Jesse Monteagudo

Gay Envy – The Case of Jim Naugle

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Jesse’s Journal by Jesse Monteagudo
Gay Envy

H. L. Mencken once wrote that puritanism is "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." The idea that those who we hate might enjoy themselves better than we do came to mind during 20071001_naugleFort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle’s most recent anti-gay tirades. Some gay critics attribute Naugle’s enduring homophobia to his own suppressed homosexuality. Nothing could be further from the truth. If nothing else, Jim Naugle is a Kinsey One, dyed-in-the-wool, 100% heterosexual man. But, like the puritan that he is, Naugle seems obsessed with the idea that gay men – the mayor does not care about lesbians – might be having a good time. In spite of his often-quoted statement that "homosexuals … are unhappy," Naugle can’t help but worry that gay men are really happy; perhaps happier than he could ever be.

Though there are many reasons why one might be homophobic, envy of lesbians or gay people is certainly one of them. According to Gregory M. Herek of the University of California at Davis (CD), "heterosexual men may envy gay men because the latter are not constrained by the masculine ideal. Heterosexuals may also envy the sexual freedom presumably enjoyed by lesbians and gay men. In either case, the envy is presumably translated unconsciously into hostility." In laymen’s terms, many straight men hate us because we score more often than they do. But rather than admit that they wish they could be like us, they condemn us as sex-driven, promiscuous libertines; sex fiends who copulate anywhere and anytime, and without consideration for the scruples of humanity.

Now I don’t presume to speculate about Mayor Naugle’s sex life – as far as I am know, he is a happily married man. But whatever his personal life might be, Naugle is obviously obsessed with gay men’s sex lives. In fact, to Naugle, gay men are all about sex. This was obvious during the mayor’s latest homophobic rant, which came at the wake of the City of Fort Lauderdale’s proposed move to buy a robotic toilet for the City’s gay beach. A toilet that automatically opens its door after a certain time appealed to the mayor, though not for efficiency’s sake. The way that Naugle saw it, a robotic toilet would put a stop to gay tearoom sex, which in his fevered mind happens all the time. Gay men, Naugle proclaimed hotly, are "engaging in sex, anonymous sex, illegal sex" in toilets. "We’re trying to provide a family environment where people can take their children who need to use the bathroom without having to worry about a couple of men in there engaged in a sex act."

Naugle assured us that he received "numerous calls of complaints from concerned citizens" about gay sex in public toilets. This contradicts a statement from Sgt. Frank Sousa of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, who noted that "there’s no evidence, no reports or arrests made for any men having sex in any restrooms." This did not stop the mayor from later issuing an "apology;" not to the gays but "to the children and parents of our community, for not being aware of the depth of problem with sexual activity in parks and public places. . . . I apologize for not bringing this forward earlier. Maybe some lives could have been saved." Naugle also attacked the gay Web site CruisingForSex.com for listing several Fort Lauderdale-area parks as gay cruising spots. "Our parks are important for our children, and we will not accept this activity in the name of being inclusive or tolerant." [For its part, CruisingForSex.com has called for a gay boycott of Fort Lauderdale.]

This is not the first time that Jim Naugle, mayor of Fort Lauderdale since 1991, has set his narrow-minded sights on gay men. But he really went to town this time. At the same press conference where he "apologized" to Fort Lauderdale’s children and parents, Naugle also blamed Broward County’s rising AIDS rates on horny gay tourists and on the County itself for spending money to attract gay tourists. When the GLBT Stonewall Library and Archives sought permission to move into City-owned space, Naugle screamed that the collection contains "pornographic magazines of the worst kind" and worried that Stonewall will be located "in our main park in the city, where our little league fields are." At the City Commission hearing that approved the Library’s move Naugle, like Senator Joe McCarthy waving a list of Communists, flashed an envelope that he alleged contained pornographic books and magazines housed at the Stonewall Library. But he then piously refused to open the envelope, claiming that "It’s so disgusting I can’t open it up."

