Pieces of Meat: Do Gay Men 'Deserve' to Marry?

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Justin Huang

Last June I was sexually molested by another gay man during L.A. Pride. It's not worth getting into details, but suffice to say, this wasn't your run-of-the-mill dance-floor groping.

I was in a dark, unfamiliar room, alone, powerless, terrified. As I walked home that night, I turned to look back at West Hollywood, and I wanted to burn it to the ground.

I've been called a faggot while taking a punch, alienated by people I love, told I'm ugly and worthless, but this? This was dehumanizing.

I was a piece of meat. And it happened during a celebration of LGBTQ identity, and it was done to me by a gay man. Pride? Proud of what, exactly? The question haunted me for weeks. I couldn't sleep.

Two weeks later, the New York Senate passed the Marriage Equality Act, effectively legalizing gay marriage in one of the most populous states in America.

New York City is arguably the capital of the New World; this was quite possibly the most significant domino piece to be toppled thus far, and now with Maryland following suit, the legalization of human love is more than a pipe dream.

I was sitting at the LAX airport when I heard the news, waiting to board a flight to San Francisco. My phone buzzed, and a text popped up from a friend: "Wanna get married in NYC?"

At the time, it was bittersweet for me, personally. Later, on the plane, as I watched California sprawl beneath me, I wondered if gay men deserved to marry. Is it too late for us?

The first time I ever heard talk of gay marriage, I was probably around 10, and I was listening to my aunts and uncles spout about politics at a family reunion.

It was becoming a hot-button issue at the time, and while I still didn't quite grasp exactly what gay people were, I was one of those kids who liked to pretend that they could keep up with adult speak. "Why do gay people want to get married?" I asked my uncle.

My uncle laughed. "Crazy, isn't it? Listen, I know gay people personally. And believe me, none of them want to get married. Why would they? They just screw each other until they drop dead of AIDS." His wife shushed him and told me to go play with my cousins.

As I walked around S.F. Pride last year, this conversation popped back into my head. I watched as people held signs proclaiming "Marriage Equality" and "Love Is Equal," and I wanted to join them, but I couldn't.

I don't think people quite comprehend the profound effect it has upon a group of people when they are told that their love is not valid. My generation of gays has grown up with the notion that we aren't equal, that our feelings are weak shadows of straight love.

Is it any wonder why we have such self-destructive reputations of promiscuity, drug use, and abuse? These seem to be the main accusations that anti-gay-marriage activists dole out. What a vicious cycle. Gays can't marry because we're all sluts... and we are sluts because we can't marry.

I found a quiet place under a tree at Dolores Park, where the S.F. Pride festivities were taking place. I took in the sheer volume of the crowd, every color, age, gender, and size possible, a gathering of people who had in common the fact that they were different.

People smiled at me, and I smiled back. It was beautiful, and there was a Great Hope that permeated throughout the crowd. For the first time in a very long time, I cried. Not because of what happened, but because -- despite it -- this Great Hope overwhelmed me.

I realized then how momentous this was, how someday I'd be telling my grandkids about how I was at S.F. Pride the weekend after New York legalized gay marriage.

And it had nothing to do with how one piece of meat treated another piece of meat on a drunken night. This is a battle, one of the few in my life in which I am not just an army of one but part of a greater movement that is fighting not just for gays but for humankind.

What is marriage? It's more than a few signatures on a piece of paper, and it's more than our needing recognition. Marriage is a shining hope that we can aspire to.

It gives our love a reason and a meaning. It narrows our search to one person. It makes the idea of a soulmate seem less like a silly romantic comedy for straight people.

Sure, none of this may exist, and monogamy and marriage may just be outdated institutions. But don't we deserve the opportunity to give it a go as much as the next person?

One day, I will marry. I'll have a wedding ceremony, maybe on an idyllic beach, and I'll invite everyone I know. When it's time to cut the cake, I'll smear it on my husband's face and let him lick it off my fingers. We'll have a honeymoon, somewhere I've never been, like South America or Australia, and I'll forget to pack my cell phone.

Fast forward a few years, and I'll be sitting in the living room watching our kid play as we unwind our day. I'll be the typical Asian parent ("Educational toys only!" "No TV on weekdays!" "Finish your rice!").

But I'll also teach our kid about how lucky we are to be a family, and how my friends and I fought and yelled, side by side, obliterating these limitations on love. "People have suffered and persevered so I could have you," I'll say, "and I will never take you for granted."


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Dear America: You Have a Gay Problem

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Josh D. Scheinert

Dear America,

It must be hard being you these days. You have so many big issues -- from the economy to national security and the looming election, just to name a few. If I may though, I'd like to focus on another one.

This is Canada, your northern neighbour (I spell it with a "u"). Blessed with a bird's eye view, I've watched troubling developments unfold below. Before more damage is done, I thought it best to offer some Canadian insight in the hopes that it may assist you as you move forward in your struggle.

I've wanted to write this for a while. During the lead up to Proposition 8 and the continued legal battle that has ensued, as debates over gay marriage spread to other states, you questioned if allowing soldiers to fight and die openly would ruin your military just as teenagers across your country tragically took their own lives after being bullied for who they were.

