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CBS Reports: The Homosexuals (circa 1967)

I hesitate to use adjectives. This is an interesting piece of gay history (and "gay", I mean in strictly the masculine sense, because, apparently, only Gore Vidal was aware of the existence of lesbians way back in '67), filled to the brim with domineering mothers, loveless relationships, conspiracy theory, and the embracing of stereotypes -- not just by American society, at large, but also by some of the homosexual men to whom said stereotypes have been applied.

The video, for anyone who is paying attention, does illustrate that dominant attitudes in the United States toward homosexuality have changed over the past 40-odd years. But what's truly striking is that dominant attitudes toward homosexuality from within the homosexual community have changed even more. Thank God.

This is a long piece, and it ain't exactly happy fun time. Have at it only if you really have an interest.

via The Advocate via Bilerico

How The Huffington Post Is Hurting Equality

So much for not blogging while angry.

A Huffington Post article by Jennifer Vanasco called "How Adam Lambert Is Hurting Gay Marriage" was the first thing I read this morning. Here's a quote from the author:

This is why mainstream America votes against gays, Adam Lambert. Not because of people who have families and jobs and bills and weddings. Because of people like you, who use sexuality thoughtlessly in order to advance your own agenda, instead of thinking about the very real consequences your actions will have on others’ civil rights.

If you were a private citizen, this wouldn’t matter. But you are not. You are able to be openly gay thanks to people who did, in fact, make it their life’s work to “lead the fucking way for the civil rights movement.” You dishonor them – and you hurt all American gays and lesbians – by pretending otherwise.
 

via www.huffingtonpost.com

Yes, because the government and the population at large were perfectly willing to recognize the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people as long as we were all willing to be good little queers. Because the modern era of gay rights didn't begin with a drag queen whacking a cop with her purse, a "dyke" willing to fight the police who were arresting her, and a whole bunch of gay people willing to stand up and break a few rules. Silence != Death?

I had my own problems with Adam's AMA performance, and I'd be the last to consider him a champion for gay rights. But this is ridiculous. Rights should not be subject to the whim of the majority. The "gender discrimination" that Adam has pointed out -- rightly so -- in reference to the censoring of the kiss mirrors the gender discrimination inherent in limiting marriage to "one man, one woman".

And frankly, if the recognition of equal rights hinges on us behaving better than is expected of the cisgendered, heterosexual majority, then we have no equality at all.

Free Music from Amazon: Dragonette, Skinny Puppy, and Ghostape

It's feeling a lot like the '80s! For some of us middle-aged folks, that's a very good thing, indeed! This week's edition of The Amazon MP3 Download newsletter included three free gems with a bit of an '80s music vibe:

• Dragonette, "Pick Up the Phone"

  This song is my favorite track of the week, and could've easily seen wide air-play in the '80s. It's just really listenable. The lyrics had my gaydar bleeping, and the video only served to reinforce the alarm. The video for the band's "I Get Around", on the other hand, eliminates the need for gaydar, altogether. To echo Sarah Warn at AfterEllen:

  Sadly, lead singer Martina is married to the bass player, Dan, so she's not actually gay in real life. Nor is she a champion tennis player. But the video is hot and pro-lesbian, so I'm willing to overlook that detail.

  Visit Dragonette's official site here or check out more songs on their MySpace page.

• Skinny Puppy, "Chainsaw"

  These guys are actually from the '80s. I'm one of those people who had heard of, but never actually heard, Skinny Puppy. Think New Order, but with growly, gravelly, more-industrial and less-melodic vocals. And power tools.

• Ghostape, "Many Stars (Ste Mix)"

  I really want to pronounce that "ghost tape" and not "ghost ape", but whatever. I downloaded this primarily because there are some unusual sounds in the track. I'm just that easy. The remix is a bet repetitive, but there's enough good in it to make me wonder what the original version of the song sounds like, beyond the few seconds that Amazon provides by way of a sample. This song has a sleepier vibe than the other two. Great for when your tired from dancing to the first one and being angry with the second.

