Illinois Amendment would add Gender Identity to Hate Crime Law

via Chicago Phoenix, by Tony Merevick

Illinois Rep. Kelly M. Cassidy (14th Dristrict) introduced an amendment to the Illinois Criminal Code of 1961, which would add protections for gender identity, military status and immigration status to the state’s hate crimes law.

HB4725, filed in the General Assembly Feb. 3, is the result of efforts among Illinois lawmakers and local LGBT activists, including members of The Civil Rights Agenda, who authored the bill.

“As a member organization of the LGBTQ Immigration Coalition and as an organization that works with many transgender individuals that have experienced crimes motivated by hate and discrimination, as well as an organization that fought for the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and is committed to the needs of LGBT service members and veterans, we recognized that hate crimes protection in Illinois must be expanded,” said TCRA Executive Director, Anthony Martinez.

“One of my personal goals as an activist in the LGBT community is to ensure the expansion of trans rights in Illinois and throughout the nation,” Martinez told Chicago Phoenix.

Transgender women make up 44 percent of all LGBT murder victims, according to a July 2011 study by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs.

The study also found a 13 percent increase in anti-LGBT hate crimes in 2010, and suggests that many more go unreported. More than half of survivors of hate crimes did not report it to the police, said the same study.

“Many of the transgender folks who come to us, especially transgender women, say that they don’t feel comfortable reporting an assault because they think they are either going to face police harassment,” said Martinez.

“Or they are not going to be seen as a victim but as the person who brought on the attack.”
In addition, the NCAVP study found that over 60 percent of victims say they were met by “indifference, abusive or deterrent” when reporting a hate crime.

This response was most common among transgender people of color, according to the study.

If the amendment is passed, crimes against victims because of their gender identity, military status or immigration status will be, “accorded weight in favor of imposing a term of imprisonment or may be considered by the court as reasons to impose a more severe sentence,” according to the bill summary.

Rick Garcia, a longtime local activist, played a vital role in developing the new legislation. Months ago, Garcia approached June Latrobe, the public policy director at Illinois Gender Advocates, about whether or not gender idenity was included in the Illinois Hate Crimes Act.

After further discussions with Rocco Claps, the director of the Illinois Department of Human Rights, they approached newly-appointed Rep. Cassidy with a plan for an amendment, according to Garcia.


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How to Be a Better Homosexual

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Domenick Scudera

Apparently, I am not a very good homosexual.

I have had a real education this week. I started listening to Bryan Fischer, the Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association. He is very smart and has provided me with an eye-opening education.

He is teaching me about what it means to be gay. I have learned things I never knew before. I am not sure what his credentials are, but he talks about homosexuality quite often, so it is obvious that he is an expert.

First, he has made it clear to me that the average homosexual has hundreds of sexual partners, some as many as 500 or 1,000 in a lifetime.

I did not know this. He said that we homosexuals admit this in our own literature, but I haven't read that literature. I feel so remiss! I am way behind.

I am not getting any younger, so it seems that if I want to be at least average, then I'd better start sleeping around more. I figure if I find at least one new lover each week for the next few years, I will be getting closer to filling my quota. What have I been thinking these past 16 years, being monogamous?

Precious time has been wasted.

I also found out, thanks to Mr. Fischer, that I need to get some poppers. Using poppers is the way that gay people stay sexually stimulated for more than one sexual encounter in the same night.

I did not know this. If I want to get closer to 1,000 or at least 500 sexual partners, it is a good idea to get some poppers so that I can maintain sexual activity with more guys per evening.

And did you know that the research says that 96 percent of us who engage in homosexual behavior are using poppers? And that poppers are the main reason for the spread of AIDS? They sound so dangerous! I am so out of the gay loop that I do not know how one even goes about getting poppers.

Can you order them online? Or will I have to find a drug dealer on a street corner somewhere?

I also might need to reevaluate Nazism. I always thought that Nazis were reprehensible, but I did not know that we homosexuals are closely aligned with them. Why is it not more widely known that the Nazi party was started in a gay bar and consisted largely of homosexuals?

Thank goodness for Mr. Fischer. This fact would have gone largely unnoticed if he had not brought it to the world's attention. He also says that today's homosexuals are basically Nazis.

I want to be a good homosexual, so I better give this whole Nazi thing a second chance.

