abandoned whatever career they had planned and went to work building support programs for the sick and dying, did his best to put me at ease. He hired me as his assistant on the spot, and then spent the next few years teaching me the true meaning of community service.
My new mentor and friend quite literally embodied Shanti’s mission to provide a non-judgmental, compassionate presence to our clients, many of whom were in the final stages of life.
Daniel was also our secret weapon when it came to fund raising. Whether shirtless in a dunking booth, dressed in full leather regalia, or spruced up to meet a major donor, it was tough to resist his charms. He knew his gifts, organizationally and otherwise, and offered them liberally for the benefit of our fledgling agency.
As time went on, Shanti grew enormously but Daniel’s health faltered. He eventually made the decision to move to San Francisco to retire, but we all knew what that really meant. I was resigned to never see him again.
In 1993, Shanti hosted our biggest, most star-studded fundraiser we had ever produced. It was a tribute to the recently departed entertainer Peter Allen, lost to AIDS, and the magnitude of celebrities who came to perform or pay their respects was like nothing I have ever seen. By that time I had become our director of public relations, and it was my job to corral the stars into the media room for interviews.
Celebrities like Lily Tomlin, Barry Manilow, Lypsinka, Ann-Margret, and AIDS icon Michael Callen were making their way through the gauntlet of cameras in the crowded media room. I had tried to no avail to convince our headliner Bette Midler to make herself available to the expectant press, but as I stood in her dressing room pleading my case, she firmly declined, explaining that she had an early morning call for the filming of the television remake of Gypsy. I had tried to insist until she waved me away and started removing her panty hose right in front of me. I nearly tripped through the doorway during my frantic retreat.
Back up in the media room, one of my volunteers approached me with a look of shock and excitement on his face. He pulled me from the doorway. “I didn’t know he was going to be here,” he said with wide eyes. “I mean –“
“Who?” I asked. On my God. Tom Hanks? Richard Gere?
“He’s with Miss America, Mark,” he said. “They’re right behind me.” We both turned as the couple rounded the corner of the hallway. They entered the light of the media room and I barely kept a gasp from escaping.
Beautiful Leanza Cornett, who had been crowned Miss America, in part, by being the first winner to have HIV prevention as her platform, had a very small man at her side. His head bore the inflated effects of chemotherapy, which had apparently done little to stem the kaposi sarcoma (KS) lesions that were horribly visible across his face, his neck, his hands. His eyes were swollen nearly shut. In defiance of all this, his lips were parted in a pearly, shining smile that matched the one worn by his gorgeous escort.
I stepped into the media room, wanting to collect myself, to wipe the look of pity off my face. I swallowed hard and stepped into the doorway to announce them to the press.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said. “Miss America 1993 Leanza Cornett, escorted by Mr. Daniel Warner, co-founder of the Los Angeles Shanti Foundation.”
The couple walked into the bright light and several flashes went off at once. And then the condition of Miss America’s companion dawned on the camera crews. A few flashes continued, slowly, like a strobe light, and across the room a few of the photographers lifted their eyes from their equipment to be sure their lenses had not deceived them.
Daniel looked to me with a graceful smile, and it became a full, sunny grin as he looked to the beauty queen beside him and put his arm around her. She pulled him closer to her. Their faces sparkled and beamed – glorious, joyful, defiant – in the blazing light of the room.
That man, I thought to myself, that brave, incredible man is the biggest star I have ever seen.
And then the pace of the flashes began to grow as the photographers realized they were witnessing something profound. The couple walked the path through the room and toward the other door. “Just one more, Mr. Warner?” one suddenly called out. “Miss America! Just another?” The room became a cacophony of fluttering lenses and calls to look this way and that, all of it powered by two incandescent smiles.
Daniel and Leanza held tight to each other, their delight lifted another notch as they basked in their final call. Every moment of grace, every example of bravery and resilience I have known from people living with HIV, can be summed up in that glorious instant of joy and empowerment.
“Boss!” I said to him as they exited the room. “I didn’t know you would be here. It’s just… so great.”
He winked at me. “I’ll be around,” he said. “I brought my whole family with me tonight. I need to get to the party and show off my new girlfriend!” The three of us laughed, and then I watched Daniel and Miss America, arm in arm, disappear down the hall and into the reception.
