The 2016 Candidates and the ‘Mad As Hell’ Americans

MIXNER’S 2016 ELECTION CENTRAL

The upcoming presidential election promises to be one of the most extraordinary in years. Already it has been called everything from a full fledged ‘circus’ to a ‘ship of fools’.

What is clear is that the American people are in a foul mood and are determined to defy the common wisdom and the inside-the-beltway crowd. As actor Peter Finch screamed in the film Network, ‘I’m as mad as hell and I am not going to take this anymore.” It could be this election cycle’s sound bite.

Despite a thriving economy, the deficit being reduced by two thirds, unemployment cut in half, close to 19 million people newly-insured, the stock market doubling and other healthy indicators, the American people are amazingly angry and distrustful of their government.

Could it be they have figured out the system has been rigged?

Do they know that their concerns can’t possibly be heard over the overwhelming power of money in both parties? Could it be they know that the parties, through redistricting, have guaranteed re-election of even the most abhorrent government representatives? Could it be they are tired, for the last 35 years, of only having either a Bush or Clinton (or both) on a ticket?

They know that they have witnessed their sons and daughters die in far-off lands in useless wars and watch as politicians say it was a ‘mistake’ to send them in the first place. Of course they know about fighting to fulfill the American dream by sending their children through college only to realize that those young Americans have been saddled with an unbearable lifelong debt of student loans. They see that almost every candidate is near 70 and our future young stars are frozen out of the process. Every day they are caught in massive traffic jams. In most cities they are treated to water mains and sewers erupting because the infrastructure is more than a hundred years old. They are keeping their fingers crossed that our dams and bridges don’t collapse and cause death and devastation.

I am sure the parents of the 14% of American children who go to bed hungry every night are mad as hell. Especially as they see the rich buy multiple homes for millions of dollars each.

As the great organizer Saul Alinsky said, ‘all politics is local.’ Perception is everything and even stronger than reality. For me, the streets of New York City seem much dirtier. The street in front of my house near Times Square was stripped to be repaved. Everyone on our street was pleased it was being repaved until the city forgot to repave it and it remained dug up for more than five weeks! All the good will among the residents disappeared and it became another symbol of government incompetence.

America has lost its greatness.

Our country used to be number one in everything from education to healthcare. Now we are lucky as a nation to be in the teens in the rankings. We are number one in the number of prisoners and are ahead of both China and Russia in that statistic! In the ranking for ‘freedom from corruption’ we only manage to come in at a lowly number 18. In New York state, it is easier to remember who hasn’t been indicted in our legislature.

Who wouldn’t be mad as hell with all this going on?

So that brings us to the 2016 elections and the people who feel they have been left out.

Major donors are swamping the political process with hundreds of millions to push their agendas of privilege and ambassadorships. The Republican establishment and the Clinton campaign are proceeding and organizing like this is any other election year. They both are convinced that what worked in the past will work again this year. They believe that the anger will disappear as it has in the past and the voters will regain their stability. As a result they are making horrible mistakes that will haunt their campaigns into next November.

The Republicans are attempting to hang on to not only old ideas but, in an attempt to rig the rules for a Jeb Bush victory, might have made a Donald Trump possible. States like California, Illinois, New York and Ohio are now ‘winner take all.’ That means someone can get 27% of the vote and take all the delegates in those states.

Everyone said not to take Trump seriously and appeared to be quite amused by his candidacy. Especially the voters who adore how he’s rubbing the faces of the Republican establishment in the dirt. Right now substance and practical politics are out the window since the voters are delighting in his show. For years they have been attempting to share their unhappiness with the establishment and have been completely ignored and left out in the face of the unbelievable corporate domination of their party.

The Clintons don’t get it either.

