I'm running for President to build an America that lives up to our founding promise of equality for all – a promise that extends to our gay brothers and sisters. It's wrong to have millions of Americans living as second-class citizens in this nation. And I ask for your support in this election so that together we can bring about real change for all LGBT Americans.

Continue reading "Open Letter from Barack Obama to the LGBT community..." »

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has a special place in LGBT history when he allowed same-sex couples to get married in his city until the courts stopped him. For the first time in my life, I saw all these images of what could be and those are images that can never be erased no matter what opponents of our equal rights say and do.
Honestly, I don't know what kind of job he's done as mayor of that fabulous city. I know he admitted to a drinking problem and had an affair with the wife of his campaign manager. Not good. But he was easily re-elected to office on Tuesday and I felt happy for him.
"To my critics, this is an opportunity, and in some ways a reconciliation," he said in a victory speech. "I commit to working with you for the next four years, and I commit to resolving those areas where you still believe we can do better."
A few summers ago, I interviewed Newsom at an Outfest screening of a documentary on that period of same-sex marriages and, once you get past him being one of the best looking men on the planet, you could see that his heart was in the right place on the issue.
I'll always be grateful for the courage he had - something none of our leading candidates for president have.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had sold myself a bil of goods thinking that Hillary Clinton has not come out in favor of gay marriage because she thinks it would torpedo her presidential aspirations. Apparently not. New York magazine has published some of Clinton's new interview with The Advocate. She tells interviewer Sean Kennedy that her political stance is not a mask for her true feelings: "I would tell you [if it was]," she said to Kennedy. "This is an issue that I’ve had very few years of my life to think about when you really look at it, when you compare it to a whole life span. I am where I am right now, and it is a position that I come to authentically."
I see.
I was at The Abbey a few months ago, so excited to see her and caught up in the hoopla. But my feeling is that if you don't support gay marriage in your heart, you don't really believe in equal rights for all. So, the Clinton campaign sign I hung on my refrigerator at home is coming down.
I think she's the smartest person running for president and has the best grasp of all the important issues. I think she wants to make the country better and would - just as her husband did. And if she wins the Democratic nomination, I will likely vote for her, I'm sure.
But I'm not supporting her or any other candidate in the primaries unless they support gay marriage. Now I sorta resent her visit to The Abbey. I don't feel that it was "authentic."

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It's not easy not living like the First Lady of New Jersey.
Dina Matos McGreevey, whose hubby resigned as governor as he told the world that he's "a gay American" then took up with a rich Aussie, wants a judge to increase her monthly support nearly fourfold to $4,000 so she can live a lifestyle closer to that of New Jersey's first lady.
Poor Dina and the former couple's 5-year-old daughter live in a modest 3-bedroom house. Meanwhile, the former gay guv and his male partner live in a lavish 17-room mansion.
''In total, I need $11,162 per month to meet my expenses,'' she told the court in papers filed Monday. ''This lifestyle by no means approximates the lifestyle which plaintiff enjoys, much less the lifestyle we enjoyed while plaintiff was governor.''
She makes McGreevey sound like McGreedy saying that his assertion that ''he is only obligated to pay $1,129 per month in support for Jacqueline given his income and lifestyle is outrageous.'' She accuses the louse of intentionally keeping his 2005 earnings to $165,000 ''to limit his support obligations.''
''He expected that by the time he had to reveal his 2006 income, our case would have been settled, and so in one year he more than doubled his income,'' she stated.
Citing 2006 federal income tax returns, she says his adjusted gross income was $428,833, including $17,400 from Kean University for adjunct teaching and $60,000 in consulting fees from a law firm. She grossed $82,000 in 2006 from her position with Columbus Hospital in Newark. She also got a $275,000 book advance, of which she netted $195,000 after expenses.
Poor thing. She barely has two nickels to rub together...

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 1:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This saga isn't gonna end!
The attorney for Sen. Larry Craig said Monday that his client should be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea in a sex sting because he was under extreme stress after being hounded by journalists asking questions about his sexuality, according to the Associated Press.
The poor man. I don't see why a man who "has never been gay" would be stressed out by questions about his sexuality. Do you?
Attorney William Martin said he would file court documents today trying to undo the guilty plea so Craig can fight the charge. He said Craig did not "knowingly and intelligently enter a guilty plea."
Seems like a U.S. senator should proceed "knowingly and intelligently" in all that he does. In my opinion, Craig is a desperate man who was living a double life and is now trying to save face and salvage his reputation as an alleged "heterosexual" Republican politician.
Good luck with that Larry.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 3:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This saga isn't gonna end!
The attorney for Sen. Larry Craig said Monday that his client should be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea in a sex sting because he was under extreme stress after being hounded by journalists asking questions about his sexuality, according to the Associated Press.
The poor man. I don't see why a man who "has never been gay" would be stressed out by questions about his sexuality. Do you?
Attorney William Martin said he would file court documents today trying to undo the guilty plea so Craig can fight the charge. He said Craig did not "knowingly and intelligently enter a guilty plea."
Seems like a U.S. senator should proceed "knowingly and intelligently" in all that he does. In my opinion, Craig is a desperate man who was living a double life and is now trying to save face and salvage his reputation as an alleged "heterosexual" Republican politician.
Good luck with that Larry.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 3:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

During his appearance on "Larry King Live" yesterday, former President Bill Clinton showed the kind of compassion for disgraced Sen. Larry Craig that Craig and his zealous Republican co-horts did not have back in 1998 when they pushed for impeachment after Clinton lied about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
Here is a partial transcript of what Clinton said, via Queerty:

CLINTON: …think we ought to recognize that this is a very traumatic time for him and his family. And whatever happens or doesn’t, most of his political career was behind him. So whatever your party, we should be hoping that he and his family can work through this in a way that leaves them as whole as possible.
…
KING: Did you get any sense of satisfaction, since he was such a critic of yours during the impeachment thing, and using terms very demeaning about you?

CLINTON: No.

KING: No?

CLINTON: No. Because when it was going on, I knew that, you know, a lot of them were outed for hypocrisy long before this. And everybody knew that — every serious student of the Constitution knew that the whole thing was bogus and that they were just jumping on a terrible personal mistake I made.
…
KING: And one other thing in that area. What do you make, just as a student of life, of people who rail against things they do themselves?

CLINTON: I think maybe it is a little — I don’t know, subconscious self-hatred. Maybe it is a desire to avoid being caught, maybe it is just a desire to deal with what they can perceive to be the social and political realities that they found themselves in.

He came from a very conservative culture in Idaho. I think it has the smallest number of Democrats in the state legislature in the country. I don’t know. But I just know right now he and his family have got to be hurting.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's a good thing I'm not a Republican in search of an electable canddiate. Last night, I caught Fred Thompson's announcement on "The Tonight Show" was was left completely...sleepy. This dude looked bored and he himself was booooooooooooooooooring. What a waste of money and time. He's got very little to offer from what I can see and his record on equal rights for gays and lesbian's is abysmal.
He shoulda kept the "Law & Order" gig...

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Former New Jersey Gov. Jim "I am a gay American" McGreevey had supportive words in the Washington Post for Sen. Larry "I am not gay" Craig over the weekend in an article he wrote called "A Prayer for Larry Craig.”
Egads.
Here is part of what the creepy McGreevey had to day: "Like Sen. Craig, I resigned for the perceived good of my family, state and political party. And in so doing, I at long last accepted a fundamental truth, namely, that I am a gay American. In my soul, I found peace. In my heart, I found love. In my psyche, I disassembled the twisted separate strands of my life to create a healthy integrated person. And with my God, I found purpose.
I can only pray that Larry Craig and his loving family come to peace with his truth, whatever that may be. To those who judge him harshly, I ask that they fill their hearts with compassion and equanimity. The senator did not have a lover on the payroll, as I did; nor did he engage in sexual relations for money or use his office for unethical professional or personal gain."

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 8:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sorry for the delay in getting part two of this posted. I promised it yesterday but got a little busy. This political panel took place on Saturday morning as part of the National Gay and Lesbian Gay Journalists Assn. conference. It was organized by IN Los Angeles political reporter Karen Ocamb who moderated the following panelists: Steve Elmendorf, representing the Hillary Clinton campaign; Jeremy Bernard from the Barak Obama campaign; Jason Mida of Victory Fund; Daily Variety Managing Editor Ted Johnson, who does the Wilshire & Washington blog; and conservative blogger Scott Schmidt of the BoiFromTroy site.
Gay marriage was the hottest topic of the session with Elmendorf, who worked on the Kerry-Edwards campaign in 2004, makiing a point of saying "Bill Clinton NEVER called [John] Kerry to tell him to support the anti-marriage federal bill." He said such assertions are "completely and totally untrue."
As far as Sen. Clinton goes, he re-iterated her stance of being in favor of civil unions but leaving marriage up to the states.
Added Bernard: "The front tier candidates are not for marriage. I don't think Edwards is against marriage nor is Hillary. But they're not going to do it politically."
Schmidt, a gay Republican, defended Rudy Guliani's record on the issue noting that the former NYC mayor, thrice-married, acknowledges civil unions at the city and state level, but not federal: "Rudy Guliani actually created civil unions in New York - the only one to accomplish something substantive while he was mayor."
Wondered Mida: "Why does Rudy Guliani have the right to talk to anyone about marriage? He has no place to be talking about the sanctity of marriage."
Bernard lamented that gay marriage is being used as a wedge issue because "it effects lives and it ruins lives. It's horrible for young people coming out and hearing their parents say, 'We have to vote against gay marriage.'"

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 8:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Karen Ocamb, the news editor for IN Los Angeles Magazine and one of the best political reporters around, put together one of the more interesting events of the NLGJA Convention on Saturday morning. I was so impressed with her as a moderator and organizer that I told NLGJA President Eric Hegedus tonight that she should be put in charge of one of the main plenary sessions next year - especially since the 2008 convention will be held in Washington D.C. just a few months before the election.
Karen's panel took place less than an hour after scandal-plagued Sen. Larry Craig resigned from office so that was the hot topic out of the gate.
"We as gay Republicans see that it's actually a good thing that he stepped down. Regardless of his record on gay issues, what he did was wrong and illegal," said Scott Olin Schmidt, best known for his Boi From Troy blog.
My good friend Ted Johnson, managing editor of Variety and author of the blog Wilshire and Washington said: "Had he been an openly gay Democrat, or Republican even, I think he might have survived this. After all, what he was charged with and pled guilty to is a lesser offense than getting a DUI and lots of members of congress have gotten DUIs. It would have hurt his image, but he would have survived."
Political and corporate consultant Jeremy Bernard said: "I have mixed feelings. I'm not crazy about the entrapment. I was amazed at how quickly he went down...there is a homophobia in the powers that be in the Republican party. It's so strong."

TOMORROW: Part 2 of what was discussed at the "Will Gays Matter in 08?" panel...

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This is no surprise but wanted to get it on the blog before I head out to some NLGJA conference sessions. Watched Larry Craig's press conference where he said that "with sadness and deep regret" he intends to resign from the Senate effective September 30.
I hope he finds some kind of peace in his post-Senate, not gay life...
I wonder if he's gonna remain a Republican or ever go to the bathroom at an airport again?