Only months later, I was at my desk in Atlanta in my new position as director of a coalition of people living with HIV when I received a phone call.
“Mark, this is Daniel,” said a weakened voice. “Monday is my birthday, and I thought that might be a good day to leave.” Daniel had always been fiercely supportive of the right of the terminally ill to die with dignity and on their own terms. We shared some of our favorite memories of our days at Shanti and I was able to thank him for his faith in me and setting into motion a lifetime of work devoted to those of us living with HIV.
Daniel P. Warner, as promised, died on his birthday on Monday, June 14, 1993. He was 38 years old.
(Photo credits: Daniel Warner by Jim Blevins; Lily Tomlin and Lypsinka by Ron Galella; Daniel Warner and Leanza Cornett by Karen Ocamb.)
Mark
Magic Leap Is Bringing Us One Step Closer To The Augmented Reality Of The Future: VIDEO
Magic Leap Is Bringing Us One Step Closer To The Augmented Reality Of The Future: VIDEO
Augmented reality has long since been one of the most promising visions of the future presented by Silicon Valley. As cell phones have grown more powerful and wearable devices have become more ubiquitous, that vision has come increasingly closer to realization. In a new video originally meant to be screened at South By Southwest, Magic Leap, a company specializing in AR and backed by Google, shares a little bit of the software its been working on.
Most forms of AR–like Microsoft’s HoloLens–are a virtual overlays projected onto physical objects that can only be seen through a digital lens. Magic Leap’s take on the tech showcases a literal first person shooter game in which static physical objects become weapons that can be used to fight enemies in a video game.
Magic Leap also shows a few brief moments of interacting with e-mail as if it were a tangible thing and sending it with the flick of a wrist. It’s difficult to say just how close this concept video is to what Magic Leap may eventually bring to the consumer market, but the company’s PR director says that the Magic Leap team is playing a version of this game around the office right now.
Check it out, AFTER THE JUMP…
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Texas Republican Lawmaker Smacks Down Witness From Anti-Gay Hate Group: VIDEO
Texas Republican Lawmaker Smacks Down Witness From Anti-Gay Hate Group: VIDEO
The other day we told you how Texas lawmakers have set a record this year for the most anti-LGBT bills in the history of any state.
As it turns out, more pro-LGBT bills have also been filed in Texas than ever before, and one of them was heard in committee this week.
House Bill 537 would allow same-sex parents to have both names on the birth certificates of adopted children, which currently can only include the name of the one female, the mother, and one male, the father. As a result, more than 9,000 adopted children in Texas who are being raised by same-sex parents don’t have accurate birth certificates.
During Wednesday’s hearing, the bill found some unlikely support from a Republican, Rep. Byron Cook (above), who chairs the House Committee on State Affairs. Cook, who has an adopted child, smacked down a witness from the anti-LGBT hate group Texas Values.
The Texas Observer reports:
Julie Drenner (right), of Texas Values, claimed the bill would lead to threesomes adopting, affect all birth certificates and require the state to revise more than 20 forms.
But Rep. Byron Cook (R-Corsicana), chairman of the House Committee on State Affairs, told Drenner he was “struggling” with those arguments, and suggested that same-sex couples have been more willing to adopt special-needs children than “the traditional community.”
“That’s a terrible indictment on one group, to be honest with you,” Cook told Drenner. “In regards to your issue that you have to change the forms, so what? I really don’t understand that argument at all. Right now in Texas, we are struggling. We do not have enough parents who are willing to adopt. Thank goodness for people that will adopt children and give them loving homes.”
The bill’s author, Democratic Rep. Rafael Anchia, later noted that a fact-checking service found Texas Values’ claims about the bill to be “mostly false.”
Cook left the bill pending but plans to call it back up for a vote, saying the state owes it to the adopted children of same-sex parents to give them “peace of mind.”
Watch Cook’s smackdown of Drenner, AFTER THE JUMP …
John Wright
Is Your Cruise Ship Homophobic? Spend Your Queer Dollars On Gay-friendly Cruise Lines
Is Your Cruise Ship Homophobic? Spend Your Queer Dollars On Gay-friendly Cruise Lines
This weekly travel column is brought to you by ManAboutWorld, an immersive digital premium gay travel magazine from Billy Kolber, Ed Salvato, Kenny Porpora, and nearly 75 Global Correspondents.
