Ancestors, Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Elders, Friends, Gay History, Gay Wisdom, History

A Legend Has Died

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It is with great sadness that we report that Del Martin, a pioneering Lesbian rights activist who married her Del_phyllis lifelong partner, Phyllis Lyon on the first day same-sex couples could legally wed in California, has died. Martin was 87. Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, reported that Martin died at a San Francisco hospital Wednesday morning two weeks after a broken arm exacerbated her existing health problems. Kendell says her wife, Phyllis Lyon, was by her side.  Martin is at the right in the picture at the right.

Among the most beloved figures in the Lesbian community, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon got married in San Francisco on February 12, 2004. A couple since 1953, they first earned a spot in queer history by founding the first national Lesbian organization, the Daughters of Bilitis.

From its modest beginnings with eight members in 1955, the Daughters of Bilitis grew into a major force, helping Lesbians meet outside of bars, documenting their lives, and promoting civil rights.

Phyllislyondelmartinmarriage2Perhaps even more significant, the organization published "The Ladder," a national The_ladder_2 newsletter for Lesbians. Phyllis, as editor, assumed an alias for the first three issues before coming out in print with her real name. D.O.B. soon opened chapters in a dozen U.S. cities — and even Melbourne, Australia. Its first national convention, in San Francisco in 1960, was well attended, despite unwanted publicity. Martin and Lyon were involved in issues such as social security, Medicare and social justice for older Americans. Both were appointed delegates to the 1995 White House Conference on Aging. "Ever since I met Del 55 years ago, I could never imagine a day would come when she wouldn’t be by my side," Lyon, 83, said in a statement.

"I also never imagined there would be a day that we would actually be able to get married," she added. "I am devastated, but I take some solace in knowing we were able to enjoy the ultimate rite of love and commitment before she passed."

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, of San Francisco, said Del and Phyllis were instrumental in getting Gay marriage legalized.

"We would not have marriage equality in California if it weren’t for Del and Phyllis. They fought and triumphed in many battles," Pelosi said. "Through it all, their love and commitment to each other was an inspiration to all who knew them."

Martin and Lyon were married at City Hall on June 16,  2008. Mayor Gavin Newsom, who officiated the wedding, singled them out to be the first Gay couple to legally exchange vows in the city, in recognition of their long relationship and their status as Gay-rights pioneers.

"The greatest way we can honor the life work of Del Martin, is to continue to fight and never give up, until we have achieved equality for all," Newsom said Wednesday.

Martin…and Lyon…are such seminal figures in Lesbian and Gay history it would be impossible to overstate their contributions. Like Harry Hay and Frank Kameny and Barbara Gittings, none of us would be where we are, who we are, how we are without their courageous pioneering work. It is a sad day, but hers was a great life and we honor Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon for their lives.

We extend our sincere condolences to Phyllis Lyon and their family and friends.

For a marvelous interview with Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon by Teri Gross on Fresh Air go here.

Debanuj DasGupta

Gay Day Laborers.

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61u7ku11jdl__ss500__2 Logo just aired the movie "The Day Laborers" by director Lane Shefter Bishop. Made in 2003, this movie is poignant tale of three brothers who cross across the borders from Mexico to West Hollywood in search of job and dignity. They live under one roof with their aging uncle, and show up every morning on a street side, in hopes of being picked up for cash jobs. The film depicts the day to day on site hazards that day laborers face. One falls in love with a girl, the other finds his way into drug dealing, and the third embarks on a journey to discover his desire for men, when he meets a Gay artist.

The film albeit a Hollywood version of the lives of day laborers, does a good job of humanizing the lives of men and women who endure extreme hardships to make a decent living, whose labor is constantly exploited by the rich and the wealthy in this country. Most importantly the film deals with the intersections of sexuality and labor in a way that I have not seen most of the LGBT and Immigrant rights organizations talk about. All three of the brothers are hard working hunky studs. while one of them gets picked up by the wife of a rich client for sex on the side, the other falls in love with a white Gay man. The family struggles with paying their rent, and their brother’s "Queer relationship" at the same time.

