oin the Impact protests ex-gay training

The latest foray by Exodus International, the country’s leading ex-gay ministry, into Boston was a relatively low-key affair, but the grassroots LGBT group Join the Impact Massachusetts and other activists turned out to protest and send a loud message of opposition to their teachings.

Exodus held an April 28 pastor training at Park Street Church to promote the organization’s message that gay and lesbian people can change their orientation and become heterosexual. Join the Impact held a protest across the street near Park Street Station, but following the speaking portion of the demonstration some of the attendees urged the organizers to move the protest closer to the church, within view of the Exodus training attendees. The protestors marched across the street into the Granary Burying Ground, an historic cemetery next to the church that houses the remains of Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, and the victims of the Boston Massacre, among other important figures in American history, and continued their protest there for about 15 minutes until a police officer asked them to disperse.

Exodus declined a request by Bay Windows for permission to cover the pastor training, saying the event was closed to the press. Exodus has held prior events in Boston, including a daylong conference in 2005 that also sparked a protest by LGBT activists (See “My day with the ex-gays,” Nov. 3, 2005).
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Miss California sparks outrage over gay marriage remarks

Mixing a beauty pageant with politics is a recipe for disaster. You could make a strong case for it, anyway.

The two merged last night at the site of the Miss USA pageant in Las Vegas. The result was similar to the fallout after the Miss Teen USA pageant in 2007 when Miss South Carolina gave the greatest non-answer answer perhaps in American history. Both times the non-winner of a pageant got all the attention the next day.

Outrage

But unlike the pageant two years ago, the contestant in the crossfire didn’t give a nonsensical (and wildly entertaining) answer. The contestant last night, California’s Carrie Prejean, was too articulate in the minds of many and led to some flaring tempers (similar to Janeane Garofalo’s flare-up on Keith Olbermann’s show the other night).

The question posed to the contestant couldn’t be any more incendiary: gay marriage.

Asked judge Perez Hilton to Prejean, “Vermont recently became the 4th state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit. Why or why not?”

Observers quickly learned that in Hilton’s mind there was only one correct answer. And Prejean picked the wrong one.

“Well I think its great that Americans are able to choose one or the other,” she said. “We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there but that’s how I was raised and that’s how I think it should be between a man and a woman. Thank you very much.”

Prejean was greeted with a mixed reaction from the audience. Boos followed by applause. And the reactions didn’t stop at the pageant. It went into overtime.

Worst answer

Perez then blasted her on his video blog calling it the “worst answer in pageant history.” He also made comments that he has since apologized for. Now he’s asked her out for coffee to “talk.”

The directors of the Miss California pageant condemned her answer on Monday morning.

“As co-executive director of Miss CA USA and one of the leaders of the Miss CA family, I am personally saddened and hurt that Miss CA USA 2009 believes marriage rights belong only to a man and a woman,” wrote Keith Lewis on Hilton’s blog. “Although I believe all religions should be able to ordain what unions they see fit, I do not believe our government should be able to discriminate against anyone. Religious beliefs have no place in politics in the Miss CA family.”

Sticking by it

Does she regret the answer? Not at all.

“I was raised in a way that you can never compromise your beliefs and your opinions for anything,” she told AccessHollywood.

Further, she informed the entertainment site that her sister is a gay rights activist in the Air Force. By the way, her sister was more sympathetic than Hilton.

“She was just in my hotel room and she said, ‘Sis, I’m not offended by anything that you said. We have two different opinions and I love you because of it. I love you because you stood up for what was right, and it’s not a matter of being gay or not gay, it’s a matter of you competing for Miss USA and getting a question and answering it to the best of your ability.”

On one area both Hilton and Prejean agree: her answer killed her chances of winning the competition.

“She lost it because of that question. She was definitely the front-runner before that,” Hilton told ABCNews.com

“It did cost me my crown,” she concurred. “I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I said what I feel. I stated an opinion that was true to myself and that’s all I can do.”

See Miss California sparks outrage over gay marriage remarks @ Christian Science Monitor - Also:

Miss USA Scores Controversy, Not Ratings E! Online -
Perez Hilton ‘Floored’ by Miss California ABC News -

Perez Hilton to Miss California: Sorry for calling you a dumb bee-otch Kansas City Star - ‎2
YOU DECIDE: Did Miss California’s Answer Cost Her the Crown? FOXNews -

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Milk yanks gay movies from closet to mainstream

Milk is a message movie, but more importantly, it’s an openly proud and entirely self-possessed message movie that wears its progressive rhetoric on its rainbow sleeve.

The distinction is crucial, because when you get right down to the nitty-gritty nub of what director Gus Van Sant has been able to achieve with Milk, it goes beyond teaching a particularly loathsome chapter of American history.

Van Sant, the openly gay film director, has created a universally accessible movie about the birth of the gay movement that is not framed by shame.

Back when this movie was set, in the mid-1970s, shame was an inherent part of the entire gay experience and Van Sant quickly sketches the emotional mood in the opening credit sequence.

Small, plain white titles appear over archival footage of police raids on gay bars. Slowing down the black and white footage to a surreal, dreamy pace, Van Sant sends us through the glass darkly as we watch all sorts of men being loaded into paddy wagons with their hands hiding their faces.

It’s mind-altering imagery because it’s obvious these men are not criminals, yet truncheon-swinging police are corralling them into custody. Their only crime is hanging out with other men and being who they are, but homosexuality was seen as a legitimate reason to deprive a human being of his or her civil rights.

See Milk yanks gay movies from closet to mainstream
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