Mr. Fischer says that gay parenting is "inhumane." I do not have children, but he reminded me that if I want to be a good gay, I need to start recruiting other people's children early on.

I have not done any gay recruiting before. How embarrassing! He does not provide any information about how to recruit, but I bet it is outlined carefully in the gay literature that I have failed to keep up on.

For now, I will start hanging around schoolyards so I can build trust with some kids, and then I will slip in some gay recruitment techniques later.


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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."

Read more.

New York 6th state to legalize gay marriage

via CBS news

Celebrating late into the night, thousands of gay marriage supporters poured into the streets after New York became the sixth and largest state in the U.S. to legalize gay marriage.


After days of contentious negotiations and last-minute reversals by two Republican state senators, the bill was passed, breathing life into the national gay rights movement that had stalled over a nearly-identical bill here two years ago.

Pending any court challenges, legal gay marriages can begin in New York by late July after Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed his bill into law just before midnight Friday.

What does it mean? "It means that all of my friends can finally do the thing that they wanted to do, that I can do," Alison Casillo told CBS Station WCBS. "It means that we're equal."

CBS News correspondent Seth Doane reports that New York is a state with no residency requirement for marriage - meaning couples can come from anywhere to get married here.

Of course that is a boon to businesses - something that was undoubtedly part of the equation for some lawmakers.

A religious exemption was also built into the bill to assuage some opponents. "Whoever opposes the rights of gays and lesbians to marry - whatever religious institution, whether it's the Catholic Church, Orthodox Jews, anyone else - they are not required to marry any couple they do not want to marry," Elizabeth Cooper of Fordham University Law School told CBS News.

Republican State Senator Stephen Saland was one of the last to support the same-sex marriage bill. A self-proclaimed traditionalist, he said he agonized over the decision: "I have defined doing the right thing as treating all persons with equality, and that equality includes the definition of marriage, and I fear that to do otherwise would fly in the face of my upbringing."

"It's the wrong thing to do," said Maggie Gallagher, Chairman and co-founder of the National Organization for Marriage. "But it's also incredibly politically stupid for the Republican Party to take responsibility for passing the gay marriage bill in New York."

Read more.

Obama’s Views on Gay Marriage ‘Evolving’

via The New York Times By Sheryl Gay Stolberg

Driving across the flatlands of Illinois with Barack Obama during the Senate race of 2004, Kevin Thompson sometimes found himself tutoring the candidate on gay rights.

Mr. Thompson, then a traveling aide, recalls long conversations about topics like the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion that sparked the gay rights movement, gay adoption — Mr. Obama once volunteered that Mr. Thompson and his partner would make “great parents,” Mr. Thompson recalled — and same-sex marriage, which Mr. Obama has in the past opposed.

Mr. Thompson, an Obama supporter, is skeptical about that. “To this day,” he said, “I don’t think Barack Obama has any issue with two people of the same gender getting married.”

Now President Obama says his views on same-sex marriage are “evolving,” and as he runs for re-election he is seeking support from gay donors who want to know where he stands.

This week, he will headline a $1,250-a-plate “Gala with the Gay Community” in Manhattan, his first such event as president; on June 29, he will host a Gay Pride reception at the White House. He is doing so at time when the New York Legislature is considering whether to make same-sex marriage legal — a vote that the president will no doubt be asked about while in New York.

The White House would not comment on whether Mr. Obama was ready to endorse same-sex marriage. But one Democratic strategist close to the White House, speaking only on the condition of anonymity, said some senior advisers “are looking at the tactics of how this might be done if the president chose to do it.”


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U.N. council passes gay rights resolution

via CNN ,by Jill Dougherty

 In what the U.S. State Department is calling a "historic step," the U.N. Human Rights Council passed a resolution Friday supporting equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation.

The resolution, introduced by South Africa, is the first-ever U.N. resolution on the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered persons.

It passed with 23 votes in favor, 19 opposed and three abstentions amid strong criticism of South Africa by some African nations.

Suzanne Nossel, deputy assistant secretary of state for international organizations, told CNN, "It really is a key part in setting a new norm that gay rights are human rights and that that has to be accepted globally."