ManAboutWorld examined the gay-friendliness of the cruise industry by polling all major cruise companies. The cruise industry hasn’t always had a great relationship with gay cruisers. When RSVP Vacations first started chartering ships 30 years ago, most lines wouldn’t even allow a gay group. Today, most lines are actively welcoming, if not marketing directly to LGBT customers. But when it comes to policies that actively engage LGBT customers and protect LGBT employees and guests, the lines in general, are not as far along as you’d think, and in general, reluctant to discuss it.
Some cruise lines do much better than others. For example MSC Cruises has just launched a wedding program for lesbian and gay couples, performing legal same-sex weddings in Miami, and symbolic weddings in select other ports. Others aren’t so enthusiastic about their LGBT guests, providing vague responses about ‘welcoming everyone.’ And five major lines (Norwegian Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean International, Silversea Cruises and Windstar Cruises) haven’t yet responded to numerous requests for over two months. It’s even harder to understand when taking into account that some of them, including Windstar, offer full-ship charters to gay cruise operators.
We don’t have enough responses to fairly grade the individual lines this year, but we’re reporting the responses we did receive. We believe their answers should matter to all of us as gay consumers, and urge you to join the conversation. See the full article with the cruise lines’ responses in the March issue of ManAboutWorld or on ManAboutWorld.com. Be sure to tell us about your cruising experiences: the good, the bad and even the NSFW in the comments section in our blog.
We want to make the straight high seas a safer and more fun place for gay cruisers so we propose the following set of LGBT-friendly criteria for cruise lines.
- LGBT employees should be covered by a non-discrimination policy that explicitly mentions sexual orientation and gender expression.
- Customer-facing employees should have diversity/inclusion training that specifically covers LGBT guests.
- Cruise lines docking in ports where homosexuality or gender expression are criminalized should provide all passengers notice about such laws before disembarkation in those ports.
In addition to these minimum standards, we believe marketing and outreach to LGBT consumers, membership in the IGLTA and promotion of LGBT gatherings in daily cruise calendars are important indicators of a cruise line’s commitment to LGBT customers, not just commerce. How will cruise lines react to our criteria? We’ll hold them accountable and report back in a year.
ManAboutWorld offers opinionated travel information and inspiration in over 100 destinations around the world: Get ManAboutWorld Magazine on iTunes (iOS) or Google Play (Android).
Image credits: Top: Craig Smith, Source Events; Right: John O’Connor, Tropics Magazine; Bottom: Steven Bereznai
Ed Salvato
Gay Iconography: Tracy Chapman's Political Folk
Gay Iconography: Tracy Chapman's Political Folk
Earlier this week, beloved pop star and American Idol Kelly Clarkson delivered a powerful performance of “Give Me One Reason,” originally performed by folk singer Tracy Chapman. And, while Kelly is adored by legions of fans gay and straight, Chapman has earned her spot as a legendary singer, songwriter and activist.
Growing up amidst racial tension in Cleveland’s recently integrated schools, Chapman’s interest in social activism was stoked at an early age. She grew up in a working-class household, raised by her mother, but received a scholarship to attend a private school and then graduated from Tufts University. She described her educational experience to The Guardian in 2008:
“The city had been forced to integrate the schools so they were bussing black children into white neighborhoods, and white children into black neighborhoods, and people were upset about it so there were race riots. A lot of kids spent more time out of school than in, but I always loved school and thought it was my way out of Cleveland, and out of poverty.”
While Chapman has been steadfast about keeping her personal and professional life separate, she did have a romantic relationship with author Alice Walker in the 1990s, which Walker discussed with The Guardian in 2013. As a socially-conscious artist, Chapman has been an advocate for LGBT rights and AIDS-research, among other human rights issues.
Relive some of our favorite Tracy Chapman performances, AFTER THE JUMP …
On June 11, 1988, Chapman was one of many performers at the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute at Wembley Stadium. It was a truly star-making turn for the young performer. Stevie Wonder was slated to perform later in the show, but when some of his equipment was missing, he had to postpone his set, sending producers into a scramble. They brought Chapman back out for a second appearance on the massive broadcast shown to 67 countries and 600 million viewers. Before the event, Chapman had sold 250,000 records, but in the two weeks following, she sold two million.
