1/31/14
1/30/14
Quote of the day: "There are 5 Olympic rings but only 4 openly gay Winter Olympians"
There are 5 Olympic rings but only 4 openly gay Winter Olympians-- Kevin Liles-USA TODAY Sports
Read this inspiring story about this football player at Willamette University in Oregon who comes out as a bisexual to his team.
Connor Mertens is one of the first openly gay college football players to come out while still playing the game, and, consequently, his story is generating a huge amount of press. Read about it here.
Something from Russia...this one with love
I found this cute JPEG on tumblr, done by a Russian artist.
1/29/14
Quote of the day, about how Chris Christie was one of New Jersey's detailed-minded governors, except when it came to the lane closures at GW Bridge
Mr. Christie has said that he had not been aware of his office’s involvement in the maneuver, and nothing has directly tied to him to it. But a close look at his operation and how intimately he was involved in it, described in interviews with dozens of people — Republican and Democrat, including current and former Christie administration officials, elected leaders and legislative aides — gives credence to the puzzlement expressed by some Republicans and many Democrats in the state, who question how a detail-obsessed governor could have been unaware of the closings or the effort over months to cover up the political motive.
1/28/14
1/27/14
Hatred and bigotry never change: it always ugly, in 1957 and today
Love is seeing one another as a brother or sister. Anything else is fear.
1/25/14
Openly gay Kenyon lacrosse player Holden Richards is changing his world with dignity, pride, and wit. Go, Holden!
The Kenyon College men's lacrosse team already knew Holden Richards was gay during fall ball last year. News of the sophomore midfielder's surprising coming out had drifted through the team quickly the previous spring and summer, but the players still didn't quite know how to handle it.
It was a practice last autumn that broke the ice. Richards was locked up in a battle with another teammate during one-on-ones, a healthy dose of body-checking and aggressive play between the two. As the afternoon waned, Richards' teammate took a tough shot that went wide of the goal.
"Suck my dick!" The teammate hollered. It was something the rest of the team had heard from him before, but it was the first time he'd said it with a gay teammate within earshot, and it had never been seemingly voiced directly at Richards.
The team held their collective breath not knowing what to do. Ignore it? Stop practice and chastise the player?
Richards took matters into his own hands. He turned to his teammate, smiled and shook his head.
"No thank you."The truth sets one free. And big dollops of humor and dignity make life worth living. Go, Holden!
Saving face: there are reports that Russian MPs are considering revising their anti-gay laws before the Sochi Olympics
From Gay Star News:
Russian MPs from several political parties have submitted a proposal to amend the country’s anti-gay propaganda law, according to Queer Russia.
If the proposal is signed into law, it would ban the promotion of any sexual relations to underage children. Currently only the promotion of ‘non-traditional’ sexual relations, such as same-sex partnerships, is forbidden.
MPs from the country’s political parties United Russia, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Communist Party submitted the proposal on Friday (24 January).
The bill would exclude the term ‘non-traditional’ from the title of Article 6.21 in the Code of Administrative Offences, ‘Propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations’. Similar amendments are also proposed in two other laws relating to the protection and rights of children in Russia
It's reported that the GOP is starting to take on some of its most homophobic leaders. Does it have the guts to do this?
From the Washington Blade:
Republican National Committee chair Reince Preibus has asked the Michigan Republican who has taken fire from members of his own party for anti-gay remarks to resign his position from the RNC.
Sean Spicer, an RNC spokesperson, tweeted on the second day of the RNC winter meeting in D.C. that Preibus as well as Michigan Republican Chair Bobby Schostak asked for the resignation of RNC committee member Dave Agema.
RNC Chair @reince and @MIGOP Chair @BobbySchostak have called for the resignation of Dave Agema— Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) January 24, 2014
1/24/14
Male beauty for a Friday evening
Source: from TubeCrush.net, where people post photos of handsome guys they see riding the London Tube.
