News: Jubilee, Zayn Malik, Watergate, Sweet Cakes, Apple Watch

Kyler Geoffroy

www.towleroad.com/2015/05/news-.html

Walking Into Conflict: Trans Woman and Visual Artist Yishay Garbasz on Chronicling Trauma
“My job is not to document a story, or see right or wrong — you must step out of the way and allow the picture to enter the camera,” explains British-Israeli and Berlin-based artist, Yishay Garbansz. Her latest show is the solo exhibition “Severed Connection: Do what I say or they will kill you” at the Ronald Feldman Gallery running from May 9 – June 13 in NYC, which chronicles three sites of hot conflict and resounding trauma produced by fear of the other.

Shooting Conflict Zones
Garbasz spent the last 10 years traveling and photographing the DMZ as well as on the South Korean island Baengnyeongdo bordering North Korea, the entire length of the barrier from both sides in Israel and the occupied territories of Palestine, Fukoshima, Japan and lastly the Peace Lines of Northern Ireland and other local spots like the “Murder Triangle.” The images were created using a cumbersome large-format camera that must be hoisted onto a tripod before backloading a single negative. Amazingly, Garbasz dragged this kit along with her through check-points, minefields and radioactive wastelands to prevent herself from cheating and taking more images than necessary. Besides the expense, the bulky camera’s extensive set-up forces her to soak up the landscapes, wait patiently for the shot and resolve with her entire sensorium where the image lies; all this before assembling her gear for the shot. Only then will she step to the side and press once.

Capturing Trauma
The affective intensity of working at the scene of trauma is central to Garbasz’ practice. “Be afraid,” she tells me, then methodically “let the fear wash over you and the camera and hope that it stays, let it churn and be with it.” Her bearing witness and being open to ordinary people caught up in conflict is important because it allows her to be a witness “in a way that others were not there for me.” This project follows on from her acclaimed book In My Mother’s Footsteps (2009) that chronicles her movement as a young girl between Jewish Gettos, concentration camps and on a death march that her mother took through Germany from 1942-45. The desire to stand in the footsteps of others is powerful, and perilous. In the exhibition, blue footsteps, like those guiding tourists in South Korea to the ‘correct’ spot to take a picture, draw us into Garbasz’ perspective nestled amongst blood splattered buildings, bombs and radioactive waste. The resulting images are equally soaked in desperate color, evocative and haunting; they shatter our sense of life and death as separate worlds.

De-Humanization and Crowd Control
Growing up in Israel, the daughter of survivors and even as an officer in the Israeli army has its indelible impact, not least the sensitivity to how a people and individual persons can become simply enemy targets. Garbasz’ new work-in-development will focus on how soldiers and police officers eliminate the hesitation to kill another human through target practice. The show “Severed Connection” already consists of a body of work that is trying to pause this dehumanizing drilling practice by slowing us down to really look at how fear of the other is produced. By focusing on militarized spaces that use a ‘single dimension line of defense’ (wall, barrier, limit line) the artist critiques the demarcation of Us and Them. In terms of military tactics, Garbasz says these types of defense between neighboring states are historically weak and unsustainable because there is not enough distance to maintain a single line. Nevertheless, they are powerful spaces for maintaining control over your own people because of the constant tension and flare-ups that reinforce the fear of the (enemy) other. Thus, her images of, for example, tranquil scenes of rice fields that end at landmine fields remind us these are no ordinary landscapes but places that radiate fear in the social, national and global imaginary.

A Jewish Woman of Trans Experience
Though being a trans lesbian does not define these works, Garbasz has also chronicled her physical transition in Becoming (2010) a flipbook and a life-size scale model of a zoetrope with 28 images of her nude body taken over 28 weeks. Her own experiences of being ordinary, poor and, nevertheless, made into an image of the enemy other grants her “a trans sensitivity to being” for people who endure conflict and the micro and macro forms of trauma. Becoming a visually marked woman, congruent to her self-identity, also granted her a form of femme invisibility that allowed her access to wander past borders, and into restricted areas. For example, she made friends with laboring women on the island who took her through a field of landmines to where they harvest the best seaweed — Garbazs following precisely in their footsteps. Or in Fukoshima, she could have been arrested for a possible breach of security for filming the accident site, but she apologized profusely in Japanese in a ‘girly’ way. Being invisible to power, and perceived as incompetent sometimes helps. Being femme, which she loves, also enables her simply to do her job: to get up, go out and see. Being poor and without a car meant too that she would simply walk with her rolling suitcase carrying the hefty camera, to most eyes a non-threatening pedestrian, a nobody.

