REPORT: Same-Sex Couples Less Likely to Divorce

New data suggests that gay and lesbian couples aren’t weakening the institution of marriage — they’re actually more likely to stay married than straight couples.

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Sunnivie Brydum

www.advocate.com/politics/marriage-equality/2014/12/13/report-same-sex-couples-less-likely-divorce

Pride and The Imitation Game nominated for Golden Globes

Movies with LGBTI themes are recognized at the US awards celebrating TV and movie successes

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liamj

www.gaystarnews.com/article/pride-and-imitation-game-nominated-golden-globes131214

Was Bewitched The Most Progressive Gay Series Of Its Time?

Thirty years before Will & Grace opened up the floodgates for sitcoms centered around gay characters and a decade before Billy Crystal’s groundbreaking supporting work as a gay man on Soap, LGBT viewers eager for representation looked for coded versions of themselves on television. Few series offered more than the sparkly supernatural comedy Bewitched, which ran from 1964-1972 and starred Elizabeth Montgomery as a gorgeous witch married to mortal Darren (Dick York, later Dick Sargent) and mother of Tabitha and Adam, who subjugates her magic powers to pass as mortal. It wasn’t much of a challenge for queer viewers during the turbulent civil rights era to interpret the hit series as a metaphor for living in the closet. Another reason for the show’s popularity was surely its colorful cast of supporting characters such as Samantha’s flamboyant mother Endora (Agnes Moorehead), outrageous Uncle Arthur (gay actor Paul Lynde) and mischievous cousin Serena (Montgomery in a black wig). Author Adam-Michael James spent eight months watching all 254 episodes back to back and making copious notes for his recently-published The Bewitched Continuum: The Ultimate Linear Guide to the Classic TV Series. At nearly 700 pages, it’s indispensable for both longtime fans and newcomers to the series. James chatted with Queerty about the book, how the series was ahead of its time and Elizabeth Montgomery’s commitment to equality.

Queerty: It’s easy to see Bewitched as a metaphor for repressed people not allowed to be who they really are. Is there also a deeper hidden gay subtext in the series?

Adam-Michael James: This was a show that was dealing with a mixed marriage between a witch and a mortal and different cultures. The main witch had to repress and conceal her powers from the world so there was definitely some of that in there. Elizabeth Montgomery was certainly pro-gay and we’re talking about a show that was out at the height of the original civil rights movement and on through the hippie counter-culture and free love era of the early ‘70s. I think there was definitely a message in there, not only for gay people but for everyone.

It’s a series that still feels smart and sophisticated to modern viewers. What’s responsible for the continued appeal?

Part of it is the magic. People like to see that. Also the show was so intelligently written and sophisticated. It spoke to not only things that were going on at the time but also universal messages about tolerance and acceptance. Samantha, for being a witch, is so human in that she conveys human emotions. I think that’s why people connect to her. She’s the flashpoint for the whole thing.

Which is your favorite or the most representative episode?

My favorite is “Sisters at Heart” during season seven. Tabitha had an African-American friend Lisa and they wanted to be sisters so much that Tabatha accidentally turned them polka dots in an effort to unite them. Samantha was very clear that all men are brothers even if they’re girls. There was another plot within that episode in which Darren had a bigoted client who thought Darren was married to a black woman so he pulled his account. Samantha fixes it so that when the client looks in the mirror he see himself as black. This was in 1971 so it was pretty renegade. It was also so well-written. I think the overall message of the series was tolerance and acceptance, but it was so clearly defiant in that episode that it makes the top of my list.

Paul Lynde

That was a clever way to introduce civil rights to young kids.

Exactly. You watch it as a child and pick up on some things, but as an adult you get a whole other layer. You certainly get a good example that everyone should be free to live as they want as long as they’re not hurting anybody.

And for some it was likely their first exposure to such a character as Paul Lynde as Uncle Arthur, who must have read very gay even then.

He had so much fun doing it. It’s amazing that Uncle Arthur was only in about 10 episodes but he made such an impression that when someone says, “Bewitched,” Uncle Arthur is one of the first characters you think of. There were certainly episodes with Uncle Arthur when he wasn’t hiding anything. Things got a little campy toward the end.

Dick Sergeant who famously replaced Dick York as Darren was gay and eventually came out in 1991. It’s interesting that even though he was closeted publicly for much of his career, casting him as a straight leading man in a hit series back then didn’t concern the producers.

As I understand it, Elizabeth Montgomery and her husband William Asher (the producer) knew and they didn’t care. I don’t know why they would. it was their own acceptance in their personal life that led to the message on the show. Obviously it was a different era where you didn’t make these things public but I certainly don’t think it was a problem.

Elizabeth Montgomery was a longtime friend to the LGBT community and even served with Dick Sargent as pride marshals during the parade in West Hollywood in 1992. Why do you think this was something she was passionate about?

She just accepted everybody. As I understand it she grew up in a rather politically conservative family. Her father was the actor Robert Montgomery who was a staunch Republican but I guess she decided she had her own ideas about life and went int he other direction. She was for everybody — the gay and lesbian community, African-Americans, animals… Her heart was open to everybody and I think that’s what made her such a relatable actress.

Jeremy Kinser

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/yVZJD6mDDo4/was-bewitched-the-most-progressive-gay-series-of-its-time-20141213

Homeless Shelter For LGBT Youth To Open In San Antonio: VIDEO

John Wright

www.towleroad.com/2014/12/homeless-shelter-for-lgbt-youth-to-open-in-san-antonio.html

Artist Spotlight: Erwin Olaf

Olaf’s work combines rigorous discipline with an eye for the spontaneous moment.

