Ex-TV anchor is Detroit’s 1st openly gay candidate
When reporter and anchor Charles Pugh told viewers of Detroit’s Fox television affiliate about his gay lifestyle, he gambled that people in his working-class hometown still would accept him as a journalist. That was about five years ago, and over that time Pugh’s popularity grew to where he became one of the more recognizable faces on local news broadcasts. He is banking on that translating into enough votes to make him the city’s first openly gay city council member. “I didn’t know what would happen, but at that point it didn’t matter to me because I knew it was the right thing to do,” Pugh told The Associated Press. “I think there will be people who grumble about it and some people who may stray away from voting for me because of that, but I think Detroiters already know me. I believe Detroiters are open-minded, hardworking people who really do accept people who are different. ” See Ex-TV anchor is Detroit’s 1st openly gay candidate
Chicago Tribune
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KRXQ Sacramento Radio Hosts Have History of Obscenity Involving Children: FCC Report
In the wake of the media and Internet firestorm which followed a call to action by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and coverage in The Huffington Post, which broke this story nationally, ten major American corporate advertisers have pulled their accounts from Rob, Arnie & Dawn in the Morning on KRXQ 98.55 in Sacramento.
For its part, the station has taken the May 28th broadcast down off the station’s public website and removed its list of advertisers and sponsors.
On the day in question, two of the show’s three hosts, Rob Williams and Arnie States, spent approximately thirty minutes of the segment berating transgender children as “idiots,” “freaks,” and “freaks of nature,” who were “just out for attention.” They compared the children to “fat bastard kids on Maury” who just needed to be put in their places with verbal abuse and even physical punishment if necessary. States said that if he had a male child who put on a pair of high heels, he would discipline him by striking the little boy with his own shoe.
“I’m going to go, ‘You know what? You’re a little idiot! You little dumbass!” he seethed, later addng, “I look forward to the day when [the transgender children] go out into society and society beats them down. And they wind up in therapy.” If the transgender-identified child “gets to eighteen,” States urged, throw them out of the house. “You say, ‘Get out! Go be a freak! And understand, SON, that society will never accept you because we will have some moral judgment.”
Apparently a significant chunk of corporate America also has “some moral judgment,” and, in this case, they decided that Rob, Arnie & Dawn’s in the Morning’s abusive tirade against transgender children, some as young as five, crossed the line.
As of this writing, at least ten national companies have withdrawn, cancelled, or decided not to renew their advertising contracts with KRXQ. They include Chipotle restaurants, the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, SONIC, Verizon, the Carl’s Jr. restaurant chain, Wells Fargo, Nissan, AT&T, and McDonalds. Citing the depravity of the content, spokespeople for the various companies were united in their disgust with KRXQ and Rob, Arnie, & Dawn in the Morning.
A statement sent to GLAAD from the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group read, “We found the segment to be offensive, and as a result we are pulling our Snapple advertising from the station.” The sentiment was echoed by SONIC, who asserted flatly that “SONIC in no way condones violence toward children and does not wish to be associated with media content that condones or promotes such activity in any way.” See KRXQ Sacramento Radio Hosts Have History of Obscenity Involving Children: FCC Report
Michael Rowe, 06.06.2009
Award-winning journalist and author of Other Men’s Sons
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Remembering Bea Arthur, feminist TV pioneer
There are lots of reasons to take a moment this weekend to mark the passing of Bea Arthur, who died on Saturday at age 86 in her home in Los Angeles. The most obvious was that she was talented and hilarious, and that if you are over the age of 30 in this country, there’s a good chance that she made you laugh on a semi-regular basis at some point in your life.
But it’s also important to remember that before “Dollhouse,” before “Sex and the City,” there was “Maude.” The “All in the Family” spin-off, which ran from 1972 to 1978, starred Arthur as Maude Findlay, the Democratic-voting, women’s liberation-supporting, four times married cousin of Edith Bunker. The program, created by television visionary Norman Lear, made the news early in its run for featuring prime time’s first abortion, in a two-part episode that aired two months before Roe v. Wade made abortion legal across the country.
Seven years after “Maude,” Arthur starred in “The Golden Girls” as Dorothy Zbornak, the divorced retiree who shared a home in Florida with three other women, including her aged mother. It’s remarkable to think, given how young, glossy and pneumatic network television has become, that less than 20 years ago, the airwaves were given over to four older women who talked about sex and ex-husbands and ate cheesecake.
Many others have observed that “The Golden Girls” was “Sex and the City” before “Sex and the City,” or alternately that the “Sex and the City” ladies were only a few decades away from drinks on the lanai themselves. The show was one of the most female-friendly and respectful looks at the experience of aging while female ever broadcast on national airwaves, simply by showing women — living, talking, having sex, making friends, cracking wise, living full lives together with energy and engagement. And if you happen to catch one of the reruns that still air, chances are good you’ll laugh your ass off.