What finally forced my hand was a heartbreaking and infuriating article in Rolling Stone chronicling how one school district in Minnesota not only condoned but actively promoted the bullying of its LGBT students.

The result of the Anoka-Hennepin school district's policy has been devastating. One can only pray (isn't that what they'd want us to do?) that the souls of those who took their own lives are now at peace.

You Americans don't pay all that much attention to Canada. We know, and are mostly okay with it. But as you strive to build your land of the free, it might do you good to look up every now and then.

When you do, you'll discover something that might surprise many of you: We aren't all that concerned about gay people. Our Conservative government has said it has no intention of re-opening a debate on same-sex marriage, which is legal.

Abroad, it has become a consistent and strong advocate for gay rights. Contrary to some beliefs, no radical gay agenda came and hijacked our society. The sky hasn't fallen.

Now sure, things up here aren't perfect. We too have unfortunately been faced with instances of homophobic bullying and tragically, gay-teen suicide.

There are Canadians unhappy that Bob and Joe can express their love just like Bob and Joan. And I certainly don't want to imply that all, or even the majority, of Americans are anti-gay.

But there's something different, something malicious about the debate in your country. The haters are too hateful and the vilification of the LGBT community has spread too far.

In what other free and equal society would those seeking to be Commander-In-Chief stand silently as a crowd of citizens booed a soldier because he was gay?

It is a true juxtaposition of cowardice and courage, and such a moral deficiency should automatically qualify one as unfit to lead a nation.


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Much More Than a TV Show

via Advocate, by op-ed contributor Michelle Kristel

"Last week, I bought the gun. Yesterday, I wrote the note. Last night, I happened to catch your show on TV and, just knowing that someday I might be able to go back into a church with my head held high, I threw the gun into the river.

My mom never has to know." So read the email that a gay Iowa teenager sent to Daniel Karslake, a producer here at In The Life Media (ITLM) in 1998.

As the executive director of ITLM — which produces the award-winning newsmagazine, IN THE LIFE — I know that media depicting LGBT people has the power to change lives. It can also, as in this case, even save them.

As ITLM celebrates its 20th anniversary, we reflect upon how far we’ve come — and how far we still have to go for LGBT people to achieve full equality.

We take pride in knowing that, through our unique programming, ITLM has become so much more than a TV show.

Twenty years ago, a group of individuals had a vision: to create a television program featuring LGBT voices and culture. In the days before Ellen or Will & Grace, let alone Glee, it was all but impossible to find respectful depictions of LGBT characters on television.

Real LGBT people were relegated to the spectacle of daytime talk shows. Many of the issues important to our community were not covered by mainstream media in any substantive manner.

Today of course, LGBT visibility in media is commonplace. While this has led to greater acceptance for our community, visibility alone does not equate to social justice.

Discrimination is still prevalent. Countless instances of antigay legislation, policies and behaviors take place throughout this country every day, often with little notice by the general populace.

However, in LGBT communities, the damage of these discriminatory actions is acutely felt.

ITLM has always recognized the imperative of truly educating the public about who we are as LGBT individuals and the very real way issues, ranging from HIV/AIDS to marriage equality to homelessness, affect our community. To us, this is crucial to securing civil rights.

Our programming consistently exposes injustice, challenges perceptions and shatters stereotypes. Here, in fact, “stereotypes crumble before your very eyes,” according to TheNew York Times.
 
For instance, our media is being shown at universities to fight homophobia on campuses around the country. Recently, our work has been used to inform Congress, the U.S. Department of Education, UNAIDS, ACLU, Anti-Defamation League, and scores of LGBT and allied groups, many of whom cannot afford to create these materials on their own.

Our programming not only has political implications, however. It also improves lives in very direct and personal ways. Case in point, we recently produced a Spanish-language Web video for our “Marriage Matters” series profiling Cristina, an American citizen, and her partner Monica, who is from Argentina.

The couple married legally in their home state but, because of the Defense of Marriage Act, Monica faced deportation, since the immigration protections provided for heterosexual couples do not apply to same-sex couples.

With the help of our video, Monica and Cristina won their legal battle and had deportation proceedings against them closed by New York’s chief immigration counsel. This is a first for same-sex married couples.

That is one example of how ITLM is moving to the forefront of video journalism. By developing model approaches to Web-based content, we are leveraging the power of online communications to propelchange for the LGBT movement.

Our provocative, short-form videos created expressly for the Web address issues still ignored by the mainstream, while utilizing the unique functionality, versatility and reach of the Internet.

Another example is “Injustice at Every Turn,” our Web-exclusive video based on a report of the same name examining discrimination against transgender people.

Our exposé gave viewers a different perspective than did most media covering the survey, and illuminated a difficult topic in ways that have a real and profound impact on our community.

I am proud to note that this video was used to inform the U.S. Department of Labor about anti-transgender discrimination in the workplace.

Similarly, one of our most recent Web-exclusives, “A Day in Our Shoes,” told the stories of LGBT homeless youth forced to sleep on the streets after having been tossed out by rejecting parents, grandparents and other family members.

The media was used as part of the Campaign for Youth Shelter, which calls on New York City and State to provide increased funding for shelter beds.