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Christopher Harrity

www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/2014/12/13/artist-spotlight-erwin-olaf

419-pound winner of Mr Gay UK London disqualified on a technicality…

For wearing his organizer-provided underwear on his head instead of his groin during the underwear segment

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sylviat

www.gaystarnews.com/article/419-pound-winner-mr-gay-uk-london-disqualified-technicality131214

Spike in Tiny Number of Gay Men on PrEP Abandoning Condoms Hardly Represents 'All' Gay Men
A Dec. 8 blog post in the San Francisco Business Times has sparked another furor over gay men using the HIV drug Truvada to prevent infection with the deadly virus. “San Francisco men shed condoms in favor of Gilead’s HIV prevention pill,” alleges the title of SFBT reporter Ron Leuty’s opinion piece.

Leuty reported on a survey of men in a Kaiser Permanente AIDS-prevention program. More than 500 are taking Truvada once a day as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Leuty called the 45-percent increase among men in the study not using condoms “eye-popping” — which it is. Clearly these men aren’t heeding the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation to use condoms in addition to taking the drug.

But it’s a serious stretch to project the behavior of about 90 men on PrEP in this one study to “all” gay men in San Francisco, let alone anywhere else. Consider this: All 500 men in the study represent only about 0.007861 of San Francisco’s roughly 60,000 or so gay and bisexual men.

Unfortunately, there will always be men who push the limits of risk to engage in high-risk sex that is, for them, something of value. Others of us may see it as self-harm, but these guys usually describe it in terms of intimacy and pleasure. Either way, we should be glad these men are making even a partial effort to protect themselves by taking PrEP.

We can argue all we want about whether PrEP provides cover for dangerous behavior. But we aren’t addressing the most important questions: Why do some gay men value high-risk sex more highly than they apparently value their own health? Why do some guys seem unable to value themselves apart from their willingness to engage in “anything goes” sex?

At risk of getting stuck trying to understand what even mental-health experts would likely classify as aberrant behavior, I would suggest we step back to get a more accurate picture of how the vast majority of gay men conduct their sex lives. Reframe the statistics that can be blown out of proportion to make it look like “all” gay men have stopped using condoms, or even like “all” gay men engage in anal intercourse, which they don’t.

Ron Stall, Director of the LGBT Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh, has identified four interconnected “epidemics” of psychosocial health conditions that disproportionately afflict gay and bisexual men, each one making the other worse: childhood sexual abuse, partner violence, depression, and drug use. Together, their insidious effects are referred to as syndemics. Men who are most strongly affected by any one of these tend to be at high risk for HIV and substance abuse. Those from lower-income or culturally marginalized ethnic groups are especially vulnerable to syndemic effects.

In one study, Stall and his colleagues found that 11 percent of 812 men who reported one problem — depression, for instance — had engaged in high-risk sex. Of 129 men who reported three or four problems, 23 percent said they had had high-risk sex.

The numbers are high relative to the so-called general population. But surely no one can be surprised to see self-destructive behavior in people treated as if they don’t deserve better.

On the other hand, the numbers tell us something quite astonishing when we look at them from a different angle: that 89 percent of the men reporting one problem did not engage in high-risk sex. Likewise, more than three quarters of the men with three or four problems did not engage in high-risk sex.

These numbers make it clear: The overwhelming majority of gay men are resilient and take care of, protect, and value ourselves. How can this be? In the face of overwhelming pressures and struggles that can give gay men all the reasons we might need to harm or medicate ourselves, how is it that most of us don’t?

The short answer: We accept ourselves. Research suggests that our journey toward being resilient gay men who accept and value ourselves begins by accepting our sexual orientation — overcoming our own self-stigma, what we’ve internalized from the bullies of our lives. Ron Stall told me in an interview for The Atlantic, “Guys who do the best job of resolving internalized homophobia [or self-stigma] are the least likely to have current victimization, substance abuse, and compulsive [high-risk] sex.”

Put a little differently, he said, “Getting a population of people to not hate themselves is good for their health. This is not rocket science.” Building up, and upon, gay men’s resilience is a challenge for each of us — and for our families, lawmakers, ministers, teachers, and anyone else who wishes us to be well and fully contributing members of society.

The place to start is in revising the way we think. We need to consider carefully how numbers can hurt us when they are taken out of context. Their “eye-popping” shock value dwindles when they’re put into perspective against the bigger number of “all” gay men.

We can hope that gay men who value condomless sex more than they do their own lives will eventually find intimacy and pleasure in sex built upon mutual respect and protection. Until then, PrEP for them is an important step in protecting themselves.

In the meantime, the vast majority of gay men — who don’t abuse drugs or engage in high-risk sex — clearly value their health enough not to endanger themselves or their partners.

Yes it’s shocking to realize that one in four gay men in San Francisco is HIV-positive.

But it’s at least as surprising that 75 percent of gay men in San Francisco are not HIV-positive. What can we learn from them about how they have avoided HIV when the virus is so prevalent in the community? What can their experience show us that might even help the guys taking an expensive, powerful, and toxic drug so they can engage in high-risk sex?

Among the lessons, one stands out: Just as the way we frame our personal story can make us feel like a victim of our circumstances or a victor over them, so too the way we present statistics can mean the difference between hope and despair. Increases in condomless sex among a tiny sliver of men already at extreme risk for HIV may be “eye-popping.” But so is the far greater number of gay men who choose to view safer sex as the key to real intimacy and pleasure between men who care about themselves and one another.

www.huffingtonpost.com/johnmanuel-andriote/spike-in-tiny-number-of-g_b_6313044.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

French tabloid outs far-right leader Florian Philippot as gay

Magazine editor defends the controversial move, which has sparked outrage across the political spectrum, saying it’s in the public’s interest

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sylviat

www.gaystarnews.com/article/french-tabloid-outs-far-right-leader-florian-philippot-gay131214