Hillary is running a horrible campaign. It might have worked perfectly even four years ago but given the underlying anxiety of the American voter it is not working now. The email crisis is becoming a greater disaster each day as each explanation falls with new information. By embracing the rich and powerful, the Clintons are part of the problem. Even small things like spending $100,000 of their own money to rent a home in the Hamptons for just two weeks adds to the perception that they are out of touch. (Really? Couldn’t they have asked a friend to borrow a home?) The perception is just horrible in the current climate. As a result of her bad campaign she has allowed the Sanders campaign to flourish and is now viewed as untrustworthy and part of the problem by over 60% of the American people.

She can’t blame the Republicans for her image problems because the American voters have had more than 30 years to get to know her!

The fact of the matter is that the American electorate is right. The system is rigged against them. Those in power are not listening. America is in decline.

So I guess we have a right to be mad as hell and we shouldn’t have to take it anymore and come to think of it, “I am mad as hell…..”

This is the first in a series of columns about the upcoming 2016 election. The opinions expressed are those of the author.

The post The 2016 Candidates and the ‘Mad As Hell’ Americans appeared first on Towleroad.

David Mixner

The 2016 Candidates and the ‘Mad As Hell’ Americans

Op-ed: Kim Davis, Mike Huckabee's Hate Show Needed an X Rating

Somewhere in Kentucky Tuesday, a closeted gay kid might have turned on CNN or MSNBC and caught an antigay rally broadcast live. The whole experience was surreal to watch here in the newsroom, leaving me with a sense of awe and deep sadness. A twinge of dread too.

It isn’t surprising, or shouldn’t be, that such bigotry still exists in states that the Supreme Court — only months ago — forced to recognize same-sex marriages. But we can’t let this rally pass without fully appreciating its significance.

If there is an uptick in suicides of closeted youth with religious families, the rally is partly to blame. If hate crimes or aggressions against LGBT people seem to occur with alarming regularity, let’s harken back to the rhetoric from this rally.

Mike Huckabee, a top-tier candidate for U.S. president, was the opening act. He gave a full-throated speech, or sermon, against people like me living as I do — a man married to another man, raising two kids together.

“It is far more than one clerk saying she will not issue marriage licenses,” said Huckabee, alluding to the movement he’s hoping Davis will incite across America. “It’s that every one of us will have to decide whether or not we want to keep this great republic, or whether we are willing to sacrifice it and surrender it to tyranny.”

The people at that rally were being told of a growing threat, and Huckabee used the language of war to make his point.

“We will not surrender,” he promised, “to the tyranny of one branch of government.”

The crowd went wild at every applause line. Meanwhile, wooden crosses and a Confederate flag were being waved back and forth in the air. It seemed to go on forever.

“I’m not willing to spend one day under the tyranny of people who believe they can take our freedom and conscience away,” said Huckabee.

Speaking on behalf of this group, Huckabee said they “will not be bullied no matter even if they incarcerate us.” He volunteered to go to jail himself, begging the question of whether his fellow fighters have the fortitude to do the same. First, he said, they came for Kim Davis.

“Whose next? Your pastor? The head of a school?” Huckabee asked. The whole thing had a tinge of World War II to it, with Huckabee casting himself in the moral rebellion against the coming evil oppression. We all remember the poem that warned about what happens if you don’t stand up for each other.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist; Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist; Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist; Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Huckabee and the rest of the right wing want their voters believing that they are under attack. Worse, perhaps, they want their voters to believe that the whole country, and maybe all of society, is on the precipice of judgment by God. Those who do nothing will be judged.

Huckabee and these Christians hold up God’s example as the ideal. Then Huckabee on Tuesday went a step further and cast Kim Davis as their savior incarnate.

“God showed up,” he told the rally. “And he showed up in the form of an elected Democrat named Kim Davis.”

Kim Davis is a model Christian, he said, and anything less than her example might mean hell for you too. That’s a pretty serious motivator, if you believe in God and hell, which a lot of people do.

So what are you to do? If you’re like Kim Davis, and are told that all of your past sins are forgiven if only you keep proving your devotion to this God, then what are you to say when you see a gay couple holding hands? You must “stand up,” as Huckabee puts it, before it’s too late.

