Watch carefully. Sometimes it even looks like they're moving their lips.

Continue reading "Flat Tires III" »

I don't know about you all, but I actually like some trashy pop every now and then. I'm still a huge Spice Girls fan, and while the pop groups that focused more on marketing than music that came after them don't really compare....

Who am I kidding? There were a bunch of producers who wanted to satisfy the public's craze for pop groups, so former Spice Girls manager Simon Fuller put together another pop group called S Club 7. Their Wikipedia page says that they even had a sitcom that aired in the US. And yet somehow I never heard of them until this week, when Jon Lee came out.

This song is "Party." It has everything a pop group from the 90's should have, with a truck driver's gear change and a sassy music video to boot. Jon's the one who's reportedly "looking for romance."

Continue reading "Queer Music Friday - Jon Lee of S Club 7" »

I'm annoyed. First, Iowa candidate for Congress, Jeremy Walters made remarks on his Facebook page about AIDS: "The Holy Bible say(sic) if your(sic) "GAY" homosexual they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them" & etc., then he apologized, and now Iowa talk radio host Jan Mickelson is jumping in with his two (non)cents, defending Walters' position. From the Iowa Independent:

When a caller brought up that it's promiscuity that increases the risk for AIDS, and therefore Mickelson should support legalized same-sex marriage because it would lower promiscuity in the gay community, the host scoffed, saying promiscuity "defines the lifestyle."

"Homosexuality is intrinsically promiscuous, because it violates the design of our bodies," he said. "There is no safe way to do that."

I love that this guy seems to know all about the "designs of our bodies" and yet doesn't seem to care about reality, science, experience or dialog. When is this meme going to end?

This train of thought is offensive to all God-believing people for one very simple reason: this argument makes God look stupid. The "punishment" simply isn't working.

Continue reading "God's Punishment? Huh?" »

This week, the notorious "Dr." Laura said she is leaving her radio show after once again shooting her mouth off. But this time it was by using the "n" word and prompting a coalition of groups including Unity: Journalists of Color, the Women's Media Center, and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation to get her to apologize and retire from radio. For me, it was déjà vu all over again.

And you want to read this to end, trust me.

Continue reading "What Dr. Laura Taught Me" »

Oh what a fantastic sight this is. Rick Jacobs, founder of the Courage Campaign, finally met the National Organization for Marriage President Brian Brown at NOM's final stop on their anti-marriage equality stop.

The Courage Campaign has been the main sponsor of the NOM Tour Tracker that has followed the anti-gay folks from city to city as they traveled around the country holding hate rallies. Brian is not happy at how successful the Courage Campaign was. Not at all... Watch as things get heated between the two men.

Farewell, "Dr." Laura. Alas, we knew you far too well.

Actually, there is just one thing before you go.

Continue reading "Farewell, "Dr. Laura"" »

I will be the first to admit that in retrospect I spent 37 years of my life trying to live my life within a fabricated mental construct that would allow me to convince myself that I wasn't really gay. This self-manufactured mental/spiritual world in many ways made no objective sense - especially in hindsight - but it allowed for a religiously inspired system where if I didn't do this or didn't think that, then somehow I could magically tell myself that I wasn't something that my religious indoctrination growing up taught me to believe was too horrible to even imagine.

As Mediate reports and as he himself discusses, Andrew Sullivan makes a strong case that Pope Benedict XVI (pictured with his inseparable personal secretary, Georg Ganswein, who is 30 years his junior) is gay. A flaming gay even. Andrew makes these statements during a discussion of Colm Toibin's essay in the London Review of Books on the Catholic church and the homosexuality question.

Yes, Benedict XVI is likely gay - although that's not to say Benedict has ever violated his mental construct that allows him to continue to pretend to himself and the world that he's not a gay. Meanwhile, in truth, he's a gay man hiding behind the smoke screen of celibacy and religious brainwashing so that he never has to confront the real truth.

Do I feel sorry for him if this theory is correct? Not in the least. Just like I and countless others have come to terms with who we are, so could Benedict.