Words matter: Obama has used the word "gay " 272 times since taking office. Reagan never used the word, even as AIDS ravished our community
From Huffington Post:
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights group, did some digging and found that President Barack Obama has used "gay" 272 times since taking office in 2009, far more than any of his recent predecessors: Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
Only Clinton comes closest to Obama, having used "gay" 216 times during his two terms, says a new report from the advocacy group.
Of his total, Clinton used the word 46 times regarding gays in the military and 80 times when discussing Matthew Shepard or hate-crime legislation. Shepard was a gay University of Wyoming student who was beaten to death in 1998. His killing raised awareness about anti-gay violence and spurred efforts to enact hate-crimes laws in the U.S.
Reagan used "gay" in any of their presidential remarks.
Change you believe in.
1/23/14
Hashtag of the day: #cheersTOSochi?
Is this what McDonald's envisioned when it created the #cheersToSochi hashtag social media campaign? I think not. But they are sponsoring an Olympics in a country that criminalizes or beats up LGBT people for the grave offense of displaying a gay pride flag.
Andrew Sullivan falls in love with the the HBO Show "Looking", for many of the reasons I have
Andrew Sullivan:
A confession. I have long had an aversion to gay-themed plays, TV shows, movies, etc. I wasn’t born with it. I learned it. I learned it through what can only be called a series of cringes. I cringed at Philadelphia‘s well-intentioned hagiography of the “AIDS victim”; I cringed through Tony Kushner’s view of the plague as a post-script to the heroism of American communists; I winced at the eunuch, the sassy girlfriend, and the witty queen in Will And Grace; I had to look away as Ellen initially over-played her hand (understandably and totally forgivably, but still …). The US version of Queer as Folk was something I could not get out of my recoiling head for weeks – and I barely got through fifteen minutes of it. And please don’t ask me about Jeffrey. Please.
Maybe I should have sucked it up and celebrated each and every portrayal of gay people in any form – after so many decades and centuries of invisibility or minstrelsy. But, like many members of any minority group seeing themselves portrayed for the first time on screen, I felt betrayed when my own life wasn’t depicted, my worldview was ignored, my politics wasn’t acknowledged. In many ways this was utterly irrational. But it was emotionally real. When there are so few cultural expressions of your core identity, the few become weighted with far more cultural baggage than they can hope to uphold. In a fraught time – between liberation and mass extinction, between criminality and civil equality – it was hard to forgive anything that might be conceived as counter-productive or inaccurate or ideologized.
The same dynamic operated the other way on me, as well. When I rather naively became a gay public figure by answering “yes” to the question, “Are you gay?” after I became the editor of The New Republic at the crazy age of 27, the shoe was on the other foot.
Suddenly I was supposed to represent all “virtually normal” gay men, because I was one of very, very few out people in the mainstream media in 1991. And boy did I not represent them. I never claimed to, of course, and said so explicitly; but that really didn’t matter. I was out there and not representative of many others. So I had to be knocked off my perch in a period of great exhilaration but also great personal pain. Looking back, the necessary madness of that period, its extraordinary range of sheer emotion as we fought not just for our dignity but for our very lives, seems clearer and more understandable now. But no less painful.
So when the opening scene of the new HBO series, Looking, shows a young gay man cruising for sex in a public park, I tensed up. But almost as quickly I realized that this was the most meta of the show’s moments (I’ve been able to watch all four of the first few episodes). As the dude starts to grope around, his cell phone goes off, the other guy’s hands are freezing on his cock, he tries to answer the phone, then drops it into a ditch. His friends – out for a lark to see if old gay culture still exists in San Francisco – were calling him; and they reunite to talk about the fun in exploring the old world of cruising. And so the circle is complete. Gay culture has evolved into a million-petaled flower, and the old petals are still in there, but ironized for many, if still urgent for others. Gay life in 2014 is … well, finally just life.
I loved the show. It is the first non-cringe-inducing, mass market portrayal of gay life in America since the civil rights movement took off.
