Weekend Watercooler: Billie Joe Armstrong talks about his sexuality…again

• Bi now, maybe later. Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong is having a big year. A new musical, American Idiot [1], based on Green Day’s last two albums opens on Broadway April 20th. Out [2] magazine has an interview with the singer and Michael Mayer the musical’s director. Its been more than sixteen years since Armstrong told the Advocate “I think I’ve always been bisexual. It’s ingrained in our heads that it’s bad, when it’s not bad at all. It’s a very beautiful thing.” These days Armstrong is not sure if he still identifies as bisexual. “But I’d never say that I’m not. I don’t really classify myself as anything. And when it comes to sex, there are parts of me that are very shy and conservative. I want to respect my wife.” Please Billie stay bi long enough to plant a big kiss on my lips!

[3]

• Lesbians denied. Across the street from Berlin’s memorial for the six million Jewish Holocaust victims sits another memorial [4]. Erected in 2008 this, often vandalized, memorial is dedicated to the homosexuals victimized at the hands of the Nazis. Currently the concrete slab has a window that participants can view video of a kiss between two men.

Every two years the video is to be traded out. In May, the video will be replaced for one of two women kissing. Holocaust scholars are up in arms citing a distortion of historical facts.

“Research shows that the persecution of lesbian women by the Nazi regime was not comparable to that of homosexual men.”

According to Germany’s Culture Minister Michael Naumann [5], this fact is stated on a plaque at the memorial and the monuments original concept was to memorialize present day GLBT discrimination in addition to the Nazi persecution of homosexuals.

Come on people, discrimination is discrimination.

[6]

• Another murder. A 49 year old Connecticut man, Luis Otero [7], was arrested for the murder of a woman who was having a sexual relationship with his mentally challenged daughter.

Otero murdered Madeline Brisson and placed her body in a freezer but his guilty conscience led him to the local police department to confess the murder and to lead the police to Brisson’s body.

The night of the crime, the two roommates were drinking and during an argument over the care of Otero’s daughter, Brisson stated that she had slept with her.

Otero was aware of Brisson’s previous lesbian relationships and “he got angry”, murdered his roommate and placed her body in the freezer.

These stories never cease to infuriate me.

[8]

• Insult to injury. The decision that allowed Derrick Martin [9] attend the prom with his boyfriend was protested by a group of his classmates on Thursday.

Most of the dozen attending the rally said they weren’t bothered by Martin being gay or being allowed to attend prom with his partner. But they said the school system’s decision has brought too much attention to their small town.

They are afraid that their town will be “known as a pro gay town.”

Martin, who was kicked out of his house by his parents recently, will still attend the prom but may wait until afterwards to speak to the media to “help minimize the attention that so many feel is unwelcome.”

I wish I had been this strong when I was in high school.

[10]

• Controversy. The Tribeca Film Festival [11] has included a film that has many in the GLBT community, including GLAAD [12], calling for protests.

“Ticked Off Trannies with Knives” [13] has the blogs [14] a buzzing with a few pro and a ton of con [15] posts. With the unfortunate title and references to murdered transsexuals in its trailer it doesn’t surprise that there is heated debates everywhere you turn.

The film’s description from the festival website: “When a group of transgender women are violently beaten and left for dead, the violated vixens turn deadly divas in this hilariously campy homage to the exploitation films of the ’70s and ’80s (“Transploitation,” anyone?).

“Loaded with bodacious bods and extreme violence, this revenge fantasy proves that it takes more than balls to get even.”

I have included a link to the trailer and would love to hear your thoughts.

[16]

• Cup of Joe. The wait for the new season of True Blood [17] seems like an eternity to me. I am such a huge fan and cannot wait to return to the land of Sookie on June 13th. HBO has released a teaser poster [18]for the new season that is just as witty as the show itself and I just had to share. Now I am REALLY needing my True Blood fix.