Continue reading "Andrew Sullivan Thinks the Pope is Gay - and I Suspect He's Right" »

What's makes the fact that corporations aren't people (or even normal groups of people) so obvious is their ability to work together even when their economic interests are supposedly in conflict. And now they're circling the wagons around Target; they want these sorts of donations to be normalized as quickly as possible so that they'll have more power over American elections.

I already posted yesterday about the LA Times's sloppy editorial that called actions against Target "distasteful," and now MSNBC (a product of General Electric and Microsoft, lest we forget and start believing that the network is actually politically progressive) is refusing to air MoveOn.org's ad to boycott Target.

MSNBC and its parent, General Electric, refuse to air MoveOn.org's ad calling for a boycott of Target, stating the spot doesn't "comply with NBC's 'Controversial Issue Advertising policy,' because the ad is a direct attack on an individual business." (In fact, the ad referenced "Target and other corporations.") The advocacy group had purchased a week of airtime in Minneapolis and nationally on MSNBC, according to a MoveOn.org release.

That they even have that rule shows their real values. I don't watch MSNBC, but I'm guessing they allow commercials where one corporation compares their product to that of another corporation, or where one political candidate attacks another political candidate. If corporations are now players in our political system, why can't another political entity attack their politics?

Continue reading "MSNBC, HRC, the LA Times, Target, MN Forward, and the GOP: Class solidarity in class warfare " »

Adorable 1930's photojournalistic piece on British stage actor Nelson Keys' nightly backstage transformation from "debonair" man to Red Riding Hood. My ain't she coy!

She's after the jump.

Continue reading "Pantomime Dame Nelson Keys: vintage article" »

Editors' note: C.D. Kirven is a Lambda Literary nominated author of the book What Goes Around Comes Back Around, former Get Equal member and Co-founder of Get Equal Now.

The truth is marching on as President Obama's declining poll numbers are at the root of his staff's impatience with LGBT commentators. As a community activist on the frontlines of the equality fight, I find the Obama administration takes a more tactical approach to strategic social issues. My advice to the administration, as a voter and as one of the unsatisfied members of the LGBT blogosphere, is "It's ENDA Stupid."

Here is my advice on a more effective plan of attack after reading former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta's "legislative box" theory in New York Times article by Matt Bai. The theory sets the stage for a provocative look at the "legislative traps" set by right wing pundits and outlines the Republican's back-to-basics roadmap to jumping congressional hurdles by sticking to a simplistic approach to political regaling.

Continue reading "It's the ENDA, stupid" »

My BlogIndiana session, "Blogging About Issue Politics," will be broadcast live online for free today at 11:30am Eastern time. I'll be discussing political blogging with a focus on issue advocacy.

It can be rough pushing a progressive message in a red state. We'll explore some of the challenges facing bloggers focused on one specific issue, how to escape the trap of being overlooked and underestimated, and ways you can translate your online work into offline engagement.

There's plenty of other sessions being broadcast on Friday and Saturday, so be sure to check out the full broadcast schedule. There's also a Twitter wall that will be used during the presentation so online watchers can ask questions during the Q&A; too. Use hashtag #BINTV to participate.

There's some hope and a lot of out-of-touchness in this article on a recent meeting between state LGBT orgs and the White House, but let me zoom in on the part about ENDA:

Tchen said that the administration was prioritizing DADT over the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) because it could attach DADT to other legislation, making it much easier to move through Congress. By contrast, ENDA -- which would outlaw employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity and expression -- is stand-alone legislation that faces more congressional hurdles. In the current political climate, securing a firm commitment of 60 Senate votes to support ENDA is proving far more difficult than the administration anticipated. These obstacles have not, Tchen claimed, diminished President Obama's support for the legislation.

Acknowledging that some LGBT advocates are quite frustrated with the president's progress on equality issues, Tchen urged statewide leaders to let the White House know when their constituents are displeased.

Let me save those statewide leaders some time: the constituents are displeased.

Continue reading "White House is "99% there" for us, except when they're not" »