1/22/14
1/21/14
Beyond the protests of LGBT activists, Putin faces many formidable challenges in making the Sochi Winter Olympics a success
Leon Aron writes:
Putin’s expectations for a triumph may run into a stone wall of reality. Many are bracing for a disruption, even disaster. The Sochi games will be the first Winter Olympiad held in the subtropics and not unrelatedly, the gap between what has been needed by way of infrastructure and what was already available had never been as deep and wide. It is also beset with protest; it’s the first Olympics to be held in an area of mass expulsion of an indigenous people, whose descendants accuse Russia of genocide. Perhaps most hazardously of all, it is the first (and almost certainly the last) Olympiad to be held within a few hundred miles of a low-intensity but deadly jihad. Indeed, this is without a doubt the most precarious Olympiad ever attempted, for reasons of geography, climate and infrastructure—but also for the way the regime has chosen to address these challenges. Will Putin’s triumphalist narrative prevail? Maybe.
1/20/14
MLK quote of the day...on the creative, transformative power of love
“Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, ‘Love your enemies.’ It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. That’s why Jesus says, ‘Love your enemies.’ Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption.
You just keep loving people and keep loving them, even though they’re mistreating you.
Here’s the person who is a neighbor, and this person is doing something wrong to you and all of that. Just keep being friendly to that person. Keep loving them. Don’t do anything to embarrass them. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with bitterness because they’re mad because you love them like that. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load.
That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies,”
-– Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies.”
1/19/14
Pride in action: gay, political columnist, Josh Barro candidly talks about his sex life in responding to an internet troll
Here are my responses to Lynn, the Facebook messager with a lot of very personal questions about my sex life.
Dear Lynn:
That's a lot of questions. I'll have to take them one by one.
"I have male friends, but I've never wanted to have sex with any of them. I've always preferred to be with a woman."
That's interesting. You know Lynn is usually a woman's name, right? I'm going to proceed under the assumption that you're a heterosexual man named Lynn and not a lesbian.
"Do you have any idea why you prefer men?"
My understanding of the science is that sexual orientation is in significant part determined by genetic factors and the prenatal environment. I have a biological older brother, which changes the hormonal environment in the womb in a way that increases the likelihood of homosexual orientation.
There's an evolutionary theory that, in large families, gay offspring improve inclusive fitness by making their siblings more likely to raise children to adulthood. In other words, by being gay, I'm around to help my brother take care of his kids, so they can have more kids.
Sexual orientation also appears to be partly determined by factors other than these, and therefore likely by the postnatal environment. I'd note that environmental factors during childhood don't necessarily imply choice. For example, Japanese people do not have any genetic inability to differentiate 'l' and 'r' sounds, but a child raised in a Japanese-speaking environment will lose this ability by age 2; though he can learn as an adult to make the different sounds in speech therapy, he'll never be able to learn to hear them differently.
So, I suppose my attraction to men was determined by a combination of genetic factors and pre- and post-natal environmental factors, but I don't know exactly what combination.
"Do you dislike women because of your mother or some other woman?"
I like women just fine; I just don't want to have sex with them. I don't think my lack of sexual attraction to women has anything to do with my mother or any woman in particular.
"Did your dad or another man force themselves on you?"
No.
"Or did you just come to realize that you preferred men?"
Yes, this one.
"Have you ever had sex with a woman?"
No. I am not at all sexually attracted to women but I'd like to have sex with a woman someday, out of pure curiosity.
"I assume you have sex with other men, right?"
You're pretty insightful there, Lynn.
"What do you and your male partner do during sex?"
Most of the things you're imagining and a number of things you probably haven't thought of.
"Do you let them perform anal sex on you?"
Sometimes, sure.
"Do you perform oral sex on them?" Do you let them cum in your mouth?"
I sometimes do all of these things, yes.
"I would think you'd feel degraded by these acts. On the other hand, if the roles were reversed, you might feel like you have power over them. Do you feel degraded or powerful or is it just as exciting either way?"
Sometimes sex has a significant power exchange component, which can be great in either the dominant or the submissive role. But usually it's more egalitarian than that. Getting fucked can be degrading (in a fun way) but it doesn't have to be.
"Do you ever think about how people feel about you?"
Frequently. Doesn't everybody?