"It talks about the violence and discrimination that people of LGBT persuasion experience around the world," she said, "and that those issues ... need to be taken seriously. It calls for reporting on what's going on, where people are being discriminated against, the violence that is taking place, and it really puts the issue squarely on the U.N.'s agenda going forward."


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Jon Huntsman, A Gay Rights Ally, To Join Race For White House

via On Top Magazine By Carlos Santoscoy

Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. will formally declare for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination on Tuesday.

“I intend to announce that I will be a candidate for the presidency a week from today,”Huntsman said at an event yesterday.Huntsman will make his announcement near the Statue of Liberty, Reuters reported.

The 51-year-old Huntsman resigned during his second term as Governor of Utah to accept President Barack Obama's appointment as Ambassador to China, a post he left on April 30.

As governor, Huntsman backed a failed effort to extend some rights to gay men and lesbians in Utah. In 2009, the gay rights group Equality Utah introduced five bills backed by two openly gay lawmakers. Three bills would have brought greater equality in the areas of hospitalization, medical care, housing, employment and probate rights. And a pair of bills would have created a domestic partner registry for gay couples by repealing a part of Utah's constitutional marriage amendment.

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Gay Judge's Ruling on Prop. 8 Upheld

 via The Christian Post

A federal judge ruled Tuesday to uphold Judge Vaughn Walker's decision to strike down California's same-sex marriage ban.

Proponents of Proposition 8 – which defines marriage as between a man and a woman – had asked that Walker's 2010 ruling be vacated, given that he has been in a same-sex relationship and thus had something to gain from the case. But Chief U.S. District Judge James Ware rejected that bid.

"The sole fact that a federal judge shares the same circumstances or personal characteristics with other members of the general public, and that the judge could be affected by the outcome of a proceeding in the same way that other members of the general public would be affected, is not a basis for either recusal or disqualification," Ware concluded.

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California Same-Sex Marriage Ruling Questioned Because Proposition 8 Judge Was Gay

via Huffpost Politics by Lisa Leff

San Francisco-A federal judge is deciding whether a gay judge's ruling to strike down California's same-sex marriage ban should be overturned because he failed to divulge his own marital intentions before throwing out the voter-approved measure.

Chief U.S. District Judge James Ware said he would issue a decision within 24 hours after a hearing Monday in which lawyers trying to salvage the ban posed an unprecedented legal argument questioning Judge Vaughn Walker's impartiality when he issued last year's landmark ruling that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional.

The lawyers insisted that Walker, who was chief judge of the Northern District of California at the time, should have recused himself or disclosed his relationship because he and his partner stood to personally benefit from the verdict.

"It now appears that Judge Walker, at the time the complaint was filed and throughout this litigation, occupied precisely those same shoes as the plaintiffs," attorney Charles Cooper said.

Ware, who inherited the Proposition 8 case from the now-retired Walker, asked why Cooper assumed Walker had any intention of getting married, just because he was in a decade-old relationship.

Read more.

Adoptions by Gay Couples Rise, Despite Barriers

via The New York Times by Sabrina Tavernise

Growing numbers of gay couples across the country are adopting, according to census data, despite an uneven legal landscape that can leave their children without the rights and protections extended to children of heterosexual parents.

Same-sex couples are explicitly prohibited from adopting in only two states — Utah and Mississippi — but they face significant legal hurdles in about half of all other states, particularly because they cannot legally marry in those states.

Despite this legal patchwork, the percentage of same-sex parents with adopted children has risen sharply. About 19 percent of same-sex couples raising children reported having an adopted child in the house in 2009, up from just 8 percent in 2000, according to Gary Gates, a demographer at the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“The trend line is absolutely straight up,” said Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, a nonprofit organization working to change adoption policy and practice. “It’s now a reality on the ground.”

That reality has been shaped by what advocates for gay families say are two distinct trends: the need for homes for children currently waiting for adoption — now about 115,000 in the United States — and the increased acceptance of gays and lesbians in American society.

The American family does not look the same as it did 30 years ago, they argue, and the law has just been slow to catch up.

Read more.

CHICAGO: Watch Tonight's Mayoral Candidate Forum on LGBT Issues Live Online!

Can't attend tonight's mayoral forum on LGBT issues? No sweat! You can tune in and watch it live as it streams on the internet at the Windy City Times or Radio Arte's websites.