The shocking thing about that rally, for me and the gay kid somewhere in Kentucky, is that they weren’t ashamed of their beliefs.

No one wore a hood. Instead everyone there was just fine with being broadcast on television sets nationwide. Their message, beamed to millions in real time, is clear: Gay people are the enemy.

So maybe the next time Mike Huckabee holds a hate rally, it shouldn’t be broadcast live. 

LUCAS GRINDLEY is the editorial director of Here Media, the parent company of The Advocate.

Lucas Grindley

www.advocate.com/commentary/2015/9/09/op-ed-kim-davis-mike-huckabees-hate-show-needed-x-rating

That's Me in the Corner, Losing My Religion
Governor John Kasich (R – OH) worries that the Kentucky spectacle of Christian extremism will turn people away from religion. He is right to worry. I am disgusted by the un-American, hypocritical, mean-spirited rallies and shows of support for Kim Davis. The whole business besmirches organized religion. Kasich says that when people “see dust-ups like this, my concern is they would go the other way and say, ‘Look, I don’t want anything to do with that.” Lord, I hope so.

Do not get me wrong. I do not oppose personal faith or practice of religion. But Kim Davis’ rejection of American law has nothing to do with freedom of religion. Her story is being packaged as a Christian persecution narrative, but nothing is stopping that woman from practicing her religion. Religious freedom laws were instituted originally to protect, say, a Muslim woman who wears a hijab. Kim Davis and her supporters have hijacked “religious freedom” to mean “Christian supremacy.” Practicing your religion does not give you free reign to do whatever the hell you want, laws be damned. We live in a diverse country. Assuming your religion trumps our core civil laws is arrogant, ugly, and un-American.

The Kim Davis Crazies are not at all Christ-like. Christ said absolutely nothing about homosexuality, but he did specifically mention prayer: (Matthew 6: 5) “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men.”

Blasting “Eye of the Tiger” at a rally is not what Jesus had in mind.

Jesus had some specific thoughts on divorce, too, but Kim Davis conveniently crossed out that part in her Bible.

These public displays of hatred toward the gays makes me wince every time I pass a church. I realize that not every church harbors these feelings but, at this point, it does not make a difference. The Christian extremists in this country have done a fantastic job of painting the gays as the enemies of religion. I am gay, so I am going to stay as far afield of these people as I can get.

Here are two sides of a sign that popped up yesterday at a church near my home:

All are welcome? Really? C’mon.

I have blocked the name in these photos because I do not want to give the church any free advertising. If I left the name visible, the church would probably claim persecution and, the next thing you know, Christian conservative money would come rolling in. We have seen it happen before. A bakery or a pizza parlor announces it will discriminate against the gays and, miraculously, a million dollars is donated to the “persecuted” business. These “Christians” turn a blind eye to real problems (poverty, abuse, war, etc.) and, instead, throw their energies and money into supporting people who flout the law.

I do not believe in a god. I certainly do not believe in your God. But, you want to hear something ironic? The closest I have ever come to feeling a loving presence that is bigger than myself was at my wedding (my gay wedding, the day I married another man.) When I walked up the aisle and I saw my husband’s face and I felt the warmth and surge of love from our family and friends – that is the moment that I perceived a glimmer of something godlike. Those “Christians” out there want to bar people like me from getting married and having that feeling. They are purposely pushing me away from wanting to know their God. They claim they are motivated by compassion and love and faith and blah blah blah. Sorry, but once the hypocrisy starts emanating from your mouths, I tune you out.

Governor Kasich says that “we have bigger fish to fry in terms of the whole issue of faith.” I agree. It would be nice if these “Christians” did more to follow Christ — you know, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, that kind of thing – rather than spending all their time and money to express their virulent hatred toward the gays.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Sam Smith wins GQ Award, lands magazine cover

An elated Sam Smith won Ciroc Solo Artist at the GQ Men of the Year Awards last night – as the

men’s publication revealed he is to grace the cover of its next issue.