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

With public and private pressure increasing by the day, Idaho Sen. Larry "I'm not gay" Craig is considering resigning from office, Craig is not at all a sympathetic figure in all of this but it is stunning how the Republican Party can't get rid of him fast enough. A New York Times editorial, which I came by via Queerty.com, calls the GOP out on its real motive:

Underlying their hurry to disown the senator, of course, is the party’s brutal agenda of trumpeting the gay-marriage issue. To the extent Senator Craig, a stalwart in the family values caucus, might morph into a blatant hypocrite before the voters’ eyes, he reflects on the party’s record in demonizing homosexuality. The rush to cast him out betrays the party’s intolerance, which is on display for the public in all of its ugliness. But it also betrays their political uneasiness as the next election approaches.

Sounds about right.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 8:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The latest issue of In Magazine Los Angeles has a special report written by the hard-working Karen Ocamb who spoke with Melissa Etheridge about the historic LGBT presidential forum that she participated in earlier this month.
Etheridge, whose new album "Awakening" is out Sept. 25, tells Ocamb that she has not yet chosen a candidate to support but she says she had "an epiphany" when listening to Rep. Dennis Kucinich who is far more supportive of equal rights for gays than any of the leading candidates. She also seemed mighty disappointed with Hillary Clinton.
"...I belonged to the class of folks who were like, 'Oh yeah, Dennis Kucinich and [former Rep. Mike] Gravel - they're saying all the right things, but they can't be elected...I'm sitting on the talk show couch listening to [Kucinich] and I'm going 'Holy crap! This man speaks exactly what I feel is possible in the future. He is speaking exactly the world I wish to live in, the world I wish to create, the world I wake up every day and go my world can be tis way, help me see that the world can be this way and work toward it. I promise you - I was not a Dennis Kucinich fan before I got up there on that couch."

Continue reading "Melissa Etheridge looks back at LGBT forum..." »

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 8:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Merv Griffin was sent off with a star-studded memorial service in Beverly Hills Friday with the likes of Nancy Reagan and Gov. Arnold paying tribute. Suzanne Somers showed up looking like dynamite!
I'm quite sure everyone in the church was well aware that Griffin was gay but a column by the Hollywood Reporter's Ray Richmond that morning making that pronouncement has led to all kinds of attempted censorship including legal threats from one of Griffin's companies and pressure from some top Hollywood players:
Here's timeline, via Editor & Publisher, of what has gone down:

--Hollywood Reporter publishes story "Merv Griffin was Gay"
--Reporter pulls the story, republishes it titled "Griffin never revealed man behind the curtain."
--Reuters picks up story in its news feed, syndicates it internationally.
--Reuters pulls story, with this explanation: "This was a story from The Hollywood Reporter that ran as part of a Reuters news feed. We have dropped the story from our entertainment news feed as it did not meet our standards for news. GBU Editor."
John Aravosis at AmericaBlog sums the situation up this way: "You'd think the matter of an obit about or reminiscence of a public figure wouldn't generate all this brouhaha, but that's what happens when the world outside of the closet is so frightening to people in Hollywood that all sorts of insane measures are taken to reinforce the message is that there is something inherently wrong with being gay."
Since I gotta run out and do an interview (you will really like this one), I'm glad Towleroad.com gives a great rundown of the happenings which I suggest you check out.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 9:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

When I was leaving the Hillary Clinton party last night, I overhead a guy say to his friend, "Richardson REALLY blew it."
I'll say.
I've just watched the YouTube clip where he says "It's a choice" when asked if homosexuality is biological or a choice. Can you BELIEVE this dude?
Panelist Melissa Etheridge certainly could not believe her ears and tried to give the New Mexico Governor another crack at righting himself: "I don't think you understood the question. Do you think I -- a homosexual is born that way, or do you think that around seventh grade we go, 'Oh, I want to be gay?'"
Richardson just kept on digging: "I'm not a scientist. I don't see this as an issue of science or definition. I see gays and lesbians as people, as a matter of human decency."
I'm sure his campaign folks were just going apesh*t at this point. After the debate, the following attempted damage control statement was released by Richardson: "Let me be clear -- I do not believe that sexual orientation or gender identity happen by choice. But I'm not a scientist, and the point I was trying to make is that no matter how it happens, we are all equal and should be treated that way under the law. That is what I believe, that is what I have spent my career fighting for. I ask that people look at my record and my actions and they will see I have been a true supporter of the LGBT community."

Whatever. Talk to the hand.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

What. A. Night.
When Hillary Clinton took the stage last night at The Abbey, it was like being at a rock concert and she was our rock star. I hope she never forgets this incredible night and the raucous reception she got because I don't think any of us ever will. I was near the stage, probably about 10 feet away, and made a lot of friends because we were crammed in tight!
She greeted a giddy crowd that was just beyond itself with excitement.
"I think I just might have found one of the answers to the energy crisis," Sen. Clinton joked after one too many persons called out and interrupted her flow. "I am excited to see this level of intensity and involvement. But, it's a long way to the election."
The front-runner for the Democratic nomination had come straight to The Abbey in West Hollywood after participating in a presidential forum on LGBT issues - the first of its kind - sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign and Logo.
"I thought it was so significant and historic that such an event was held tonight," she said. "Part of the job of the next president - namely, me - will be to bring our country back from the disastrous policies of the last six years...I know America can do better. I want us to believe we can make progress together....If we don't change course, we will not recognize our country."
She had the room in the palm of her hand pretty much before she even got there but what was so impressive was how well she did with the crowd, reacting and being in the moment.
Here is a YouTube video of her remarks last night:

I don't think it's overstating things to say that it felt like we were part of history, being there on that night where our issues were front-and-center and being with the candidate who could very well be the first female president of the United States.
We had watched the televised presidential forum on LGBT issues earlier in the evening on screens The Abbey had installed for the occasion. It was only during Clinton's portion that the room was really quiet and people were 100 percent paying attention. Barack Obama was first on but we were being let into the venue then and missed part of it. Not sure why they did not begin letting people in until 6 p.m. since the forum started right then. John Edwards was impressive, according to most of the people I was standing with but Bill Richardson did not seem to go over too well and commited the major gaffe of the night when he said he thought homosexuality was a choice.
Not. A. Good. Answer.
People liked what Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel had to say but I must say, it only seemed to matter what the big three - Clinton, Edwards and Obama - had to say.
And, as expected, none came out in favor of gay marriage. Some came close but they were so careful. So careful that it seemed less clear after they answered why they opposed it except for the unstated obvious: too politically risky. Still, some of us thought it would have been a great opportunity to make that leap but it was not to be, not last night.
I chatted up former California Gov. Gray Davis later on (Sen. Clinton acknowledged him from the stage) and he told me this: "I thought she was terrific tonight. She was very human, very real, very connected to the audience." Then I asked the 60-something Davis how he manages to look so young and he joked: "Because Arnold's got all the problems!"
I'll share my photos of the event later today...gotta get some sleep now!

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

...but not on Out In Hollywood. I want to experience this event as a citizen, watching it at The Abbey, feel my own reaction and gauge those of others. Then, Hilary Clinton will arrive and I do hope to at least get a handshake! I will be posting my impressions and experiences late tonight and early tomorrow.
Fortunately, there will be some terrific live blogging going on so here are some options for ya if you want to have your laptop on as you watch:

- AfterElton.com editor Michael Jensen and writer Brent Hartinger will be blogging on the AfterElton.com site.
- The Advocate will provide comprehensive coverage of the HRC/Logo Forum at www.advocateinsider.com with live blogging throughout the event as well as from the fund-raisers following the forum where candidates are scheduled to appear.

And if you don't get Logo, watch the debate online. Click HERE for more information.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The terrific Queerty.com site posted an interview with Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese who discussed forum taking place tonight in LA of Democratic candidates seeking the presidential nomination.
The HRC head says he's "feeling nervous" about it all:
"With the press - at least the gay press - the expectation is really high. You could talk to a hundred people and there are a hundred strong opinions of what should be asked and what should be answered. It’s only nervous making in that I feel like we want - at least on my part - to deliver what we can to the community and we can only take it so far. It’s really up to the candidates."

On what he hopes the forum accomplishes tonight: " I hope that we get to put a broader set of issues on the table. I hope we get to hear from these candidates that if they’re for something, what it is that motivates them to be for it personally or in their public service world. If they’re not for something, why not? Maybe if we getter a better sense of why [someone] is not for it, it would help us figure out how to get you to be for it.
Ultimately, one of the most important things, is I look forward to is “What are you going to do?” You say you’re going to overturn DADT? How are you going to do that? You say that same sex couples should have the same federal benefits, what would three be? That’s a worthwhile question. Are these candidates thoughtful enough to come up with three?

Queerty asks if he thinks the candidates are all sincere about really care about gay people: "Yes. I think they’re really sincere about caring about gay people. I think if you really got into some of the hearts and souls of some of these people and where they are on marriage… We all sit back and say, “They all support marriage.” I think it was David Mixer who had an op-ed piece that said something like, “They all support marriage, they just can’t figure out how to do it that would be viable”. I don’t think that’s true. I think that could be true for some of them, but if we zap them all with the truth serum, some of them may be, “I have many different audiences to answer to and I’m trying to get elected.” You might find people with that whole deeply held religious conviction about honoring the religious sacrament of marriage - I say, “We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about the civil institution of marriage,” but I think that you might find that in their souls."

To read the complete interview, which is quite substantive, click onto Queerty.com.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

CYNDI LAUPER:"What is at stake here, is our country. We have allowed a minority who are allowed to believe and live how they choose, to take away our freedom to be able to believe and live how we choose. I believe it is time for the LGBT community–and and all of its friends and family–to raise our voices and let it be known loud and clear that it is not acceptable to take away or deny basic civil liberties. Period. We should all have the right to live with the same dignity, opportunities and safety. It simply shouldn’t matter what anyone’s sexual orientation is."

WILSON CRUZ: "I am hopeful that we can enter a new chapter in American history in which we can mend the rifts of the last six-and-a-half years. These have been divisive and polarizing years in almost every way. It’s as if this administration has gone out of its way to pit us against each other: Divide and conquer! It’s laughable to think back to Mr. Bush’s statement in his first presidential bid, that he was a “uniter not a divider.” Not only was he a divider, but he split this country in every conceivable way, and then managed to divide us from the rest of the world. From stem cell research to the environment, from terrorism to LGBT rights, this administration has, with its arrogance and myopic world view, done nothing but keep us apart. So, for me, the most important issue in this election, not just as a gay man, but as a citizen of this country and of the world, is reconciliation. I am in search of a candidate who can bring us back to the table in a meaningful way."
KATE CLINTON: In America, that sound you have been hearing is the wall between church and state tumbling down. Apparently we were short on walls and needed one at the border. The willful brick by brick dismantling of that fragile separation is not good for the state or for the church. It has been especially harmful for tax-paying, America-loving LGBT Americans.For seven long years the country has been run by people who believe that they will be taken up into heaven on the rapture. For some of us, that can’t come soon enough. After listening to their anti-gay, get-out-the-vote rhetoric, I would gladly host a rapture going-away party. They believe in the afterlife because they don’t have the courage to live in this life.LGBT people have that courage. LGBT Americans are profoundly people of faith. Every time we come out of the closet we are saying that we have faith in ourselves, faith in our family and friends and that we have faith in Justice. We understand justice is simply doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.
MELISSA ETHERIDGE: (one of the three panelists tonight): "The fact that these candidates have even agreed to show up to a televised forum on LGBT issues means that we have come a long way. We will be able to hold them up to their promises come 2009. And maybe more people can watch and see that LGBT issues are civil rights issues and not special rights....I am going to ask each candidate different questions. Each candidate is quite varied on LGBT issues, so I’m going to confront each of them individually. Getting America back on track is the issue I think is most important. I think LGBT issues will fall in line, then."