Chapman’s 1988 self-titled debut featured one of her most enduring hits to date, the gorgeous escape fantasy, “Fast Car.” The track peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Rolling Stone ranked it at 167 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time in 2010.
One of the organizations Chapman has supported throughout her career is Amnesty International. “I’m approached by lots of organizations and lots of people who want me to support their various charitable efforts in some way,” she told NPR in 2009. “And I look at those requests and I basically try to do what I can. And I have certain interest of my own, generally an interest in human rights, so that’s partly why I’ve supported Amnesty International for all these years.” She built a devoted international audience during the 1988 Amnesty International Human Rights Now! Tour. You can see her perform “Why” on the tour in the clip above.
One of Chapman’s politically-charged songs is “Talkin’ Bout A Revolution.” The dynamic tune includes lyrics like “Don’t you know, they’re talkin’ ’bout a revolution/It sounds like a whisper/While they’re standing in the welfare lines/Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation/Wasting time, in the unemployment lines/Sitting around, waiting for a promotion.”
Her biggest hit ever is “Give Me One Reason,” which hit No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. It earned her a Grammy Award for Best Rock Song.
What’s your favorite Tracy Chapman track?
Bobby Hankinson
www.towleroad.com/2015/03/gay-iconography-tracy-chapmans-political-folk.html
Op-ed: Don't Mention Aaron's Schock's Belt Ever Again
Gay Dad Has Message For Dolce & Gabbana: Surrogacy Creates Loving, Well-Adjusted Children
Gay Dad Has Message For Dolce & Gabbana: Surrogacy Creates Loving, Well-Adjusted Children
“I wish I had some Dolce & Gabbana crap so I could burn it.” – Reads a note posted by one of my witty on Facebook this week.
I usually don’t get worked up by stupidity. Luckily, there are enough hotheads in the news and social media that I can sit back and enjoy the public stoning of broadcast faux pas. Instead, I get worked up about nerdier stuff, such as campaign finance reform. However, many people have asked me what I think of the recent comments by fashion moguls Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, who were a couple for 23 years.
First, I roll my eyes at their “bling” with gold logos splashed all over tacky glasses, bags and clothes.
But then I really rolled my eyes when I read their statement that children of IVF are “children of chemistry, synthetic children. Uteruses for rent, semen chosen from a catalog.”
D&G later stated, “Our views are traditional, not judgmental.”
I give them credit for sticking their ground and not making public apologies to rectify the vicious backlash against their brand.
And semantically speaking, were they wrong? My children (produced via IVF and artificial insemination) could be considered “children of chemistry”. But taking that argument to a logical conclusion, aren’t all children “of chemistry”? Egg and sperm meeting creates a chemical reaction, right?
So D&G define traditionalism by their conservative Italian Catholic upbringing, a community whose edicts were constructed by a bunch of white men with zero experience in child rearing or long-term partnership (at least in the open).
Looking past archaic conservative Catholicism, what can the rest of us reasonably define as what is provided by a “traditional” family? Can we all agree on love and nurturing?
Does that require a mother and a father? Well, sometimes kids have to make do with their single mothers, single fathers, commune parents or older siblings. It’s not ideal, but they make do. And they’ve been making do ever since sickness and war began stealing parents away since…well, the same time period that women have had sisterly love and men have made brotherly love.
But gay parenting is not accidental chance like a suddenly single mother.
So is my child missing something by not having a mother? I ask myself that a lot. It was a major consideration before my partner and I started down the surrogacy path.
My French “mother” (long story) drilled me for years (and continues to do so) asking, “Don’t you think your son might be missing something, not having the nurturing bond with a mother? Or that the surrogate incubated your child, but didn’t foment love in the womb?”
Maybe.
But…my children eat their vegetables, don’t throw temper tantrums when I leave them with babysitters, snuggle with me on the couch, fall asleep in my arms, have twinkles in their eyes when they laugh with me, seek my approval, show off their “tricks” to me, run to me for comfort, stop crying when I hold them, laugh easily when I play “peek-a-boo,” nap wonderfully, charm strangers, easily stop fighting when I intervene, obey me, identify themselves as the children of two fathers, readily hug their friends and teachers, sing, dance, play, adore each other, would prefer to be with me than doing anything alone (but play by themselves, too), and run to embrace my partner and me every single time we walk in the door.