It was an eventful day for the 23-year-old – he had earlier confirmed, after months of speculation, he’s recorded the theme tune for the upcoming James Bond film Spectre. The track will be called Writing’s On the Wall.

During his acceptance speech, the Stay With Me singer said: ‘Today has been an amazing day. To announce the Bond thing is incredible. I’ve been keeping it a secret for a year – it’s been intense! I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate with all of you tonight!’

On the release date of his upcoming second album, Sam told BBC News: ‘It’s not going to be any time soon! I think people are going to get bored of me if I carry on, I’m just trying to make it the most honest work I’ve ever done.’

He added: ‘I’m writing when I want to, so when bad things happen in my life I’m going into the studio and writing about it.’

Elton John also put in an appearance at the ceremony, presenting Blur with the British Band award.

Get our new issue NOW on iTunes and all good digital stores featuring @samsmithworld // Follow GQ Editor Dylan Jones @dylanjonesgq

A photo posted by British GQ (@britishgq) on Sep 8, 2015 at 4:25pm PDT

GQ awards 2015

A photo posted by Sam Smith (@samsmithworld) on Sep 8, 2015 at 2:25pm PDT

The post Sam Smith wins GQ Award, lands magazine cover appeared first on Gay Star News.

Jamie Tabberer

www.gaystarnews.com/article/sam-smith-wins-gq-award-lands-magazine-cover/

Bernie Sanders Smacking Down Antigay Slurs In Congress 20 Years Ago Is Worth Revisiting

In 1995, one year after the Clinton administration enacted Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell to address and reenforce the ban on openly gay military servicemen and women, then-representative Bernie Sanders of Vermont delivered the following smack-down to then-representative Randall “Duke” Cunningham of California.

It’s worth a re-watch.

Related: 32 Years Before Marriage Equality, Bernie Sanders Fought For Gay Rights

Sanders takes passionate objection to Cunningham’s language — “homos in the military” — and puts himself squarely in the corner of a then-unpopular minority (i.e. us).

“You have insulted thousands of men and women who have put their lives on the line,” Sanders argues.

Watch below:

Dan Tracer

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/xcKU0cvhdw4/bernie-sanders-smacking-down-antigay-slurs-in-congress-20-years-ago-is-worth-revisiting-20150909

NEW MUSIC: Kristofer Åström, Joan Shelley, Petite Noir, Suede

New Music is brought to you by Deadly Music! which covers mostly indie, alternative, electro pop, post rock and ambient music, with a bit of everything else deadly thrown in for good measure.

Kristofer Åström – “One More Drink” / “Poor Young Man’s Heart”

Swedish singer-songwriter Kristofer Åström is an old hand at this point having spent close to 20 years on the scene.

As fans await his forthcoming 10th studio album, Åström has recently been releasing a series of live recordings with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.

The latest of those is “One More Drink,” a track that in the hands of a bedroom wannabe would likely have been an embarrassing mess.

Åström however brings his experience and greatly underrated talent to the table on a series of tracks that put him top of the pile in the heartbroken three chords and the truth sad boys.

If Damien Rice is your thing but you too found his recent third album a disappointment, you could do worse by exploring Åström’s back catalog.

Watch the original version of Poor Young Man’s Heart below.

Joan Shelley – Over and Even

Continuing in the singer songwriter genre we have Kentucky’s Joan Shelley with her fourth release, the mini-album Over and Even.

With an eye on the past, the four tracks on the EP eschew theatrics in favor of simple folk songs.

Like a less chatty Laura Marling on this year’s brilliant Short Movie, Shelley is to Sandy Denny what the English singer-songwriter is to Joni Mitchell.

Petite Noir – “MDR”

Petite Noir – aka South African native Yannick Ilunga – is gearing up for the release of his debut album Life Is Beautiful with a series of genre hopping singles.

His latest track “MDR” is a Grease-referencing soul-pop effort with African percussion that comes off like something from the lost Prince album between Around The World In A Day and Parade.

Just as well because reviews suggest new Prince album HitNRun Phase One is less than brilliant.