"For instance, when someone looks at your photo and imagines a man's penis in your mouth. Does that not embarrass you?"
Until now, it hadn't occurred to me that people might be imagining that. Is that what you imagine, Lynn?
"What if they look at your picture and imagine a man fucking you in the ass? Either one would embarrass the hell out of me."
I think you may have some issues to work through, buddy.
"If I were to ever become gay, I could never let anyone know it."
You seem to have given a lot of thought to me with a penis in my mouth. Most of the people who think about that are gay. Is it possible that you're already gay?
"I don't understand how you could be proud of it."
I wouldn't say that I'm proud of being gay. It's just a fact about me, like my height or my birthplace. I am proud about being open about my sexual orientation and not taking to heart when people like you write me ignorant letters about it.
"I think Phil Robertson feels the same way. He doesn't hate you; he just doesn't understand why you would want to be gay or even allow the world to know that you are."
I think Phil Robertson spends a lot less time thinking about me sucking dick than you do.
1/18/14
Inspired by Robbie Rogers and Thomas Hitzlsperger, semi-pro UK soccer player Liam Davis has come out!
From Outsports:
The coming out last week of professional soccer player Thomas Hitzlsperger has inspired at least one other British footballer to do the same. Liam Davis is a midfielder for Gainsborough Trinity who took the leap this weekend in theLincolnshire Echo.
This makes Davis the only publicly out professional or semi-pro footballer in England. While he said he doesn't know of any other gay men in soccer, he knows he's not the only gay in the village.
1/17/14
1/16/14
I was at the premiere of HBO gay drama "Looking" and it reminds of my life here in San Francisco, over the past 20 years
By the director of the movie "Weekend," this new TV series portrays the coming of age of three friends who are living and loving in San Francisco. After viewing the first two episodes, I can say the writing is top-notch, the casting and acting is strong, and the show is as beautifully shot as "Weekend" was. This show is so much better than "Sex in the City," which seems more pretty, self-conscious, and contrived in the end.
Over the last 36 hours, having watched this the new TV series has made me reflect on my life immersed in nearly aspect of San Francisco. It has made me reflect on the naivete, beauty and innocence of my 29-year-old self, who moved to this city long ago. Reflecting back on "me" back then, I have so more appreciation for my struggles to fully accept my sexual orientation, to learn to date and be in a good relationship, and to make my way in the world with verve and authenticity.
This TV loves San Francisco, and shows it like city insider would do for a visiting guest. The cinematography capture the colors and vibe of my city.
Watch this show on Sunday night.
1/15/14
The real Chris Christie emerges...with help from Rachel Maddow & Bruce Springsteen
Rachel deconstructs Christie's version of the 'truth':
And Bruce Springsteen makes his point in his uniquely "Bruce" way:
And Bruce Springsteen makes his point in his uniquely "Bruce" way:
1/14/14
Founder of gay Republican group resigns from the GOP
Even gay conservatives can only take so much disrespect and hatred from the GOP:
Today, I joined the ranks of unaffiliated voters. I am every bit as conservative as I’ve always been, but I just can’t bring myself to carry the Republican label any longer. You see, I just don’t agree with the big-government ‘conservatives’ who run the party now.
The other reason I am leaving is the tolerance of bigotry in the GOP. The current leadership lacks the courage to stand up to it – I’m not sure they ever will.
I have worked hard to help to create an atmosphere on the right where conservatives can openly support gay Americans and even support same-sex marriage. In that effort, we have won, but there is more work to do to root out the anti-gay and other forms of bigotry in the party.--Jimmy LaSalvia, founder of the conservative gay group GOProud, has left the Republican Party, he writes on his blog:
Via Towleroad
1/13/14
Before there was The Advocate Magazine and gay blogs...
...there was Bachelor magazine, for emerging homosexual reader, in 1937.
Bachelor as in 'confirmed bachelor', society's code for gay men at the time.
Bachelor as in 'confirmed bachelor', society's code for gay men at the time.