The movement has made great strides in the past decade. But the need for media that educates and informs the public about LGBT Americans is as urgent as ever.

We all know that media drives public opinion and ITLM proudly provides a counterpoint to the multi-billion dollar, antigay media machine that LGBT foes have spent decades building.


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The Relationship Between Faith and Marriage Equality

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Ross Murray

More than a handful of states are currently debating whether to extend the legal protections marriage brings to gay and lesbian couples and their families.

We are watching with anticipation as states like Washington and Maryland inch closer to treating all families with fairness and equity.

Governors of both of these states have talked about their Catholic faith and their strong relationships with their faith as they pledge their support for marriage equality.

Something is happening, right now, that is calling them to support fairness and equality at this time.

We are in the middle of a watershed moment for LGBT equality.

The time is right for individuals, cities and whole states to start recognizing and respecting the care and commitment of loving gay and lesbian couples.

Over the past few years, as we've seen more states legalize marriage equality, we've also seen public opinion inching upwards. According to several recent polls, a majority of Americans of all creeds and affiliations now support full marriage equality.

And through all of these conversations about LGBT equality and marriage, religion is playing a prominent role. When the movement toward marriage equality started, people of faith were portrayed by the media as being entirely and unilaterally opposed.

But as the conversation has continued, and as more and more people have cited their faith as a reason they support their LGBT friends, neighbors and family members, that perspective is starting to change.

Personally, I applaud the media's attention to the faith perspective on LGBT equality. As a committed Christian and a gay man, I'm excited to see two important aspects of my identity garnering recognition in the media.

Growing up in my small church, I realized that I had an undying love for God and the worshipping community gathered to give glory. I also knew that my being gay was going to be difficult for others in our church.

After reconciling my faith and my sexual orientation for myself, I've worked for years on LGBT inclusion and equality in religious communities. Now, doing the religious work for GLAAD, it is gratifying to see the same faithful conversations about faith, equality and inclusion out in the wider world.

And I know I'm not alone. There are thousands upon thousands of people of faith who are also lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT), and who are committed to their faith and its relationship with their sexual orientation or gender identity.

This is exactly why the way we talk about religion and the LGBT population is so important. It should reflect the caring conversation that is happening in places of worship across the country.

The validation from faith already exists and is growing. Religious communities and people of faith are increasingly welcoming and supportive of LGBT people.

According to a recent research note by the Public Religion Research Institute, majorities within most religious groups favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry.

These religious group with a majority of LGBT supporters include Jews, religious people who identify as neither Christian nor Jewish, Catholics (both white and Hispanic) and mainline Protestants.

Even in religious groups that do not have a majority of LGBT support, affirming people are increasing numbers and working toward LGBT equality both inside and outside their denominations.

Although the coverage has improved, we still need the media to better reflect that reality. Instead of sometimes focusing exclusively on religious opposition to LGBT equality, we need more stories that reflect the truth that people are being called to love and support their LGBT friends and family.

Life is much more complex than the "gays versus religion" stereotype that has been so often portrayed in the media.


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Illinois Looking Towards Marriage Equality

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Waymon Hudson

A group of Illinois legislators and civil rights organizations has started holding meetings to strategize on moving from civil unions to full marriage equality for LGBT couples.

Illinois state representatives Greg Harris, Deb Mell, Ann Williams, Kelly Cassidy, and Sara Feigenholtz, and state senator Heather Steans, as well as groups like Equality Illinois, Log Cabin Republicans, the ACLU, Lambda Legal, The Civil Rights Agenda, and the Human Rights Campaign, are looking at how to move forward legislatively on marriage rights for same-sex couples.

Representative Greg Harris told the Windy City Times that the legislation wouldn't be introduced until 2013 at the earliest, and he gave some insight into how difficult it could be: "I do not delude myself into thinking this will be an easy process.

But we need to take the first step. We have to be ready to stand up and defend the gains that we've made and to look toward the next steps."

The road ahead for marriage equality in the state does indeed look difficult, but not impossible.
Among the strongest opposition is the highly influential and politically powerful Catholic Church.

In September the Catholic Conference of Illinois announced the formation of a "Defense of Marriage" department, whose sole purpose is to fight any future attempts to legalize same-sex marriage in the state.

The stated goal of the department is to protect the "stature of the nuclear family -- which provides love, stability and confidence to children, as well as organization to society."

The "Defense of Marriage" department has already started throwing out incendiary (and scientifically unfounded) claims about the "dangers" of marriage equality:

"The effects [of same-sex marriage] are evident in the performance of children in school, in truancy and crime rates, and in an ailing culture that too often values feeling good over self-giving, and individuality over the common good."

The Catholic Church's hostility toward equal rights for LGBT people in the state has indeed been ratcheting up. We've seen the drawn-out legal battle between Catholic Charities and the state of Illinois over the organization's state-funded adoption and foster care contracts, and their refusal to grant those services to same-sex couples in civil unions, which ended in a loss for the church.

This has led to a growing tension between the church hierarchy and advancing civil rights.

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago recently compared the city's gay pride parade to the Ku Klux Klan, sparking outrage, protests, and an eventual half-apology from the cardinal.