Suede – Dog Man Star 20th Anniversary Live – Royal Albert Hall

With their seventh studio album Night Thoughts due for release early next year, Suede – a band central to the hysteria around 1990s Britpop – have just dropped a 2014 live recording of their second album Dog Man Star.

With anniversary performances quite the thing at the moment, the nostalgia trip can be a kind of sad desperate money grab (stand up Stone Roses).

Suede however have avoided the pitfalls of many such efforts and in front of a clearly rapturous, likely middle-aged audience this album highlights what made Dog Man Star one of the best albums of the 1990s.

The post NEW MUSIC: Kristofer Åström, Joan Shelley, Petite Noir, Suede appeared first on Towleroad.

Michael Fitzgerald

NEW MUSIC: Kristofer Åström, Joan Shelley, Petite Noir, Suede

Goodnight Manhattan

When you hit that great brick wall that hopefully breaks through to heaven, where will you be? My dear friend and mentor, novelist and linguist Ursule Molinaro, had her “brick wall” all planned out. A “graduate” of the Nazi-run prison of Fresnes in France for hiding a Jewish couple, she decided forever after to escape all institutions. Hospitals were at the top of that list. Making her future departure foolproof and pill-enabled didn’t prevent her from conjecturing endings that could happen before her well-planned exit. Once I flagged down a New York taxi for the two of us. To the dangerous swerves of the clumsy cabbie she conjured the following: What would happen to us if we left this level together in the company of this whistling, gap-toothed Haitian chatting on a cell phone and his coconut-oil-infused cab? Would it somehow entangle our afterlives with his? I don’t know. What I do know is that it matters where you die because that’s also where you’ve been living.

Such conjectures never concerned me until July 2 of my 40th summer in Manhattan. That was the day in 2014 when a substance-fueled boyfriend with whom I had foolishly assumed I would spend the rest of my life peremptorily dumped me. Gazing back upon decades of sexual encounters numbering in the thousands, including 11 failed “love affairs,” I asked that Peggy Lee question: “Is that all there is?”

I was sitting in my spacious East Village apartment when I faced that issue, among mostly midcentury furnishings and original art by friends. I gazed at the several books I’d published that had all finally found their way to the remainder table. My eye strayed to the oversize flat screen and my hard-drive collections of over 2,000 films. I studied the walls cleverly painted in an array of Technicolor hues inspired by my favorite films.

No, I did not want to die here.

I was born and raised in the do-you-really-call-it-a-city of Syracuse, a land-bound enclave so median that it had become a national center for market research product testing as I grew up. So brutal were the winters that snow in May was no occasion for comment. So conservative was our upper-middle-class Republican neighborhood that children barely set foot on its manicured front lawns. Sidewalks were few that knew the footprints of anyone but the mailman. When the sun fell and the tastefully retro streetlamps blinked on, the empty lanes looked like footpaths in the tonier sections of Forest Lawn Cemetery.

I suppose I should admit that I’m even old enough to have graduated from my segregated high school before busing changed it in 1969. Our white-kid dress code was rigid. The principal stood in the hallways with a ruler to measure hemlines and sent any girl whose skirt was more than one inch above the knee home to change. First to don an olive army jacket, round-framed glasses, and a “Jewfro,” I’d made a vow by junior year to escape my origins and dump my provincial upstate accent. By 1974, after a four-year hippie hiatus in San Francisco, I became a confirmed New Yorker.

In 2001, my brother and I inherited the family house after my mother’s death at 98. I couldn’t wait to turn it into cash. Bro bought me out, and I used the money to get more notches on my belt of promiscuity throughout four countries in Western Europe. Then I came back to New York for another 13 years. When 2014 hit and the brooding boyfriend coldly split, I suddenly realized how old I was. I also realized I had used up all that the city had to offer. Was that why I found myself hoisting a giant Victorinox suitcase onto the racks of an unreliable Amtrak headed for Syracuse on Oct. 14, 2014? Why was I bringing so much with me?