My kids love and love. And they are well-adjusted. They aren’t brats. They aren’t hyper-active, they aren’t obnoxious (despite my over-dramatic blog rants.)
So maybe they’re missing a cosmic, ethereal, uteran bond that other kids have?
I know my partner and I more than make up for that.
As for you, Messieurs Dolce & Gabbana, your “family values” juxtapose your professional aesthetic; one that fosters superficiality and actually undermines the traditional family.
Your ad campaigns trumpeting “traditional” Italian families, insult your Italian/Catholic roots. Endless macho men and air-brushed woman posing as “happily married” do not promote family values. They promote insecurity, superficiality and your own bank accounts.
Further, your ads prep children for disappointment. “Why doesn’t my traditional family look like that? Why can’t I be that beautiful/skinny/rich?”
Instead of helping make the world a better place (through, for example, compassionate parenting) you cultivate greed, lust and envy with your tacky materialism.
What quicker way to dismantle families?
Get it together, D&G: stop trumpeting antiquated ideas of what a traditional family should be, and help the rest of us celebrate the dysfunctional, devoted, beautiful families that the rest of us really are.
Gavin Lodge is a Broadway performer, father and blogger. This essay was first published on Daddy Coping In Style.
Jeremy Kinser
Trans Activist Michael Hughes Discusses Viral #WeJustNeedToPee Campaign With MSNBC's Thomas Roberts: VIDEO
Trans Activist Michael Hughes Discusses Viral #WeJustNeedToPee Campaign With MSNBC's Thomas Roberts: VIDEO
Michael Hughes had been suicidal for years — and even attempted to take his life once — when he accidentally stumbled upon a book that would change his life forever.
The book was “Body Alchemy,” by photographer Loren Cameron, a compilation of images of trans men before and after their transitions.
“It was the first time I realized that I could do something about it, and there was a path to take to become the person I knew myself to be,” Hughes said. “So within a couple of weeks of that I packed up and moved from Texas to Boston, Massachusetts, and changed my name a week later, and started this crazy journey.
Hughes, of course, is the 45-year-old Minnesota activist who brought the #WeJustNeedToPee campaign to the US, following the lead of Canada’s Brae Carnes. The campaign continues to garner significant attention, and this week Hughes appeared on MSNBC to discuss it with Thomas Roberts.
Hughes also spoke to The Advocate, explaining that for him personally, the campaign marked a major turning point:
“It was a bit of a tough decision, I knew I was forever outing myself,” but “I knew I could get at some of these conservatives by showing them a tall bearded man in a women’s bathroom,” Hughes says, taking a break from preparing himself for a Wednesday interview on MSNBC about the selfie campaign. Hughes notes that before the unexpected publicity his photos have garnered, he primarily lived stealth — a term used in the trans community when a trans person is not open about their trans status.
Hughes said despite the campaign’s popularity, he’s gotten some negative feedback from within the LGBT community. But Hughes, a father of four, said he wishes more trans people would follow his lead and become more visible:
“Our youngest had to come out to her friends [about having a trans parent] when this broke,” he says. “She’s so brave and she was so proud to do it. She brought me cupcakes yesterday because she wanted to celebrate with me!
“It’s sad that [legislators] imagine us to be these people that are so removed from normal,” Hughes laments. “Yet we’re as normal as the family next door.”
Watch Hughes’ interview with Roberts and check out some of the latest photos from the #WeJustNeedToPee campaign, AFTER THE JUMP …
According to a few States, this is the restroom I am supposed to use. #wejustneedtopee pic.twitter.com/AOh6mbnWro
— Alexandra Billings (@AlexSBillings) March 18, 2015
#PlettPutMeHere #occupotty #translivesmatter #wejustneedtopee pic.twitter.com/ARDJC9gPOv
— Katherine Kaplan (@katk925) March 13, 2015
Coming soon to a red state near you. #wejustneedtopee pic.twitter.com/CZRWANIfIn
— April Foster (@aprilfosterrr) March 13, 2015
John Wright