So here’s to Bea Arthur, one of television’s finest and funniest feminists.
Remembering Bea Arthur, feminist TV pioneer
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Gay rights in Japan blurred on TV
When Sean Penn won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of slain San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk two weeks ago, he used his acceptance speech to rail against supporters of California’s Proposition 8, which last November repealed a State Supreme Court ruling extending marriage rights to same-sex couples.
Penn’s confrontational tone was in keeping with his prickly public persona, but it was also in line with his character’s real-life activism. Milk was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States, and the fact that he was openly gay defined his policies and goals.
“Milk,” the movie for which Penn won the Oscar, works better as political history than it does as biography. Harvey Milk’s long-term goal was to help build a society in which homosexuals participated fully without having to hide or deny their sexual preferences. But because he understood that many people abhorred those sexual preferences, he knew such a society could not be built on persuasion. He would have to force the issue through political action, just as the civil-rights movement won equality for blacks.
There was one stark difference, however. Black people couldn’t hide their blackness, while gays could hide their homosexuality. The only way Milk could accomplish his long-term goal was to urge his fellow homosexuals to come out and acknowledge their same-sex preferences to their families, friends and communities. He did this by presenting himself, often humorously, as a militant sodomite (“My fellow degenerates!”); in other words, someone who was going to live his life as he pleased.
The fact that Proposition 8 passed 30 years after Milk’s assassination means that his goal has not been accomplished, but his confrontational methodology has become the standard for gay activism. In the process, gays have become culturally, if not necessarily socially, mainstreamed in the U.S. In movie terms, that development is proved not so much by the Oscars for “Milk,” but rather by the box office success of the crude adolescent comedy “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry,” in which gay stereotypes and jokes are thrown back at antigay attitudes. “This is America,” says the main character, played by Adam Sandler. “You should have the right to put anything you want up your ass.” It’s something Harvey Milk could have said, and probably did.
It will be interesting to see the reaction to “Milk” when it opens here in April. There have been a few gay office- holders at the local level in Japan, but political action for homosexual interests is virtually nonexistent, mainly because there are no laws that explicitly proscribe homoerotic activity or deny rights to individuals who are openly gay. On the other hand, social pressure against coming out remains strong.
The media reinforces this situation by boosting TV personalities who trade in gay stereotypes without ever actually mentioning gay sexuality. It’s the whole point of the popular Nihon TV variety show “Oneemans,” where homosexuality really is the love that dare not speak its name. Last fall, NHK presented a two-part discussion about LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender) on “Heart Talk,” a show that addresses social issues from a perspective of sensitivity. Though the program drew the derision of Shincho magazine, which wondered if LGBT was really a proper topic for a public broadcaster, it received a positive reaction from many viewers, and NHK aired a followup last month. Most of the discussion was about the difficulty of coming out to friends and family, and how important it was for LGBT people to receive support from parents. There was a profile of a Sapporo support group for parents of LGBT, one of whom appeared in the studio with his mother.
The show was basically an appeal for understanding, filled with testimonials from LGBT people about their loneliness and inability to function normally in a society that won’t acknowledge their situation. It was a passive appeal. The LGBT people who spoke out are waiting for society to change. One participant said LGBT should come out only when they were in a positive frame of mind, since doing so out of anger or frustration might create negative feelings. The advice was mostly about being respectful of other people’s — i.e., straight people’s — feelings. Even the example of the lesbian couple who made a point of not hiding their relationship from the neighbors was presented cautiously. The two women would walk through the streets hand-in-hand greeting everyone they met, and after a year or so people accepted them. However, on TV their faces were blurred out, as were many of the other LGBT participants’. They were not scared for themselves; they just didn’t want to take the chance of making friends and family uncomfortable.
The LGBT participants who did not opt for masking had more than a personal stake in the matter: former Osaka prefectural assemblyperson Kanako Otsuji, Setagaya Ward assemblyperson Aya Kamikawa, psychologist Toshiaki Hirata and some LGBT organization representatives. Hirata explained that the government’s new antisuicide measures do not take into consideration LGBT-related suicides, but that was as far as the discussion went into public policy. It was not the purpose of the program.
The purpose was to show how LGBT people feel, and it seemed clear that the main obstacles they need to overcome in order to live their lives freely are society’s fundamental ignorance and their own fears. In that regard, the program’s blurred-out faces and polite deference to straight sensibilities can only be considered counterproductive.
