Policing the Perimeters: Andrea Richie on Police Misconduct against the LGBT Community
Andrea Ritchie, author of Queer (In)Justice on police misconduct and how the system goes after those on the fringe of our society, including lesbian, gay, bi, trans and other queer people….
Daily Archives: September 26, 2014
Hundreds Rally in Philadelphia in Support of Hate-Crimes Legislation
Hundreds Rally in Philadelphia in Support of Hate-Crimes Legislation
Hundreds gathered in Love Park despite the rain to demonstrate the need for hate-crimes law revisions.
Jorge Rodriguez-Jimenez
www.advocate.com/crime/2014/09/26/hundreds-rally-philadelphia-support-hate-crimes-legislation
That's Just Not Fair
That's Just Not Fair
“Well, that’s just not fair!” cries the indignant 8-year-old. “Fairness has nothing to with it!” says one of his dads. It’s a dialogue that occurs at least once a day in our house, especially around bedtime. As soon as our youngest son can talk, I’m sure we’ll hear it in stereo. Ah, the concept of fairness! To most Americans, it’s sacrosanct. Corruption, bribery and gross institutional inequality, commonplace in the developing world, are mostly newsworthy aberrations to us, albeit with some significant pockets of resistance. (Remember, I live near Chicago.) To most of us, fairness is something we seek in every aspect of our dealings with others, sometimes even with our children.
A few words of advice: If you choose to build your same-gender-parented family through adoption or foster-to-adoption, fairness is a concept with which you will have a tortured relationship. It’s not just the arbitrary and personal occurrences of unfairness that creep up. All the “isms” of the world, which are usually kept to corners of our ordered world, come out swinging. Gross examples of sexism, heterosexism, racism, classism, elitism and their numerous cousins abound.
Between both our sons’ adoptions, I can’t count the number of times we uttered, “Well, that’s just not fair.” Such as when a birth mom chooses the heterosexual couple that just finished their application after your two-year wait. Or when an estranged maternal grandmother suddenly asserts her point of view as you pace anxiously in the hospital waiting to meet a newborn. Or when the birth mom with whom you’ve corresponded for weeks abruptly stops communicating. (All of this happened to us during our placements.)
We became familiar with the all the unfairness on the other side as well. How social agencies seem to favor some birth mothers over others, how our healthcare industry miserably fails to serve the poor, how so-called faith families abandon their own when an unplanned pregnancy happens, and how men (who are biologically 50% responsible for each pregnancy) often seem unconcerned with the actual responsibility of that pregnancy. (All of which happened to our birth mothers during our placements.) The silent and persistent answer to all these questions was “fairness has nothing to do with it.”
During our last placement, we became aware of the unfairness of “urban food deserts” when we searched for a few comfort foods requested by our birth mom. After striking out at tiny bodega after tiny bodega, we found an overpriced and understocked grocery store in a blighted part of town, which featured aisle after aisle of processed, low quality foods and a produce section that could easily fit in our bedroom. Remembering that she had no car, we wondered how she managed to buy groceries. Prior to that, our grocery store grievances had centered around the lack of parking and finding local organic produce in winter. No, it seemed that fairness has nothing to do with it.
Then, in the blink of an eye, it all changed when our sons were placed in our arms for the first time. All of the unfairness we encountered seemed to disappear. As the English poet Robert Browning wrote, “God’s in His heaven / All’s right with the world.” Like the pain of childbirth, you begin to forget and settle into the new “unfairness” of sleepless nights, the outrageous cost of diapers and the inequalities of preschool entrance procedures. It’s a joyous forgetfulness.
But we strive to remind ourselves that pain and loss are only pointless if we don’t learn from them. We remind ourselves of those unfair moments, those we felt ourselves and those we felt for others, so that the memories become parts our family’s adoption stories. Like contrasting notes that balance a complex dish, our sons’ adoption stories will be richer if we keep those unfair moments in them. No story worth telling is completely devoid of sad moments.
As our sons grow up and learn to tell the stories on their own, we hope they will sense the injustices we experienced to become their dads. By truthfully talking about those challenges we will help our sons understand the beautifully complex and imperfect world in which we live. Maybe they will carry those experiences and seek to make the world they inherit more fair for everyone. Maybe they will look back and appreciate their adoption stories more genuinely and take nothing for granted. Maybe…
But for now, bedtime is bedtime and fairness has nothing to do with it.
This post originally appeared GaysWithKids.
“Modern Man Manners” with Steven Petrow
“Modern Man Manners” with Steven Petrow
Journalist and author Steven Petrow has been busy the last few months.
HRC.org
www.hrc.org/blog/entry/modern-man-manners-with-steven-petrow?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed
Frankie Grande Says He “Fell In Love” With Straight Costar On Big Brother
Frankie Grande Says He “Fell In Love” With Straight Costar On Big Brother
Big Brother 16‘s token gay Frankie Grande may not have won the $500,000 prize on Wednesday’s finale, but according to him, he walked away from the season with something much more valuable: the love of a straight man.