Even Pope Benedict himself has continued the attacks on marriage equality, saying this week that gay marriage was a threat to the traditional family that undermined "the future of humanity itself."

With well-organized and well-funded opposition like this, pushing for legislation allowing same-sex couples to marry will be difficult.

But there are concrete examples that can be used to educate the public and legislature about the basic unfairness of the separate and unequal status that civil unions create for gay couples in the state.

The previously mentioned fight between Catholic Charities and the state over the $30 million in taxpayer dollars that Catholic Charities received from the state of Illinois for foster care and adoption services was based on excluding same-sex couples in civil unions.

There was also the case of the Springfield, Ill. Joint Labor/Management Insurance Committee deciding not to cover health benefits for the civil-union partners of city employees.

The committee used the different relationship status of same-sex couples and married heterosexual couples to carve out the exemption to civil-union spouses.

They cited the benefits for same-sex couples being too costly, which is an argument that would never be accepted when applied to a more universally understood institution like full marriage.

Public outrage eventually made them change their decision and cover all couples equally.


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Marriage Equality is a Trans Issue, Too

via Advocate, by Trudy Ring

When Nikki and Thomas Araguz were married in Texas in 2008, she had been married and divorced once before, and she had legal documentation identifying herself as a woman.

Although Nikki, born biologically male, didn't have her gender transition surgery until a few months after the ceremony, she had no reason to think their marriage wasn't legal.

In 2010, Thomas, a firefighter, died while battling a blaze. When Nikki tried to claim her share of his death benefits, a judge ruled their marriage invalid.

Though laws governing the marriage of trans men and women who've undergone gender-reassignment surgery vary from state to state, the ruling, now on appeal, is a rare instance of a transgender person's marriage being voided.

"In the vast majority of cases [involving marriages of transgender people], nobody has any problem," says Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, who has handled many marriage-related cases.

"Nobody even questions the validity of the marriage. Now there have been a handful of cases in very conservative states that have come out badly."

The reason? "Courts in these states have been so homophobic," says Minter. "They don't want to even come close to recognizing a same-sex marriage."

Cases that have ended badly include that of Christie Littleton in Texas, where an appeals court ruled in 1999 that she could not bring a wrongful death suit after her husband, Jonathon, died; even though she had undergone gender-reassignment surgery, the court deemed Littleton male and her marriage invalid.

In Kansas in 2002 came the only such ruling at a state supreme court level, in which J'Noel Gardiner, another transgender woman who had been widowed, was denied inheritance rights because the court did not recognize her marriage.

Several years ago, Minter represented Floridian Michael Kantaras, a transgender man who sought custody of his children when his marriage ended.

The trial court ruled that Kantaras was male and his marriage valid, and awarded him custody, but the verdict was reversed on appeal.

However, the Dr. Phil show then paid for mediation for Kantaras and his ex-wife, resulting in shared custody. "So that was good," Minter says.

There was encouraging news last year in Texas, one of the last states to allow proof of gender reassignment to get a marriage license.

A Republican-backed bill that decreed that, for the purpose of marriage, gender is assigned at birth and cannot be changed even after gender-reassignment surgery, died in the legislature.

And in November a Dallas County judge refused to invalidate trans man James Allan Scott's marriage to Rebecca Robertson, allowing the dissolution of their marriage to proceed as a divorce and giving Scott a chance at a share of the couple's property, says his lawyer, Eric Gormly.

Though Scott had transitioned before their marriage, Robertson sought to nullify the union on grounds that he was born female.


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Immigration Victory for Binational Couple

via Advocate, by Andrew Harmon

A married, binational gay couple in San Francisco who made headlines last summer after they were denied a green card have been granted a two-year reprieve on their deportation case.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports on immigration officials' decision to grant “deferred action” in the case of the couple, Bradford Wells and Anthony John Makk:

[Wells and Makk] won a two year stay against the threat of deportation, thanks to the personal intervention of their representative, House leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and state Sen. Mark Leno, a Democrat who represents parts of San Francisco, also provided assistance.

Makk is a citizen of Australia married to Wells, a U.S. citizen who suffers from AIDS-related illnesses. Makk is his primary caregiver. Makk was denied consideration for a green card based on his marriage to a citizen by the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which bars all federal marital rights and responsibilities to same-sex couples. The law covers not only immigration issues but also hundreds of tax, Social Security and other federal laws.

“We’re still dizzy from the news,” said Makk. “We are elated.”

Makk has been forced to “play the visa tag game back and forth,” for years— on tourist visas, then business visas up until 2010. “We’ve worked so hard over 20 years just to maintain a legal presence in this country,” Wells told The Advocate in October.

“If Anthony leaves, he can’t get back in. If something happens with his family, he can’t be there for them. Because he’s chosen to be here with me.”

The couple, who met with Pelosi in her Washington, D.C. office in October, had asked administration officials to put on hold the appeal of their application pending legislative repeal of DOMA or a legal ruling against it, which would allow Makk to remain stateside.

In a Wednesday afternoon statement, Pelosi said, “I appreciate the consideration of [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] in granting this relief to my constituents.

I join Anthony and Bradford in celebrating the decision, and will continue to work to repeal the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act.”


