Current Affairs, Dan Vera

Former Priest Marries His Partner of 50 Years

Leave a comment

An inspiring story out of Connecticut:

Former Priest Marries His Partner of 50 Years

"It is exciting and also gratifying to go this route, from the closet to being legally married on the campus where we first met," Nolan said. "It's a real sentimental journey."

But for a couple that's been together for over 50 years, the marriage is also a bit of a formality.

"For me the significance of it is the legal part, but I do believe marriage should be a civil issue and religion should be left out of it," Pingpank, a former math teacher, said. "For me it's something we should formalize because we can."

Arts, Bo Young, Community, Culture, Elders, Entertainment, Fellow Travelers, Film, Friends, Gay History, History, Homophobia, Humor, Politics, Television

Bea Arthur – We Loved You.

Leave a comment

I was sad to read that Bea Arthur passed this weekend. Over the years I've heard rumors that she was a Lesbian, and it isn't hard to believe. But I don't know it for a fact. It would fit, though, with my remembrance of this strong, smart, brave woman. I had personal history with her.

In 1976 I moved to Los Angeles from San Francisco, where I had just been "the naked guy" in Clint Eastwood's The Enforcer. I had no lines, but because I was required to be naked in the scene, I was given my Screen Actors Guild card, the holy grail for a budding actor. Much to my chagrin, you won't find me in the credits, but I'm the naked guy on the bed in the scene when the bad guy, whose being chased by Dirty Harry, falls through the skylight and crashes into the midst of a porn movie being shot. My mother was so proud. All I see when I watch it now is that I once had a beautiful head of hair.

But I digress…I moved to Los Angeles (as crew with A Chorus Line, another story), and, as is my wont, got involved with SAG union activities. I was serving on the SAG Morals & Ethics Committee in 1977 when Anita Bryant announced that she was bringing her pitiful, small-minded ignorance, intolerance and fear to California in the form of support for State Senator John Briggs' Proposition 6, the Prop 8 of the day, that would have forbid Gay people…or any of their supporters…from holding teaching jobs in California. Nice, huh?

I decided that the Screen Actors Guild needed to be the first industry union to come out against Prop 6, and that the only way to accomplish that was to get some big star power to appear before the Morals & Ethics Committee and demand it.

Beatrice-Arthur Enter Bea Arthur. Ms. Arthur had just made a splash in Norman Bea Arthur - Mame  Lear's Maude, and would receive the first of two career Emmy's (the other for Golden Girls) that year for her groundbreaking work as the title character. On television, there just wasn't a bigger star. And if the only role she'd ever played was Vera Charles opposite Angela Lansbury in Mame, she would forever be a star in my firmament, (and opposite Lucille Ball in the film even if Lucille Ball was miserably miscast).

But I digress, again…It was just about this time of the year that I sat down and wrote a letter to Ms. Arthur, outlining my idea. I mailed the letter and didn't think anything more about it. It was a shot in the dark.

Weeks later, May 16th was my birthday, and I was getting ready to go out on the town with friends. Literally, just as we were heading out the front door, the phone rang (cell phones were still a Dick Tracy fantasy…I could still decide whether or not I was going to stop and answer). I picked up, said hello, and heard the unmistakable, gravelly contralto of Bea Arthur,

"Is Bo Young there?"

"Speaking," I said, my heart pounding out of my chest, my wide eyes popping out of their sockets as I pantomimed to my friends at the door, who were wondering what was going on.

"Well hello," she growled on, "I just wanted to let you know that I received your letter and I wanted you to know I'll do whatever you want me to do."

To which I responded, with breathless gratitude, "Oh god bless you Ms. Arthur!"

To which she responded, "What's this 'god bless you' shit?…I didn't sneeze."

The surprise was finding out, later, just how shy a woman this powerhouse actor was. When I met with her she insisted that I write something for her to say when she came before the committee because she was sure she would become tongue-tied and not be effective. Maude. Not effective. Right. She did everything I asked, just as promised, to perfection. Reading my lines to the committee, which immediately came through with the required vote, which then went on to the larger Steering Committee of the Screen Actors Guild, which was the first industry union to oppose the Briggs Initiative. As a result I was brought into the campaign as "assistant state press secretary" to Sally Fisk.

Later, I had cause to call Ms. Arthur again, to see if she would appear at a fundraiser we were holding for No On Six. Unbeknownst to me, she had undergone a face lift just weeks before, and as a result her face was still puffy and black and blue.

She still had bandages on her face, albeit small ones…and she appeared at our fundraiser.

She said it was more important than what she looked like.

That's the kind of person Bea Arthur was.

 

Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Elders, Fellow Travelers, Friends, Gay Health, Gay History, Gay Wisdom, Health, History, Homophobia, Literature, Politics, Science

We Mourn Again: Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick 1950 – 2009

Leave a comment

Eve_Kosofsky_Sedgwick Is that a lovely face or what?…

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick was an American theorist in the fields of gender studies, queer theory (queer studies) and critical theory, which mainly means she was concerned with how many queer angels were dancing on the heads of academic pins. Influenced by Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, feminism, psychoanalysis and deconstruction, her work reflected an abiding interest in a wide range of issues and topics including something called queer "performativity"…whatever the hell that is…and performance; experimental critical writing; the works of Marcel Proust; artists' books; Buddhism and pedagogy. Academic polemic gobble-de-gook aside…she was a friend to the LGBTQ community.