AMANDA BEARSE: "I am ashamed of our government. I no longer trust in it to tell us the truth of what is really happening on the other side of the world, much less at home here in our United States. I’ve just wanted to leave, to go to another land where, hopefully, peoples’ mindsets would be more open to world peace. Instead, I’m settled in a country of invalid presidential elections and our leader’s constant condescension. This coming election year, I will cast my vote to get the Republicans out of office, and I demand that my vote be counted accurately. However, I would ask the Democratic or Libertarian candidates what measures they would take to keep us safe here in America. Assuming the role as President of the United States is embracing the charge of the people of this country who are hungry for change, yet hopeful that the help we need to restore our faith in government is on its way."

To read these statements in their entirety and find other forum-related news, go to Logo's VisibleVote08 site.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Billie Jean King is one of my great inspirations and heroes in life. I'm so glad I've had the opportunity to tell her that. She is a positive person who believes that change can occur and she has led the way time and time again in changing the world in her decades-long fight for equality.
Here is some of what the great BJK wrote for logoonline about tonight's historic presidential forum:

"The 2008 Presidential election is perhaps one of the most important elections in recent history. From the environment to women’s rights to health care to America’s role internationally, the next President will have a significant impact on the direction of our country and the future of our world. Just as important to me personally is how the next President will address issues important to the LGBT community. The decisions we make during the primary and caucus process as well as in November 2008 will be pivotal to the advances that must be made in the campaign for equality in this country...
...A new President also means we can finally have a fair chance to stop the marginalization of gay and lesbian couples and work to ensure that all Americans in committed relationships have the same rights and responsibilities. We need to figure out a way to make sure gay and lesbian couples have access to the over 1,000 rights that married couples currently have at the federal level. It is important that we look for candidates who not only share our ideals and dreams for a better, stronger future, but believe in, and are willing to fight for equality.

I urge you to truly investigate each of the candidates and make an informed decision at the polls. For me, that choice is clear. Hillary Clinton has been a longtime friend of the LGBT community. She has fought for policies that promote equality, while taking a strong stand against forces that have tried to marginalize the LGBT community...
...It’s up to us now. We hold the power in our hands and next November, we need to make sure what is in our hearts and in our minds is heard loud and clear.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'm really looking forward to tonight's Democratic candidate forum! If you don't get Logo through your cable providor, you can watch the event live online. As it draws nearer and I rush to get my work done, I can feel such tremendous excitement building over this historic event. Every Democratic candidate except Joe Biden and Chris Dodd plans to participate and whatever "scheduling conflicts" they cite, seems like a ba idea to skip this even i you don't have a hope in heck of getting the nomination.
Sure, we can all hope the candidates, especially top three Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, show unabashed support for gay marriage and for the demise of the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. But my expectations are low and I fear they will play it safe.
But I'm willing to be surprised!

Continue reading "Is tonight's debate a milestone for gay rights movement?" »

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

VisibleVote08 asked tennis great and LGBT activist Martina Navratilova to comment on what she expected from the candidates hoping to gain the Democratic nomination. I'm happy to share some excerpts of her answers and want to say how important I think Martina's opinion is. She is someone who really appreciates being an American, someone who fled her home and family in what is now the Czech Republic in 1975 to escape communist rule. She became an American ciitizen in 1981. Ten years later, in her last U.S. Open singles final, Martina had lost to Monica Seles but the crowd gave her an ovation for the ages. She said that day: "I'm so damned proud to be an American."
Here are some of Martina's words on democracy:

"...When asked “What issue is most important to LGBT people?” is the same to me—lack of and even erosion of equality, and therefore erosion of freedom. What is at stake in this next election for us is America’s future and its standing in the world. We cannot be the world’s leader when what we say and what we do are two different things. We cannot shout about democracy and freedom while running roughshod over same here at home.
By singling out a group of people (the LGBT community) and making sure equal rights don’t apply, you are nibbling away at the core of what this fabulous country stands for—as in “the pursuit of happiness” for all.

“Should a candidate’s stance on gay issues trump other important issues?” Well, if you don’t think gays should have the same rights straight people have, you are saying “no” to me on what is important to me, and you are saying “no” to our LGBT community on issues that are important to us all—young, old and all the ages in between; black, white and all the colors in between. Who else would you like to exclude? Where exactly do you stop?

Continue reading "Martina Navratilova: "What Democracy Is All About"" »

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It sure looks like the days when presidential candidates wanted to talk about anything but gay issues (unless it was a Republican trashing gay marriage in order to get elected) are finally over, thank God. Tomorrow night is the first-ever Presidential Forum specifically surrounding issues to the LGBT community. The forum, taking place in Los Angeles, is sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign and airing live on LOGO beginning at 6 p.m.
I passed on an opportunity to be on-site since press is relegated to a room with monitors and so access to the candidates face-to-face. So I'll be watching it from The Abbey to be with my peeps and hopefully get to meet Hilary Clinton who is stopping by after.
In addition to Sen. Clinton, others confirmed for the forum are Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. Christopher Dodd, former Sen. John Edwards, N.M. Gov. Bill Richardson, former Sen. Mike Gravel; and Rep. Dennis Kucinich.
The moderator will be Margaret Carlson, the first female columnist at Time Magazine who is currently with Bloomberg News. Aon the panel are Pulitzer Prize winner Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post, HRC President Joe Solmonese, and Oscar-winning songwriter Melissa Etheridge.
Of course, you can't have a debate in L.A. without some star power. Reportedly T.R. Knight and Neil Patrick Harris - two of the highest-profile out actors on television and current Emmy nominees - are among those who will sitting in the live audience. It's so good to have them out, and interested.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A little over a year ago, Martina Navratilova wrote a letter to People Magazine applauding their recent cover boy Lance Bass for coming out publicly. At the time, Bass sais he didn't see himself becoming an activist and Martina let him know that it just might happen anyway.
And it seems as it is has.
Lance has written a guest commentary for the Human Rights Campaign called "Now Is the Time" offering his take on why our next President must make gay marriage and gay rights a priority.
Here are some excerpts::

"There are so many important issues at stake in this election, it’s difficult to pinpoint just one that’s the most important to me. I am very concerned about the environment, the ongoing war in Iraq, health care (especially the future of stem cell research) and many other domestic issues.
However, since the upcoming Democratic debate will focus on LGBT issues, I’d like to discuss my feelings on why gay marriage is an important issue to me and why I think it should be supported by all the Democratic candidates.
My main fear is for the LGBT youth in America and around the world who, for one reason or another aren’t able to cope or can’t escape their prejudice cities, towns and communities. I often wonder how many teens have committed suicide because they’re struggling with their sexuality and feel the incredible weight of the shame their community puts on homosexuality? I am hoping in this election we have Democratic candidates who feel as passionately about this issue as I do.
By not supporting gay marriage we are teaching our youth that gays aren’t equal to straight people. We are teaching them that what they feel is wrong. What a terrible message to send to impressionable children and potentially devastating message to all the LGBT youth who may be living in an isolated environment struggling with being gay and feeling they have no hope and no one to turn to."

Earlier post: Martina's Supportive Words for Lance...

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 3:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton isn't just participating in an LGBT issues debate next Thursday, she is using the occasion to launch a national effort encouraging LGBT supporters to organize forum viewing parties nationwide on August 9. , The presidential forum is being sponsored by gay cable channel Logo and the Human Rights Campaign.
States Clinton's campaign Web site: "We are encouraging Hillary's LGBT supporters from across the country, and their families and friends to host an 'LGBT Americans for Hillary Forum Watch Party'. This is a great way for you to get involved and to help us grow our LGBT Americans for Hillary network."
The largest of the watch parties is expected to be The Abbey in West Hollywood which will provide a live telecast of the forum. Afterward, Clinton is scheduled to stop by the Abbey to address the crowd.
She said in a press release Tuesday:“I look forward to sharing my views on issues important to LGBT Americans at the Logo/HRC presidential forum. I hope people take this opportunity to gather at forum watch parties and learn how we can work together to move our nation closer to the promise of fairness and equality that all Americans deserve.”

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hadn't been to The Abbey in what seems like at least a month, maybe more, but hit it tonight with my friend Michael who is here from the East Coast for awhile. It was a pretty low-key Monday night at this WeHo hotspot. But that won't be the case next Thursday when Sen. Hillary Clinton shows up after a televised debate on LGBT issues earlier that evening. It should be quite a night with John Edwards and Barack Obama set to join Clinton and other candidates in the debate that will be televised live on MTV's LOGO channel.
More news on this as it becomes available...I'm hoping to be at the debate or The Abbey, or both!

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In an interview with Salon.com, Elizabeth Edwards was asked why she called in to Chris Matthews' "Hardball" show to confront the vile Ann Coulter who had refered to her husband, Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards, as a "f****t" and had also found fault in Edwards' talking about the death of his teenaged son during the last presidential campaign."
"Ignoring the fact that she exists doesn't make her go away," Edwards said. "If it did, you wouldn't hear me utter her name. So I think maybe the better thing to do is simply confront people like her. Are you going to stop them? Under no circumstances will you stop them. But maybe you empower other people to stand up, and maybe that has an effect. When I travel, so many older people thank me for what I did. Because the vile kind of way Ann Coulter thinks and talks, that was not ever part of the public discourse until recently."

Mrs. Edwards also spoke about her commitment to equal rights for gays after making a second visit to San Francisco this summer at a gay rights event: "I remember hearing [former GOP Sen. Rick] Santorum ranting about how homosexual marriage threatens heterosexual marriage. I could be wrong, but I think heterosexual marriage is threatened more by heterosexuals. I don't know why gay marriage challenges my marriage in any way."

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ran into ace political reporter Karen Ocamb last night at Outfest and we chatted about her story on Gov. Bill Richardson using the Spanish word ''maricon' on Don Imus' now-defunct radio show.' The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation says the word means ''faggot'' in Spanish.
So Richardson talked to the AP about the whole thing and now says he meant to be playful but apologized to anyone who was offended.
''My record is the strongest among the presidential candidates on gay rights issues and I'm puzzled by the timing of this. When it happened a year ago, nobody seemed to think it was terribly important. Now it surfaces,'' he told The Associated Press in an interview. ''It's probably a sign from other campaigns that they are little worried about me."
Richardson said that in the Spanish he grew up speaking, ''the term means simply 'gay,' not positive or negative.''
Uh sure.
Go Hillary!

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 5:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We are minutes away from my recap of the opening night festivities for Outfest. But just spotted this on Queerty.com and wanted to share: Democratic Presidential candidate Mike Gravel, who had been snubbed from a Human Rights Campaign debate next month, has now been invited after raising quite a fuss. Here is the HRC statement: "The Human Rights Campaign Foundation and Logo…today made additional announcements about the presidential candidate forum on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues to take place in Los Angeles on August 9. After enthusiastic community response, former Senator Mike Gravel has been invited to participate."

