And so concludes another great week of LGBT news and opinions on Bilerico Project. This week we ranged from North Korea's gay Facebook page and Ken Mehlman's coming out to vacationing with the "bearded lady." What else did we feature? Great posts like these:

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

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Back when I was in college, I was a waitress for the school's catering company. It was good money and free food. When you lived off campus, free food was key because no one ever spent money on food- only beer and bar hopping.

If it were a particularly fancy dinner, with a small number of people, there was no guarantee there would be leftovers. Thus a few of the guys I worked with would actually finish the food off the plates as they came back into the kitchen.

They called it "seagulling." The act of snatching food like a seagull before the plate scraps were dumped in the trash. I called it gross.

Yesterday, poor Jake learned the real act of seagulling from a seagull.

Look closely in the photo and you see not only is Jake's hot dog wrapper empty, but the seagull behind him is enjoying it.

Poor baby.

The seagull? Well, I got the wax paper away from it but the dog was gone. The offender taunted us for the rest of the day by the smear of ketchup on its beak.

Two European countries are engaged in gay textbook battles, and one American school district is engaged in a debate over their gag order on sexual orientation. Here's the news from Poland:

A gay rights group urged the Polish government on Wednesday to withdraw a book authorized for use in secondary schools that it says portrays homosexuality as an illness that can be cured.

The 'Association for Diversity' said the textbook, one of two authorized recently for use in family and sexual education classes, limits itself to a narrow, traditional view of homosexuality espoused by Poland's powerful Catholic Church.[...]

A previous edition of the book had gone further by putting homosexuality on a par with incest and pedophilia, ['Diversity' spokesman Przemek Szczeplocki] added.

"This latest edition is more subtle but this is just as dangerous as it can seem less outrageous and more convincing to students," said Szczeplocki.

And the Netherlands:

Continue reading "Focus on the schools, because they sure are" »

Where were you when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast five years ago?

Like many of you, I was stuck to the television watching the city of New Orleans torn apart before my eyes - first the rain, then the flooding, then the fight to rescue the stranded residents. I grew angrier by the minute learning President Bush was on vacation and had to watch a prepared DVD to be brought up to speed, after which he did a flyover. When he finally did visit the devastated region, he commended incompetent Federal Emergency Management Agency head Michael Brown with the now infamous words, "You're doing a heck of a job, Brownie."

Heck of a job? We watched dead bodies float in the floods, people stranded without food or water on rooftops waving signs "Help Us!" Dehydrated babies dying in their mother's arms. Was this OUR America? We drop necessities from helicopters in war torn areas around the world - but we couldn't do the same in New Orleans? We couldn't bring truck loads of supplies to the Superdome? From here it looked like abject racism.

Continue reading "Lest We Forget - Katrina 5 Years Later" »

"It's all in my high school memory book where I said I wanted to become an undercover agent, a detective and a member of a SWAT team. I accomplished my goals. Now I'm 40 and things didn't work out the way I thought, but I know who I am and I have never been happier."

Christina Rodriguez is able to say this wistfully but without anger or bitterness while describing her life as a Hollywood, Florida policewoman in a profession that some might call a deck stacked against her because she is a woman, a Latina and a lesbian.

Originally from the Bronx and of Puerto Rican descent, Christina grew up in south Florida where she was a popular girl who had a passion for physical activity and for helping others. She did not realize her passion for women until she began dating one within the ranks in 2003. They kept their relationship quiet. "In my first eight or nine years on the force, 1994 to 2003, I was told not to come out and admit it because if I did, half of the Department would turn its back on me. I kept it quiet to protect both of us and to help our careers. I was used to this because, where I went to school, gay was very taboo. You could get beat up, and I was already a racial minority...."

Continue reading "All Christina Rodriguez Ever Wanted Was To Be A Cop" »

Tony Perkins, head of the antigay Family Research Council, is “saddened” by the news about former GOP heavy weight Ken Mehlman coming out as gay, according to an email to supporters he sent during a break from his vacation. Perkins (pictured) says that Mehlman has “chosen” to identify himself as gay. I guess Perkins didn’t read Mehlman’s interview with The Atlantic or skipped that part where it took Mehlman 43 years to “choose” that identity.