Do you see the pattern? It doesn’t matter that heterosexuals also have sex in public; that straight tourists also visit Fort Lauderdale to meet sexual partners; or that the Broward County Public Library also carries sexually-explicit material. To Naugle, being gay is sex, sex, SEX! Though he never said it, it wouldn’t surprise me if Naugle thinks that gay doctors, lawyers or Realtors spend their working days screwing their clients (in the literal sense of the word); or that the mostly-gay Sunshine Cathedral MCC and Congregation Etz Chaim synagogue exist primarily as pickup joints. Alas, our lives are not always as exciting as he thinks they are. But they are certainly more interesting and fulfilling than his.

I have been openly gay for all of my adult life and, while I’ve had my ups and downs they had nothing to do with my sexual orientation. In fact, I think being gay opened my life to varieties and opportunities that I would never have experienced if was heterosexual. In fact, if I was straight, my life would probably be as boring as Jim Naugle’s! No wonder he keeps attacking us.

Jesse Monteagudo is a freelance writer and happy gay activist who lives in South Florida with his life partner and many friends.

Bo Young, Community, Health, White Crane Institute programs

Gay Men’s Health Leadership Academy – East Coast – 2007

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Bw_institute_egg The third Gay Men’s Leadership Academy, a program of White Crane Institute, was completed this weekend, the second one we’ve done at Easton Mountain.

The men who attended created a wonderful blog and some videos put together by our fabulous photographer friend, Peter Lien. Here’s one below…and there are more at the Gay Men’s Leadership Academy blog. Check it out…there are individual blog entries and lots of videos. The Academys, now in their second year, are held in California and New York to enable attendance by a greater number of people from all over the country.

The west coast Academy will be in March at the Wildwood Retreat Center. More information here.

Arts, Bo Young, Culture, Current Affairs, Dan Vera, Elders, Entertainment, Music

A Goddess Speaks…and sings…

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There are very few artists who we revere as much as Joni Mitchell. In her complete and utter disgust with the music industry, a few years ago, she walked away and announced that she would never record again.

Maybe there’s something in those cigarettes? Or maybe there’s something in Starbucks coffee…we’re going to have to rethink our preference for Peet’s on the basis of this alone, I would say…but Joni has returned. And in this wonderful video, she speaks of her new multi-media project. Give a listen…this is the kind of truth telling that makes steel dance and glass sing. The music is available tomorrow, September 25.

Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, History

Martin Niemöller, where are you?

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"In Germany, they came first for the Communists…"

Pastor Martin Niemöller wrote this famous poem as a reaction to the inactivity of the German intellectuals leading up to the Nazi regime and its brutal repressions. And the last thing I am interested in is more mongering of fear…but just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean….

Power has learned a thing or three since those ham-handed days, but the end result is no less chilling. Speaking as someone who was maced and beaten by seven Des Moines, Iowa cops back when the last criminal administration was in power, 1969, there have been a few occurences lately that have taken my breath away. In my case, it was five in the morning and I was walking back to my apartment off campus, a half block away from it, actually, when I was stopped, maced and beaten, my shirt torn off me, and I was unceremoniously stuffed in the back of a police cruiser and taken to …a mental hospital. They told my parents I was "crazed on drugs and climbing trees." In court, I was charged with "resisting arrest and simulating intoxication" (actually the bailiff misspoke and said "resisting intoxication and simulating arrest" to which I almost blurted out a "guilty" plea! Let me just say this…I was, as they say, in an "altered state" but I assure you, I wasn’t climbing trees. They lied. And they scared the shit out of my parents so they would put a lid on me.

In any event, while the corporate media gives us their happy talk and our dose of Daily Fear, ("BE AFRAID! BE VERY AFRAID"…of toys, cholesterol, terrorists, good food, bad food, identity theft, dogs, cats, global warming, doom, gloom…I sometimes think the only reason some of these are getting any coverage is because they’re scary and serve their larger purposes…or sometimes it’s not "be afraid" it’s "those pesky celebs!" and we’re fed a steady diet of high fructose celebrity simple syrup)…there seems to be a growing threat against free speech. Back when the Republicrats had their convention here in New York, our billionaire mayor refused to allow a peaceful assembly of dissenters to gather in the Great Lawn or the Sheeps Meadow of Central Park, putting up some lame excuse about the grass.