[19]

[1] http://americanidiotonbroadway.com/
[2] http://www.out.com/detail.asp?page=3&id=26574
[3] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/news-billie-joe-armstrong-detail.jpg
[4] http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/holocaust-memorial-lesbian-kiss-outcry-20100326-r0ay.html
[5] http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/holocaust-memorial-lesbian-kiss-outcry-20100326-r0ay.html
[6] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/news-gay-holocaust-memorial-berlin.detail.jpg
[7] http://www.courant.com/community/groton/hc-web-groton-murder-0325,0,5548980.story
[8] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/news-body-outline-murder-detail.jpg
[9] http://www.macon.com/2010/03/26/1073335/students-protest-bleckley-prom.html#ixzz0jJV5ed4e
[10] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/news-derrick-martin-gay-prom-student-georga-detail.jpg
[11] http://www.tribecafilm.com/festival/
[12] http://www.glaad.org/Page.aspx?pid=183
[13] http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/03/25/ticked-off-trannies-with-knives
[14] http://www.towleroad.com/2010/03/glaad-tribeca-film-fest-at-odds-over-ticked-off-trannies.html
[15] http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/15666/an-insensitive-tribeca-film-festival-pick-tickedoff-trannies-with-knives
[16] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/news-tribecca-film-ticked-off-trannies-with-knives-poster-detail.jpg
[17] http://www.hbo.com/true-blood/index.html
[18] http://ausiellofiles.ew.com/2010/03/25/true-blood-season-3-teaser-poster/
[19] http://www.365gay.com/wp-content/uploads/news-true-blood-season-three-tease-poster-detail.jpg

Whose Holocaust? Plan to Recognize Gay Victims at Memorial Sparks Row

A plan to memorialize gay male victims of Nazism amid a collection of memorial stones for Holocaust victims in a quiet half-acre patch of Brooklyn has provoked an outcry.

New York State Assembly Member Dov Hikind, a Brooklyn Democrat whose many Orthodox constituents include numerous Holocaust survivors, has decried the planned addition as a distortion of the Holocaust’s meaning with regard to Jews.

“It’s easy to say, let’s include everybody, let’s be universal, diversity is great,” he said. But he added, “It just isn’t fair. It diminishes and really dilutes what the Holocaust is.”

Hikind and the Holocaust Memorial Committee, steward of the tiny Holocaust Memorial Park in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn, are calling for the park’s memorial stones to be restricted to Jewish victims of Hitler. But the plan, approved by the city’s parks department, to commemorate non-Jewish victims of the Nazi regime there is proceeding thus far.

On June 9, representatives of the International Association of Lesbian and Gay Children of Holocaust Survivors, which proposed the addition, could be found combing the bayside memorial to measure unmarked stone pillars and determine if memorial text could be carved on them, association co-chair Rick Landman said.

The altercation raises a question that Jews have faced with increasing frequency: Whose Holocaust is it, anyway? Roma Gypsies, the disabled and gay men were among those also especially targeted by the Nazis. According to historians, though, only Jews and Roma were targeted for annihilation. Altogether, the Nazis are estimated to have murdered some 11 million from their coming to power in 1933 until their downfall in 1945.

Flanked by Emmons Avenue and Shore Boulevard, at the easternmost end of Sheepshead Bay, the memorial, built in 1997, consists of a tall eternal flame sculpture — engraved with a short statement on the Holocaust and the nations affected by the genocide — surrounded by two adjacent gardens of stone markers, each of which features either a paragraph or two of history or a list of victims’ names.

For $360 per engraved line, donors to the non-profit Holocaust Memorial Committee can pay to have a victim’s name printed on one of the stone markers. The registration form for this service, found on the committee’s Web site, asks donors to provide the victim’s name and a brief history of his or her Holocaust experience. The committee then meets to verify the authenticity of the proposed inscription, committee treasurer and past president Alfred Gollomp said.

Gollomp complained that in signing on to the IALGCHS proposal, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and the city’s parks department were ignoring a memorandum that gives the Brooklyn-based group control over the park markers.

See Whose Holocaust? Plan to Recognize Gay Victims at Memorial Sparks Row

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