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Top 4 Reasons Opposing Gay Marriage is Bonkers!

via UnicornBooty, by Kevin Farrell

Gay happens. Get over it.

Faced with an upcoming statewide vote to either allow or outright ban same-sex marriage, the North Carolina Psychological Association has published a rather straightforward takedown of the argument against gay marriage.

It’s all about science, you see!

1. There is no empirical evidence that supports the denial of marriage rights to people in same-sex relationships.

2. There is empirical evidence that denial of marriage rights to people in same-sex relationships is damaging to their psychological health.

3. There is empirical evidence that opposing denial of marriage rights initiatives has beneficial psychological effects.

4. Psychologists have colleagues and we have clients for whom this issue is relevant and important, and who appreciate representation. From a social justice perspective, significant benefits accrue to all of us when diverse families are legally and socially sanctioned.

Thus, it is resolved that, based on the available empirical evidence, the North Carolina Psychological Association is opposed to the May ballot initiative that would alter the North Carolina Constitution to make marriage between a man and a woman the only legal domestic union recognized in the state.

This position will be communicated to NCPA members, and NCPA may be listed with other organizations opposing the amendment, such as Equality NC.

NCPA may also seek to make coalitions with other mental health associations and agencies for the purpose of opposing the amendment.

BAM! It’s just like that. Science tell us that gay marriage is good. Facts. Empirical evidence. Knowledge. Provable, measurable information.

By all means feel encouraged to cherish your faith, but please a dear and don’t even think about using it to dispute what science proves is true.


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Gay Marriage Victory Still Shadowed by AIDS

via New York Times, by Austin Considine

ON the evening of June 24, Steve Mendelsohn celebrated in the street with his friends and nearly a thousand other supporters of same-sex marriage outside the Stonewall Inn, the storied gay bar in the West Village.

The setting was nothing if not appropriate: In 1969, a riot at the Stonewall would make the bar forever synonymous with the awakening of the modern gay rights movement in America.

That night, nearly a half-century later, a bill passed that would allow gay men and women to legally marry for the first time in New York State.

For Mr. Mendelsohn, 54, the moment represented an unequivocal victory: an apex to decades of struggle for equal recognition under state law.

Still, the moment was tinged with a sense of absence, as it was for many gay men his age.

Amid the jubilation, he couldn’t help but think of Phil Kanner, his partner of 15 years, who died of complications from AIDS in 1995.

“I was thinking, ‘I wish Phil were here with me,’ ” Mr. Mendelsohn said in an interview in the fall, adding later, “If my partner were alive, I believe we would have married.”

For many middle-aged gay men in New York City, the passage of the same-sex marriage law was in part a fresh reminder of the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic, when men like Mr. Mendelsohn, the director of a nonprofit media group, lost innumerable friends and loved ones to a disease that was often as stigmatizing as it was deadly.

At the height of the epidemic, the disease took tens of thousands of lives in the United States each year; it reached its deadly peak in 1995, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with the number of deaths of those with AIDS reaching more than 50,000 that year.

Those who survived haven’t stopped living, forming new relationships and organizing for equality in the decades since.

But the memory of what was lost lingers — a shadow cast by marriage equality’s glow.

“New losses can trigger old feelings of grief, but so can successes, so something like having gay marriage can trigger feelings of loss,” said James Masten, a Manhattan psychotherapist and author who has worked with patients with H.I.V. and AIDS for the last 20 years.

“Even though it’s a positive experience, it can still remind us of all the people who aren’t here, who haven’t had the opportunity to see this — all the activists who never lived to this point,” he added.

Jeffrey Sharlach, 58, founder of a Manhattan-based communications firm and an adjunct associate professor of management communication at New York University, said he lost nearly every one of his gay friends in New York during the 1980s and ’90s, including his partner of more than 12 years, Ken Williams, who died in 1994 at age 33.

Mr. Sharlach is publishing a novel in May about that period in his life called “Running in Bed,” which he described as about a quarter autobiographical.

For Mr. Sharlach, New York at the height of the AIDS epidemic became an empty shell, its streets a constant reminder of loved ones who were disappearing. “Every single block would be like, ‘Oh, I remember this guy used to live here.’ ”

“It was like a city of ghosts,” he added.

With the passing of time, many of those who survived the 1980s and ’90s have gone on to form meaningful long-term relationships.

Some, like Mr. Mendelsohn, took advantage of the same-sex marriage law fairly quickly. In September, he married Wallie Pagunsan, exactly two years after the day they met.

Others, like Mr. Sharlach, believe that the moment for marrying may have passed. Though he, too, has a long-term partner, his second since Mr. Williams died, he has little interest in marrying.


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Same-Sex Marriage Improves Gay Men's Health

via myhealthnewsdaily, by Staff

Gay men's health improves when their state legalizes same-sex marriage, a new study finds.

The results showed gay and bisexual men in Massachusetts had significant fewer medical- and mental-health-care visits, and lower mental-health-care costs in the year after the state legalized gay marriage, compared with the previous year.

This amounted to a 13-percent reduction in total health-care visits, and a 14-percent reduction in health-care costs for this group. The reductions were similar for partnered and single gay men.

