CA bill to teach gay history
A bill would require history textbooks to include information on LGBT people.
Day 2: Is Prop 8 like the Anita Bryant crusade?
(San Francisco) Attorneys challenging the California ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage painted the “Yes on 8” campaign as a modern day copycat of Anita Bryant’s late 1970s campaign to “Save the Children.”
Through testimony by gay history scholar George Chauncey of Yale University, the plaintiffs’ legal team discussed, in U.S. …
Larry Kramer Blasts Yale’s ‘Conspiracy of Silence’ on Gay History
When more than 300 Yale alumni and their guests arrived at Yale for the University’s first-ever lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender alumni reunion this weekend, they found not only camaraderie, but also controversy.
The first-ever recipient of the GALA Lifetime Achievement Award, gay activist Larry Kramer ’57, harshly rebuked the University for its treatment of gay history as an academic field during the three-day reunion, which was jointly organized by the LGBT alumni association Yale GALA and the Association of Yale Alumni. At a dinner ceremony Saturday, Kramer said the University has wrongly relegated the study of gay history to LGBT studies, arguing that there is a significant semantic difference between gay “history” and gay “studies.”
Declaring that queer and gender theories are “relatively useless,” Kramer — who was among the first to call for action against the AIDS crisis — said gay history has been “hijacked” by queer theorists.
Kramer and Yale have clashed before; in the mid-nineties, Yale rejected a sizable gift from Kramer to create either an endowed chair in gay and lesbian studies or a student center for gay students. In 2001, Kramer’s brother, Arthur Kramer ’49, gave a $1 million gift in Larry’s name to found the Larry Kramer Initiative for Gay and Lesbian Studies, which was closed after five years when the gift was spent.
In order to demonstrate the importance of gay history, Kramer declared that he believes many prominent American historical figures were gay, including George Washington, the famous explorer Meriwether Lewis, Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth.
The study of gay history is therefore important as a means of promoting acceptance for LGBT individuals, Kramer said.
“The plague of AIDS was allowed to happen because most of the world hates us,” he said. “They don’t know we’re related to Washington and Lincoln.”
While alumni sat attentively throughout the speech and gave Kramer a standing ovation, some said afterwards that they were standing not necessarily out of agreement with Kramer, but rather out of respect for his activism in the wake of AIDS.
“He’s been a provocateur all of his career, since the AIDS crisis,” said Ken Demario ’64. “I don’t know if this was an appropriate forum for as nasty a broadside as his was against the University.”
In a brief interview after the speech, Provost Peter Salovey said he agreed that the study of LGBT history is important.
See Gay activist and playwright Larry Kramer Blasts Yale & Yale Daily News. * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/04/larry-kramer-…
Daytime’s First Gay Wedding Comes To ABC!
Just because Prop 8 passed in California doesn’t mean it has any effect on Pine Valley!
ABC’s All My Children is planning to walk down the aisle on February 13th and 16th with a wedding to remember, the first gay nuptials in daytime television’s history!
The marriage will be between lesbian couple Bianca Montgomery (Eden Riegel) and Reese Williams (Tamara Braun), and they promise to bring the on-screen affection.
See
PerezHilton.com
Daytime’s First Gay Wedding Comes To ABC!
PerezHilton.com, CA
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/02/daytimes-firs…
CHICAGO GAY HISTORY: Mapping queer Chicago
by John D’Emilio
I’m something of a technophobe, but with this growing list of places, I found myself excitedly imagining a Web-based map of queer Chicago, with every address marked and coded. A viewer would be able to see the parts of the city that were thick with LGBT locations, and each would be categorized to distinguish different types of places—social, cultural, political, commercial. As one moved decade by decade through time, the map would change, providing a dynamic visual image of shifting, growing, changing neighborhoods and city spaces.
See CHICAGO GAY HISTORY: Mapping queer Chicago Windy City Times
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/02/chicago-gay-h…
Queers Finally Do It on Daytime TV
“Back in August 1988 when I was managing editor of the Philadelphia Gay News, an historic thing happened on a daytime soap called As The World Turns: a character (an interior designer, no less) came out as gay.
“These days, that would be cause for a big yawn, but back then it was monumental. Hank Elliot was the first gay male character on a daytime drama. He was played by the handsome Brian Starcher. There had been a lesbian played by Donna Pescow on another soap (All My Children), but she was gone by that point, vanished like many a controversial character in soapland. … As The World Turns is once again making gay history, although he’d probably ask why it took the show so long to do it. In the new gay male storyline, Luke, the son of Lily and Holden (who were teens when Marland was writing the show) is having an affair with town heartthrob Noah, a new arrival to the cast.
While poor Hank Elliot couldn’t even kiss his lover, who was dying off camera of AIDS after being rejected by his family, Luke and Noah are pressing lips over the place, and now they’ve actually taken a roll in the hay. That’s right, Luke and Noah are soapdom’s first gay couple to actually do what birds and bees and straights have been doing all these years. They’ve even been seen the next morning frolicking around shirtless. Their adventures are displayed all over the Internet.“
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/01/queers-finall…
Gay “cure” policeman’s employment tribunal backed by those claiming to be ‘Christians’
A Christian policeman who was sacked after he sent emails at work suggesting homosexualityis sinful is to take Norfolk Police to an employment tribunal.
Complaints against former constable Graham Cogman stem back to 1995 when a gay colleague sent emails round to staff encouraging them to support Gay History Month by wearing a pink ribbon.
In response to this PC circulated emails quoting the Bible, suggesting homosexual sex was sinful.
He was sent to a disciplinary tribunal who fined him 13 days pay and barred him from using the internal messaging system.
Despite the ban, PC Cogman posted a link to an American Christian helpline that offers to “cure” gay people.
He was dismissed following a disciplinary hearing in November.
See Gay “cure” policeman’s employment tribunal backed by Christians
PinkNews.co.uk, UK
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2008/12/gay-cure-poli…
Gay history museum opens in Castro
Hundreds since late November opening have visited LGBT exhibit from near and far.