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's kinda cool to see a presidential candidate (even one with no chance in hell) ticked off that he was not asked to participate in the upcoming debate among Democratic candidates on LGBT issues. Mike Gravel wonders if he is just too opinionated for the Human Rights Campaign which is co-sponsoring the August debate. This is a comment I picked up from the Queerty blog:
"…I think the real reason why HRC didn’t invite me is that I’m too vocal in my advocacy of gay rights. None of the top tier candidates would have been comfortable facing an opponent who consistently points out their refusal to embrace true equality for gays and lesbians. HRC simply bowed to the star factor. It’s just a shame that this travesty was perpetrated in the name of the LGBT community."

Can you imagine one of the Republican candidates being so upset? Heck no. None of them even have the guts to participate in one so nothing is planned for the pathetic GOP side which includes John McCain who is blaming his downward spiral on "gay sweaters" he was advised to wear.

Gimme a break.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 1:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Leading Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama irked me and many others when they were a bit slow to condemn Gen. Peter Pace for saying that homosexuals are immoral. So maybe they can make it up with some good answers at a televised debate on gay issues next month presented by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation and MTV Networks' Logo channel.
Clinton and Obama were the first to commit to the one-hour event followed by John Edwards, Christopher Dodd will be held on August 9th at 6:00PM PT / 9:00 PM ET in Los Angeles before a studio audience. It will broadcast live without commercial interruption on Logo's 24/7 cable television channel as well as through live streaming video at LOGOonline.com.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a pro-marriage equality candidate, has not confirmed his attendance yet, and neither has New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson who has been courting the gay vote. Sen. Joe Biden has declined the invitation based on scheduling conflicts. Former senator Mike Gravel, was not invited to the debate because he didn't meet the fundraising threshold for participants and his campaign is furious.
HRC spokesperson Brad Luna said HRC and Logo initially set out to sponsor two different forums, one for Republican candidates and one for Democratic candidates.
“The precondition we set before those forums could be confirmed was that two out of the three leading candidates would have to confirm their attendance,” Luna told The Advocate. On the Republican side, Mitt Romney declined the invitation, and Rudy Giuliani and Sen. John McCain never responded, so the GOP forum never got off the ground."

Continue reading "Clinton, Obama set to participate in forum on gay issues...[Updated]" »

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson may be aggressively courting the gay vote in his run for The White House, but he may have done some damage to that effort by using the word, maricón - Spanish for “faggot” while on the radio with Don Imus last year.
Richardson appeared on the since-canceled Imus radio program last March. Imus, of “nappy-headed hos” infamy, had the following exchange with the governor of New Mexico:
“Bernard on the staff here has been claiming you’re not really Hispanic so– that you’re just claiming that for some sort of advantage or something,” Imus said to Richardson, tongue clearly in cheek. “You can just answer this yes or no and this will answer that question. Would you agree that Bernard is a maricón?”
Without missing a beat, Richardson replied in Spanish, “Yo creo que Bernardo, sí — es un maricón si él piensa que yo no soy hispano. [General laughter] Was that good enough or what? [General laughter]”
Translated to English, Richardson said, “I believe that Bernard, yes – he’s a faggot if he thinks that I am not Hispanic.”
According to the Queerty site, gay activist Christopher Hubble heard and notified GLAAD who consulted with They, Equality New Mexico which received a call from Richardson apologizing for the slur. The matter did not go any further until some recent reports in a gay newspaper and Richardson recently released a statement apologizing:
"I would never knowingly say or do anything to hurt the GLBT community — a community that I have worked hard for and supported my entire career. In the Spanish I grew up speaking, the term means simply ‘gay,’ not positive or negative. It has been brought to my attention that the word also has a hurtful or derogatory connotation, which was never my intent. If I offended anybody, I’m sorry."
"My record on GLBT issues speaks for itself. I have certainly done more to help and support the GLBT community than any other presidential candidate, and more than most other politicians. The timing of this smacks of politics — it comes as I am gaining momentum and moving up in the polls."

I'm glad to have a candidate who is supportive of gay issues, but, he should have known better.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's become quite clear: Rosie O'Donnell does not need to be on "The View" to make her opinions known. Not long after President Bush commuted the prison sentence of Scooter Libbey, VP Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, she posted a rant on her Rosie.com site. Here are some excerpts:
PARDON ME: only commutation of obstruction of justice sentence by a president ever...
...so basically they can do whatever they want...blatant disregard for everything our country is about...
...cheney is an evil man... baby bush a horror...
...armitage takes the fall thinking it would end it all... the mess they made... but then fitzy showed up
...holy shit what to do about patrick...ask libby, he’ll do anything ...dick says do it i will get u out scooter says ok guilty... and like cheney promised...ka boom...scooter is free...lil georgie said he can go...

that smug smirk...privileged pampered fool...this is like a bad movie...really pathetic

THE GUYS IN CHARGE R CRIMINALS...IMPEACH CHENEY...THEN BUSH...
ASAP

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 5:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My hero Billie Jean King is among the more than 65 leaders in the LGBT community who will be part of a national steering committee announced today called “LGBT Americans for Hillary.” The group, announced on the eve of the 38th anniversary of Stonewall, will work with the campaign on several areas including political outreach, communications, policy advice and counsel, and fundraising.
The campaign statement says Clinton would work with the community to make sure that all Americans in committed relationships have equal economic benefits and rights (so far, she backs civil unions); work to end discrimination in adoption laws; put an end to what she has called “the failed policy” of “don't ask, don't tell”; and sign into law expanded federal hate crimes legislation and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) if they were approved by Congress.
This is encouraging and a sign that Clinton leanred a lesson from last fall when she took way too long to admonish former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace for calling homosexuality immoral.
Keep reading to see the COMPLETE LIST...

Continue reading "Hillary Clinton forms "LGBT Americans for Hillary" committee..." »

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 2:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Got a note a little while again from Lorri Jean who wanted to share a little bit about meeting Presidential candidate John Edwards yesterday and giving him a tour of the Center including the Jeffrey Goodman Special Care Clinic, pharmacy and 24-bed transitional living program for homeless youth.
She believes Edward's visit is the first time during the current presidential campaign that one of the viable candidates has visited a GLBT organization. "We talked about the Center’s programs, who we serve, our history and current health issues facing our community," Jean said. "At the end of the tour, I talked to Senator Edwards about the freedom to marry."

Jean told Edwards that the LA Center is not "a typical social services organization. It is true that most of the problems our clients face are exacerbated by poverty. In that regard, we experience every single day the two Americas that you talk about. That’s why so much of what you are saying on the campaign trail resonates so strongly with us. But there’s another factor that distinguishes us from typical social services agencies: most of the problems our clients face are problems caused by a homophobic society. A society that tells us from our youngest days—from the first moment we have any inkling of such things--that we are wrong, sick, bad…even evil, and that we deserve to be discriminated against.'

Continue reading "John Edwards visits LA Gay and Lesbian Center..." »

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I think Ann Coulter is a souless shell of a human being. I'll just say that upfront. And clearly, even a gracious woman like Elizabeth Edwards cannot get through to her. But Mrs. Edwards, who I greatly admire, gave it a try by calling "Hardball With Chris Matthews" and asking Coulter to stop the personal attacks against her husband and her family and deal with the issues.
Mrs. Edwards said: "… In the South when someone does something that displeases us, we wanna ask them politely to stop doing it. Uh - I'd like to ask Ann Coulter -- if she wants to debate on issues, on positions -- we certainly disagree with nearly everything she said on your show today -- but uh it's quite another matter for these personal attacks that the things she has said over the years not just about John but about other candidates. It lowers our political dialogue precisely at the time that we need to raise it. So I want to use the opportunity … to ask her politely stop the personal attacks.
Ann Coulter: OK, so I made a joke -- let's see six months ago -- and as you point out they've been raising money off of it for six months since then.
Matthews: This is yesterday morning, what you said about him.
Coulter: I didn't say anything about him actually either time.
Edwards: Ann, you know that's not true. And once more its been going on for sometime.
Coulter: I don't mind you trying to raise money. I mean it's better this than giving $50,000 speeches to the poor.
Edwards: I'm asking you.
Coulter: Just to use my name on the Web pages…
Edwards: I'm asking you politely…
Coulter: ...but as for a debate with me, um yeah, sure. Yeah, we'll have a debate
Edwards: I'm asking you politely to stop personal attacks.
Coulter: How bout you stop raising money on the Web page then?

Continue reading "Polite Elizabveth Edwards takes on vile Ann Coulter..." »

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

If Elizabeth Edwards were running for president, I would absolutely vote for her. Even though she has never held elected political office, I would bet dollars to donuts (I've been wanting to use that for some time) she would be more competent than the current White House occupant.
So last night, Mrs. Edwards and her husband John paid a visit to Jay Leno on "The Tonight Show" and the subject of Elizabeth's SF pride appearance over the weekend during which she diverted from her hubby’s civil union policy.
“I’m completely comfortable with gay marriage,” she said.
Responding to her comments, Mr. still-evolving said: "A lot of people I love and care about feel the same way Elizabeth does. I’m very strong about ending discrimination against gay and lesbian couples. But I’m not quite where Elizabeth is yet."
It's called being a big chicken!!!
I'm still looking for a candidate who will fully support LGBT civil rights and so far, he or she is not out there.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

If her husband felt the same way, he would completely have my vote. The smart, articulate and sensible Elizabeth Edwards has made clear that, unlike her spouse John Edwards, she is fully supportive of gay marraige.
"I don't know why somebody else's marriage has anything to do with me. I'm completely comfortable with gay marriage...If he's pleasant to me on the street, if his children don't throw things in my yard, then I'm happy. It seems to me we're making issues of things that honestly ... don't matter."
Mrs. Edwards made the remarks while speaking to more than 300 people during a breakfast sponsored by the Alice B. Toklas Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Democratic Club during San Francisco's gay pride weekend.
he reiterated John Edwards' position on the issue: ''John believes that couples in committed long-term relationships should enjoy the same rights, benefits and responsibilities regardless of whether they are straight couples or same-sex couples. He supports civil unions.''
She said of her husband's viewpoint:"John has been pretty clear about it, that he is very conflicted. That's up against his being raised in the 1950s in a rural southern town. I think honestly he's on a road that a lot of people in this country are on. ... They're struggling with this. Most of the gay and lesbian people I know ... have seen their friends and family walking down that same road. It's frustrating, I know, but it's a long distance from where we are now to the pews of a Southern Baptist church. So, John's been as honest as he can about that."
My sense is that Mr. Edwards is probably as cool with gay marraige as Mrs. Edwards but, like all the other Democratic candidates who might feel similarly in private, he does not want to suffer the political fallout if he goes out on that limb...even if he would gain the everlasting support of so many of us.
At any rate, Elizabeth Edwards would be the coolest First Lady we ever had...so far removed from Laura Bush who is pleasant and all, but has been very low-key in that role.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I don't know how, but I made it to a 7:30 a.m. breakfast this morning at the Hyatt on Sunset Boulevard for a breakfast where the featured speaker was New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson who is running for President. My good friend Trevor Daley was one of the organizers for this event sponsored by A.N.G.L.E.(Access Now for Gay and Lesbian Equality) which has been an institution on the local state, and national political scene for well over a dozen years. The A.N.G.L.E. breakfasts have become a highly anticipated event where the community can interact with the leaders of our time over breakfast. I wanted to support Trevor and also hear more of what Richardson had to say. My table was super. In addition to my pal Ted Johnson, who arrived with his hair still wet, there as portrait painter Louis Briel as well as Patrick Owen, deputy director of development for the Center Theatre Group, LA's Theatre Company which is currently staging "Jersey Boys" and The Ahmanson and was first to stage "Curtains" which won the Tony for David Hyde Pierce last night. Patrick and I gabbed about the Tonys and I ribbed Ted for eating carbs. Then it was time for Gov. Richardson to speak.
I'm going to provide a few things that I wrote down but Ted, managing editor at Variety, will likely do a better job of it in his blog Washington & Wilshire so check that out later today!

