Campus Pride recognized three university students this past
week for being movers and shakers within the young adult LGBT community. Celso
Perez, Shawna Scott and Justin Hager have each done something (or multiple
somethings) spectacular for the LGBT community at their universities (Boston
College, University of Georgia and University of Wisconsin-Madison,
respectively) to be recognized with the prestigious Voice & Action Award.
As the Executive Director of the program, Shane Windmeyer,
pointed out, “Seldom do we recognize young people who are indeed changing
hearts and minds and leading the way today for the future of equality. The
Voice & Action Award finally gives visible national recognition where it
has long been overdue.”
You can say that again. LGBT college students are the future
of the movement and the fight for equality, and having the recognition that
Campus Pride has offered young people in the form of the Voice & Action
Awards is invaluable.
Fans are excited to hear the news that Luke and Noah from As the World Turns finally have sex! Shirtless, kissing....Well, why don't you just check out the clip of the event from Perez - HERE .
Light Up The Night For Marriage Equality took place in cities across the country Saturday night. The Los Angeles LUTN Food Drive and Procession drew around 600 people, and gathered 800 pounds of food, along with several news stations and people filming documentaries. There were also 3 other events in the areas surrounding City of Los Angeles. For the event in Hollywood, everyone met at Hollywood United Methodist Church, on Franklin and Highland, then followed in procession down Highland to Hollywood Blvd, right to Orange, crossed to the other side of Hollywood, back to Highland, crossed Highland, back up to Franklin, and then kept along that track for 2 hours. Everyone then came back to the church and many put their candles on the front steps of the church. Here are a few photos from the peaceful event honoring the 18,000 marriages that are the light in all the darkness currently surrounding same-sex marriage. Many thanks to everyone who participated in any of the events throughout the country.
For more videos from various event cities, go to this link - JoinTheImpact.com.
In Northampton, MA, Jackson and Connor got a expedited order of the I Support Same Sex Marriage shirts that Urban Outfitters pulled from California stores and online. Jackson and Connor ordered the all remaining shirts that I Support Shirts had.
As for Urban Outfitters, they just opened a new store in Northampton. The new spot is an 85 year-old building, formerly Northampton Institute for Savings, on Main St. It is too bad that the location doesn't really fit. Tara Tetreault, co-owner of Jackson and Connor, says, "It was kind of interesting that they were opening in
Northampton the same week or the week after they decided to pull all
these shirts and have all this controversy because Northampton is
pretty much the lesbian capitol of the United States so I mean it's
really bad timing in terms of PR and marketing."
Saturday, December 20, another event for marriage equality will take place in cities across the country - a food drive along with a candle light vigil. “November’s election cast a darkness over thousands gay and lesbian families," said one Light Up the Night Organizer Rob Tisinai. “This vigil shows our commitment to bringing the light of equality back to everyone. We’re not defeated until we give up, and we will not give up.”
For information on how to get involved, details for your city, and other resources for this and future events, go to Join the Impact, or Facebook.
In Los Angeles, people will gather from 5pm to 7pm for a candle light
vigil procession around Hollywood & Highland. The vigil is planned
in conjunction with the National LGBTQ Food Drive to benefit food
pantries throughout Los Angeles served by the United Methodist Food
Connection Collaborative. Organizers are requesting non-perishable
food items, baby formula, and
diapers, which can be dropped off at the at the church lot beginning at
12 noon.
"People of faith can disagree on a variety of contemporary issues,” said Rev. Scott Imler, pastor of Crescent Heights UMC in West Hollywood. "But whatever our religious or spiritual tradition, at the end of the day we are still one human family, guided by the three universal imperatives of love, truth, and hospitality. Clearly Proposition 8 misses the mark by all three measures."
Apparently Iraqi journalists have found a new use for a pair of shoes. If only the journalist had worked on perfecting his aim... I can't help but notice how slow Bush's security is to respond.
The Gilmore Girls mother-daughter relationship: Gay or nay?
Dear Louis,
Is it just me or is Gilmore Girls pretty darn gay? Maybe it's all those pop culture references that are tripping my 'dar, but something about it screams a gay sensibility. Whatever it is, it's definitely an underrated show, especially because by some stroke of fate it's one of the shows that my father and I both love.
Satanic forces are at work here, Squeegee Beckenheim
PS: Is Lorelai Gilmore too high a standard to compare potential significant others to?
Dear Squeegee,
Some letters resonate with me too much. I'm not a pile of tears yet, but thanks to you I'm entertaining hard questions about my own dad. He looks the portrait of suburban, heterosexual, letterman-jacketed contentment. He's a small-town real estate lawyer with a hat. He's a Little League coach who incisively skewers your batting stance, slacker. He makes a point of idolizing Jack Donaghy, the spitfire honcho on 30 Rock. But a few years ago, when 24 hit a patch of reruns, he sometimes rented space in a gay chrysalis that we still know, formally, as the WB.