Quote of the day on the character of Chris Christie
Perhaps it is no big surprise to discover that governor Chris Christie is a vindictive, petty egomaniac contemptuous of the people he serves. But it’s hard to avoid that conclusion when you’ve pored over the new tranche of emails that show how he and his staff made life miserable for a large number of New Jerseyans – and, yes, trapped unnecessarily in traffic is misery, even when you have the gorgeous scenery of the George Washington Bridge to absorb.
...He has been revealed as a deeply petty man, willing to sacrifice the public good to pursue narrow political vendettas – not exactly a qualification for a president. But he has also repeatedly denied all of this. Is he a bully? Or a liar? Or both?--Andrew Sullivan
Israel remembers the gay victims of the Holocaust with a new memorial in Tel Aviv
I toured Auschwitz in 2012 and will never forget the hell that was created on earth for enemies of the Third Reich. In these German concentration camps, homosexuals were at the bottom of the pecking order, being mistreated by both the Nazi guards and many of their fellow prisoners. For the estimated 5,000-15,000 gay people (mostly men) who interned by the Germans, I am glad that their suffering is being remembered by Israel.
When the concentration camps were liberated, many of the homosexual prisoners were sent to serve out their sentence under Paragraph 175. In 1950, East Germany abolished the law, but West Germany enforced and confirmed it. It wasn’t until 1969 that some changes began to take place giving homosexuals more equal rights in West Germany.
Out of respect to these men and ourselves, we need to live our lives with as much love and pride as possible because we represent the dreams and aspirations of countless generations of gay people.
1/12/14
1/11/14
Quote of the day about Chris Christie, from one of his mentors
Governor Chris Christie is known as a hands-on manager so his explanation that he knew nothing about this bridge traffic closing lacks any creditability. When the busiest bridge in the world is clogged with traffic in your state, a governor knows about it and demands answers. Especially after four days. It looks like he is lying to New Jersey and the American public. Not the way to start a campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
From the Daily Dish:
As a week loaded with questions for and apologies by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) drew to a close, one of his key mentors emerged with doubts about how the George Washington Bridge scandal would affect any 2016 ambitions.
In an interview with the Washington Post published Saturday, former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean Sr. (R) painted the either-or picture for Christie's presidential hopes, highlighting how the tumult from this traffic issue should raise caution.
“On the one hand, I think he’s got a lot to offer," Kean Sr. said. "I think he’s the most able politician since Bill Clinton. On the other hand, you look at these other qualities and ask, 'do you really want that in your president?'”
1/10/14
The new Love, American style...
From Towleroad.com:
30 Rock and Weeds actor Maulik Pancholy, who quietly came out of the closet last Novemberin an OUT magazine profile, announced his engagement last night to his longtime partner Ryan Corvaia.
Tweeted Pancholy: "It only took 9 years but it's official! Just got engaged at the Taj Mahal to @Ryan_Corvaia! YEEEESSSS!"
1/9/14
These newly out gay men reclaim their humanity & self-respect. One jock and one nerd...two authentic men
I love Thomas and Curtis for their humanity and self-respect. As my dad, a former coach, says, they have pedigree!
Most powerful quote of the day
"I was never ashamed of how I am,"
--Thomas Hitzlsperger, the German retired pro soccer player who came out yesterday
1/8/14
More cracks in the closet door of pro sports: retired top German soccer player Thomas Hitzlsperger comes out...
This is a big story in Europe, especially Germany, where soccer is king. For years, there have been rumors of several gay players on the German National Team, which this announcement tends to corroborate. A far superior player to Robbie Rogers, Thomas will be role model for countless gay youth around the world. And he is a handsome guy, in that German way, to boot!
From the Guardian:
Thomas Hitzlsperger has become the most high-profile footballer to come out, announcing on Wednesday that he is gay. The former Aston Villa, West Ham and Everton player has given a long interview to the German paper Die Zeit, in which he says that he is talking about his sexuality because he wants "to further the debate about homosexuality among sports professionals".