We are expecting all candidates to participate and address the needs of the LGBT community, especially on issues related to education, HIV and AIDS, public safety, transgender rights and youth homelessness.

The forum will stream live tonight, Wednesday, February 9, from 6pm-8pm on Windy City Times and Radio Arte websites.

Who's that Queer? [Nichi Vendola]

Nichi Vendola, a gay, ex-communist governor, becomes the unlikely rival to Italy's Berlusconi.

Nicola (Nichi) Vendola is an Italian politician and the president of Apulia region. Born in Terlizzi, province of Bari (Apulia), Vendola has been a member of the Communists Youth Federation since the age of 14; he studied literature in university, presenting a dissertation about the controversial poet and movie director Pier Paolo Pasolini. He then went on to become a journalist for L'Unità, and a leading member of the Italian gay organization Arcigay.

In 1992 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, to a seat which he held until 2005. As a member of the Antimafia Commission, he came to prominence as a strong opponent of the Mafia and organized crime.

In 2005 he ran for the first primary election ever held in Italy, called to choose the left-wing L'Unione alliance's candidate for the presidency of the Puglia region. He won the primary over the rival Francesco Boccia. Many moderates in the alliance criticised the choice, since it appeared impossible that a communist and homosexual could be elected president of a southern Italian region such as Apulia, generally considered to be conservative and strongly Catholic. Vendola, though, declares himself as "believer" (in the line of Pax Christi): he once said that "the most important book for a communist like me is the Bible".

In the regional election in Puglia, held in April 2005, he narrowly defeated the outgoing president Raffaele Fitto, candidate for House of Freedoms, thus becoming the first member of the Communist Refoundation Party to be elected as president of any Italian region.

In July 2010, during a general congress of the so-called "Factories of Nichi", Mr. Vendola announced his candidacy for the Primary Elections of the Centre-Left, to be held in 2012 to appoint the challenger of Berlusconi in the 2013 Italian political elections. Following his candidacy, the Democratic Party judged sharply his candidacy, while nation-wide polls show Vendola winning either over Pierluigi Bersani, Secretary of DP, and Silvio Berlusconi, incumbent Prime Minister.

Read more about Nichi Vendola here.

RSVP for the Mayoral Candidate Forum on LGBT Issues

Exciting News! A first-of-its-kind LGBT-focused Mayoral forum has been organized by almost 30 LGBTQ organizations across our great city. All the candidates have been invited and now it's your turn to take part in this historic election. Space is extremely limited so you must RSVP (only for yourself) starting on February 2, 2011 via our online registration form here.

The forum will be the culmination of a community-wide process that started last fall to ensure that issues important to the LGBTQ community are addressed by each Mayoral Candidate. Read some feedback the candidates have already given to us here. The coalition is offering the candidates the opportunity to speak directly to the LGBTQ community and to educate voters as to their vision of the office of the Mayor of Chicago with a focus on issues directly impacting LGBTQ people. We are very excited to have Tracy Baim, of Windy City Media, moderating the event. The forum is free and space is open to the public, but due to room size reservations are first-come-first-served.

Do you have a question for the candidates?
The forum will cover five issue areas: Education, HIV/AIDS, Youth Homelessness, Transgender Rights and Public Safety. We are seeking questions about these issues areas from community members. If you have a question for the candidates, please fill out our online form. We will choose twelve questions from among those that are submitted to be addressed by the Candidates.

Live Webstream

Due to the limited space, we will be streaming the Forum live online, so you can watch the Forum as it happens from anywhere there is a computer and an internet connection. Go to The Windy City Times or Radio Arte, beginning at 6pm on Feb. 9 for the live webcast.

Deadline to Ride Lobby Days Bus Extended to January 24!

Save Our State, Lobby Days 2011 is upon us and we’re gearing up fast! The AIDS Foundation of Chicago is hoping to send as many AIDS advocates as possible to the 2011 HIV/AIDS Lobby Days in Springfield on March 2, 2011, but times are tough and we’re anticipating a decrease in the number of scholarships we are able to offer this year. We are working to get a fleet of buses for this event so that we can transport as many Chicago-area advocates down as possible, and are offering the opportunity for organizations and individuals to reserve and pay for spots at a very affordable rate (around $35 per seat roundtrip).