At least he owned the Gilmore Girls fix. Lorelai and Rory spat dialogue like photogenic, lilting auctioneers, and my dad consumed their badinage like an endless wave of Pizza Rolls. I found no problem with it, though I marveled some. Dad chortled (really, no other word) at their wit, but he tuned in regularly for the WASPy, coffee-flavored rapport. He was transforming from romantic-comedy snubber to Joy Luck Clubber, and my hundred secret senses detected an awakening of the homo variety.
Gilmore Girls had always been the Y2K update of the long-running 70s-80s sitcom One Day at a Time (also produced by Patricia Fass Palmer), and I don't know if you know, but One Day at a Time is
a gay tsunami. Gilmore Girls hedged ODAAT's flared jeans and giant, cascading tresses, but both shows' protagonists' strides towards makin'-this-humdinger-of-an-unexpected-life-as-a-single-frisky-mom bond the two shows for eternity. One Day at a Time did flaunt a few gayer attributes, notably the presence of Elvis leading lady Shelley Fabares and old-school diva Nanette Fabray, but otherwise Bonnie Franklin planted the seed for harried do-gooder Lauren Graham to scintillate us with maternal sighs and hug-shaped witticisms. Uncoincidentally those two qualities also show up in Steel Magnolias and Beaches. Fairydust avalanche, y'all.
Pop culture references always connote gayness. Always. The treatment of movie characters and tabloid tanorexics as wayward, laughable in-laws that we bring up as points of batty reference in everyday life is an essential gay social mechanism. If you're gay and maintain a Facebook profile, you are required by The Advocate Gen Q Fey & Fruitfly Etiquette Guide to mention one of the following: 1) a grotesque Lady Gaga lyric in your status twice a week, usually the one about "bluffing with your muffin"; 2) a blazingly positive or negative quip about Zac Efron's teflon face (the choice is yours); or 3) a Mean Girls quote that you incorrectly attribute to a world leader. For example: ''Whatever, I'm getting cheese fries.' -- Mahatma Gandhi."
Gilmore Girls' starter-level popcult references serviceably plunk the show's world in ours while eschewing that gross trap of trying too hard. It's an easy boundary to hurdle. I'm looking at you, Veronica Mars. (Ugh, remember when V dropped that line about A Clockwork Orange? Weevil's motorcycle club buddies needed to ambush that shit with those leadpipe antics.)
Even Mystery Science Theatre 3000 jostles my gay-dar, aside from the hetero cyborgs who populated the show, and that ran on the effing Sci-Fi Channel. Gilmore packs that show's brass, adds adolescent awkwardness, boasts a dialogue speed similar to a mid-flight Concorde, and tops it off with a Carole King theme song. Of course this show is gay. So what to make of our fathers' regular viewing habits? Let's call it a voyeuristic fascination. A recognition of solid family viewing alongside intrigue about the grrrrly, gay instinct to line our lives with remnants of E! News tickers. It wouldn't be hyperbole to call Gilmore Girls a novice's unemasculating introduction to sensitivity. Can't find any fault in that. Except, of course, that not even Lauren Graham's mane can top the indefatigable fluff of Valerie Bertinelli's 1978 coif. That was pre-Aquanet, guys. All hail.
E-mail LOUIS VIRTEL your hundreds of questions at louis.virtel@gmail.com
Urban Outfitters in California and online didn’t stock “I Support Same Sex Marriage” shirts for a week before taking them off the shelves and online store. It is no secret that the owner of Urban, as well as Free People and Anthropologie, Richard Hayne, has donated thousands and thousands of dollars to several right-wing campaigns and causes. One place his money went was to PA senator Rick Santorum, who thinks “if we allow gay marriage, the next thing you know people will be marrying goldfish.”
While it would be somewhat understandable, maybe, to pull this stunt if Urban didn’t sell numerous other shirts covered in potentially offensive statements and images specific to various religions and politics. However, in 2003, Urban began selling “Everyone loves a Jewish Girl” shirts, which also had dollar signs all around the text. In 2006, Philadelphia stores had handgun Christmas decorations that were all sparkly, despite the city having suffered over 300 murders that were gun-related that year alone. Yet, in these cases, those items continued to be available, despite how much controversy and negative reactions resulted.
Urban’s reason for pulling the gay marriage shirts? Well, they claim too much bad press (which, less one blog post - found here, if you really want to give it more views - does not exist).
In an interview where he was questioned about his views on homosexuality, Hayne just said that he wasn’t going to comment. In 2003, The Philadelphia Weekly reported that Hayne said “As a company, we don’t contribute to any cause except non-controversial things like a breast cancer walk.” In a post on http://www.racked.com regarding this issue, Izzy Grinspan quotes designer Tara Littman raising the question, “with quite a few pro-Obama shirts in their store and even some anti-McCain products, this clearly isn’t a company that has a problem being politically aligned, so why?”
It seems slightly off that Hayne, being known as so right-wing, will allow the kind of political statement for Urban that Littman brings up, as well as continue sales of other equally controversial shirts and products, and then bring such a quick end to shirts supporting gay marriage.
Aside from how I specifically feel about gay marriage, the shirt is a shirt! People will buy it if they want it, and won’t buy it if they don’t like it. If it offends them, so be it – how many millions of other shirts are out there, not even just at Urban, that intentionally offend people?
