5/15/14
These star Spanish players kiss after a recent victory causing a controversy. Same-sex male kissing seems to be society's edge
These Spanish soccer players sent tongues wagging when they kissed after a goal in a championship game. I doubt that two gay soccer players would kiss on the field as a way of coming out; these boys are probably straight and don't adhere to the conventional belief that men should not be affectionate with other another.
Same sex kissing seems to be the new frontier for LGBT acceptance. While most Americans are ready to accept openly gay athletes, the majority felt that it was inappropriate for the networks to show Michael Sam kissing his boyfriend on Saturday. Obviously, we have a ways to go before we are full members of society.
Majorities of Democrats (80 percent) and independents (56 percent), as well as a plurality of Republicans (42 percent), said they're ready to cheer on their teams with openly gay players.
But although most Americans approve of gay players in theory, many are less comfortable with the reality. Male athletes kissing their wives or girlfriends is routine territory for networks covering victory and other sporting celebrations, but coverage of Sam's kissing his boyfriend after he was drafted has generated controversy. Forty-seven percent in the new poll said it was "inappropriate" for networks to show the kiss, while only 36 percent said it was "appropriate." Seventeen percent said they weren't sure.
5/14/14
Michael Sam's kiss that is changing the world: Andrew Sullivan, Dale Hansen and Jim Parsons talk about its impact and significance
Here’s what that embrace and kiss meant to me. It meant that Sam is not afraid, and neither is Vito, his boyfriend. There are no double standards here or special exceptions. If Sam were with a girlfriend, the scene would be utterly banal, if still beautiful. It helps that they are so young – because they are not yet old enough to have their minds clogged with qualifications, warnings, worries. They just respond as two people in love. In that moment, the hug matters more than the kiss; and the faces more than the hug. Look at Vito in the video as he waits for and absorbs the news. The anxiety, the trepidation, the concern for his partner: this is what love looks like.--Andrew Sullivan
5/13/14
Quote of the day
"Other people’s opinions are none of your business. Not on Twitter, not on Facebook and not in any school or institution. … Your business is to define you … to find your passion and to build your life."--Dustin Lance Black
5/12/14
The changing face of the American family, which includes single parents, interracial and gay couples: a news report from CBS
Thanks to my blog reader Monroe for this clip.
5/11/14
5/10/14
After yesterday's court rulling striking down Arkansas' same-sex marriage ban, marriages may begin there today
5/9/14
Flashback video: The son who will become prime minister of Canada one day, Justin Trudeau, remembers his dad
The son of Elliott Trudeau, who gave a moving eulogy at his dad's funeral.
5/8/14
5/7/14
Love is breaking out...everywhere
Just this week, this proud and out Navy psychologist proposed to his boyfriend. Love and progress are in the air.
5/6/14
Andrew Sullivan crushes Peggy Noonan for her praise of Pope John Paul II, who did little to stop sexual abuse of children
She is now comparing Pope John Paul II to Barack Obama in terms of leadership. Guess who wins! For some reason, she fails to acknowledge that under John Paul II, thousands of children were raped by members of the organization John Paul II ran, and the machinery he was in charge of not only failed to stop this, but actively perpetuated it and covered it up. Nowhere in her column does this come up – it’s yet another reality (like American torture) she wants to walk swiftly past (“Some of life has to be mysterious”). Noonan goes on to say:
Great leaders are clear, honest, suffer for their stands and are brave. They conduct a constant dialogue.
Whatever else one can say about the pontificate of John Paul II, the idea that it was about a constant dialogue is absurd. Under John Paul II and his orthodoxy-enforcer, Joseph Ratzinger, the scope for any dialogue within the church was essentially ended. Whole areas of theological debate were ruled impermissible; discussions about faith and morals were also discouraged and any hints of heterodoxy, i.e. thinking, were monitored and punished. John Paul II’s papacy was capable of detecting the most trivial form of theological dissent and punishing it relentlessly, while it found itself miraculously blind when it came to the endless rapes and abuse of children and adolescents that we know now were endemic.
This wasn’t leadership; it was the abdication of basic moral responsibility for the church John Paul II ran. And these were not only crimes of commission but also of omission. A monstrous figure like Marciel Macial was lionized by John Paul II even as he sold drugs, was a bigamist, abused countless young men, and even raped his own son. Cardinal Bernard Law was rewarded for his own disgusting cover-up of child-rapists with a sinecure in Rome.
--Andrew Sullivan
5/5/14
5/4/14
5/3/14
Big blue in the Castro
I found this photo posted on Towleroad but saw this handsome officer, straddling his big police cruiser, on the way to work, yesterday.
5/2/14
Quote of the day, on the need for the LGBT to acknowledge our victories and be magnanimous
“The predisposition to slowly savor visions of your own defeat, even at the moment of total victory, seems like an essential component of ressentiment. If you feel too much like a victor, it’s sure hard to keep hating those rotten Krauts and Japs enough to demonize them, and then there’s a risk of dismantling the powerful military infrastructure you constructed to wage war against their perfidy. Victory contains the seeds of a more magnanimous future for the victors, even as it infuriates the vanquished. So the Left can only maintain the energy it needs to harness the culture wars as a tool for electoral victory if it constantly denies that it’s winning, by weaving itself a new narrative of encroaching right-wing radicalism that’s eroding the remnants of some Eisenhowerian golden age of nonpartisan unity and cooperation.
Have any of history’s other revolutionaries been so reluctant to celebrate their own revolution”
The LGBT have a long way to go in ending institutionalized homophobia. For example, the Boy Scouts don't allow gay troop leaders...
I am thrilled that gay and bisexual boys can now be Boy Scouts, but this video interview shows the homophobia and double-standards that exist in scouting. Quite simply, it is wrong.
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