If you or your organization are interested in participating, please contact Pete at psubkoviak@aidschicago.org. The bus will depart from downtown Chicago at 6 a.m. and return around 6 or 7 p.m on March 2nd, 2011.

We will need the final number of seats you or your organization want to reserve by January 24th, 2011. You will be responsible for the cost of all seats you reserve. Seat availability on a first come, first serve basis.

Who's That Queer? [David Cicilline]

Brought to you by Pistol Pete

David N. Cicilline is the U.S. Representative for Rhode Island's 1st congressional district. He is formerly the Mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, and was the first openly gay mayor of a U.S. state capital.


David was raised in Providence before moving to Narragansett. In high school, he served as president of his graduating class before heading to Brown University, where he established a branch of the College Democrats with his classmate, John F. Kennedy Jr. He took a degree in political science, graduating magna cum laude in 1983. He then went to Georgetown University Law Center where he earned a J.D., remaining in Washington, D.C. for a while to work for the Public Defender Service.

In 1994 he was elected to the Rhode Island House of Representatives, representing the 4th district on Providence's East Side. He won the Democratic primary to succeed retiring Rep. Linda J. Kushner with 56% of the vote and was unopposed in the general election. He took office in January 1995 and served a total of four terms in the legislature, during which time he came out as a gay man.

Cicilline was elected mayor of Providence in a landslide in November 2002 with 84% of the vote, following the downfall of controversial mayor Vincent Cianci. He was re-elected in 2006.

On February 13, 2010, Cicilline announced his candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives to represent Rhode Island's 1st congressional district which is being vacated by fellow Democrat Patrick J. Kennedy. In the Democratic primary held on September 14, Cicilline defeated three opponents and won the party's nomination. He faced Republican John Loughlin.
Cicilline won the race with 81,098 votes to Loughlin's 71,443 and will represent Rhode Island in the 112th Congress.

Read more.

Senate Democrats vow to block health care repeal

via Associated Press

Top Senate Democrats are warning House Speaker-elect John Boehner they'll block any Republican effort to repeal President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

Citing better Medicare prescription coverage and other changes in the new law, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his top lieutenants say the overhaul "is too important to be treated as collateral damage in a partisan mission to repeal health care."

The letter says repeal would have "unintended consequences" for the part of the law that gradually closes the Medicare prescription drug coverage gap, as well as for other popular consumer benefits. Also signing the letter are Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Charles Schumer of New York and Patty Murray of Washington.

A copy of the letter was obtained by The Associated Press.

Who's That Queer? [Ken Mehlman]

Brought to you by Pistol Pete

Kenneth Brian Mehlman is an American businessman, attorney, and political figure who served as the campaign manager for the 2004 re-election bid of George W. Bush and Chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2005 to 2007. On August 26, 2010, Mehlman came out as gay, making him one of the most prominent openly gay figures in the Republican Party.

Prior to coming out, rumors about Mehlman's orientation had circulated since at least 2004. In May 2006, Mehlman denied that he was gay, saying, “I’m not gay, but those stories did a number on my dating life for six months.” On November 8, 2006, comedian Bill Maher made an appearance on Larry King Live, during which he referred to Mehlman as a closeted gay man. The incident became controversial because CNN edited out Maher’s comments in later taped editions and removed the reference to Mehlman's sexual orientation from the transcript of the show. The day after Maher's comments, Mehlman announced he would step down as chairman of the RNC (although reports said that his resignation had been expected for some time)

Almost four years later Mehlman told the press that he is in fact gay, and that he plans to be an advocate for legalizing same-sex marriage. This disclosure followed years of him avoiding and denying inquiries about his sexual orientation. During his RNC chairmanship, Mehlman supported social positions of the Republican Party, including opposition to same-sex marriage. Mehlman claimed that he could not have gone against party consensus, but acknowledged that, had he come out of the closet earlier, he could have impacted Republican efforts to pass state initiatives and referenda banning same-sex marriage.

Source: Wikipedia

Who's That Queer [Roy Marcus Cohn]

Brought to you by Pistol Pete

Roy Marcus Cohn was an American lawyer who came to prominence during the investigations by Senator Joseph McCarthy into alleged Communists in the US government, especially during the Army-McCarthy Hearings. A highly controversial figure, he wielded tremendous political power at times.