But there are so many other interesting tid-bits in Perkins’ email. Look at the phrase “unfortunate confirmation” – now what does Perkins mean by that? That he, too, knew that Mehlman’s sexual orientation was an “open secret” in Washington DC and Republican circles? If that’s true – why didn’t Perkins reach out to Mehlman, whom he says he “cares about as a person,” and invite him to join an “ex-gay” ministry with which FRC is connected? Hmmmm? Might he have thought that Mehlman’s sexual orientation was none of his business? A personal matter? But wait – Perkins thinks every other gay person’s personal life is his business so why make an exception for Mehlman? Or perhaps if Mehlman had said yes and then the “cure” failed – and Mehlman, having been exposed for trying – exposes the truth about “ex-gay” ministries – that they don’t work? Geez – and then he trots out the old homosexual-”conduct”-causes-disease trope – long discredited but still a money-maker with his unquestioning crowd.

But best of all is Perkins’ conspiracy theory – that Mehlman having been closeted all this time “helps explain the scandalous failure of many in the Republican establishment to vigorously uphold the values and policy positions expressed in the party’s platform in 2004 and 2008, particularly the need to protect the definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman nationwide.”

Continue reading "FRC Head Tony Perkins Reacts to Ken Mehlman Coming Out" »

Just some more of the single-panel pieces that run at places like PanHistoria.com. "Family Circus," Alex? God help me.

Continue reading "More single frame comics" »

I've been posting way too much big record label pop these past few weeks, so here's a lo-fi folks song from Hurray for the Riff Raff that a marketing rep just emailed me called "Daniella."

A live radio performance for "A Slow Walk" is after the jump. I like that the lyrics aren't ambiguous about which gender lead singer Alynda Lee Segarra is singing about.

Continue reading "Queer music Friday - Hurray for the Riff Raff" »

This is pretty dang cool: Yesterday, the Pentagon has agreed to meet with LGBT military spouses during SU's Military Partner Forum on DADT on September 16. Context:

So, over the weekend the DOD sent out 150K surveys to ask military spouses their respective opinions on the impact of the repeal of DADT on the very vague concept of "family readiness." This survey - like the last survey - is pretty horrendous, designed for an audience expected to have issue with DADT repeal, only varying by degree. Expect a larger return rate here than on the last survey, as military spouses tend to have more time on their hands and will likely jump on the rare opportunity to voice their opinion on military policy.

Due to the nature of DADT (and to some extent, DOMA), the survey was only sent to straight spouses, meaning LGBT folks won't be quietly included among those surveyed like they were in the previous survey. This is one part of the review process in which the LGBT community was not included.

What this means is that - through the survey, its methodology, and inherent bias - survey results will mostly provide opportunity to discuss a hypothetical negative impact of repeal as it relates to military spouses, and not likely positive impacts of repeal, such as reduced repeat deployments due to increases in force, and the decreased stress on LGBT military spouses who for the most part are forced to suffer in silence. The meeting on September 16th will be a means to counteract the survey, providing input otherwise unavailable.

At the opening plenary at the National LGBT Bar Association this morning, before hundreds of lawyers from around the country, there was a panel presentation entitled Real Change: LGBT Issues and the Administration.

There were several speakers on the panel, including some from the Administration, as well as Paul M. Smith, a partner in the venerable D.C. mega-law firm of Jenner & Block.

Mr. Smith is no wild-eyed radical. He heads up the firm's Appellate and Supreme Court practice and is co-Chair of the Board of Directors of Lambda Legal. He argued on the winning side in the 2003 Supreme Court case of Lawrence v, Texas, which overturned the sodomy laws, as well as a dozen other Supreme Court cases. He's being honored this year by the National Law Journal as one of the 40 most influential lawyers of the past decade. He attended Yale Law School and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell.

I couldn't believe my eyes when he held up a copy of GetEqual's ENDA Timeline of Broken Promises, and waved it before the assembled throng.

Continue reading "LGBT Bar Speaker Highlights GetEqual's ENDA Timeline of Broken Promises" »

Check out this ad that the Family Research Council is running in Vegas against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Of course they use us as the boogeyman.

God, guns, and gays. You really can't teach an old dog new tricks, can you?

Several years ago people would have found it unseemly for a white millionaire to tell his mostly white audience that he wants to "reclaim" the Civil Rights Movement. It was just two short years ago that most LGBT people agreed that the "Gay is the new black" mentality was offensive; now millions of people tune in daily to someone who thinks that rich white straight men are the most oppressed people in America.

I still believe that people are generally good and that most Americans' values are generally in the right place even if the last year's event have shaken me a bit. Let me explain.

Continue reading "Reclaiming what's theirs" »