These works on display demonstrate that Yishay Garbasz has a commitment to look anew at others and their trauma. Each time she risks this relationship, from scratch, to fall in love with the thing that she most fears. There is no calculating your own risk in becoming fully open and exposed to the work. Simply go, step in and follow her footsteps. And watch out for the razor wire.

Yishay Garbansz is represented by the Ronald Feldman Gallery.
Ronald Feldman Fine Arts 31 Mercer St New York www.feldmangallery.com
Website: www.yishay.com/

Eliza Steinbock (Assistant Professor, Department of Film & Literary Studies, Leiden University Center for the Arts in Society) writes on contemporary philosophies of the body, visual culture and transfeminist issues. Recent publications include essays in the Journal of Homosexuality, Photography and Culture and TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. For more information, please see www.elizasteinbock.com.

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Everyone is Welcome in Clarksdale

Clarksdale, Mississippi, known as the “Birthplace of the Blues,” welcomes people each day from around the nation and the world.
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/everyone-is-welcome-in-clarksdale?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Heterosexual Marriage Is The “Masterpiece Of Society,” According To Jesus By Way Of Pope Francis

— Pope Francis, perhaps trying to sway the upcoming SCOTUS ruling on same-sex marriage, in a public speech made April 30

Jeremy Kinser

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Glenn Beck Predicts Church Attendance Will Drop 50% If Gay Marriage is Legalized: VIDEO

Jim Redmond

www.towleroad.com/2015/05/glenn-beck-says-government-will-seize-church-property-if-gay-marriage-is-legalized-video.html

These Catholic School Students Have A Lot Of Love For Their Gay Teacher
These high school students know a thing or two about love.

Students at V.J. and Angela Skutt Catholic High School in Omaha, Nebraska, are speaking out in support of an English teacher and speech team coach who was told his contract would not be renewed after he informed the school he was engaged to his boyfriend.

Matthew Eledge has been teaching at the high school since 2010, the Associated Press reports. According to KETV, Skutt Catholic President Jon McMahon defended the decision in a letter to the school community.

“If a staff member cannot commit to Catholic church teachings and doctrines, he or she cannot continue to be on staff at Skutt Catholic,” he wrote, according to KETV.

But the students at the school are not happy to hear that their beloved teacher has to leave.

KETV reported that during the school’s annual fundraising walk, some students wore T-shirts that presented the Omaha Catholic school with a message and a challenge.

“I support Mr. Eledge,” the shirts read. The Human Rights Campaign logo was on the front, and on the back, the shirts quoted Jesus’ words from John 13:34: “Love one another as I have loved you.”

“We can’t force a change, but we can inspire a change,” Skutt student Darya Kaboli-Nejad told KMTV.

Over 95,000 people have signed a Change.org petition to show their solidarity with Skutt students.

Kacie Hughes, who the AP reports is a close friend of Eledge’s and helps coach the school’s speech team with him, started the petition. In the online document, she called Eledge “a living example of what it means to be a SkyHawk,” the school’s mascot.

Eledge told BuzzFeed that that he was fully aware of the risks of working at a Catholic school as a gay man.

“It always was a bit fearful for me to work in that environment,” he said.

Omaha has an anti-bias ordinance on the books that protects LGBT people from workplace discrimination. But experts told the AP that the school is likely protected by a religious exception.

Skutt Catholic High School and Eledge did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In a statement, Deacon Timothy F. McNeil of the Archdiocese of Omaha said, “I can confirm: Mr. Eledge is not returning to Skutt Catholic H.S. next year.”

These high schoolers certainly aren’t alone. Studies show that the majority of American Catholics don’t agree with the church’s official stance on gay marriage. The Public Religion Research Institute found that 61 percent of white Catholics and 60 percent of Hispanic Catholics in America support allowing gay and lesbian couples to tie the knot.

Younger Catholics are especially likely to favor legalizing same-sex marriage. A Pew Research Center study found that three-quarters of Catholics under the age of 30 support same-sex marriage.