Adam Lambert's Out Interview

According to Out editor Aaron Hicklin (via Michael Musto at The Village Voice, which I found via MJ's Big Blog, and -- my god! -- this is starting to feel like a game of whisper down the lane), Adam Lambert's management were a bit dickish about Adam's appearance in the Out 100:

*Adam's people were reluctant to let him appear on the cover. They only let it happen if it was a group shot, preferably including someone straight. (This even though Out was first in line, ages ago, in asking for a Lambert cover. Somehow Details was granted a crack at him first, presenting the singer caressing a barely clad woman and talking about kissing girls, though he did also manage to get in the fact that he's gay).

*Out was urged not to make Adam too gay in the shot.

*They were also informed that Adam probably wouldn't be able to attend an Out 100 event because they didn't want to jeopardize his record sales.

If true, the condition of including a straight person on the cover should be insulting to every non-straight person in existence. No offense to Cyndi Lauper. I like Cyndi Lauper. I was glad she was on the cover, because she's been a long-time friend to the GLBT community. I don't think that straight people should be excluded from the cover, or from the Out 100. But that particular demand from Adam's management sounds a helluva lot like "heterosexuality equals legitimacy", even if that wasn't the motivation behind the request. 

On the other hand, Adam is not Adam's management. There's no closet in the actual interview:

To be honest with you, it was a really weird moment, because I’ve been living in L.A. for eight years like, yeah, I’m gay.

I just happen to be a gay man -- and I’m not ashamed of that at all.

And my personal favorite:

But wouldn’t you say that it was a minority of people who were actually surprised that you were gay?

Yeah, I would hope.

On the surface, it appears there may be a bit of cognitive dissonance, there, between Adam and his management. But then there's this:

...We’ve gotten plenty of push back from your management -- and many other people’s -- who say, “Well, let’s not be too gay…”

Well, you know, I think that there’s something to that, though. I think the whole magic of this moment is that I’m not alienating anybody. I’m not trying to anyway. I want as many people to feel like they can like the music. I don’t want to edit myself to the point where I feel like I don’t have integrity. But at the same time, I feel like I don’t want to alienate people, so it’s really hard. It’s almost like being a political figure. It’s like a balancing act. I feel really good about how open I’ve been, ’cause I really don’t feel like I’ve hidden anything. It’s like the picking and choosing. When is it appropriate and when is it not? One of the things that I don’t like about the gay community is that people define themselves by their sexuality -- and that’s bullshit. It shouldn’t be about that. It should be that it just so happens that you’re this or that, and that’s your sexuality. It doesn’t mean that that should dictate what your social group is or where you go out or who you talk to or what your interests are. That’s bullshit. That’s outdated.

And even though the quote from Adam seems far less offensive than the list of his management's alleged demands/requests (indeed, a good deal of it makes sense; also, it's in context), I'm still a bit put off by the notion that someone being "too gay" might be too alienating to Adam's audience. Not because of any sort of gay issue, in and of itself, but because it feeds into the polarized notions of gender that, in turn, feed those gay issues, and transgender issues, and even some issues for all of you legitimizing heterosexuals.

Am I put off enough to regret buying Adam's album? Not at all. This isn't Eminem rapping about raping lesbians. Plenty of you -- and this time, I don't mean heterosexuals -- have bought his albums. The only way to justify punishing Adam for a perceived slight, while willingly putting out money for that crap, is if you're also willing to admit that you're holding Adam to a higher standard (ridiculously so) precisely because he's gay. And that's no justification, at all.

Time For Gay Power | The Bilerico Project

Let me suggest something else: We need to show them we're different and proud of it; that we have perspectives on what it means to be loving humans that they can learn from if they choose; and that they have absolutely no right, under our constitutional system, to tell us who or what we have to be to demand equality.

Ronald Gold via www.bilerico.com

Yes. Especially that last bit.