To say I stayed a long time is an understatement. It is now August 2015, and I’m still upstate. Roughing out one of the worst winters in history without a car, I figured the supermarket was a mere five-mile round-trip walk through snowdrifts and howling winds. I had a lot else to keep me busy, too. Six months previous, I’d been hired at a discount rate to translate an award-winning French biography of director Jean Renoir. The thing is 1,000 pages, for gawd’s sake, and the type is small. After a couple of months of tackling it and cleaning out a 10-year collection of take-home hospital inhalers and those weird yellow circular hospital wash basins my parents had come home with in the last years of their lives, I set up a couple of old TVs from childhood with signal converters and rabbit ears. Then I settled into my routine of translating, punctuated by twice-daily viewings of Perry Mason over the air on MeTV. I rose early, and mornings were never wasted. The first hour, over a Keurig cup of coffee, I spent bawling and cursing my ex. (Still doing it, too.)

At right: Bruce Benderson at age 19 with his girlfriend in upstate New York.

Only now have I fully realized what kept me in the town I’d made every effort to escape. In the first place, every street in big bad New York City still reminds me of the pitiless person who has destroyed my chances for love. I can’t pass a McDonald’s without remembering the sweltering day in June I waited two hours in front of its Delancey Street location for him to come from Brooklyn and “discuss our relationship.” Turns out he’d gotten arrested that day for having an open can of beer on the street. I frantically called every hospital, as he was calling his best friend instead of me.

Knowing I wasn’t at the top of the list even in Central Booking set the tone for that summer. It included the temporary loss of that parade of 20-something, attractive, gay would-be writers who I’d thought were enthusiastically connecting me to the younger generation. They laughed at my jokes. However, the youth connection stopped abruptly all last summer as they flocked to shares on Fire Island. Apparently there wasn’t room for me. My only consolation was being saved from having to appear in front of them in a bathing suit. I think you call what they are “fair-weather friends.” My only companion that entire summer was Turner Classic Movies and my broken heart. TCM was comforting because of the childhood era it projected. Kind of like having Mommy and Daddy dug up and placed handily in the corner.

I could go on about the many things that disappoint aging gay men in the context of city life. Instead I’d like to list some of the benefits of the provincial lifestyle. One trustworthy long-term friend whom I’d taken to the senior prom is still in Syracuse. In getting to know her again, I rediscovered something very exotic for a New Yorker. In friendships with the people of small cities, there is no complicated subtext. They actually mean what they say and do what they say they will. When my friend agrees to spend an evening together, there isn’t the slightest chance in the world of getting a text saying she decided to go to a gallery opening instead. As for the rare friendly overtures from those I have met up here, I can be fairly certain they haven’t researched me on Google first and aren’t hoping I can connect them with a dealer or publisher.

The best aspect of all of provincial life, however, only showed itself with the spring thaw. It’s the land, and the rich earth of which it is composed. One spring day, while sipping my Keurig and surveying my mother’s sad, weed-overgrown rose-of-Sharon-and-daffodil garden, a strange power overtook me. It sent me to the dust-laden garage in search of a hoe that hadn’t been touched for more than a decade. As I dug into the moist earth, checking arms and ankles for signs of deer ticks periodically, a wonderful sense of reconnection to the world was born. The results of this revelation climaxed in July, with a burst of zinnias grown from seed, a newly planted Japanese maple, a hydrangea, and an indigo plant. Not in a million years could I have imagined wisecracking, snarky, story-crafting, international me finding gentle ecstasy in working in a garden. But the best thing of all is that even if the care and love you lavish on the kingdom of flora does not reach its goal and the plants all disappoint you, they don’t expect you to take it personally.

A complete collection of Bruce Benderson’s stories, Urban Gothic, will be published this winter by ITNA Press.

Bruce Benderson

www.advocate.com/current-issue/2015/9/09/goodnight-manhattan

This Is Why We Love Grandparents

National Grandparents Day is coming up on Sunday, Sept. 13, so Huff/Post 50 decided to take a moment to celebrate the incredible contributions grandparents have made to our lives.