As I sat glued to the TV watching the hunky brothers fight for their labor and sexual rights, I was reminded of the many men and women who came up to me at immigration rallies, to discuss how they have to hide their true identities at their work places. Yes my dear friends day laborers are LGBTQ too, while you might not find them on the cover feature of Genre or the Advocate, they are brave people who are silenced not just by homophobia, but also by xenophobia and labor exploitation.

Culture, Dan Vera, Gay History

Gold Medal Gay

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So, I haven’t caught a lot of the Olympics but was delighted to see someone had posted this video footage of the amazing Australian diver Matthew Mitcham.  He was the first openly Gay Olympian to win a gold medal — a fact that NBC with all of their "tell every angle of a biography", FAILED TO MENTION in any of their coverage.

As After Elton mentioned:

It was an amazing end to a journey that saw Mitcham quit the sport in 2006, come back in 2007 and declare himself a gay man in 2008. The 20-year-old Australian has battled depression, and partying had replaced training in his daily routine until he got back in the pool and he regained his athletic focus.

Anyway, his dives are just fantastic and his teary response after its all done is amazing.  This includes all his dives, the awards ceremony and his charging the stands to embrace his mother and his longtime partner.  Enjoy!

Ancestors, Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Elders, Fellow Travelers, Friends, Gay Health, Gay History, Gay Wisdom, Health, History, Humor, Men, Radical Faerie, Religion

My nomination for the Democratic Convention keynote address…

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HIV/AIDS, for those of you still paying attention, has not gone away. It is ever so slightly treatable still, but thousands are still dying from it, and for many the treatment is as horrible as the disease. Still, I talk with teacher friends…many of whom still remember the horrible deaths of many friends…and they are dumbstruck by how students today simply think HIV/AIDS is a treatable, manageable disease.

Sixteen years ago…what seems like an eternity now, my friend Bob Hattoy addressed the Democratic National Convention. Bob and I used to drive to work together every morning in Los Angeles. He worked for Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky. I worked for Councilwoman Peggy Stevenson, back before the idea of West Hollywood as a separate municipality was even a glimmer in a few GLBT eyes. I moved to New York. Hattoy moved into the national political scene and excelled in the two areas that remain singularly important even today: health and ecology (actually, sort of the same thing, really…personal health is personal ecology. World ecology is world health). As regional director for the Sierra Club in Los Angeles, he was noticed by the Clintons, who brought him into their campaign as their environmental counsel.

In this age of "treatable" "manageable" HIV/AIDS, Bob died from complications of HIV/AIDS, as they say, last year. His voice and spirit should be remembered:

Arts, Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Entertainment, Friends, Gay History, Gay Wisdom, History, Homophobia, Men, Religion, Right Wingers

A Jihad For Love

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Jihad_opening_banner_horiz_2 A Jihad for Love opens in San Francisco and Berkeley on August 22nd at the Landmark Lumiere and Shattuck Theaters! Producer Sandi DuBowski (Director of the award-winning, Trembling Before G-d) and Director/Producer Parvez Sharma will lead Q & A after screenings from Friday, August 22nd – Monday, August 25th.

Landmark’s Lumiere Theatre
1572 California St., San Francisco
(415) 267-4893
Fri-Sun at 2:15, 4:45, 7:00, 9:30;
Mon-Thu at 4:45, 7:00, 9:30
Director/Producer Parvez Sharma
& Producer Sandi DuBowski in person
4:45 & 7:00, Fri 8/22, Sun 8/24, & Mon 8/25
Buy Tickets Online

Landmark’s Shattuck Cinemas
2230 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley
(510) 464-5980
Daily at 3:05, 5:15, 7:20, 9:35 (valid 8/22-28)
Director/Producer Parvez Sharma & Producer Sandi DuBowski
in person 5:15 & 7:20, Sat 8/23 at Shattuck-Berk
Buy Tickets Online

After Premieres at the Toronto and Berlin Film Festivals and in over 20 countries, A Jihad for Love has won five international awards and has inspired a media blitz across the world. Tens of thousands of people have participated in a thought-provoking dialogue about Islam that the film has catalyzed.