Previous research has shown that excluding lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals from marriage has a stressful impact on this population, according to the study.

There were also reductions in cases of hypertension and depression, according to the study. Both conditions are associated with stress.

The findings suggest that legalizing same-sex marriage could benefit public health "by reducing the occurrence of stress-related health conditions in gay and bisexual men," said study researcher Mark Hatzenbuehler, of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

However, among HIV-positive men, there was no reduction in HIV-related visits, suggesting that those in need of HIV/AIDS care continued to seek needed health-care services, the researchers said.

The researchers surveyed 1,211 patients from a large, community-based health clinic in Massachusetts that focuses on serving these groups.

Because the clinic was in a large metropolitan city, these results may not be generalized among people living in more-rural communities, the researchers said.

The study is published online today (Dec. 15) in the American Journal of Public Health.


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2011: A Good Year to be Gay

via theguardian, by Aaron Hicklin

A funny thing happened in America in 2011. With the US political establishment in deadlock and Republicans bowing to Tea Party mandarins over a raft of issues from immigration to curbs on trade unions, one area of American civil liberties celebrated a watershed year.

After decades in which gay rights have polarised US opinion, the country barely shrugged in September when a two-decade old law prohibiting gay men and women from serving openly in the military was finally repealed, prompting thousands of gay soldiers to post coming-out videos on YouTube – just one more example of how the web has transformed gay visibility.

Less than two months earlier New York became the sixth, and biggest, state to allow same-sex couples to marry.

To put that in context, there are more people living in New York than in the Netherlands, which in 2001 became the first country to legalise same-sex marriage.

The struggle for marriage equality has been one of the most bitterly divisive issues in America, but after a series of defeats for gay-rights advocates, the tide appears to be shifting irrevocably in their direction.

A series of national polls this year has shown support for same-sex unions outgunning opposition for the first time since polling on the issue began in the 1980s – a dramatic turnaround from even three years earlier, when voters in California approved a ballot measure overturning same-sex marriage.

In the 2004 election, under the keen encouragement of Karl Rove, no fewer than 11 states passed ballot initiatives banning gay marriage — a cynical get-out-the-vote ploy that helped swell Republican ranks at the polling booths.

The perception that marriage equality was a poisoned pink chalice persisted up to the 2008 election, when even Obama was careful to clarify that he wasn't in favour of gay marriage, apparently heeding warnings from Bill Clinton to give the issue a wide berth.

Yet in this year's debates between the ragtag pack of Republican presidential nominees, the usual rhetoric denouncing gay marriage has been noticeably absent.

Even Obama, facing precarious odds for a second term, has said that he favours repealing the notorious Defense of Marriage Act that has prevented federal recognition of gay marriages, even those performed in states where they are legal.

What changed in those few short years? In many ways the transformation of attitudes has been ongoing for decades, accelerated in large part by the impact of Aids, which reconfigured gay identity around community and relationships.

In TV shows such as Glee and Modern Family, gays are no longer comic stooges or punchlines, their relationships treated with the same respect as those of their straight counterparts.

They hold hands, they kiss, they even share the same bed. This was a quantum leap on 1990s shows such as Will & Grace, in which the gay characters had the whiff of "confirmed bachelors", to use the archaic euphemism of obituary writers, rarely presented in functioning relationships, much less in love.

To young gay men and women today the idea that they will be able to marry and raise kids no longer sounds outlandish or controversial. It sounds axiomatic.

They see gay couples getting married in states such as New York and Massachusetts. They see Neil Patrick Harris, a popular television actor, posing on the red carpet with his partner, David Burtka, and their two children.

They listen, alongside their straight friends, to gay anthems by Lady Gaga, and watch popular gay-inclusive shows such as True Blood.

Most of all, they communicate with a diverse group of friends on Twitter and Facebook, where gay and straight teens revel in their shared cultural interests.


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Gay Introductions

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Domenick Scudera

'Tis the season of holiday celebrations, office parties and family gatherings. For gay people like me, these social events lead to a unique problem.

When I introduce the man I love to other people at a party, I cannot use the convenient title "husband" to explain who he is to me. Same-sex marriage is not recognized in our state.

There are many other options that I could use to introduce Brian to my long-lost Aunty Trudy from Duluth, but none of them is satisfactory. Here are a few:

Boyfriend: Brian and I have been together for 16 years. We are both... well, let's just say we are both on the other side of 45. We are too old and have been together too long to be "boyfriends." If we were going steady, or going to the prom, then maybe "boyfriends" would be more appropriate.

'Friend': I have lots of friends, and Brian is one of them. In fact, he is my best friend. But he is much more than that, so if I were to use this term to explain our relationship, it necessitates the use of quotation marks, italics or winks, as in:

"I'd like you to meet my 'friend' Brian [wink, wink]." You could use the word "roommate" in the same way: "my 'roommate' Brian [wink, wink]." This is all a little too cutesy for my taste.

Mate: This word would be fine if we were pirates. "Aye, matey, this here's me first mate Brian. Now swab the deck. Arrrgh."

Partner: This word makes us sound like attorneys in a law firm: "Scudera, Strachan and Associates, Homosexual Partners Since 1995." (Well, this could work if you consider our dogs "associates.")