Hitzlsperger represented Germany 52 times, played in a World Cup and a European Championship and won the Bundesliga with Stuttgart. He retired in September last year, having also played for Lazio in Italy and Wolfsburg. "It's been a long and difficult process" [of becoming aware of being gay]. Only in the last few years have I realised that I preferred living together with a man," Hitzlsperger added.Thomas was a tough but humble player who was nicknamed "Der Hammner":
Thomas Hitzlsperger has never shirked a challenge. In 2000, as an 18-year-old, he decided to leave his parents and six siblings in Germany to move to England. He had just been released by Bayern Munich, where he had been for eight years, but did not want to join another Bundesligaclub.
He wanted a challenge – and in Aston Villa's manager he found one. John Gregory ignored Hitzlsperger for a year and a half, sending him on loan to Chesterfield towards the end of his reign, and it was not until Graham Taylor took over that the German midfielder was given his chance.
Recalled from that loan spell, Taylor immediately thrust Hitzlsperger into first-team action and he never looked back. "At that point [with only six months left on my contract] I was frustrated because I had not played," he said at the time. "I was approached by [Bayern's rivals] 1860 Munich and wouldn't have had a problem joining them but then I decided to knuckle down and make it in England." He then added, with a smile: "Now it is going so well that even the announcer can pronounce my name every now and then. That has almost been my biggest success so far."
And there you have Hitzlsperger in a nutshell. Competitive, yet self-deprecating. On Wednesday he became the most high-profile footballer to announce he is gay. It will have taken courage and it will have taken time. In the end he decided the time had come. "It's been a long and difficult process [of becoming aware of being gay]. Only in the last few years have I realised that I preferred living together with a man,"Hitzlsperger said in the interview with Die Zeit.Thomas' coming out will surely encourage other athletes to do so. This story makes my day.
1/7/14
These young, brave WA State Catholics are revolting against their parochial high school's policy of firing gay teachers who marry. And now another teacher just got engaged...
Eastside Catholic High School in Sammamish, Washington has been in the news — a lot — after firing beloved Vice Principal Mark Zmuda last month for getting married to a man. Students walked out of the school en masse and have been protesting, writing letters, organizing, and holding meetings.
And just today, this lesbian teacher at the school announced she is engaged to her partner. It will be interesting to see what this Catholic school does now.
And just today, this lesbian teacher at the school announced she is engaged to her partner. It will be interesting to see what this Catholic school does now.
Momentum: Vietnamese-Americans in Orange County, CA vote to stand up for their LGBT family members
From the LA Times:
After barring lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from last year's Tet parade in Orange County, Vietnamese American community members voted 51-36 on Saturday to include them in the Lunar New Year event scheduled for Feb. 1.
Supporters called the move historic, pushing opponents not to tarnish the community's image by locking out a vocal segment of its immigrant population.
"When there's a vote to include or exclude, it makes me sad. But we have always been fighting for inclusion and equality -- and we knew that inclusion and equality will eventually triumph," said Hieu Nguyen, founder of Viet Rainbow of Orange County. The group formed after last year's battles with the Vietnamese American Federation of Southern California, the organization leading the charge against visible LGBT participation.
1/6/14
In praise of the brilliant Pam Karlan, the lesbian attorney who destroyed DOMA
I imagine everyone reading this will instantly recognize the woman in the photo above, and know exactly when it was taken. That’s Edie Windsor, welcoming the verdict of the Supreme Court the day they ruled on her lawsuit and declared DOMA unconstitutional.
You have probably seen that photo a dozen times, and gotten so lost in Edie’s joy that you may not have even noticed the woman to her right in the dark suit and tasteful pearls. That’s Pamela Karlan, Edie’s lawyer, and a name we should all know. When history is written, Pamela Karlan will be well-remembered as a great hero of the marriage equality movement.
Pamela is often called a lesbian by the mainstream press, and “that damn lesbian” by the conservatives on The Hill, but she describes herself as a snarky bisexual. She clerked for Justice Blackmun, then served as counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. When Justice Souter retired, her name on the short list of well-qualified women candidates gave Senate Republicans heartburn. There is little doubt Pamela Karlan would be an appellate judge today if Harry Reid had pulled the trigger on the nuclear option, and kept Republicans from filibustering judicial appointments, just a few years earlier.