Producer, Sandi Dubowski, is a member of the Advisory Board of The White Crane Institute. 

Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Friends, Gay Wisdom, History, Homophobia, Right Wingers

Compare and Contrast

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John McCain’s record on GLBT issues: Johnmccain10_2

  • Against ENDA
  • Against ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
  • Against the Matthew Shepard Act Hate Crimes Act
  • Against partnership recognition of any kind
  • Against partner immigration rights
  • Against any repeal of DOMA
  • For anti-Gay state constitutional amendments such as those in California, Florida and Arizona
  • Will appoint anti-LGBT judges like Justice Scalia and Alito

Barack_obama Barack Obama’s record on GLBT issues :

Supports ENDA (including protection based on gender identity)

Supports ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

Supports the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act

Supports equal benefits for same-sex couples

Supports partner immigration rights

Supports full repeal of DOMA

Against anti-Gay state constitutional amendments such as those in California, Florida and Arizona

Will appoint pro-LGBT judges like Justice Stevens and Ginsburg

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…explain to me again why this is hard?

Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, History

I’m Just Askin’…

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Denverbanner Does it bother anyone else that it was announced today that the Denver Police Department has prepared massive holding tanks to hold those they arrest for demonstrations during next week’s Democratic National Convention?

Aren’t public demonstrations what conventions are all about? What massive protests are the Denver police expecting? Is there a large group of people who intend to protest Obama in the same peaceable fashion hundreds of thousands protested Bush’s nomination in 2004 here in New York?

I guess if the protesters were able to become sponsors, they could go inside the convention and have a little booth.

Is the only "free speech" left in this country "paid commercial speech"?