See Gay rights in Japan blurred on TV
The Japan Times
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California State Supreme Court meets on gay marriage
The California Supreme Court will hear arguments today on whether Proposition 8, the anti-gay-marriage initiative, should be upheld and, if so, whether the marriages of an estimated 18,000 same-sex couples should remain valid.
During a three-hour televised hearing this morning, the San Francisco-based high court will examine whether the November ballot measure was an impermissible constitutional revision or a more limited constitutional amendment.
The court will need to decide the fate of existing same-sex marriages only if it is prepared to uphold Proposition 8, which many legal analysts believe is likely.
The justices’ questions to lawyers often reveal how the court is leaning. Legal analysts will be carefully watching Chief Justice Ronald M. George, whose vote often determines whether the conservative or more liberal wing of the court prevails.
The state high court ruled 4 to 3 on May 15 that same-sex couples should be entitled to marry. George wrote the ruling, which was signed by Justices Joyce L. Kennard, Kathryn Mickle Werdegar and Carlos R. Moreno.
Justices Marvin R. Baxter, Ming W. Chin and Carol A. Corrigan voted against overturning the state’s previous ban on same-sex marriage, arguing that the matter should be left to voters.
After Proposition 8 passed, only Moreno voted to put the measure on hold pending a decision on the legal challenges. Kennard, who usually votes in favor of gay rights, voted against accepting the revision challenge to the proposition but said she would hear arguments over the validity of existing same-sex marriages.
Some legal analysts believe the vote signaled that Kennard did not believe the revision argument would prevail. Without her vote, the court would be unlikely to muster a majority for overturning the measure.
In addition to arguing that Proposition 8 was an illegal constitutional revision, gay rights lawyers contend that it usurped the authority of the courts.
The hearing, scheduled to start at 9 a.m. and end at noon, will be broadcast live on the California Channel and streamed on its website. See State Supreme Court meets on gay marriage
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Stand in and march by candlelight to overturn Proposition 8
To find an event near you, visit www.eveofjustice.com or www.marriageequality.org.
Many of these events feature faith leaders and are organized by people of faith. Join CA Faith for Equality, Marriage Equality USA, Equality California and other statewide and local cosponsors to share your voice and shine your light.
Statewide, March 4th, Candlelight Events and Marches. For information about locations and times in your area, visit www.eveofjustice.com or www.marriageequality.org.
Statewide, March 5th, 9am-12:30pm, CA Supreme Court hears oral arguments about overturning Proposition 8. Many supporters are traveling to San Francisco, others are gathering for viewing parties. If you are traveling to San Francisco, visit the CA Supreme Court website to know your viewing options. The California Channel will provide a live TV broadcast and online webcast.
Fresno, March 7-8th, Camp Courage. Brought to you by the Courage Campaign, this training offers us the opportunity to learn and sharpen our organizing tools and methods. For more information, please contact Lilia at lilia@couragecampaign.org.
Orange County, March 5th, 4-6pm Marriage Equality Rally hosted by Church of the Foothills. Join the Church of the Foothills to rally for marriage equality in pro-Prop 8 Orange County. 19211 Dodge Ave., (at Newport Blvd.), Santa Ana, 92705. For more information, contact Kergan at proud2bdad@yahoo.com
Pasadena, March 7th and 14th, 10am-2:30pm, Vote for Equality Canvasses. Talk to our neighbors about marriage equality. Training provided. Neighborhood Church, 301 N. Orange Grove Blvd., 91103. To RSVP or for more information, contact Laura Gardiner at 323-770-3188 or lgardiner@lagaycenter.org.
Los Angeles, March 11th, Jordan/Rustin Coalition Faith Committee Meeting. 7-8:30pm. Dinner from 6:30-7pm. At the first inaugural meeting of the faith committee, a joint project of the Jordan/Rustin Coalition and CA Faith for Equality, we will discuss and plan relationship building with African-American faith communities in the Los Angeles area. Contact Anne-Marie for more information: williams@jordanrustin.org.
Call for events!! If there are events in your area appropriate for folks interested in LGBT faith-rooted organizing, please email Kerry with details at kerry@cafaithforequality.org two weeks prior to the event. We will do our best to publicize them in our e-blasts.
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How Beijing Butchered Sean Penn’s “Commie, Homo-Loving” Oscar Speech
In recent days, journalists around the globe have reported on the efforts of Asian governments to censor speech and images in support of gay rights from the broadcast of last Sunday’s Oscars. According to the AP, the Hong Kong-based, Murdoch-owned STAR network, reaching more than 300 million viewers in 53 countries, muted any mention of “gay” or “lesbian” during its tape-delayed, English-language re-broadcast of the Oscars. Sean Penn and Dustin Lance Black, who both won Oscars for their work on the film Milk, used their time at the podium to voice support for same-sex marriage and equal rights for gays and lesbians.