For Hughes, Catholicism’s strong tradition of social justice far outweighs church doctrine towards homosexuality. She sees Eledge’s firing as discrimination.

In her petition, she writes:

When Mr. Eledge, or any other teacher, becomes engaged, what they do in their private life is between themselves and God. Not for us to assume or judge. Furthermore, if [the school fires] Mr. Eledge for engaging in a same-sex relationship, they must avoid discrimination. They will need to fire any single teacher who is living with their partner or engaging in sexual activity, any divorced person who has remarried without an annulment, or any married couple using contraceptives.

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National Adoption Organization Takes Stand for Marriage Equality

In a blog post this week, the Donaldson Adoption Institute (DAI) endorsed nationwide marriage equality in support of thousands of youth in need of foster or adoptive parents.
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/national-adoption-organization-takes-stand-for-marriage-equality?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

This Rural Pastor Hopes To Sway SCOTUS Into Voting Against Marriage Equality With His Church’s Antigay Sign

A pastor in Milledgeville, Georgia (pop. 19,256) is using the marquee outside his church to broadcast a message of hate towards gay people. He says he hopes the sign will sway the U.S. Supreme Court into ruling against marriage equality.

Pastor Robert Lee (pictured) of the Ten Commandments Church called homosexuality a “death worthy crime” on a billboard outside his church, and he’s not apologizing for it.

“Homosexuality is a terrible thing,” he told local TV station WGXA News. “It’s an abomination, so we are trying to inform people exactly what scripture says about it. Homosexuals are destroying this society.”

In a separate billboard Lee called gays and lesbians “disgraces to humanity.”

Related: Me Speak English Good: When Homophobes Fail With Their Antigay Signage

The unapologetic bitch said that he will happily continue posting the signs to get his point across and that he’d rather “die” than accept gay members into his congregation.

“Homosexuality has to be at least as heinous as murder,” Lee opined to The Huffington Post. “My way of thinking comes from scripture. It does not come from any political view. I see a homosexual just like a murderer.”

But not everyone in Milledgeville agrees with Lee’s extreme views.

“This is the first time that I have ever seen anything that actually crossed the line and was inferring death upon a group,” Robert Owens told WGXA News.

Lee says he carefully timed the billboard to coincide with the Supreme Court hearing arguments about the constitutionality of gay marriage. He hopes the justices will notice it and get the message.

“The institution of marriage was instituted by God,” Lee told WGXA News, “and it should not be changed by people who deserve not to live.”

Related: Anglican Church Has A Message For Homophobic Christians: “Get Over It”

Graham Gremore

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Mernie And Karen Meier Share The Story Of Building Their Family Through Foster Care
Today, we launch National Foster Care Awareness Month by featuring a couple in our Huffington Post Gay Voices RaiseAChild.US “Let Love Define Family™” series who have a personal interest in improving the lives of foster children. RaiseAChild.US contributing writer Beth Hallstrom shares their story.

Mernie and Karen Meier are committed to changing the foster parenting paradigm by insisting that foster care does not mean just temporarily warehousing children, but providing a loving home and what foster kids crave most, permanency and stability, however long the arrangement lasts.

The La Crescenta, California, couple has a unique viewpoint on the foster care system. Mernie, 48 and a registered nurse, was raised in seven foster homes and is now a member of the influential Foster Care Project at All Saints Church in Pasadena.

Mernie and Karen, who is 47 and an accountant specializing in non-profit organizations, had their commitment ceremony at All Saints Church 15 years ago. They legally married in 2008.

Because of Mernie’s life experience in the foster care system and her work with the Foster Care Project at their local church, the couple became interested in fostering and adoption. During their training, they met future foster daughter Lydia, then 17.

“We originally signed on for a sibling set of two children between the ages of three and seven years old; however our foster care agency asked if we would take a 17-and-a-half year old and we felt we had connected with Lydia. She and her brother were teen trainers, speaking about how teenagers — and not just little kids — make great foster children,” Karen explained.

“Things happen for a reason,” Mernie said, picking up the story. “We had some things in common. Her parents are deaf and hard of hearing and I have a degree in Deaf Studies and am fluent in American Sign Language. Having met during our foster parent training, Lydia said she was interested in coming to live with us when her group home transitioned from housing girls to boys. The agency wondered if she would be comfortable living with a lesbian couple and she said she was ‘OK’ with it. Frankly, I think she was more interested in having her own bedroom and some peace and quiet.”