Continue reading "Gov. Bill Richardson courts gay vote in WeHo Monday..." »

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 1:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...if he was drinking when he chose Dr. Jim Holsinger. This dude believes that homosexuals can be "cured" so his selection is a real head-scratcher - even for a president who hasn't made a decision that makes sense in, oh, nearly six-and-a-half years. This latest decision though, I find completely offensive. Did VP Dick Cheney, whose lesbian daughter Mary recently made him a grandfather, approve of Holsinger? If so, he is even more vile than I previously thought.
Anyway, ABC News political blogger reports Friday that Sen. Barack Obama is first out the gate in blasting the nominatrion with the following statement: “America’s top doctor should be a doctor for all Americans, and so I have serious reservations about nominating someone who would inject his own anti-gay ideology into critical decisions about the health and well-being of our nation," Obama said this morning. " As with other nominees, I will listen to the testimony of Dr. James Holsinger, but this Administration must know that the United States Surgeon General’s office is no place for bigotry or ideology that would trump sound science and good judgment.”
Holsinger has rightfully come under fire from gay rights groups for voting to expel a lesbian pastor from the United Methodist Church and writing in 1991 that gay sex is unnatural and unhealthy. Also, he helped found a congregation that gay rights activists say believes homosexuality is a matter of choice and can be "cured."
Both Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton took some heat from the gay community when neither would state whether they thought homosexulity was "immoral" or not after Gen. Peter Pace said it was. Obama didn't let that to happen again!

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 4:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

When Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney made a campaign stop at New Hampshire's Concord High School this week, he was confronted by a woman named Cynthia Fish, a lesbian who has two children who took issue with Romney's view that marriage is "primarily an institution for the development and nurture of children," according to a report in the Concord Monitor.
Romney said he would not prevent gay couples from entering spousal contracts if they choose to live together but 'the government benefits of marriage I'd reserve for a man and a woman.'"
Fish said to him: "I am a gay woman and I have children. Your comment that you just made, it sort of invalidates my family...I wish you could explain to me more, why if we are sending our troops over to fight for liberty and justice for all throughout this country, why not for me? Why not for my family?"
Romney responded with this: "Wonderful. I'm delighted that you have a family and you're happy with your family. That's the American way. ... People can live their lives as they choose and children can be a great source of joy, as you know. And I welcome that...Marriage is an institution which is designed to bring a man and woman together to raise a child and that the ideal setting for society at large is where there is a male and a female are associated with the development and nurturing a child...There are other ways to raise kids that's fine: single moms, grandparents raising kids, gay couples raising kids. That's the American way, to have people have their freedom of choice."
The Monitor also reports Romney as saying: "That's not to say these other forms aren't valid. But, for instance, we don't say a single person is married, even if they are raising children," Romney said. "I believe, in society, we want to bring a man and woman together."

Well, isn't that special, Mitt? I believe, in society, we should wake up and smell the coffee and realize that not all people want to be with someone of the opposite sex.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 3:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Advocate.com site highlights where the eight Democratic candidates for president stand on the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy based on their answers from last Sunday's debate in New Hampshire and interviews afterward: they all want it repealed! Thank God. As The Advocate points out, the candidates’ call to scrap “don’t ask, don’t tell” may not be an act of unbridled political courage—polls by organizations such as Gallup and The Boston Globe have found that anywhere from 60% to 79% of Americans believe gays and lesbians should be able to serve openly.

Sen. Hillary Clinton: “You know, after the first Gulf War there was a big flood of discharges of gays and lesbians because they let them serve and then after they finished the war, then they discharged them,” she said, adding that Arabic-language linguists with critical skills have also been lost to the policy during the Iraq War. “So I believe we could change the policy to let gays and lesbians serve in the military and be covered by the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”

Gov. Bill Richardson: “I would pass legislation to end it, but I would also say to my military commanders, ‘There is not going to be any discrimination against gays and lesbians in the military.’ ”

Continue reading "Where the Democratic candidates stand on 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'" »

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This is one of those actions speak louder than words kinda things so take it for what it's worth.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney insists that his opposition to same-sex marriage should not be interpreted as intolerance of gays. After all, an actual gay man actually served in his administration when he was Massachusetts governor.
"What you look for in a leader is someone who will welcome and treat with respect people who made different choices and have different beliefs in their lives and have differences. I have nothing but respect and feelings of tolerance for people with differences from myself and feel that way with regards to those who are gay," he said before a crowd of 400 at a campaign event, according to the Associated Press.
Gee, that meakes me feel so warm and fuzzy. So...tolerated!
"I oppose discrimination against gay people," he added, with a straight face. "I am not antigay. I know there are some Republicans, or some people in the country, who are looking for someone who is antigay, and that's not me."
Romney said he is opposed to marriage equality for same-sex couples because it's not in the best interest of children. Children like the son born to Mary Cheney and her female partner this week I suppose.
Who knows how this man really feels because he changes so often, depending on which way the political winds are blowing. But no matter what he SAYS, here are his ACTIONS: In 2003, after the Massachusetts supreme judicial court ruled that same-sex couples could wed in the state, Romney pushed for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
Sounds like anti-gay to me!

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The photo above really has nothing to do with this post except that it's a hoot! Anyway, the boifromtroy.com blog points out something pretty interesting: In California, the President of the United States has a 26% approval rating according to the latest Survey USA poll. That means that he is barely more than half as popular as Gay Marriage–which is supported by 48% of California voters in the latest survey–confirming a trend that a plurality of Californians are now supporting marriage equality.
Boi From Troy notes that this is important to note because it is very likely that California voters will ultimately have to vote on whether to recognize gay marriage in California, again–either as a referendum on a potential Supreme Court decision or as part of a compromise between the Legislature and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 9:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, became a mother today when she gave birth to a baby boy. Samuel David Cheney was born at 9:46 a.m., weighing 8 pounds, 6 ounces, according to the Drudge Report which posted this picture of the proud grandparents.
I love babies, even Republican ones, and I'm glad he was born healthy. I just wish he had a grandfather who loved him enough and loved his gay daughter enough to not endorse such anti-gay policies. I don't see Dick Cheney trying to convince Pres. Bush not to veto the Matthew Sheppard federal anti-hate crimes legislation or supporting anything that would make life easier and more equal or the gays in this country.
It seems very wrong.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 1:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dina Matos McGreevey and Hilary Rodham Clinton have at least one thing in common: both married and had a daughter with powerful politicians who cheated on them causing them unimaginable public humiliation. But the similarities pretty much end there since Clinton is a brilliant senator who could be the first female U.S. president and Matos McGreevey seems like kind of an idiot.
But she's kind of an idiot with a book to sell so she sat down with Newsweek to discuss "Silent Partner" and talked about how she reached out to Sen. Clinton in the days after her hubby announced himself as a "gay American" and she looked on with a bizarre smile on her face.
She said Clinton was gracious in returning a call Matos had made to her office: "She said, “First of all you have to think of yourself and your daughter.” That was the best advice I got. Knowing she survived, I can survive also. ... Her advice was, get your own counsel, don’t rely on his advisers. She said, “No one else is going to take care of you. You’ve got to take care of yourself. She said you and your daughter are the most important.”
She also talks about how she never suspected her soon-to-be ex-husband's homosexuality.
"...When you are married to someone powerful, whether it’s a politician or a CEO or a celebrity, there are always rumors and innuendo, If you chase those, you are not going to do anything else. Don’t forget, while all this was going on, I was working full time, I had a baby. I had my responsibilities as First Lady; I had a mansion to renovate."
Well then, no wonder she was so clueless!

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some may see this as speaking ill of the dead. But Jerry Falwell, who died today at the age of 73, was a scary person as far as I'm concerned. This fundamentalist Baptist pastor, televangelist and conservative activist made a career out of extremist and offensive commentary, particularly in times of national and international crisis.
Here is an example of a comment two days after the 9/11 attacks that speaks volumes about the man: “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say’you helped this happen.”

Continue reading "Jerry Falwell was no friend of gays... " »

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 1:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Remember the days when presidents had a lick of sense and integrity? Jimmy Carter might have not been popular while in office, but I firmly believe his heart was always in the right place. He has since won the Nobel Peace Prize and done more to change the world in his post-presidential life than any of those who came before him, or after.
Carter on Tuesday, gave us yet another reason to miss having an intelligent man in the White House. This is part of his statement on the military's anti-gay 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy:
“It is my long-held belief that every human being deserves dignity and respect. I often heard that phrase during my years at the United States Naval Academy, I carried it out as Commander-in-Chief, and it continues to animate my human rights work around the globe today. The nation’s commitment to human rights requires that lawmakers revisit ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ the current policy that prevents lesbians, gays and bisexual from serving openly in our armed forces...'Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’' is the only law in America today that regulates a group of citizens then prohibits them from identifying themselves and speaking up on their own behalf. Gay soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines are unable to tell their Member of Congress or their commander that the policy is an abject failure and they are living proof because they will face discharge. Those who defend our liberties and freedoms deserve better.”

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Republican flip-flopping presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who back in 1994 pledged to be a more effective champion for gay causes than his Democratic rival in a senate race, is now citing the Scriptures to defend his current opposition to gay marriage.
According to the AP, the former Massachusetts governor discusses gay marriage in an interview with Mike Wallace (didn;t he retire? set to air Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes."
According to an excerpt released by CBS on Friday, Romney says:"This isn't just some temporary convenience here on Earth, but we're people that are designed to live together as male and female and we're gonna have families. And that, there's a great line in the Bible that children are an inheritance of the Lord and happy is he who has or hath his quiver full of them."

I do not like this man.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 3:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

President Bush is someone I don't enjoy blogging about because I have nothing good to say about the man. But sometimes, you have to get it off your chest. This photo of him WINKING at Queen Elizabeth II yesterday is just another example of his ineptitude and arrogance on the world stage. In the past week alone, he has infuriated me by indicating that he would veto the Federal Hates Crimes Act (named for Matthew Shepard) and I've been watching way too much PBS where various recent specials on the build-up to the Iraq War have disturbed me greatly.
And every day, something new hits that makes the 2008 presidential election seem so far away. This morning it was how the Kansas National Guard is having trouble coming to the aid of tornado victims because their troops AND equipment are in Iraq. Then there are the daily reports of the U.S. soldiers killed each day and all of the Iraqis being met with gruesome deaths from bombs etc. We went into national mourning over the 30-plus deaths at Virginia Tech last month. Imagine how numb the Iraqis must be with at least that many deaths - if not more - each day? It is heinous.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 2:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I met Judy Shepherd last fall at an HRC "Get Out and Vote" event at Devid Beckwith's house and we had a nice chat then. With all the events she has done over the years and people that she meets, I was surprised that she remembered me when we saw each other at the GLAAD Awards over the weekend. (She is pictured with GLAAD president Neil Guiliano).
She is a very special woman and I just want to hug her whenever I see her. Judy has been a tireless advocate since the murder of her son, Matthew Shepherd, and attended a Capitol Hill news conference a few weeks ago to announce the filing of a federal hate crime bill that is named after he son who was killed in a homophobic attack in Wyoming in 1998. He was just 21.
If the bill is passed by the Congress, this is an opportunity for President Bush to do ONE wise thing during his disastrous presidency by signing the bill into law.
"I really think the House and the Senate will pass it this time around and I'm very honored that Sen. Smith and Sen. Kennedy named it the Matthew Sheppard Act. To my knowledge the president has not commented but we do feel we have the votes," Judy told me.
The measure passed the House in the last Congress but was dropped in the then Republican-controlled Senate last year. Called the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, it would allow the Department of Justice to assist local authorities in investigating and prosecuting cases in which violence occurs.
"Some states like Wyoming have no hate crime legislation for sexual orientation. Because it's not already included in a federal bill, [victims] can get no financial help from the government. So in Wyoming when Matthew was killed, they actually had to layoff five employees to pay for the trial. So, it's very important."