Tons. Not to mention that this shirt is clearly not designed with the intention of being offensive, but supportive; and it doesn’t mean that by selling a product, a company backs every aspect of it – they make money from selling it. I mean, really, it is not as though Urban has a reputation for being conservative or anything less than edgy.
All this over a t-shirt. I am just waiting for someone to suggest that products relating to straight marriage get pulled...and actually have it happen.
It's been Twilight mania for a few weeks here, and I can't get over it. I think this is the first time I've truly felt "old" (I'll be 24 in a few days, and I thought that whole feeling-old-thing wouldn't happen for a few more years). My 16-year-old sister has seen the movie at least 3 times, probably more. Teens all over Los Angeles look even more gothy than usual. South Park has ALREADY done it's parody episode -- This.Movie.Is.Huge.
I heart Sarah Haskins, over at Current TV, for a little segment she does called Target Women. Take a look as she skewers the fans of the movie/ book at a poster signing in Hollywood:
Craaaazy! This whole phenomena, to me at least, just popped up overnight. What is all of this? Do I need to be scared of that high-schooler living in the apartment next door to me? Is she going to try to bite me or something? At least Twilight looks more interesting than other teenage phenomena of recent year...ahem, Napoleon Dynamite, *cough cough*
The suburbs: A likely locale for gay perspective you want to read every week? In cool fonts with Getty Images on top? Read on to decide for your flaming self.
Dear Louis,
Let me get this just right... You work for The Advocate and yet you write from some suburb out of Chicago? Isn't that a strange place to sit and make observations about gay culture? I was raised in a suburb of Denver, and I don't know if I could say at a young age that I knew all that much about gays. This is not to say I do not like or disagree with your column... it's just... how can you manage to talk so much about gay things when you aren't located in a "gay area"? Just asking.
-Anonymous
Dear Grimace,
Suburban Illinois offers more in the way of queer culture than you think, and that's even without the pedophiles, sort of. Case in point: Subdivision abodes often come standard with plasma televisions (and with Jesus' blessing), and if you trick your cable operators, you can view a gay person on them. The burbs also sport several different malls, and one time an H&M clerk told me "goodbye" gayishly. That's two instances of gayness right there. And at the Starbucks on Lemont, IL's State St., you can order extra whipped cream to sail atop your Pumpkin Spice Latte. UNHINGED GAYNESS, I TELL YOU. All these instances and more add up to why suburban Illinois remains the gay megapower of the Midwest, the United Sates, Earth (+ Atlantis), and other things too.
Or not. G-Rim, I have never claimed authority over the wild gay populace or even the vaguely defined "Gen Q." I am a slightly flippant spin on Joe Sixpack, except my sixpack is full of wishes about new Kylie Minogue videos. I am riffraff thrust forth from the dawdling gay plebes, and I leverage -- not overstep -- my plainclothes positioning to discuss gay matters. My homosexual musings are intended to represent outsider status, arguable competence, sexy things like abs, and myself. Hopefully within that nexus someone somewhere relates. Plus, I've met Tim Gunn, so that qualifies me for gay emperor, and I just decided you don't get to vote.
Mitigating the gap between urban, suburban, rural, and wilderness gays requires a powwow of perspective. Welcome to my wedge in the pansy pie. I also think suburban living comeswith mysterious advantage in understanding gay visibility and culture. Suburbia is the Shangri-La of advertising exec fervor, where hard-earned money from teachers and firemen and dental hygienists rolls right into retailer mitts thanks to well-placed franchises and commercials. If you watch Mad Men, you know that advertising says more about us than perhaps we admit. Unfortunately, the suburbs financially sate the Don Drapers of the world with dinero to spare, and thus we see every ad-hocked representation of sexuality, masculinity, femininity, and queerness, sometimes all in the same 30-second Mentadent clip. We digest television and movies with an appetite worthy of Mike Ditka's sprawling restaurant in Oakbrook. And in our red-brick isolation, we become our own product: a hypnotized mass that, at first, witnesses flashy media and, secondly, anoints it our understanding of reality. It's a pretty jacked-up world. I'm happy to be afloat and thus able to regale the tale of one suburban survivor -- or on a good day, the suburban sorcerer. There is glory in purveying this insanity. I plan to keep enjoying it.
So, don't you see? Vegging in cul-de-sacs and timing my Pavlovian saliva drips during Gossip Girl's meatier Chace sequences makes me my own breed of critic. Not a perfect formula for presidential material, but worthy stripes for someone who wants to turn music video critique into scholarly dissertation. Or regular queer observational skills into a weekly column, t'any rate. On my perch miles from the Windy City in the Breezy-at-most Burbs, I am still gay -- and still able to spew readable bile. Do I have authority? No. Can I still view the gay authorities from the La-Z-Boy in my living room? Definitely. And I'm buying what their selling, hopefully reflecting their righteous messages here on occasion. I'll get going on it right after this kickass Burger King commercial.
E-mail Louis Virteldeposits of love, questions, queerness, and crankiness at: louis.virtel@gmail.com
Campus Pride represents the leading national nonprofit 501(c)(3)organization for student leaders and campus groups working to create safer, more LGBT-friendly colleges and universities.
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