Jesse Monteagudo

Jesse’s Journal – the GLBT South, from Red to Pink

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I have never been to Dallas, Texas, a city that I long associated with the Kennedy Assassination and J. R. Ewing. Unlike Austin or even Houston, Dallas is thought to be a very red city within a very red state.  Wrong! No less an authority than Jason Dottley, star of the LOGO TV series Sordid Lives, lists the city of Dallas as # 2 in his list of “the Gayest Places Down South.”
“If West Hollywood is the Gay Mecca of the West, Palm Springs the Gay Mecca of the desert, and South Beach the Gay Mecca of all coastal cities, then Dallas must be the Gay Mecca of the South…For a city to be loved by me, it must be able to provide the best-of-the-best in five key areas: Dining, shopping, accommodations, entertainment and culture,” all of which Dallas has aplenty. Only one Southern venue beat Dallas in Dottley’s list, and that place is in Dallas itself: The Rose Room, a show bar at the ever-popular (or so I’m told) Station 4, which, Dottley tells us, “is home to nightly drag shows that will blow your socks off!”
Dallas_skyline_011
Dottley’s enthusiasm is seconded by gaycities.com, according to which Dallas is no less than “Texas’s Biggest Gay Community.” “Dallas has one of the largest Gay populations in the US and is home to the largest GLBT church: The Cathedral of Hope. Gay Dallas is primarily centered around the Oak Lawn neighborhood with bars, restaurants, and stores found throughout Cedar Springs Rd and Oak Lawn Avenue. The intersection of Throckmorton and Cedar Springs has been called the ‘crossroads’ of Oak Lawn and is the home to a bunch of Gay and Lesbian Bars within walking distance.  Being a big city, there is a wide variety of people and scenes, so you are sure to find what you seek.”
Eddie Sanchez, writing about Dallas in the Gay Guide, agrees: “The US’s ninth-largest city, Dallas isDallas5  cosmopolitan and beautiful, with world-class architecture, a booming arts district (soon to be the country’s largest), and, like all of Gay Texas, a sense of duty when it comes to giving back to their community. What truly amazed me is how inclusive Gays are in Dallas. Sure, there are Gay bars and Lesbian bars and Hispanic bars, but people feel free and comfortable going from one to the next. Dallas’s Gay life is concentrated mainly in the Oak Lawn area with bars and clubs catering to varied Gay tastes, along with stores and restaurants.” As befits a city that’s smack in the buckle of the Bible Belt, Dallas is home to the world’s largest “Gay church,” the Cathedral of Hope, which used to be a Metropolitan Community Church but is now affiliated with the United Church of Christ. Dallas is also home to the world’s most famous “men’s chorus” (it denies being a “Gay chorus,” though most of its members are), the Turtle Creek Chorale.
Though Texas is one of most reliably “red” states,” at least during presidential elections, it is not as extremely conservative as I used to think, especially in its major cities: Dallas, Austin and Houston. In this matter the Lone Star State is not alone. There are many pink spots in the red South, including Asheville, North Carolina; Atlanta, Georgia; New Orleans, Louisiana; and half a dozen municipalities in my own state of Florida. Though I have never been to Dallas (as I said before), I have visited most of those cities and, honestly, I’d feel safer there than I would in some  rural areas in California or Massachusetts. Like their sisters and brothers in Dallas, Texas, the women and men who live in those cities have made the best of their lives in spite of the existence of some of the most homophobic state governments. In short, the GLBT communities of the urban South have taken their lemons and made a nice Lemoncello liqueur out of it.
South_carolina_2 On the other hand, there are still places in the South that seem to be homophobic through and through.  One of those, with apologies to those GLBT people who live in the Palmetto State, is South Carolina. Recently Amro Worldwide, a Gay travel agency, ran a series of ads in London subways that promoted Gay tourism in the United States. According to the ads, Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Washington D.C. and South Carolina are “so Gay.”  Though officials in the five cities appreciated and paid for their ads, South Carolina state officials went into a tizzy at the idea that anyone would actually think that South Carolina is “so Gay.”  Republican Governor Mark Sanford called the posters “inappropriate,” and Republican State Senator David Thomas demanded an audit of the state’s advertising budget: “South Carolinians will be irate when they learn their hard earned tax dollars are being spent to advertise our state as ‘so Gay,’” huffed Thomas, in a statement. The state refused to pay for the ad and the Parks, Recreation and Tourism Department employee who approved of it resigned.
South Carolina politicians need not worry.  After this hoopla made the news around the world, there is no one left who still thinks the Palmetto State is “so Gay.” But once again the GLBT community was able to make a tasty lemonade out of a sour lemon. The South Carolina Gay and Lesbian Pride Movement, which paid for the ad after their state government refused to do so, has adopted its discredited slogan for this year’s Pride events. On September 20, “South Carolina Will Be So Gay” when the GLBT community celebrates its pride in the state capital of Columbia.
Jesse Monteagudo, a Florida-based freelance writer and Gay American, is celebrating his 30th year writing for the GLBT press. Reach him at jessemonteagudo@aol.com.
Debanuj DasGupta

The Dysfunctional Immigrant

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Amader Janye Chinta Korona! Thakur Tomar bhalo Karun.

Do not worry about us! May God bless you.

She writes everytimeImages

It’s almost a routine now; "This card delivers 100% of time if used at one time"

23 years of love and nurturing reduced to long distance phone calls and emails written in perfect Benglish.

Delicious home cooked curries now reduced to boxed meals

Freedom from dust, heat and silent cruising ventures; reduced to counting change and dialing for the cheapest immigration attorney!

A nation of immigrants and a nation of xenophobes

Passports, embassies and bio-security

All tightly box this once towering ego

Internet porn and quick hookups

Chemical induced fantasies

The witch of Tideland

Is all that makes up a "Dysfunctional Immigrant"

Building Connections & Community for Gay Men since 1989