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With my primary vote up for grabs, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards scores points with me for touting prominent gay supporters who have signed on to his presidential campaign, including a former adviser to President Clinton.
According to Advocate.com, blogger David Mixner is one of 25 people listed on a news release that the Edwards campaign distributed Tuesday, along with a statement from the candidate saying he is honored to have the backing of so many respected gay leaders.
''They work hard every day to make our country a better place and I am proud to join with them to fight for equal rights for all Americans,'' Edwards said.
Edwards is making a push for gay support in the competitive Democratic presidential primary. In February, he came out in support of legislation that would end the ''don't ask, don't tell'' policy that prevents people who are openly gay from serving in the military.
But Edwards has competition for the gay community's support: Barack Obama's campaign has also said he is opposed to ''don't ask, don't tell,'' as has Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign. She also told the Human Rights Campaign last month that she wants a partnership with gays if elected president.
None have come out in support of gay marriage and I'm also not clear on their stance in regards to anti-discrimination legislation...

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Democratic front-runner Barack Obama caught some flak, and I think deservedly so, for his casual reaction when asked to comment on oint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Peter Pace's remarks that homosexuality is "immoral."
Obama told Wolf Blitzer yesterday on "The Situation Room" that the story about his initial comments did not get out there properly in the beginning.

" I mean, what happened was I was leaving a firefighters' union meeting and trying to get in my car and did not respond to a reporter's query at that point," he said. "I wasn't responding to reporters period because I was trying to make a vote. Subsequently I made it very clear. I don't think that gays and lesbians are any more moral or immoral than heterosexuals and that I think it is very important for us to reexamine the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy because it's costing us millions of dollars in replacing troops that by all accounts are actually doing a good job but are simply being kicked out of the military because of their sexual orientation."
Obama also spoke to Blitzer on the subject of gay marriage and civil unions: "Well, I think that 'marriage' has a religious connotation in this society, in our culture, that makes it very difficult to disentangle from the civil aspects of marriage. And as a consequence it's almost -- it would be extraordinarily difficult and distracting to try to build a consensus around marriage for gays and lesbians. What we can do is form civil unions that provide all the civil rights that marriage entails to same sex couples. And that is something that I have consistently been in favor of. And I think that the vast majority of Americans don't want to see gay and lesbian couples discriminated against, when it comes to hospital visitations and so on."

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'm not sure who I'll be supporting in the presidential race but New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson certainly made an excellent impression on me at last night's Human Rights Campaign 2007 Los Angeles Gala where he was the keynote speaker. Hillary Clinton was also in town for a private fundraiser and I'm still sore at her for being too cautious in her initial response to Gen. Peter Pace's anti-gay remarks a few weeks back.
So right now, I'm up for grabs.
It was so refreshing to hear a politician address a crowd of mostly gay and lesbian people and to unabashedly embrace us: "You will never have to prod me to make a stand with you," Richardson said. "I know there are a lot of candidates who are rock stars and have a lot of bucks, but I'm getting up there - I'm moving up!"
I like Richardson not just because he's gay-friendly, but he's the first Hispanic-American to run for president! It's kind of ironic that he is such an underdog for the Democratic nomination given his experience as a governor, 15 years as a congressman, former secretary of energy (under Pres. Clinton) and abassador to the U.N. He's also been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize four different times for negotiating the release of hostages, American servicemen and political prisoners in North Korea, Iraq and Cuba, according to the bio in the HRC program.
HE should be the rock star!
Richardson told the crowd that he was not at the HRC dinner campaigning ("sort of...") and told of his current efforts to pass a domestic partnership act in New Mexico to go along with the hate crime and anti-discrimination legislation that has already been passed.
"I want a domestic partnership bill so I can sign it," he said. "I believe all families deserve our respect."
He seems undaunted by the opposition.
"I've done all of this in a red state. I'm convinced we can accomplish all of that on a national level."
As for "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," Richardson said simply: 'It's gotta go. If I'm elected president, I will end this disastrous, disrespectful policy. It makes no sense to turn away and turn out well-qualified recruits at a time when our country needs them the most."
Richardson said two of his top priorities as president would be to pass federal hate crime and anti-discrimination acts on a federal level and to have the fight against AIDS the highest priority of foreign policy: "I've spent my career pushing this agenda because it's the right thing to do."
"This country is tired of the politics of hatred and division. What we need is someone who can bring us together."
Well said.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 9:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

What a concept. A government leader actually openly supportting gay people and civil unions. No, I'm NOT talking about Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama who are hesitant to speak out against those who call homosecuality "immoral."
I'm talking about British Prime Minister Tony Blai8r who spoke last night at the Stonewall Equality dinner at the Dorchester Hotel in central London. Here are the parts of his remarks that I found the most inspiring:

"... I think civil partnerships is really the thing … as I was saying to people earlier, it doesn’t just give you a lot of pride, but it actually brought real joy.I don’t know whether you remember the very first day, and it was quite a bizarre circumstance that the first ceremonies were actually in Northern Ireland."

Laughter

"I was so struck by it, it was so alive, I remember actually seeing the pictures on television. It is not often that you sort of skip around in my job, I can assure you, But it really the fact that that the people were so happy and the fact that you felt just one major, major change had happened, of which everyone can feel really proud. And now I think we were just saying, was it 16,000 civil partnerships, and what is interesting now is that other countries in Europe are looking at this legislation, and it is very divisive still in Spain and Italy at the moment. But nonetheless it is happening."

"This is my second reflection about it all: There are a whole load of different pieces of legislation, which I will not rehearse here, but what has happened is that the culture of the country has changed in a definable way as a result of it. And here is what I think is really interesting. The change in the culture and the civilising effect of it has gone far greater than the gay and lesbian community. ..If you allow discrimination to fester, that is a complete rejection of that modernising and civilising notion."

Wise words. Blair has made mistakes in his 10 years in office (Iraq war?) but his attitudes toward gay people will forever endear him to me and to many others. Our leaders in the U.S. could learn a lot from Blair in this area.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 1:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My heart really sank this morning with the news that Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, has cancer in her bones. They couple, married 30 years, held a press conference this morning to discuss the health of Mrs. Edwards and are optimistic that with treatment, they will continue with their lives as before which includes her husband continuing to run for the White House.
"From our perspective, there was no reason to stop," John Edwards said. "I don't think we seriously thought about it. You can go cower in the corner and hide or you can go out there and stand up for what you believe in. We have no intentions of cowering in the corner."
Elizabeth Edwards, 57, said she was "incredibly optimistic" and said her expectations about the future were unchanged. "I expect to do next week all the things I did last week. And the week after that, and next year at the same time."
Mrs. Edwards said she was fortunate that she felt pain from a cracked rib and got X-rays that revealed the cancer.Dr. Lisa Carey, the oncologist treating Edwards, categorized the cancer as metastatic Stage 4 cancer, which is largely confined to the bones. She said the prognosis was good.
She first underwent treatment for breast cancer after the 2004 campaign in which her husband was the Democratic vice presidential nominee. John Edwards, who was campaigning in Iowa, cut short the rest of his schedule on Tuesday to be with his spouse. The two went to see the doctor together Wednesday.
Most national polls show him running third behind Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.
Edwards and his wife met in law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They married in 1977 and have had four children. Their first child, Wade, was killed in a 1996 car accident. In her 2006 book, "Saving Graces," Elizabeth Edwards wrote about her life, including cancer treatment and the death of her son.
In watching the Edwards' together, it's easy to root for them. They are so unlike most political couples who are so scripted anbd stiff. They seem to really love each other very much and most of all, respect each other. She is an intelligent and articulate woman who speaks her mind but does so in a way that doesn't cause her husband political trouble. I would love to see her in the White House as our first lady. It would be a nice change from the Stepford-like Laura Bush who, while charming, has not used that position as effectively as many of her predecessors have.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 1:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Larry Kramer, AIDS activist, playwright, founder of the group ACT-UP and author of "The Tragedy of Today's Gays" and other books, has written a powerful letter, published in today's Los Angeles Times, that I hope you will all read and pass on to friends, gay or straight.
DEAR STRAIGHT PEOPLE,
Why do you hate gay people so much?
Gays are hated. Prove me wrong. Your top general just called us immoral. Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is in charge of an estimated 65,000 gay and lesbian troops, some fighting for our country in Iraq. A right-wing political commentator, Ann Coulter, gets away with calling a straight presidential candidate a faggot. Even Garrison Keillor, of all people, is making really tacky jokes about gay parents in his column. This, I guess, does not qualify as hate except that it is so distasteful and dumb, often a first step on the way to hate. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama tried to duck the questions that Pace's bigotry raised, confirming what gay people know: that there is not one candidate running for public office anywhere who dares to come right out, unequivocally, and say decent, supportive things about us.
Gays should not vote for any of them. There is not a candidate or major public figure who would not sell gays down the river. We have seen this time after time, even from supposedly progressive politicians such as President Clinton with his "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military and his support of the hideous Defense of Marriage Act. Of course, it's possible that being shunned by gays will make politicians more popular, but at least we will have our self-respect. To vote for them is to collude with them in their utter disdain for us.
Don't any of you wonder why heterosexuals treat gays so brutally year after year after year, as your people take away our manhood, our womanhood, our personhood? Why, even as we die you don't leave us alone. What we can leave our surviving lovers is taxed far more punitively than what you leave your (legal) surviving spouses. Why do you do this? My lover will be unable to afford to live in the house we have made for each other over our lifetime together. This does not happen to you. Taxation without representation is what led to the Revolutionary War. Gay people have paid all the taxes you have. But you have equality, and we don't.
And there's no sign that this situation will change anytime soon. President Bush will leave a legacy of hate for us that will take many decades to cleanse. He has packed virtually every court and every civil service position in the land with people who don't like us. So, even with the most tolerant of new presidents, gays will be unable to break free from this yoke of hate. Courts rule against gays with hateful regularity. And of course the Supreme Court is not going to give us our equality, and in the end, it is from the Supreme Court that such equality must come. If all of this is not hate, I do not know what hate is.
Our feeble gay movement confines most of its demands to marriage. But political candidates are not talking about — and we are not demanding that they talk about — equality. My lover and I don't want to get married just yet, but we sure want to be equal.
You must know that gays get beaten up all the time, all over the world. If someone beats you up because of who you are — your race or ethnic origin — that is considered a hate crime. But in most states, gays are not included in hate crime measures, and Congress has refused to include us in a federal act.
Homosexuality is a punishable crime in a zillion countries, as is any activism on behalf of it. Punishable means prison. Punishable means death. The U.S. government refused our requests that it protest after gay teenagers were hanged in Iran, but it protests many other foreign cruelties. Who cares if a faggot dies? Parts of the Episcopal Church in the U.S. are joining with the Nigerian archbishop, who believes gays should be put in prison. Episcopalians! Whoever thought we'd have to worry about Episcopalians?
Well, whoever thought we'd have to worry about Florida? A young gay man was just killed in Florida because of his sexual orientation. I get reports of gays slain in our country every week. Few of them make news. Fewer are prosecuted. Do you consider it acceptable that 20,000 Christian youths make an annual pilgrimage to San Francisco to pray for gay souls? This is not free speech. This is another version of hate. It is all one world of gay-hate. It always was.
Gays do not realize that the more we become visible, the more we come out of the closet, the more we are hated. Don't those of you straights who claim not to hate us have a responsibility to denounce the hate? Why is it socially acceptable to joke about "girlie men" or to discriminate against us legally with "constitutional" amendments banning gay marriage? Because we cannot marry, we can pass on only a fraction of our estates, we do not have equal parenting rights and we cannot live with a foreigner we love who does not have government permission to stay in this country. These are the equal protections that the Bill of Rights proclaims for all?
Why do you hate us so much that you will not permit us to legally love? I am almost 72, and I have been hated all my life, and I don't see much change coming.
I think your hate is evil.
What do we do to you that is so awful? Why do you feel compelled to come after us with such frightful energy? Does this somehow make you feel safer and legitimate? What possible harm comes to you if we marry, or are taxed just like you, or are protected from assault by laws that say it is morally wrong to assault people out of hatred? The reasons always offered are religious ones, but certainly they are not based on the love all religions proclaim.
And even if your objections to gays are religious, why do you have to legislate them so hatefully? Make no mistake: Forbidding gay people to love or marry is based on hate, pure and simple.
You may say you don't hate us, but the people you vote for do, so what's the difference? Our own country's democratic process declares us to be unequal. Which means, in a democracy, that our enemy is you. You treat us like crumbs. You hate us. And sadly, we let you.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 2:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Former New Jersey governor James McGreevey is still creepy to me but I will still post about him if he says anything I think is relevant. So McGreevey, who resigned after revealing that he had engaged in an extramarital affair with a male staffer, says culture is outpacing politics in the acceptance of homosexuality.
The Associated Press reports that while McGreevey was in Santa Fe, N.M., this weekend to speak at a fund-raiser for the Human Rights Alliance, he called his decision to come out "one of the most painful but honest decisions of my life."
Even though the revelation of being gay can hurt family and friends, McGreevey said people must learn at an early age to be open about their sexuality - something he was not open about until his late 40s after he had married two women and fathered a child with each. Something he was not open about during his entire political career ibcluding when he was governor and was not publicly in favor of gay marriage.
"Hopefully, this generation will be the last generation of American youth that has to choose between their heart and their career, between love and acceptance," he said.
McGreevey also addressed comments made earlier this week by the Pentagon's top general. Marine Corps general Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, remarked that homosexual acts are immoral and said the military should not condone homosexuality by allowing gay personnel to serve openly.
"General Pace's remarks were so terribly unfortunate, not only because that's what he believes but the notion that 'don't ask, don't tell' actually encourages people to be less than honest, less than open, less than transparent," McGreevey said.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 2:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We didn't know about it until today, but Hillary Rodham Clinton made an unpublicized keynote speech Friday to the Human Rights Campaign on Friday, according to the AP. Clinton told the nation's leading gay rights that she wants a partnership with gays if elected president and that she opposes the "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding gays in the military that was instituted during her husband's presidency.
"I am proud to stand by your side," Clinton said.
In the speech, Clinton joked that she shares the same initials as the group, and pledged to maintain the same close working relationship that last year helped defeat the federal amendment which would have banned same-sex marriage.
"I want you to know that this is exactly the kind of partnership we will have when I am president," Clinton told the group. "I want you to know that just as you always have an open door to my senate office, you will always have an open door to the White House and together we can continue this journey."
Sen. Clinton said it would be safer for the nation if openly gay soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen could wear the uniform: "This policy doesn't just hurt gays and lesbians, it hurts all our troops and this to me is a matter of national security and we're going to fix it."