We asked you to tell us about your own grandparents — and your own grandchildren. We were inundated with inspiring stories. Featured below are just 25 of those amazing grandparents. On Friday, Sept. 11, we’ll publish stories from grandparents gushing about their grandkids. From what we’ve seen, grandparents aren’t ready for the sidelines. They want to be — and are — active, engaged, involved and appreciated.

Happy Grandparents Day everyone!

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Gay rugby player Sam Stanley pays touching tribute to boyfriend

Sam Stanley, the professional British Rugby Union player who publicly came out as gay two weeks ago, has posted a touching message on his Instagram feed concerning the support he has received from his partner, Laurence Hicks.

Last week we revealed that although Stanley, aged 23, has only recently made a declaration concerning his sexuality, he has frequently posted images on his Instagram of him and Hicks.

The couple’s age gap has prompted much comment – positive and negative – on social media.

In a posting on Sunday, Stanley said: ‘It’s funny how you can go through so much with someone but feel you have to hide it due to it not being deemed ‘normal’….even in today’s society!

‘My guy @lorenzo_uk ❤️ has played a huge part in my life and as grateful as I am for all the support shown by people worldwide….. Nothing beats the support he has shown me and I couldn’t be without him. Finding that someone who you would do anything for and who also makes life worthwhile is so incredibly satisfying!

‘I really hope people still in the situation I was in not long ago, can find the strength to be themselves and live an honest and open life. You owe it to yourself to #betrue

‘Perceptions need to change and my wish is that one day, in our world, being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or whatever isn’t an issue at all!’

It’s funny how you can go through so much with someone but feel you have to hide it due to it not being deemed ‘normal’….even in today’s society! My guy @lorenzo_uk ❤️ has played a huge part in my life and as grateful as I am for all the support shown by people worldwide….. Nothing beats the support he has shown me and I couldn’t be without him. Finding that someone who you would do anything for and who also makes life worthwhile is so incredibly satisfying! I really hope people still in the situation I was in not long ago, can find the strength to be themselves and live an honest and open life. You owe it to yourself to #betrue Perceptions need to change and my wish is that one day, in our world, being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or whatever isn’t an issue at all! #family #lovewins #betruetoyourself #gay #straight #lesbian #bisexual #transgender

A photo posted by Sam Stanley (@samstannerz) on Sep 6, 2015 at 2:22am PDT

The message was greeted by his followers with many comments of support.

One, nick_o_pedia, identified with Stanley overt his choice of partner, saying: ‘I am currently with an older man. He is 21 years older. He came into my life at a time when I was struggling to find myself and navigating the waters of being gay alone and afraid. It was love at first sight!

He’s helped me be me and to find my footing. He’s been patient and kind, much like your boyfriend. So I wanted to say, thank you! Thank you for showing the world that age is a number and that love conquers all’

 Another, carloslynchoviedo, simply said: ‘Big hugs to both of you! You are such a great example and role model for relationships with age gap.’

Stanley followed it up Monday with a short video clip of himself, topless, playing guitar and singing Brian McNight’s ‘One Last Cry’. Perhaps if Stanley tires of rugby, a career in entertainment beckons!

I should probably leave it to him but such a great song and one I love to sing and play Brian McKnight – One Last Cry #jamming #music #vocals #acapella A video posted by Sam Stanley (@samstannerz) on Sep 7, 2015 at 1:21pm PDT

The post Gay rugby player Sam Stanley pays touching tribute to boyfriend appeared first on Gay Star News.

David Hudson

www.gaystarnews.com/article/gay-rugby-player-sam-stanley-pays-touching-tribute-to-boyfriend/

Out Author-Filmmaker Chris Johnson Is Spreading The Word About Atheism

New York-based author Chris Johnson insists he never had any issue with being an atheist nor a gay man. But when he saw the impact religious orthodoxy was having on his queer friends, he became inspired to create a book of photographs of and interviews with various prominent atheists.