Domestic Partner: This is even worse than "partner." It makes us sound like we are joint owners of a home cleaning service: "Scudera, Strachan and Associates, Domestic Gays Since 1995. We Make Your Floors Sparkle!"

Lover: This defines our relationship by a sex act. Although Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum may want to define our "lifestyle" this way, I would rather not. Sex is just one aspect of many in our lives.

It seems random to choose one part of our relationship to represent who we are to each other. Brian cooks dinner sometimes, but I would not introduce him as "my chef Brian."

He also does the gardening in our yard, but he is not "my gardener Brian." I could just as easily call him my "confidant," my "driver," my "dog walker," or "the guy I watch TV with."

All these choices, including "lover," are too limiting.


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[VIDEO] It's Time

via Advocate

GetUp! in Australia released a commercial on Thursday from the perspective of one half of a gay couple in love. It builds to the big moment that they want legalized — a proposal to get married.

Sexual Liberation and its effect on Gay Monogamy

via Slate, by Amanda Marcotte

Folks of all sexual orientations who are in committed relationships have become more monogamous over time, or that's what a study that was published Family Process found.

There are some hinky things in the reporting on this piece at USA Today. For instance, the only heterosexual couples mentioned are married, but gay couples who are committed but have no formal union were also recorded.

Additionally, the reporting conflates cheating with sex outside of the relationship, even though many couples have an understanding that allows for outside relationships.

In fact, nonmonogamous cultural norms in gay male culture go a long way toward explaining why they're far more likely to have sex outside of a committed relationship than everyone else. 

Still, even with those caveats in place, the results of this survey are stunning. The rate of sex outside of the marriage has dropped for every category of people studied dramatically between 1975 and 2000.

Twenty-eight percent of straight men in 1975 had sex with a woman outside of their marriage, but in 2000, it was only 10 percent. For straight, married women, the rate dropped from 23 percent to 14 percent. For gay men, 83 percent to 59 percent, and for lesbians, 28 percent to 8 percent.

The USA Today article focuses mainly on gay couples and how the mainstream acceptance of homosexuality has a lot to do with increasing rates of monogamy.

There's a lot to think about there, since it is true that cultural acceptance has introduced far more stability into the lives of gay people, and the gay marriage movement has also increased the pressure to value monogamy.


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Maybe I Do And Maybe I Don't

via The Village Voice, By Steven Thrasher

Kevin Beauchamp, 49, and Howard Orlick, 50, are both legally blind. Kevin is thin and wiry; his vision loss is degenerative, and eventually he'll go completely blind. For now, he sees a little through one eye, making out shapes when there is enough contrast. With the aid of adaptive software, he's able to read modified text when he's not too tired.

Don't Ask, Don't TellBrian BrownKevin BeauchampSame-Sex MarriageLGBT IssuesHoward is broad and muscular. Because of a genetic condition, he sees nothing in daylight. The sun's light acts on him like snow blindness. But at night, he has some vision. During the day, Kevin's dwindling vision is enough for him to get by with a cane. But at night, it's Howard who guides Kevin as they walk together.

For nine years, they've been together, relying on each other to get down the street and up steps and around corners, so that they could do what had been a major part of their forties—protesting for the right of gay couples to marry.

They carried a banner together in the National Equality March in D.C. (Howard admits that he worried about falling in a manhole.) And Kevin was arrested last March while participating in a demonstration that shut down the intersection of Sixth Avenue and 42nd Street at rush hour, even though police didn't seem interested in cuffing a blind man carrying a white cane.

"The cops looked at me and passed me right by," Kevin says, laughing as he adds, "Of course, I didn't know that at the time."

The NYPD officers handcuffed Kevin only after another of the protesters complained, "He's with us! Arrest him, too!"

Both men have been hard at work fighting for gay rights in their forties. They each buried previous partners in their thirties.

Howard says that when his late partner, Peter, died, his family didn't treat him like a widower, even though "we were just like a married couple—the only thing was that we couldn't get married."

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Obama's slick shift on 'gay' marriage

via WorldNet Daily, By Jack Cashill

In November 2008, while a candidate for president, Barack Obama was unequivocal in his rejection of gay marriage.

At the time, Obama told even the gay-friendly MTV audience that he believed marriage to be exclusively "between a man and a woman" and that he was "not in favor of gay marriage."

Just a few months later, in response to a question, Miss California Carrie Prejean said the very same thing: "I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense to anybody out there."

For her honesty, she was denied a shot at the Miss USA title and savaged throughout the media by a gay lobby empowered by Obama's victory.

Obama got the message. In February of this year, assuming the role usually reserved for the Supreme Court, he and his pals decided that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act – passed by large majorities in both houses and signed by President Clinton – was unconstitutional, and they would no longer enforce it.

Now, we are told that his position on gay marriage is "evolving." In defense of Obama's impending shift, Rep. Barney Frank excused him of hypocrisy: "If you live in a democratic society, it is a mix of what you think the voters want and what you think is doable."

Obama got the message. In February of this year, assuming the role usually reserved for the Supreme Court, he and his pals decided that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act – passed by large majorities in both houses and signed by President Clinton – was unconstitutional, and they would no longer enforce it.