Pam is currently one of the most active members of the Supreme Court Bar – the elite club of lawyers who have argued a case in front of the high court. In fact, she founded Stanford Law School’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, where she teaches other lawyers how to stand toe to toe with a grumpy Justice Scalia without cringing – and no doubt other helpful lawyer tricks. The Scalia deflection tecnique is probably just me projecting what I would most want to know.
Pamela is a product of Yale, and Yale Law, and her partner, Viola Canales, went to Harvard and Harvard Law. Viola (left) is a former Army officer, former Clinton Administration member, and author of a novel called The Tequila Worm. Both women are now on the faculty at Stanford, where Viola teaches a course in writing legal fiction. That resume alone should get them onto any A List of dinner party guests. But Pam Karlan is so much more than an overachiever with an interesting life.
What makes Pamela Karlan marked for history, and worthy of our notice today, is that she was the attorney who made the argument that persuaded the Supremes to dismantle DOMA. She wrote the brief. Her words. Her ideas. Her voice. David Boise and Ted Olsen may have been the attorneys who soaked up the media spotlight with their Prop 8 victory, but it was attorney Pam Karlan who toppled the first domino that is now changing the marriage landscape across the country. What happened in Utah this week, (Freakin’ Mormony Utah!) happened because Pamela Karlan convinced the Supreme Court that DOMA unfairly penalized Edie Windsor, and their decision is now precident for federal judges everywhere.
Two amazing family drama movies that I saw over the holidays...
This documentary is fascinating study on how life events are seen by differently by members of the same family. It is a beautiful, heart-warming story with more twists and turns than Downton Abbey. Rent it.
Iranian director Asghar Farhadi continues to prove that he is one of the most powerful storytellers in cinema today. His film about family relationships is a huge achievement, set in Paris, with the characters being Iranian immigrants. Highly-recommended.
1/4/14
The Minnesota Vikings can cut any player for performance or budget reasons, but they can't allow homophobic rants by their coaches
I met Chris Kluwe a few months ago and we had a wide ranging conversation about Vince Lombardi's gay brother, homophobia in sports, and how the world is changing for the LGBT in the locker room. Despite his penchant for funny one liners and over-the-top phrases, like 'lustful cockmonster', he seemed like a thoughtful guy with a lot of integrity. (Check out the above interview with Stephen Colbert for a sense of Chris.)
So when he claims that his former Vikings coach that made a wildly homophobic statement, I take note. Chris Kluwe:
Near the end of November, several teammates and I were walking into a specialist meeting with Coach Priefer. We were laughing over one of the recent articles I had written supporting same-sex marriage rights, and one of my teammates made a joking remark about me leading the Pride parade. As we sat down in our chairs, Mike Priefer, in one of the meanest voices I can ever recall hearing, said: "We should round up all the gays, send them to an island, and then nuke it until it glows." The room grew intensely quiet, and none of the players said a word for the rest of the meeting. The atmosphere was decidedly tense. I had never had an interaction that hostile with any of my teammates on this issue—some didn't agree with me, but our conversations were always civil and respectful. Afterward, several told me that what Mike Priefer had said was "messed up."I am glad that the Vikings have hired a respected investigator to determine if these allegations are true. Also, I can understand the Vikings might fire Chris for performance and budgetary reasons, namely that finding a cheaper player with nearly the same performance stats. But if the Vikings are firing Chris for homophobic reasons, they should pay a high price in the court of public opinion.
Chris is also welcoming this investigation:
"I'm glad they're taking it seriously. This is something I wrote down, because it's what happened to me, and I'm 100 percent confident in what I wrote, and there are witnesses that will back me up. Let the investigation begin." - Chris Kluwe, telling USA Today that he intends to cooperate with the Vikings' investigation to be conducted by the former chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court.By the way, the apple usually doesn't fall from the tree. Here is the alleged statement by Coach Priefer, followed by recent tweets by his son. Sounds like Junior did not grow up in a household that respects gay people.
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