McCarthy's hired Cohn as his chief counsel, choosing him over Robert Kennedy, reportedly in part to avoid accusations of an anti-semitic motivation for the investigations. Cohn soon gained power nearly equal to McCarthy's in the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, becoming known for his aggressive questioning of suspected Communists. Cohn tended to be disinclined to hold the hearing in open forums. This mixed well with McCarthy's preference for holding 'executive sessions' and 'off-the-record' sessions far away from the Capitol in order to minimize public scrutiny and to question witnesses with relative impunity. Cohn was given free rein in pursuit of many investigations, with McCarthy joining in only for the more publicized sessions.

Cohn and McCarthy targeted many government officials and cultural figures not only for suspected Communist sympathies but also for alleged homosexual tendencies, sometimes using sexual secrets as a blackmail tool to gain informants. The men whose homosexuality Cohn exposed often lost jobs, families, and homes: some committed suicide.

In 1984, Cohn was diagnosed with AIDS, and he attempted to keep his condition secret while receiving aggressive drug treatment. He participated in clinical trials of new drugs. He insisted to his dying day that his disease was liver cancer. He died on August 2, 1986, of complications from AIDS at the age of 59. He is buried in Queens, New York.

Source: Gay for Today

Movin' on Up, to the TOP

Europe's Gay Leaders: Out at The Top - via TIME

When Iceland installed Johanna Sigurdardottir (pictured) as Prime Minister last February, newspapers around the globe printed variations of the same headline: ICELAND APPOINTS WORLD'S FIRST GAY LEADER. Everywhere, that is, except Iceland. The Icelandic media didn't mention Sigurdardottir's sexuality for days, and only then to point out that the foreign press had taken an interest in their new head of state — a 67-year-old former flight attendant turned politician whom voters had consistently rated Iceland's most trustworthy politician. Sure, she was gay and had entered a civil partnership with another woman in 2002. But Icelanders hardly seemed to notice. "The media silence echoed the sentiment of the public. Nobody cared about her sexual

orientation," says Margret Bjornsdottir, the director of the Institute for Public Administration and Politics at the University of Iceland. "Being gay is a nonissue here. It's considered unremarkable."

Buoyed by liberal attitudes such as those, politicians across Western Europe are stepping out of the closet and into their country's highest political offices. Eleven openly gay men and women now serve in the British Parliament, including two in the Cabinet. Last June, Nicolas Sarkozy appointed Frédéric Mitterrand, a gay television presenter, to the post of Minister of Culture. Paris' Mayor Bertrand Delanoë (pictured), tipped by some to contest the 2012 presidential race, is gay. And Guido Westerwelle, chairman of Germany's Free Democratic Party, has just become his country's Foreign Minister, joining a gay élite that includes the mayors of Berlin and Hamburg, Germany's two largest cities. Klaus Wowereit, Berlin's mayor, says coming out ahead of the 2001 mayoral race while under pressure from tabloids strengthened his campaign. "My confession might have contributed to my popularity," he says. "Many people appreciate honesty."

Read the rest.

Gay in 2010: Interview on the Three Things That Matter Most

via Thirsty, by Chris Beakey

Excerpt:

In my experience I’ve seen a lot of gay men who are still suffering from their experiences growing up. We feel wounded, and that woundedness is something we still carry around, and still endure. It leads us to take measures to try and make the hurt stop. This means doing drugs, spending excessive amounts of money on cars, vacations and clothes, and pursuing whatever diversions make us feel better the fastest. Marketers love gays because they don’t watch their pocketbooks as much as most people do . . . we don’t have the financial responsibilities to the same degree . . . but of course with this parenthood trend, that’s changing.

I also think we gays have been repressed for such a long period during our youth that there’s some “catching up” we feel we need to do. That’s why you see such juvenile behavior among men my age . . . I think they feel like they missed out on a lot of social enjoyment and fun and camaraderie by being in the closet earlier on and they’re making up for lost time. Unfortunately this often leads them to engage in risky behaviors. The idea that you’re defying danger and risk can be -- dare I say it out loud -- sexy. . . and that’s one of the most overlooked aspects of this disease. Too often we are subconsciously thinking, “Can I get this thrill without paying the consequences?”

Read the whole item.