Now, we are told that his position on gay marriage is "evolving." In defense of Obama's impending shift, Rep. Barney Frank excused him of hypocrisy: "If you live in a democratic society, it is a mix of what you think the voters want and what you think is doable."

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Gay marriage: awkward issue for some GOP hopefuls

via Pride Source,  By Davis Crary

Same-sex marriage might seem like a straightforward issue: You're for it or against it. Yet for the field of Republican presidential hopefuls, it's proving to be an awkward topic as public attitudes change and more states legalize gay unions, the latest being New York.

Numerous recent polls suggest a slim majority of Americans now back gay marriage. Support is highest among Democrats, but is growing across the political spectrum even while religious conservatives - a key part of the GOP primary electorate - remain largely opposed.

The result, according to political analysts from both major parties, is a dilemma for the leading GOP candidates, most of whom oppose same-sex marriage but tend to avoid raising the topic unless asked.
"They see the polling - more and more Republicans are supporting gay marriage," said David Welch, a former research director for the Republican National Committee. "It puts them in an awkward position with the younger members of the party and also with independents whose votes you need to win."

Richard Socarides, a former Clinton White House adviser on gay rights, said the political climate has changed rapidly and dramatically as leading Democrats celebrate the advent of gay marriage in New York and the imminent end of the ban on gays serving openly in the military under President Barack Obama.

"It's now advantageous for Democrats to support gay rights, and a net negative for Republicans to oppose them," Socarides said. "It's become extremely complicated for many of the Republican candidates who are used to using anti-gay rhetoric as a way to gin up their base."

Obama, though still not ready to endorse gay marriage, says he's "evolving" on the issue and is supporting a bill that would extend federal recognition to same-sex couples who marry in the six states that allow it.

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The End of Gays: Gay Marriage and the Decline of the Homosexual Population

 via Scienctific American, By Jesse Bering

[ Interesting article! Please comment!]

Although the precise genetic mechanisms underlying homosexuality are still relatively unknown, we do know that, however these mechanisms actually work, there are indeed clear, contributing genetic factors underlying homosexual orientation.

 The best evidence that homosexuality runs in families as a heritable biological trait comes from 1990s-era twin studies, which revealed that the concordance rate (the rate by which twin members overlap on anything from schizophrenia to creativity to sexual orientation) for homosexuality is significantly greater in monozygotic twins (identical) than in dizygotic twins (who share only half of their genes, just like non-twin siblings).

The more rigorously controlled twin studies adjust for possible shared environmental influences by taking into account, for instance, the sexual orientation of non-twin siblings or twins separated at birth, and yet all reveal that homosexuality is at least partially heritable. 

Homosexuality is often presented as an evolutionary “mystery” because of the obvious reproductive disadvantages, and thus for decades researchers have sought some adaptive function for the culturally recurrent percentage (anywhere from 1 to 10 percent of the population, depending on the measures used) of the human population that is aroused more by the same than it is by the opposite sex. Yet if we consider the historical, and perhaps even the ancestral, percentage of the homosexual population that did in fact reproduce because of societal proscriptions against adult relations with the same sex, the mystery becomes considerably less profound. 

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800 couples wed on first day gay marriage is legal in N.Y.

via USA Today, Martha T. Moore

Alan Miles knew he loved his boyfriend, but not until the day in 2004 that he was caught up in Massachusetts' celebrations of the passage of its same-sex marriage law did he realize how much he wanted to marry Drew Glick.

"It was very powerful to me. I realized this was really something I wanted for myself," he said. Miles promptly proposed, but learned he would have to wait.Yes, Glick, 45, wanted to be married but in New York, his hometown,and nowhere else.

In June, when New York became the sixth and largest state to allow same-sex marriage, Glick immediately updated his Facebook status to "engaged."

On Sunday, after 16 years together and a seven-year engagement, the two were married by a judge in the office of the city clerk, one set of newlyweds among more than 800 beaming and often teary-eyed same-sex couples legally united on the first day the law went into effect.

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Black and LGBT in the Black Church

via Black Enterprise, By Tomika Anderson

Rigid attitudes around homosexuality in the church, mosque and in communities of color overall may explain the fervor that surrounded embattled Georgia pastor Eddie Long.

After years of publicly denouncing homosexuality—even going so far as to lead a special ministry for gays and lesbians in order to convert them into heterosexuals—Bishop Long was sued last year by four young men who alleged he used his pastoral influence to coerce them into a sexual relationship with him. A national uproar ensued as he scurried to settle with them out of court.

Some argue that had it been women Long had the affairs with, he might have gotten a slap on the wrist. But because his dalliances allegedly involved (underage) men, his feet were put to the proverbial fire.

New York City-based trauma expert and wellness coach Dara Williams says it is the fear of public condemnation that keeps folks—in and outside of the church—from being honest about who they are when it comes to their sexuality. “The black community is very conservative about most sex-related issues,” she says, “and homosexuality is one of them. Sexuality in our community is generally oppressed or not discussed, and we can see through our [collective] rate of HIV infection that this kind of secrecy is literally killing us.”

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