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ann Coulter is learning the hard way that calling someone a "faggot" is quickly becoming less acceptable in our society. Republican candidates are denouncing the conservative commentator for using the anti-gay epithet in reference to Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.
I'm not sure how outraged Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts really are over her statements but after Democrats, gay rights groups and bloggers raised a storm of protest, they all think she's the devil not wearing Prada.
Here is her quote while speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference Friday: "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word [expletive], so I – so kind of an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards."

This is the response from the Edwards' campaign: "John was singled out for a personal attack because the Republican establishment knows he poses the greatest threat to their power. Since they have nothing real to use against him, Coulter's resorting to the classic right-wing strategy of riling up hate to smear a progressive champion."

Coulter, asked for a reaction to the Republican criticism, said in an e-mail message: "C'mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean."

Of the major Republican candidates, only McCain did not attend the conference where Coulter made her "joke," but he denounced her remarks on Saturday saying through a spokesman that "The comments were wildly inappropriate." Giuliani said: "The comments were completely inappropriate and there should be no place for such name-calling in political debate." A spokesman for Romney, who Coulter said she will probably be supporting said: "It was an offensive remark. Gov. Romney believes all people should be treated with dignity and respect."

Gee, who knew that Mitt Romney was so supportive of gay people?

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 4:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm still disappointed that John Edwards is not supportive of the legalization of same-sex marriage - still can't wrap his head around it being a boy from the South. But he is for the abolishment of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy which is the other major gay rights issue and blatant form of discrimination that has been allowed to continue in this country.
In response to the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, a bill calling for the repeal of the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy Edwards released the following statement: "It is long past time to end the military's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy and to allow openly gay men and women to serve in the military. It is critical to our national security that we have the best people in our military. Gay men and women have continually served our country with honor and bravery, and we should honor their commitment and never turn away anyone who is willing to serve their country because of their sexual orientation. This is an issue of fundamental fairness – and our military ought to treat everyone fairly. I applaud Congressman Meehan on his important legislation."

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 5:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There are gay people in our military? Who knew?
Staff Sgt. Eric Alva is one of them abd was the first Marine seriously wounded in the war with Iraq, losing his leg serving his country. He comes out of the closet today, standing by Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass and a bipartisan congressional group at 11am as they introduce legislation calling for the repeal of the military's wrong-headed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.

Here is part of his story from ABC News via Towleroad.com:
"Alva...was a decorated staff sergeant who had served in Somalia and Japan. As troops began to push into Iraq, on March 21, 2003, Alva was leading 11 Marines among 75 or so sailors and Marines in a 50- to 55-vehicle convoy on its way from the desert in Kuwait to Basra, Iraq. It was a logistical convoy moving through the desert at night, lights out, night-vision goggles on. The sand was so kicked up it was nearly impossible for Alva to even keep track of the vehicle in front of him. At one of three stops along the way, Alva, who hadn't eaten for a full day, was heating up an MRE when he went to get something out of his Humvee. 'I took maybe a step or two,' Alva said, 'and that is when the explosion went off.' It was a land mine."
Alva was visited at Bethesda Naval Hospital by President George W. Bush, first lady Laura Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Donald Rumsfeld, and Michael Jordan.
None of them knew he was gay.
Although he kept it a secret from his commanding officers over the years, Alva says plenty of soldiers knew he was gay and it was never a problem:
"I told tons of people. A lot of my friends, my buddies, my closest Marines, people I had served in combat with. Straight guys, married, with children and everything, three of them which I have become their sons' godfather now. Everybody was just respectful and was just like ordinary. 'That's it? That's your big news?' Being on the front lines and serving with the people who even actually knew that I was gay, you know, that was never a factor. We were there to do a job. We were [there] to do a mission. I don't think people would have a hard time with it because they know that the person right next to them is going to be there to protect them, in our terms, 'have their back.'"

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Before Jim McGreevey, there was Michael Huffington. We haven't heard much from this one-time U.S. congressman from California who used some of his millions to challenge Dianne Feinstein for reelection to the U.S. Senate in 1994. He lost, then he divorced wife Arianna, then came out of the closet. Losing was probably the best thing that ever happened to him - not feeling compelled to live a lie for the sake of political ambition.
When he was running for the Senate, I was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times and was assigned to cover one of his campaign appearances in Newport Beach. One of my colleagues at the time, Eric Litchblau, was working on a seperate story involving Huffington and his hiring of an illegal nanny. Eric asked me to try and corner Huffington and get a comment. Easier said than done. He was surrounded by an entourage and being hustled into a limo after the event. But somehow, I wormed my way through, got right in his face and said something like: "Do you have comment on your hiring of an illegal nanny?" He was polite, but had no comment. I remembered that encounter when I found this photo (above) of Huffington at the Sundance Film Festival last month with GLAAD President Neil Guliano. He is an executive producer of "For the Bible Tells Me So," a documentary which premiered at the festival.
In 2006, Huffington became a director of It's My Party Too, a group founded by former N.J. Governor Christie Todd Whitman that advocates for the historic Republican principles of liberty, individual responsibility, and personal freedom. Huffington is also one of the producers of "Bi the Way," a documentary presently being filmed about bisexuality in America.
It seems both our lives have changed a lot. The only questions I yell to people these days are from the red carpet!

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gavin Newsom may not be the best boss (he had an affair with his campaign manager's WIFE!) and a bit of a lush (he's in out-patient alcohol treatment), but the San Francisco mayor will forever be a hero to the gay and lesbian community for givjng same-sex couples the right to be married in his city. He's like the anti-Mitt Romney. On Tuesday, Newsom received a hero's tribute from hundreds of same-sex couples and their supporters at a rally Monday to mark the three-year anniversary of the granting of marriage licenses to more than 4,000 gay and lesbian couples.The mayor smiled sheepishly as wave after wave of cheers and applause came from the crowd at City Hall and said: "It's rare in life that you could mean these words more: I really needed that."

The rally followed a news conference earlier in the day, at which Newsom told a throng of reporters gathered in his office that he is "more resolved than ever" on allowing same-sex couples to marry. "For me this is a long battle, but it is one that will be won inevitably," he said at the news conference. "It's only won through courage and constancy and works. You've got to continue to remind people what's at stake and not give up or deviate from your purpose."
The SF Gate newspaper wrote today that Newsom acknowledged "setbacks" in the fight for same-sex marriage as well. But he did not second-guess his decision to grant marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples -- an action the California Supreme Court ultimately ruled he did not have legal authority to take.
"There's never a wrong time to do something right," Newsom said, adding that there has been progress in countries around the world -- Canada, Spain and South Africa all have legalized same-sex marriage -- since 2004.
Couples married in 2004 applauded Newsom on Monday, and a plaintiff in the California case called Newsom a "hero." "It was a tremendous act of leadership. ... I truly felt my government was doing something for me," John Lewis said at Monday's news conference. He and his partner of 20 years, Stuart Gaffney, married at City Hall in 2004, are both plaintiffs case.
Newsom also took a few shots at President Bush -- whose 2004 State of the Union address inspired him to authorize issuing the marriage licenses, he said -- and at Vice President Dick Cheney, who recently refused to answer questions on CNN about his lesbian daughter, who is pregnant, calling the questions "out of line."
"I think it's unfortunate that the vice president does not want to talk about the pending birth of his granddaughter when he was at the forefront of advancing efforts that I would argue not only discriminate against his daughter," but also his granddaughter."