After a week-long trial visit, Lydia moved in and was told from the get-go she was a member of the family. Even though Lydia declined to be adopted by the women, she now refers to them as her “moms.”

“We told her that was OK, that she would always be our child. We have a love for her that transcends paperwork filed in a courtroom,” Mernie noted.

The new family embarked on a series of firsts for Lydia: her first airplane ride, first cruise, first family reunion, and first prom dress. Especially significant for Mernie and Karen, Lydia’s first birthday party when she turned 18.

“We wanted to make sure she knew we were a family that she wasn’t just passing through our lives. You have to remember, foster children’s lives are full of upheaval and chaos, and that impacts them deeply, affecting every avenue of their lives,” Mernie said.

“It’s hard to form healthy relationships when you move around so much. You end up missing so many important things, such basic life skills, like balancing a checkbook or learning how to plan and cook meals. We felt it was very important to show Lydia how a family deals with the normal ups and downs of life; and that it was OK to make mistakes, just like any other kid,” she continued.

Ever mindful of her own experiences in foster care, Mernie said she and Karen always included Lydia in decisions about her future. As a member of their family, Lydia was included in decisions made about things that happened in their home.

“When you’re in foster care, you have very little control over your own life. You’re told where to live, what to wear, and what to eat. We made sure Lydia knew we were a family; either we’re all in or none of us are,” Mernie said.

Making sure foster children have a voice is also a priority for the Foster Care Project (FCP) at All Saints Church in Pasadena, California where the women volunteer. It started 13 years ago with three members and has grown to include elected officials, health and human service professionals and, according to Mernie, “adults who use their resources and talents to make life better for foster children.”

Among the FCP Steering Committee’s current initiatives are providing trained, volunteer coach-monitors to provide court-ordered supervision so that children, removed from the care of their parents, can visit their parents in a physically and emotionally safe setting. In addition, they partner with agencies that help young adults leaving the foster care system find jobs and housing and continue their educations.

The steering committee also provides mentoring and tutoring, ensures every foster child in the Birthday Club receives a birthday gift, takes foster children shopping for new school clothes, and lobbies for law and policy changes. One of its larger annual efforts is the Christmas Angel Tree, which grants the holiday wishes of more than 700 children in foster care.

Recruiting and educating foster parents is another FCP priority, Mernie said, adding, “it’s important for prospective foster parents to see what the journey is like. You are inviting this child into your life and inserting yourself into his or her life. We want the new foster parents to know they are creating or adding to their families and aren’t just in a holding situation. While every situation isn’t permanent, it’s important to put some roots down with that child.”

“Members of the Foster Care Project care about children from a lot of different angles,” Mernie said.

Caring for their own child is a lifelong commitment for Mernie and Karen, too. Now 25 years old, living on her own and working toward a college degree, Lydia still calls each of them Mom and still turns to them for advice and returns home for holidays and other family celebrations.

“It’s exciting to see her blossom into the woman she’s become and see her live up to her own potential. Our biggest role at this point is to be that safety net while she’s figuring out her life. Every child needs and deserves encouragement, and help to get back up when they make mistakes and to keep going,” Karen said.

Added Mernie, “We’ll always be that for her. That’s our definition of family.”

On Sunday, May 3, 2015, RaiseAChild.US will celebrate National Foster Care Awareness Month with a reception hosted by All Saints Church, 132 N Euclid Avenue, Pasadena, California. Starting at 12:15 p.m. in The Guild Room, this free event will feature an exchange of information and welcoming foster and adoption resources like local agency, Five Acres.

RaiseAChild.US is the nationwide leader in the recruitment and support of LGBT and all prospective parents interested in building families through fostering and adopting to meet the needs of the 400,000 children in the foster care system. RaiseAChild.US recruits, educates, and nurtures supportive relationships equally with all prospective foster and adoptive parents while partnering with agencies to improve the process of advancing foster children to safe, loving and permanent homes. For information about how you can become a foster or adoptive parent, please visit www.RaiseAChild.US.

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Ellen Has a Surprise for the Straight Guy and the Gay Best Friend He Invited to Prom: VIDEO

Andy Towle

www.towleroad.com/2015/05/ellenpromposal.html