Surprising to some, she was married for 40 years to her husband, Hal Sedgwick, a CUNY professor of visual perception (optometry), but apparently only saw him on weekends. She would also prefer it to be reported in that manner, i.e. she was married to a man, as opposed to assigning her the "straight" or "hetero/homo" categorizations (a too conveniently neat division rejected by Sedgwick.)

Sedgwick wasn’t a household name, unless you count the brouhaha over her 1989 essay Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl, which featured in many of the ritualistic first-kill-all-the-professors stories from our long culture war.

Sedgwick’s books, including “Between Men” and “Epistemology of the Closet,” were on the shelves of most of the graduate students and comp-lit survivors, Gay and non-Gay, queer and non-queer, back in the 1990s. She virtually invented the field, or at least brought it to new heights. My personal favorite was an essay entitled How To Bring Your Kids Up Gay: The War on Effeminate Boys. If that was all she ever wrote she'd be worthy of laurels, from the aeries of the academe and the mundane streets alike.

Sedgwick’s radical challenge to heteronormative ways of reading and living may seem quaint (if that’s the word) in a time when people are celebrating same-sex weddings in Iowa and the White House Easter egg hunt conspicuously includes Gay and Lesbian families. Perhaps the misty future evoked in Pace University professor of English and women's studies, Karla Jay’s review of “Tendencies” — one where Sedgwick would be photographed shaving fellow queer-studies scholar Terry Castle on the cover of Time magazine, à la Cindy Crawford and K. D. Lang — isn’t quite here.

But alas, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, one of the foundational non-Gay allies, won't be around to see that future. She died April 12 of breast cancer. She was 58.

Our sincere condolences to her family and friends. In an age of anti-intellectualism and religious mythopoesis run amok, we need all the rational, intelligent voices we can find.

Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Family, Gay History, Health, History, Homophobia, Politics, Religion, Right Wingers

Yank the Tax Exemption for the NY Archdiocese!

Leave a comment

 Marriage Equality Would someone please explain to me… why the new, pinhead, Archbishop of the New York Roman Catholic Archdiocese gets to comment on specific legislation being considered in the NY State legislature? Specifically the bill introduced by the Governor for Marriage Equality.

If I am not mistaken aren't 501(c)(3) nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations specifically forbidden to lobby or act on behalf of specific legislation or candidates? Here's the relevant passage:

"An organization will be regarded as attempting to influence legislation if it contacts, or urges the public to contact, members or employees of a legislative body for the purpose of proposing, supporting, or opposing legislation, or if the organization advocates the adoption or rejection of legislation."

So if Archbishop Dolan…or any other church…follows through on this threat, shouldn't the IRS yank the New York Roman Catholic Archdiocese's tax exemption?

There are too many ways to count the ignorance (and make no mistake about it…they are ignoring reality in favor of dogma) of the Catholic Church and it's pointy-headed old men, but here are four things the Archbishop doesn't know about Marriage Equality:

1. There are few biblical verses that address homosexuality at all, and most of those are not directed at homosexuality per se. Opponents of same-sex marriage routinely cite seven verses in the Christian Bible as condemning homosexuality and calling it a sin. But when taken in context, these lessons speak not against homosexuality itself, but rather against rape, child molestation, bestiality, and other practices that hurt others and compromise a person’s relationship with God.

2. Jesus never said one word against homosexuality. In all of his teachings, Jesus uplifted actions and attitudes of justice, love, humility, mercy, and compassion. He condemned violence, oppression, cold-heartedness, and social injustice. Never once did Jesus refer to what we call homosexuality as a sin.

3. The Bible never mentions or condemns the concept we call same-sex marriage. Although opponents of same-sex marriage claim that lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender unions violate biblical principles, no verses in the Bible explicitly address gay marriage or committed same-sex relationships.

4. Those who claim a “biblical definition of marriage” as a model for today ignore various marital arrangements in the Bible that would be illegal or condemned today. The Bible is filled with stories of polygamy and husbands taking concubines. In accordance with the culture and laws of the past, women were often treated like property that could be traded or sold into marriage. Today we understand that these examples of marriage reflect the cultural practices of the time rather than a spiritual model for today.

Culture, Dan Vera, Gay History

A Straight Ally on Amazonfail

Leave a comment

Richard Nash, founder of the respected indie Soft Skull Press (now an imprint of Counterpoint), had a fascinating entry on his blog about the recent Amazon.com LGBT book-ranking controversy (if you've been in the sauna the last few days you can get up to date here, here and here).  Nash writes as a straight ally and tells the truth about the importance of vigilance when it comes to corporations like Amazon.  It's well worth a read.  A taste:

"In effect: guilty until proven innocent is the standard to which we must hold ourselves. Because that’s how the other half lives, without any choice in the matter."

