Miss New York 2010 Claire Buffie is the first Miss America contestant in the 90-year history of the pageant to run on a gay rights platform. Plum TV caught up with Buffie at the Empire State Pride Agenda's annual Hampton's Tea Dance.
Says Buffie: "I fell like gay rights are the civil rights movement of my generation, and I think it's really important to have straight ally support because any time you want to effect a change with a minority you have to have support from the majority, and I'm that voice now...My older sister Sarah is a lesbian, but in addition to her, I grew up in the performing arts. So many of my friends are LGBT, and it's my duty as a straight ally to represent them."
Naked Highway's new video for the track "In and Out" pays homage to New Order's "Round & Round" video and features a number of friends of vocalist Sy Boccari:
"Among the men in the video are Doug Repetti (Mr. HX 2008, model, musician, bartender at Formika's The F Word), Duane Roggendorff (party promoter for Mr. Black and The Cock, thisisfyf.com blogger), Jonny Mack (DJ, go-go 'bear' at Woof), W. Jeremy Pelser (international DJ/remixer for House of Stank), Mike Dreyden (porn star), Reed McGowan (remixer, DJ at The Eagle), and assorted friends."
Says Boccari: "That New Order video is one of the sexiest videos ever made, even though you never see below the shoulders of the female models. Instead of using 18 year old women models like New Order did, I used 30-something guys from the NYC gay scene - guys who I think are very sexy but aren't the cookie-cutter, tween-centered, pre-pubescent (ie. Justin Bieber) idea of sexy that is being shoved down our throats at the moment... go-go 'men', DJs, porn stars, party promotors and some very dear friends of mine. It's my idea of sexy."
Publicist Howard Bragman, who many celebrities have hired to assist them in coming out of the closet, is developing a show with A&E based on just that premise, Nikke Finke reports:
"Casting is still in process. Bragman has been working with celebrities coming out of the closet for two decades and recently orchestrated exposure for Meredith Baxter and country singer Chely Wright. Bragman and Baxter were part of a 'Coming Out in Hollywood' panel at Outfest, the gay and lesbian film festival, this past weekend, and Bragman mentioned that if anyone knows a high-profile celebrity coming out of the closet he has a great TV opportunity."
The works are often compared to the well-known Shroud of Turin:
"Goldstein discovered these artifacts not on an archeological dig, but in a popular San Francisco gym he frequented during the 1980s and 1990s. Recorded on pieces of leather that once covered the gym's equipment, the impressions reflect the former presence of not one human figure, but thousands of men who once rested against them as they sweated through their workouts.
Like Goldstein, nearly all the men whose body weight and perspiration contributed to a collective, unconscious form of printmaking were gay and HIV-positive. Unlike Goldstein, most of them didn't live long enough to witness and benefit from the pharmaceutical breakthroughs that transformed HIV from a death sentence to a chronic but manageable condition."
Writes Goldstein: "A sort of town square for the men who had come to San Francisco to live and love openly, in those early plague years (the gym) also became the place to exchange information, to find out who was ill, who had died. Working out took on an even greater ritual significance as gay men struggled to maintain the exterior appearance of health and to gain some measure of control over the disease which had begun to destroy them from the inside."
The works, which are part of an LGBT exhibition called Because We Are, will be on view through September 20.
Openly gay Kentucky House candidate rejects contribution from Victory Fund: "Matthew Vanderpool, who is running for a seat in Fayette County, made the announcement Monday, saying while he is gay he has no 'gay agenda.'
The Lexington Herald-Leader reports the 25-year-old Democrat says he doesn't want help from the Victory Fund because he doesn't want to be in the group's 'back pocket.'
Vanderpool said in a statement being gay 'does not define my entire life or the things I stand for, which are explained in detail on my website.'"
NOM has Courage Campaign videographer removed from Maryland hate-a-palooza rally: "We were told that all counter-protesters must remain across the street. When I explained to the officers –- who became enraged as I started videotaping his explanation -– that we were not counter-protesters, that we had no signs, were leading no chants and were merely documenting the rally, they said that it didn’t matter."
Discrimination against gays linked to rising HIV/AIDS cases in Asia: "The report points to a range of laws, such as public order and vagrancy offenses, that are selectively enforced against men who have sex with men and transgender people in many countries of the region.
And some homosexual men and transgenders feel uncomfortable accessing health services because they fear being reported to authorities said UNDP HIV policy specialist Edmund Settle."
Federal Air Marshal who headed Orlando office where gays were ridiculed as "pickle smokers", is retiring: "Union president Jon Adler said Reese's retirement and other changes in Orlando and Los Angeles show that new air marshal chief Robert Bray is addressing complaints from rank-and-file air marshals who have complained about mismanagement, favoritism and retaliation."
Assistant prop master on Houseclaims homophobic slurs were used on set: "In the suit, Jones claims he was harassed by two of his supervisors for refusing to engage in 'visits to strip bars, participation in getting drunk, stoned or intoxicated on cocaine, to participate in sexual conduct at the trailer, and other dangerous conduct.'
Jones claims the supervisors would often refer to him -- and other employees -- as 'fags, pussies, bitches, slaves, dummies, retards and idiots.'
Jones also claims one of his supervisors brought a gun to the set 'several times' ... but it gets even crazier.
In the docs, Jones claims he watched his supervisors get drunk on tequila and engage in 'throwing a knife at a target on set.'"
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