The result, A Better Life, has been drawing attention and enthusiastic reviews since its release last year. Johnson, a film-school graduate and theatre enthusiast, followed up with a documentary film of the same name, in which he talks to a cross-section of atheists about their philosophy and how being godless has left them no less fulfilled or intact as people. Interview subjects include musician and actor Adam Pascal (Rent), celebrity rock climber Alex Honnold and actor, comedian and SNL alumnus Julia Sweeney. The result is a moving meditation on what life means if we step away from the conventional answers offered by the world’s religions, both big and small. Johnson recently chatted with Queerty about the book and film A Better Life.

Queerty: America is still a very religious place. How much resistance and criticism have you had with this book and movie?

Chris Johnson: Due to the fact that my book and film have a fundamentally positive angle, I get less open criticism from religious people. If I had made a film called Fuck You God, the pushback would have been a lot greater. I think many religious people are taken aback by such a positive message, and don’t know how to react. However, the ideas presented in the film and book are pretty controversial. In the United States, many people think that without God, you have no moral compass, or that you must be missing something important in your life. Often, we are seen as grumpy, curmudgeonly people, and I wanted to challenge that stereotype and show atheists discussing the big questions in life and living a beautiful life — free from the constraints of religion and theism. If you think this is the only life you have, it affects how you view your life and the world around you. If there is no God up there pulling the strings, or influencing the world, it’s up to us to make the positive changes we want to see and improve the lives of others.

Do you feel there’s a connection between your sexual orientation and your atheism?

I was lucky — I was never religious and never had much of a struggle accepting my sexual orientation. However, many of my friends in the LGBT community who grew up in religious environments faced enormous struggles accepting their sexual orientation or gender identity. The constant obsession with controlling peoples’ sexuality through religion always baffled me. It’s amazing to me how much people seem to care about the consensual sexual practices of others. It’s really sad how religion can make people care about the wrong things. We have a country right now where people are spending millions of dollars, enormous resources, time and energy trying to stop consenting adults from getting married just because a religious book tells them it’s wrong. What a complete waste of time. If only we could use all those resources to actually do something good in the world.

Was there an odd lesson you learned from any of the many people you interviewed in your travels?

Probably the thing that stuck with me the most was something Julia Sweeney talks about in the film. She mentions reflecting on the happiest moments in your life and how, at the end of the day, these memories are all we have to look back on. That really stayed with me throughout this journey. I’ve tried to be in the moment more when traveling and savoring the moments along the way. It can be difficult to not get lost in the day-to-day rat race of life, but it’s important to take a step back sometimes and savor the moments you’re living. As John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”

Why do you think there’s still such a passionate anger with atheism?

Well, I think there’s a good reason to be angry. Religious influence still has an enormous negative effect on this country and people around the world. LGBT people are committing suicide, people are being killed, rights being trampled on — all in the name of religion, and those are things we need to stand up against and try to change. I think that anger can be an effective tool in creating change and is completely understandable given the situation we are in. However, one of the reasons I started this project in the first place was to add to that conversation, a piece that I felt was missing — that was the positive side of atheism. We can talk about how the others get it wrong until we’re blue in the face, but if we don’t talk about how we get it right, we’re missing a huge part of the conversation, and that’s what I’m trying to show with this film.

Do you ever think of getting a T-shirt made that reads “GODLESS QUEER”?

[Laughs] No, but I should! I wonder where I would get the most amount of flack for that?

What’s the strangest question you have ever got at a question-and-answer session after a film screening?

Most of the questions at the Q&As have been really great. The film has really resonated with people around the world, and I’ve been struck at how people from various background have been moved by the themes and messages of it. In terms of the strangest question, at one screening, a woman noticed that I was wearing glasses at the screening but did not wear glasses in the film and asked me if that was a deliberate choice. I said yes. [Laughs] It was just easier that way.

For more information on Johnson, his book, film and dates for screenings and speaking engagements, go here.

Watch the film’s trailer below.

Jeremy Kinser

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