You can read the rest of it here: A straight white male publisher on glitches and ham-fisted errors

Bo Young, Community, Family, Friends, Gay Health, Men

A Request: Meaningful Connection

Leave a comment

We get letters…

Recently a woman in Wales wrote about her brother, a Gay man:

Bristol My brother M. has told me he is unhappy and lonely. He has told me he is weary of doing the rounds of the gay clubs (he's 48) and would like to connect with a community of  mature thoughtful gay men, with a view to a long term relationship. He has not been able to find such a group as yet. If you have any data on any groups in the Bristol (southwest Britain) or Birmingham (midlands Britain) area, it would be gratefully received.

We don't really do personals anymore (the magazine used to offer a free one with each new subscription). And, aside from the obvious observances about "looking for love in all the wrong places"…perhaps there is a reader out there that has some information I could pass along to this loving sister?

To my mind this is a question of community…how do we connect with one another? Which becomes even more difficult as we age (no matter one's sexuality). And so many Gay men "of a certain age" lost lifelong connections and friends pre-HAART HIV therapies. A generation of elders was wiped out. Every death of an elder is like a library burning…

This is not the first letter of this sort we received. Only recently a reader in Chicago wrote, asking if we Connections1 knew of any like-minded circles of Gay men. We have always encouraged the use of the magazine as a stimulus for face-to-face communities, the creation of circles of friends…Harry Hay's Circle of Loving Companions is our original model. And White Crane originated with a circle of Bob Barzan's friends in San Francisco, gathering at Bob's apartment to talk about everything under the sun (and share food!) How do we connect with one another?

How do we connect with one another in meaningful ways? Sex works very nicely when you're twenty…but what happens to Gay men's community when you reach 40…50…60…?

If you know of any groups of Gay men in southwest or the midlands region of Britain, please write me at bo@gaywisdom.org

And more than that, if you have a similar interest in your area…rural or urban…will you let us know? We would like to help in creating those connections.

Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Elders, Fellow Travelers, Friends, Gay Health, Gay History, Gay Wisdom, Malcolm Boyd, Men, Radical Faerie

The Rainbow Key Awards

Leave a comment

Mark and Malcolm at home 3  

The Rainbow Key Award was created to recognize individuals and organizations whose efforts have significantly benefited the Lesbian and Gay community, and since 1993, has been bestowed upon more than 70 artists, educators, activists, civic leaders, and community organizations. The Award is presented by the City Council on the recommendation of the Lesbian and Gay Advisory Board. Nominations may be made by anyone, and nominees may labor in any area of endeavor; eligibility is not restricted by geography or sexual orientation.

The 2009 Rainbow Key Award for significantly benefiting the Lesbian and Gay community will be presented to White Crane friends and advisors Canon Malcolm Boyd and Mark Thompson by the City of West Hollywood at a civic event on June 17. The Lesbian and Gay Advisory Board of West Hollywood cites the couple for "showing by example that Gay, intergenerational partnerships can be stable, loving and long-lasting." This year marks the couple's twenty-fifth anniversary.

It couldn't happen to two nicer people.

Current Affairs, Dan Vera, Homophobia, Politics, Right Wingers

Response Ad to Hatred

Leave a comment

A right-wing smear merchant, the "National Organization for Marriage" (!?) recently released a new fear mongering (if not over-blown and dramatic) ad against marriage equality full of lies and propaganda. This is by far the best response I've seen.  The creator uses bits of the ads and snippets from the audition tapes of the actors for this commercial to reveal what a pack of lies this whole thing is.  Bravo!

Arts, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Dan Vera, Entertainment, Film, Gay History, History, Men

Jack Wrangler is Dead

Leave a comment

Jackwrangler What to write about Jack Wrangler? In my memory, he was the first Gay porn star to hit the mainstream. How was that possible back in the early 80s? Somehow he reached my consciousness.

First there was the name. Jack Wrangler. Could it have been any more macho? The name was sex itself.  Reading his obituary this morning, I'm struck at how his birth name had a bit of insistence to it. Jack Stillman.

But as is often the case with the image and the filmname, there was more to the story. Wrangler married a woman and had a very happy marriage with her. His wife, now widow, was Margaret Whiting, a music star in the 40s and 50s who was twenty years older than him. Her father Richard Whiting was the songwriter of a long list of songs including "Till We Meet Again", "Ain't We Got Fun?", "Hooray for Hollywood", "Beyond the Blue Horizon", "On the Good Ship Lollipop", "Too Marvelous for Words" (music only; words by Johnny Mercer). When Bo read me the list over the phone, I found myself humming along or singing the lyrics.

But back to Wrangler. What was interesting about his choices in his life after the porn career, was that he continued to describe himself as Gay. What to make of this? I don't know. He clearly made his choices and enjoyed his life. We mark his passing as an image that provided a sense of beauty and sex at the beginning of Gay consciousness for many of us.

 

Building Connections & Community for Gay Men since 1989