And while most magazines, even in the Gay community (where media is slowly but inexorably being transformed by the attrition of market failure and bankruptcy or being gobbled up into conglomerate corporate blandness)…heck, especially in the Gay community…I mean, even I was almost distracted with our friend Malcolm Boyd being named to yet another "Top 10 List! Top 40 List! Top 100"…you fill in the number…how much bread and circus does it take to glaze over the eyes of a people? How many Brittney stories? How many O.J. stories? How many celebrity weddings? Even the Advocate list, a pale attempt at depth and history, ended up being more a celebration of fame mistaken for influence. Among the top ten, of that list of "Top 40 Influential Gays," there’s Elton John, Ellen Degeneres and Rosie O’Donnell, inane, self-absorbed celebrities who basically hid in their plush-lined closets and denied beng Gay for years…thirty years after Stonewall, mind you…until it became a convenient career move.

Boy…now that’s a hero! Extra ham on mine, please.

But a steady diet of processed sugar and processed news (have you noticed how all the networks always seem to have the same stories on the same days? They Decide…You Abide) is bound to blur and confuse after a while. And that’s the point. Isn’t it? You’re just too groggy to lift your head off the couch and say, hey…wait a minute…

I wrote about the cop threatening the silly spectator at Farm Aid. What great crime was he masterminding? Strolling…skipping, actually, back and forth a couple of times in the background of a television interview being carried out in a field of 30,000 people, lifting his shirt! Momma save the children! Like we’ve never seen that on the evening news. How dare he?! And without any prompting or so much as a request from the news people (Faux…er, Fox News, actually), Johnny-On-The-Law yanked Mr. Silly out of camera range and clearly threatened him with his wagging finger and god knows what else. Mr. Silly’s friends quickly spirited him away, calming him down. His face was pale with rage.

And now we have this student (it’s always the students, isn’t it?) in Orlando, at Florida University (and no…that’s not an oxymoron) being tasered…TASERED!…for having the impertinence to ask pointed questions of John Kerry (I believe one of them was "Aren’t you and the President members of the same secret society at Yale? Skull and Bones?…and yes…they are.) The clips, all over YouTube, are pretty frightening with him being hustled out…incredibly, all the while Kerry saying "That’s all right. I’ll answer…let me answer his question,"… so Kerry isn’t asking to have him removed….this was an independent decision by campus Rent-A-Cops it seems.)

But this isn’t the scary part. The scary thing, from my perspective, is how the student is being demonized. Nice work this morning, Lauer, way to go after the lawyer of this kid. Matt Lauer questioned the student’s lawyer this morning like he was O.J. Simpson, pushing him (with his "serious face" on) with questions about "Is this guy a student? A campus loudmouth? Or a political agitator?" …like, how dare he ask those questions!!? Doesn’t he know what questions we’re supposed to ask and which ones we’ve all agreed to steer clear of? jeez, man…get professional, you know? Honestly, I think Matt Lauer saw his job flash before his eyes there …and he was scared. Where in the world is Matt Lauer coming from?

Almost all the stories are not about the over-reaction (to be kind) of the over-armed campus police (the justification, of course, being Virginia Tech…like the problem there was "not enough guns on campus") but about whether or not the student was an agitator? How dare he continue to ask questions about the stealing of a Presidential election? Isn’t that all settled? Can’t we move on!?

I hear this morning he’s being charged with "resisting arrest and disturbing the peace."

Peace? What peace?

Let’s not all forget that the U.S. government is capable of this and a helluva lot more. I have two words for you…Kent State. They weren’t tasering then…they were using bullets. Four dead in Ohio…

Arts, Bo Young, Community, Culture, Elders, Friends, Gay Wisdom, History, Malcolm Boyd, Men, White Crane Institute programs

Fellow Travelers — On the Road Again…

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White Crane Institute has been presenting Mark Thompson’s Fellow Travelers photography exhibit for the past few months at the New York LGBT Community Center. In October it will move to the William Way LGBT Community Center in Philadelphia. While it was here, Out At The Center, the LGBT Center video project, interviewed Mark and Bo about the show. Ok…so they misspelled Kilheffner, Monette and Ram Dass…the photos are stunning and the history is deep.