Frankie first caught America’s attention as the brother of pop star Ariana Grande, and he first caught ours as one of the more insufferable houseguests we’ve ever seen. Thankfully, his time on the show changed —gasp — the way we thought about him.
With the help of straight-and-beautiful houseguests Cody Calafiore, Caleb Reynolds, and especially Zach Rance, Frankie helped Big Brother 16 become the most gay-friendly season in the franchise’s U.S. history, and in turn, one of the most unforgettable and entertaining.
His relationship with Zach received showmance status early on, and their physical intimacy captivated us until Zach’s premature departure from the house.
“I’m not gay,” Zach famously once said, “but the bond that Frankie and I have is so genuine and sincere that I truly feel like he is my boyfriend.”
Now that the season is over and houseguests are free to interact with the public and the media, Frankie told People in an exit interview that he “fell in love” with Zach this summer, and that he’d say ‘yes’ if Zach ever proposed:
The Zankie reality show should happen as soon as possible. I am just now seeing some of the footage and there is no doubt that we love each other. I felt it in the house but I didn’t realize how ridiculous it looks to everyone else because [we look like] we are a couple. It’s very strange. It’s unbelievable. I love Zach so much. I’ve already told him the answer is “yes” if he proposes. [laughs]
Get it, Frankie. The show may be over, but we’ll forever be #TeamZankie.
Check out the rest of Frankie’s interview over at People, and check out the very best of Zankie below:
Matthew Tharrett
South Africa LGBT-Friendly Mosque May Close Down Barely A Week After Opening – VIDEO
South Africa LGBT-Friendly Mosque May Close Down Barely A Week After Opening – VIDEO
South Africa’s first gay-friendly mosque could be shut down barely a week after it opened because it has violated municipal by-laws by not having any parking spaces, reports AFK Insider.
According to Taj Hargey, the director of the “forward thinking” organization Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford and Imam of the university’s Islamic Congregation, the Open Mosque in Wynberg, a Cape Town suburb – which opened last Friday – welcomes all genders, religions and sexual orientations. The mosque also allows women to lead prayers.
Hargey said that he has received many positive responses to the mosque but confirmed that he has also received “a lot of death threats.”
The Muslim Judicial Council, an umbrella organization of the South African Islamic clergy, condemned the mosque, stating that Hargey’s establishment cannot be considered a true mosque given that it does not adhere to both the Qur’aan and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad.
However, Hargey told the BBC that although his “autonomous and independent” mosque has been targeted by the City Council using “ridiculous bylaws,” he “will not be threatened by them or anyone else.”
Protesting outside the mosque, Imam Bilal Ghorieb said that his argument against the mosque is personal and “not part of the religion[‘s] understanding, my understanding, a selfish understanding.”
Elsabeth Muirhead said that, as a Unitarian, she went to the opening to support the mosque’s message of “tolerance, interfaith dialog and equality with women.”
Watch a report on the opening of the Open mosque, AFTER THE JUMP…
Jim Redmond
www.towleroad.com/2014/09/south-africa-lgbt-friendly-mosque-to-close-down-video.html
pride for every one
WATCH: Kate McKinnon Answers the World's Worst Interview Questions
WATCH: Kate McKinnon Answers the World's Worst Interview Questions
“Would you rather know love or book a sitcom?”
Jami Smith
www.advocate.com/comedy/2014/09/26/watch-kate-mckinnon-answers-worlds-worst-interview-questions
'Baywatch' Hunk Jaason Simmons Recalls How His Co-Stars Reacted When He Came Out As Gay
'Baywatch' Hunk Jaason Simmons Recalls How His Co-Stars Reacted When He Came Out As Gay
“Baywatch” star Jaason Simmons recalled how he came out as gay to his co-stars during his run on the now-iconic NBC series, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.
“Yeah, everybody knew. I just didn’t speak about my private life,” the Australian actor, who played Logan Fowler on the show, told TooFab’s Brian Particelli in an interview. “I was in a relationship for the whole time, and they were all aware [of it] and it was fantastic. No issue.”
That isn’t to say that being the star of such a high-profile show didn’t create some tension for Simmons, now 44.
“I was just focusing on trying to swim. I could swim, but not like I could say somebody,” he said.
Does he miss his ’90s ‘do? “Absolutely not,” he added with a laugh.
Simmons came out publicly in 2008 in an Australian newspaper, when he revealed plans to marry Irish actor John O’Callaghan. The couple are parents to a Ugandan boy whom they adopted in 2006.
Global Commerce Means Equality: Spotlight on Mexico
Global Commerce Means Equality: Spotlight on Mexico
This past week, the American Chamber of Commerce, in conjunction with the US Embassy in Mexico City, hosted a breakfast there with Deena Fidas and Patricia Espinosa Torres on the role of LGBT and gender equality in today’s labor market.
HRC.org
