Too Gay in Amsterdam?
It’s no secret that Amsterdam is gay-friendly, but in case that slipped under anyone’s radar, Dutch tourism officials have launched a micro Web site this month proclaiming that “Everyone’s Gay in Amsterdam.”
The Web site, which is geared for American travelers, offers a “gay list” that features places like Pric, described as a “relaxed and funky gay-friendly bar” that “serves up unusual cocktails concocted by its highly-trained staff of bartenders.”
But a closer look reveals that not everyone in Amsterdam is, in fact, gay. A photograph of a seemingly happy straight couple biking along a canal? The Van Gogh Museum? A “gay locator” that doesn’t turns the entire city into an orange dot?
Turns out, “gay” doesn’t just reefer to sexual orientation, but “the attitude of the people in this grand European city,” according to the VisualMerc, a New York-based interactive agency that created the micro-site.
New York Times
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/too-gay-in-am…
Gays and aging: Halsted center serves surging population of gay … Chicago Tribune
Windows on the second floor of the Center on Halsted frame an ever-changing portrait of gay life in 2009: Same-sex couples walk hand in hand; cross-dressing young men strut with confidence; rainbow banners herald a neighborhood that embraces gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people of any age.
Behind those windows every Tuesday sit Chicagoans in their 60s, 70s and 80s, many on the tailing arcs of lives spent denying their true sexual identity. Women and men who married opposite-sex partners, had children and only late in life felt comfortable telling the world that they’re lesbian or gay. Men and women who chose solitary lives over the possibility of being outed.
They’re a population celebrating still relatively newfound openness, while also confronting issues that rarely appear on the radar of a youthful gay-rights movement focused on the right to marry.
Some have only recently come out and are trying to find their way in a new community. Some have been out for years but are now in nursing homes where their sexuality has again become a stigma. See Gays and aging: Halsted center serves surging population of gay …
Chicago Tribune
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/gays-and-agin…
Gay film festival keeps low profile Toronto Star
BEIJING–When China’s homosexual moviemakers decided to hold their fourth-ever film festival this year, they took pains to avoid confrontation with the cops.
They’d had confrontations before.
So this year, they didn’t issue any press releases. They picked a venue where they didn’t have to apply for a government permit. And they insisted on calling the event The Beijing Queer Film Festival.
“The translation of queer in Chinese is `ku er,’” explains film director Cui Zi’en. “In the Chinese language, it’s actually a less well-known word – a less provocative word than `gay.’”
The idea, Cui says, is not to wave flags in the authorities’ faces.
Yesterday, the five-day film festival opened in a village on the outskirts of Beijing without incident.
It’s no longer illegal to be gay in China: that ended in 1997.
In 2001, the Chinese Psychiatric Association delisted homosexuality as a disease. But gay books and films remained banned here in China and the gay community continues to test the limits.
Cui and other organizers hope this week’s festival goes smoothly – and doesn’t get busted. Gay film fests in the capital were shut down in 2001 and 2005, while a festival in 2007 squeaked by under the radar.
See Gay film festival keeps low profile Toronto Star
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Do Obama and Miss California Have the Same Position on Gay Marriage? Sort of.
By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
I was at a, err, opposite-sex wedding
over the weekend when one of the guests asked me, presumably as the member of the MSM on hand, why Carrie Prejean, Miss California, gets lambasted for being anti-gay marriage, while Barack Obama
The answer lies in tone and nuance.
It is true that Obama’s position is that marriage is “between a man and a woman” and that he is “not in favor of gay marriage.” That said, he articulately advocates for the rights of gay couples on things like hospital visitation. See here, for example, starting at about 1:06: “When I sit down and read scripture and I think how would Jesus feel about somebody not being able to visit someone they love when they’re sick, I conclude that that is something that’s important.”
And it is possible that some portion of people suspect that Obama would favor gay marriage were it a politically viable position: He’s secretly with us, not like that nasty Miss California. And even if that’s not the case, he’s good on enough other stuff that he can get a pass on this.
Then there’s Miss California, whose now-famous answer to the question seems like instant, inadvertent beauty pageant satire. See Do Obama and Miss California Have the Same Position on Gay …
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/do-obama-and-…
Judge orders La. to issue birth certificate showing 2 dads
(New Orleans, Louisiana) A federal judge has given the state of Louisiana 15 days to put both names of a gay couple on the birth certificate of their adopted son.
Oren Adar and Mickey Smith adopted their Louisiana-born son in 2006 in a New York court, where a judge issued an …
Louisiana may reopen gay adoption ruling
(New Orleans, Louisiana) The state of Louisiana has asked a federal judge to reconsider a ruling that both names of a gay couple must appear on the birth certificate of their adopted son.
Oren Adar and Mickey Smith adopted their Louisiana-born son in 2006 in a New York court, where a judge …