In November, Fellow Travelers will move to Salt Lake City in support of the Queer Spirit Retreat work Jerry Buie is doing. If you are interested in Fellow Travelers coming to your city, contact us at editors@gaywisdom.org .

Bo Young, Community, Current Affairs, Entertainment, Music

Faux News and Friends…

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Fauxnewscom I was at Farm Aid yesterday, standing in line at one point to use their disgusting shitters, when I saw a reporter and cameraman from local Faux News sticking their camera’s in people’s faces for "man on the street" shit for their despicable programming. There were about 35,000 people in the crowd, and one of them was a sort of tallish, straight man (I believe…at least he and I have never sucked one another’s cocks) who seemed to be being silly and enjoying it…so while this "reporter" (I have a hard time using that with respect to Faux News) was interviewing this other person, Mr. Silly was prancing along behind camera, pulling up his shirt to display his attractive torso for the camera (how they would have even got it in the shot is debatable…the camera was tight in on the interviewee, and there probably wasn’t a whole lot of background showing behind him.) Mr. Silly’s friends looked on, slightly embarrassed, it seemed, by their friend’s antics, but the interview proceeded unabated.

In any event…Mr. Silly did this a couple of times and all of a sudden, out of the crowd, came this uniformed cop, with a lot of brass on his starchy shirt. He commanded Mr. Silly, "Come over here!"…and Mr. Silly complied. And from my vantage point of about 20 yards away, you could see that Mr. Silly was getting quite the talking-to tongue-lashing, after which Brass Ass Starched Shirt marched away, and Mr. Silly’s friends had to sort of calm him down it seems, putting their arms around him and cooing calming things into his ear.

Faux_news_logo I couldn’t believe it! How DARE Mr. Silly interfere with Corporate Media’s shooting of the event!? And the amazing thing was the Faux News folks didn’t even need to ASK for this police escort, he jumped in unbidden to "preserve the peace" (yeah…right) like this silly prancer was creating some kind of threatening nuisance. Not even the Faux people seemed to think he was interfering with their interview, either. It was one of those small, little moments that makes my heart sink.

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The event was…an event. Seems it actually has to be "Earth Day" and a "Save the Earth" concert, and not just farmers, for some people to remember not to throw their trash on the ground when they’re done swilling their beer and chowing down on their organic corn dogs, as I saw repeatedly. Obviously it was a small percentage of the 35,000 or so people in attendance, but then that’s all it takes to sort of filthy things up, isn’t it?

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It was a nice day, not too hot, the music was good. Or at least it got better. Early sound left much to be desired. The sound guys just didn’t seem to get on the ball until later when the headliners showed up.

Counting Crows (who I wouldn’t know, other than by name, if they showed up at my front door); the ever cute Dave Matthews, singing and playing acoustic guitar fantasitcally with one accompanist. Ditto the Allman Brothers (electric), John Cougar Mellencamp (really great), adn Neil Young, who was magnificent, acoustic and quite mellow. At the end of the day, it was lovely to lay in the grass, swathed in the baby-blanket softness of the night air, and look up at the night sky and be serenaded by Neil Young singing:

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Workin’ hard every day

Never notice how

the time slips away

People come, seasons go,

We got something

that’ll never grow old.

.

I don’t care

if the sun don’t shine

And rain keeps pouring

down on me and mine

‘Cause our kind of love

never seems to get old

It’s better than silver and gold.

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I used to have a treasure chest

Got so heavy I had to rest

I let it slip away from me

Didn’t need it anyway

So I let it slip away.

.

I don’t care

if the sun don’t shine

and rain keeps pouring

down on me and mine

‘Cause our kind of love

never seems to get old

It’s better than silver and gold.