In mainland China, where the Academy awards was broadcast with Chinese subtitles on state-run China Central Television (CCTV), censors did not mute out material deemed sensitive, but rather, and even more shamefully, omitted or mistranslated all language and images dealing with homosexuality. According to a Monday post on the China-based blog Shanghaiist, the CCTV broadcast cut out two gay kisses shown during the broadcast and completely eliminated Dustin Lance Black’s acceptance speech after he won for best original screenplay.
Black, who is openly gay, invoked Harvey Milk in his speech and promised equal rights “very soon” to the nation’s gay youth. “If Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago,” Black said, “I think he’d want me to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told that they are less than by their churches or by the government or by their families that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value.” While Black’s speech was widely considered one of the more moving and memorable moments from this year’s Oscars, for viewers in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Taiwan and Thailand, the speech was heavily censored, while those in mainland China didn’t hear a word of it.
For anyone who missed it, here’s Dustin Lance Black’s speech: @ How Beijing Butchered Sean Penn’s “Commie, Homo-Loving” Oscar Speech
Huffington Post –
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Gays, lesbians hopeful despite inaugural pastor
Hope – and the idea that the country’s new leader would break down barriers of discrimination – overshadowed the disappointment many gays and lesbians felt when an outspoken critic of same-sex marriage gave the invocation at President Obama’s inauguration Tuesday.
“I am completely hopeful, optimistic, relieved, enthusiastic – even knowing that he’s going to disappoint,” said Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
Obama’s decision to have the Rev. Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural prayer dampened Kendell’s expectations “of how culturally competent Obama is on gay and lesbian issues,” she said. “I think it’s a reminder of how much work we have to do.”
Warren, Evangelical pastor of the Saddleback Church in Orange County, was a chief proponent of Proposition 8, the California ballot measure approved last year that bars gays and lesbians from marrying.
He also has equated same-sex marriage to incest, polygamy and pedophilia and has said that gays and lesbians should resist the urge to act on their sexuality. Warren made no such references during the globally broadcast invocation.
Instead, he spoke of the need to pursue commitment to “justice for all” and “civility in our actions, even when we differ.”
Gays, lesbians hopeful despite inaugural pastor
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Robinson Invocation Supposed to Be Included in HBO Broadcast
Crowds attending the concert at the Lincoln Memorial
(AFP/Robyn Beck)
Late last night AfterElton.com reported that HBO, which had broadcast The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial Sunday afternoon — a
concert organized by the Presidential Inauguration Committee to start the inauguration festivities — said they were not to blame for …
Los Angeles Affiliate KABC-TV Refuses to Air Ad With Gay Families During Inauguration: ‘Too Controversial, Families Will Be Watching.’
LOS ANGELES, CA — Non-profit organization GetToKnowUsFirst.org produced five 30-second commercials featuring gay and lesbian families, with the message “Marriage promotes families. Support marriage equality.” The ads, while not tied to any current election, are the result of California’s passage of Proposition 8 in November. The group aired the spots in 42 of the states’ 58 counties — everywhere the initiative passed by 50% or more — during Tuesday’s coverage of the Presidential Inauguration. KABC is the only station that refused to sell the ad space.
The rejected ad profiles two African American men raising five children ages 6 through 25. Ironically, the family lives in Los Angeles.
The media buy was attempted by the organization’s ad agency, New and Improved Media. Its CEO, Keith Fisher, was surprised that KABC rejected the group’s money. Fisher said, “We usually only see this with risque content, as in a trailer for a movie.” He added, “If KABC thinks they have to protect the public from this family, something’s obviously very wrong over there.”
Chris Yokogawa, the ad agency’s media buyer, worked with the station, attempting to ease any concerns they might have. He said, “We went back and forth a couple of times. I explained that this family is far from controversial. They were firm in their rejection. They said it was too controversial to air during the Inauguration, since ‘many families will be watching.’”
The ad aired across California on Tuesday — before, during and after the Presidential Inauguration on Good Morning America, The Today Show, Despierta America (Univision) and Levantate (Telemundo) broadcasts, as well as on a wide range of regional news stations, CNN and FoxNews during evening coverage of the day’s events.
Project Coordinator John Ireland expressed astonishment at KABC’s rejection. He said, “This ad is about families. I challenge anyone to watch the commercials at www.GetToKnowUsFirst.org and articulate what is inappropriate about airing it at any time of day.”
One week prior, at attorney Gloria Allred’s urging, Rev. Rick Warren indicated he would be willing to show the ads to his congregation at Saddleback Church in Orange County. Days before the Presidential Inauguration, he changed his mind, dropping the offer.
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