Bo Young, Community, Current Affairs, Gay Wisdom, Health, Men, Radical Faerie

Follow Up Fridays…WNYC-FM – The Brian Lehrer Show

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OK…I almost forgot about this, and it was so cool, it’s something that needs to be shared. Earlier this week, Dan and I posted our thinking about the Larry Craig debacle [see below]. Or at least some of the thinking, there’s a lot to this story (not all of it negative: entrapment, the perils of the closet, the importance of not thinking in simplistic binary terms, "public" sex, MSM, "down low" — and why is that usually only applied to African American men…isn’t Larry Craig "down low"? — and bisexuality among the more interesting ideas).

Anyway, as I sit working at the computer every day, I am, invariably, listening to New York Public Radio Station, WNYC-FM, and one of my favorite shows is the Brian Lehrer Show. Next to Terry Gross, on Fresh Air, I think Lehrer is one of the best interviewers in the business.

So I was perturbed, when Brian was discussing the Craig story, that both he and his guest commentators, continued to refer to Craig as "Gay" and talking about "other Gay men" in the same breath as though just because at some point in time some men share a physical attraction to, and seek out sexual contact with other men, that all men who do so are ipso facto "Gay." So I wrote a letter. This is what it said:

Dear Mr. Lehrer, I am a huge fan of your show, listen daily and support WNYC on a monthly basis. I beg you, please please please stop referring to Larry Craig as "Gay" as though this was the problem. 

He is sexually confused.  At best, Larry Craig is bisexual or homosexual. But the problem with Craig is, plain and simple, his hypocrisy and the effect that has on innocent people’s lives. It is the issue with his constituency; it is the issue with his colleagues and it is the issue with the LGBT community. The LGBT community, and Gay men specifically, have worked long and hard to establish the term "Gay" as opposed to the medically derived "homosexual." This was to distinguish it as a sexual orientation as opposed to a medical diagnosis. "Gay" specifically has connotations of pride, self-worth, self-respect and integration of one’s sexuality with one’s life. It is a difficult thing to achieve…coming out to one’s self, as well as to one’s family and loved ones. It is harrowing. And those of us who identify as "Gay" deserve to make a distinction between us, and closeted, dishonest, confused, homosexuals who have real psychological issues.

Gay_freedom It is extremely disheartening to be lumped into the same category as this man. And it confuses the issue. Homosexual hypocrisy is the issue here. Self-loathing is the issue. I hope you can finally come to understand…and share with your listeners, that there is a world of difference.

And as for the behavior in the bathroom, it is classic closet behavior. Bathrooms aren’t being plagued with prowling, predatory "Gay" men. But they are probably frequently filled with closeted men looking to connect with other closeted men. It’s what almost every closeted homosexual man I ever knew did before he discovered he was not the only one, not sick, and could live a healthy, happy and fulfilling life…as a Gay man.

Sincerely,

Bo Young

Publisher

White Crane Journal

The Journal of Gay Wisdom, Spirit and Culture.

www.gaywisdom.org

Well…imagine my surprise on Friday, when the show does a segment they call "Follow Up Fridays" on stories of the week that continue to call for comment, Brian Lehrer starts talking about the difference between "Gay" and "homosexual" and asking listeners to call in! I just about fell out of my chair when he gets to the segment, and without identifying me personally (or more importantly, alas, White Crane), proceeds to read my letter…verbatim. I was kvelling.

Mostly people responded positively. A woman called in and said she hadn’t been able to put her finger on why the story had been bothering her until she heard this. One gentleman called in and accused me of trying to "hijack the language for political purposes"…well duh!  A "professor" (of …I don’t know what) called in and quibbled with my description of "homosexual" as a "medical term" averring, correctly, that homosexuality is no longer a diagnosis in the DSM. Again…well duh! But it was, at one time. It was only taken out of the DSM as a diagnosis in 1973, thanks to the tireless efforts of Barbara Gittings, Judd Marmor, Franklin Kameny and "Dr. H Anonymous" who later turned out to be Psychiatrist John E. Fryer, and the origins of the term are, in fact, from the medical community, and the origins of same-sex sexuality being pathologized. Knowing  history is important. Claiming it is imperative.

Building Connections & Community for Gay Men since 1989