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It was last summer that former N.J. Gov. Jim McGreevey was featured on the cover of "The Advocate" with his boyfriend, Mark O'Donnell, as well as on "Oprah" and other shows and press. It seems that Friday is the day he finally got around to filing for divorce from his second wife, Dina Matos McGreevey, the mother of his young daughter.
The two have lived apart since November 2004, when McGreevey resigned following a stunning public announcement that he was "a gay American" who had had an affair with a male staffer. "It's a sad day for everyone," McGreevey told The Associated Press Friday. "It is something that had to be done. We are blessed with a wonderful daughter who remains our focus."
McGreevey has been married twice. He has a 14-year-old daughter, Morag, from his first marriage, which also ended in divorce.
The filing says McGreevey and his wife have lived apart for 26 months. "This separation has continued to the present time and there exists no reasonable prospect for reconciliation," according to the divorce complaint.
Gee, ya think?
Matos McGreevey has written a book, "Silent Partner," scheduled for publication May 1.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 1:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The sex scandal at San Francisco City Hall involving Mayor Gavin Newsom made for high drama Thursday. Staring into a crush of television cameras, Newsom stepped up to the microphone and, in hushed tones, admitting to an affair with his former appointments secretary, the wife of his good friend and campaign manager.
"I want to make it clear that everything you've heard and read is true," he said, "and I am deeply sorry about that."
Newsom isn't my mayor but I like the fact that he has been busy promoting gay marriage, universal health care and environmental firsts.
Alex Tourk had said only that he is resigning as manager of Newsom's re-election campaign for personal reasons but it was learned that Newsom, while in the middle of his divorce from Kimberly Guilfoyle, had a months-long affair with Ruby Rippey-Tourk. She's a former Santa Rosa TV anchorwho took a leave of absence from the mayor's office last summer and sought treatment for substance abuse in Arizona. She had once denied the affair to her husband, but last week told him it had occurred.
Newsom apologized to his former aide by name at Thursday's news conference, saying "I have hurt someone I care deeply about, Alex Tourk, his friends and family, and that is something that I have to live with." But Newsom also said he intends to carry on as mayor and keep running for reelection.
How damaged Newsom's political future might be has yet to be seen. But I was talking to some friends about this tonight and we all kind of agreed on this: It should not matter more than what kind of job he is doing as mayor. All of us felt that we would, no question, much rather have an unfaithful Bill Clinton leading our country than George W. Bush who by all acounts has been faithful to his wife. And it has more to do with competence than party affiliation.
But, that is something San Francisco voters will have to decide for themselves. I know that I will forever be grateful to Newsom for pushing for equal marriage rights and for allowing us, for a brief time, to experience the joy of something so many take for granted.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 5:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've always wanted Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of VP Dick Cheney, to make some kind of public stand against the Republican Party's campaign against equal rights for gays and lesbians. I think it's a missed opportunity even though it puts her in a difficult position. But maybe by just living her life and having a baby with her partner, she is making the biggest statement of all. Here is some of what she said when speaking at Barnard College in Manhattan this week: "When Heather and I decided to have a baby, I knew it wasn’t going to be the most popular decision. [points to womb] This is a baby. This is a blessing from God. It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate, on either side of a political issue. It is my child."
She said Focus on the Family's James Dobson is "not someone whose endorsement I have ever drastically sought." And the Bush administration's religious right-wing base must have been thrilled when Cheney said: "Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years has shown there is no difference between children raised by same-sex parents and children raised by opposite-sex parents; what matters is being raised in a stable, loving environment."
Well said!

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 8:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I swear, I'm not just looking for an excuse to post a picture of the very handsome San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. But this one from "Bike to Work Day" last spring is a pretty good one, huh? I interviewed this charismatic man a few summers ago at the Outfest Film Festival and he was so thoughtful in his answers. He was there in support of a documentary that told the story of the same-sex marriages that took place in San Francisco after he ordered city clerks to issue same-sex marriage licenses and became a gay icon in the process.
I wanted to share with you some of an interview Newsom did with Reuters while he was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Newsom says that the gay-nup move may have hindered his own political growth: "I’ve basically written myself off of any prospects of running for any different office, and I certainly won’t be appointed by any administration or special councils because I’m a time bomb and too controversial. And I’m not just saying for Republicans. One of the three Democrats you mentioned as presidential candidates [Obama, Clinton, Gore] God as my witness, will not be photographed with me, will not be in the same room as me, even though I’ve done fundraisers for that particular person not once but twice, because of this issue."

On VP Dick Cheney's reaction to Wolfie Blitzer's questions last week about his pregnanrt lesbian daughter, Mary:
"The Vice President of the United States has a daughter who happens to be in love with another woman, and happens to want to raise a family. Those are fundamental questions that are being debated across this country... Wolf Blitzer was right to ask and Dick Cheney was wrong not to have the dignity to respond in a human way, and the dignity to respond in kind why he continues to advance discriminatory policies that are hurting, not uniting this country."

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 4:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I share with the back-and-forth that took place on today's edition of CNN's "The Situation Room" between host Wolf Blitzer and Dick Cheney involving the vice president's daughter, Mary, who is pregnant and in a commited relationship with a woman:

Q We're out of time, but a couple of issues I want to raise with you. Your daughter Mary, she's pregnant. All of us are happy. She's going to have a baby. You're going to have another grandchild. Some of the -- some critics, though, are suggesting, for example, a statement from someone representing Focus on the Family:

"Mary Cheney's pregnancy raises the question of what's best for children. Just because it's possible to conceive a child outside of the relationship of a married mother and father, doesn't mean it's best for the child."

Do you want to respond to that?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I don't.

Q She's obviously a good daughter --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I'm delighted -- I'm delighted I'm about to have a sixth grandchild, Wolf, and obviously think the world of both of my daughters and all of my grandchildren. And I think, frankly, you're out of line with that question.

Q I think all of us appreciate --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think you're out of -- I think you're out of line with that question.

Q -- your daughter. We like your daughters. Believe me, I'm very, very sympathetic to Liz and to Mary. I like them both. That was just a question that's come up and it's a responsible, fair question.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I just fundamentally disagree with your perspective.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 5:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Watched a great deal of the coverage of President Ford's services over the weekend including this morning's state funeral. I'm so touched by his family, how warm they seem to be toward each other and to the public. Betty Ford seemed so frail on Friday night but she has seemed stronger each day. She's 88! And listening to all the tributes even from politicians who I do not like or respect (no names on a national day of mourning) provided such a nice portrait of this man. If we had more people like him in politics today, we'd be in far better shape. He just seems to be such a decent man.
And adding to my admiration of Pres. Ford is the following story that I came across this morning on Towleroad.com:

Via The Cup of Joe comes this great piece from today's Wall Street Journal about Tim England and Rob Kent, a couple together for nearly 20 years, who bought Gerald Ford's childhood home in 1991 and restored it. In the process, they caught the attention of Ford, and developed a friendship with the former president.

"After moving in, Messrs. Kent and England painted walls and did a lot of patching. They replaced all 36 windows and the three outside doors. They scoured yard sales for antique clocks, lamps, chairs and bookcases to give the house a vintage feel. Mr. England bought an old chandelier and restored each of its 500 crystals by hand. The two men planted a garden in the barren backyard. The restoration, and others like it, helped improve the neighborhood.
Then in 1992, a letter arrived from President Ford out of the blue. "Mrs. Ford and I are very pleased and honored that you have done such a wonderful restoration of my family home," he wrote. Excited that the former president had taken an interest, the two men tried to have the house designated as a historical landmark and sought public funds to help with the restoration."

Ford later paid a visit to the couple and they began corresponding. As Joe notes, "Isn't it nice to read about non-gay-baiting Republicans?" It certainly is, and their actions perhaps contributed to Ford's views on gay marriage.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Caught John Edwards on ABC's "This Week" Sunday morning. He said in an interview, wife Elizabeth by his side, that is not ready to take a position yet on gay marriage, and acknowledged his upbringing in the rural South makes this a troubling issue for him.
"It's easy for me to say, civil unions yes, partnership benefits, yes," he said. But on gay marriage, he said, "I'm just not there yet."
As a gay man and a Democrat, it leaves me cold that Edwards does not think that gay Americans should be treated equally in this regard. It's a civil rights issue, not about his Southern upbringing. I expected more from him.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 10:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So John Edwards announced yesterday that he is seeking the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. I wish the man luck. I think he's damned smart, his heart is in the right place, he gives a helluva stump speech and has more charisma in his sleep than John Kerry would even after a few martinis (or whatever he drinks). Of course, being president isn't just about charisma or good looks (Edwards is movie star handsome) and I like that this candidate is calling for an increase in community service and cuts in poverty, global warming, and troops in Iraq.
But here's the rub: Edwards didn't mention gay rights on Thursday. And further, during the 2004 campaign both he and Kerry said they opposed same-sex marriage. Edwards also said he opposed amending the U.S. constitution to ban it, arguing the issue should be left up to the states.
That is just chicken s***! You gotta take a stand on this AND on the ban on gays in the military. These things are WRONG and are a non-issue on countries like Great Britain. He's playing it safe on the hot-button gay issues. Typical. His likely rivals for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama, have yet to announce. I will be waiting to see if they take any pro-gay stands.
I'm not holding my breath.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I was heartened to read on Advocate.com: that President Gerald Ford, who died Tuesday night in Rancho Mirage at the age of 93, was the only former Republican president to reach out to gays and lesbians and call for their inclusion in the GOP.
In 2002, Ford joined the Republican Unity Coalition as a member of the organization's Advisory Board. The RUC is a fundraising organization dedicated to making homosexuality a "non-issue" for the Republican Party.
"I have always believed in an inclusive policy, in welcoming gays and others into the party," Ford told The Detroit News in 2001. "I think the party has to have an umbrella philosophy if it expects to win elections."
This is consistent with the unifying spirit that Ford, the 38th president of the United States, embodied. He is most remembered for restoring the nation's political stability following the resignation of President Nixon amid the Watergate scandal in 1974. At that time he was criticized for pardoning the disgraced president, a move some say cost him the White House in 1976. But the former congressman from Michigan was praised by some for ignoring his own political viability in favor of helping the nation heal and come together after Watergate.
Ford's life was saved by a gay man in 1975. Openly gay Marine Vietnam veteran Oliver "Bill'' Sipple deflected a second gunshot aimed at Ford (the first had missed) as he emerged from the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. He grabbed at the arm of the shooter, an FBI informant named Sara Jane Moore.
But according to The San Francisco Chronicle, Sipple's act of heroism also was his undoing. The paper ran a story on September 24, 1975, saying that one reason the White House had yet to thank Sipple for his potentially lifesaving gesture was that he was a gay man. It turned out that Sipple's family had not known he was gay, and the disclosure resulted in him being alienated from his relatives.
Sipple sued The Chronicle for damages, but his case was eventually dismissed. He slid into alcoholism and died in 1989 at age 47. Among his prized possessions was the letter of thanks he eventually got from the White House.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The terrific actor Alec Mapa, so funny and talented, has some advice for fallen church leader Ted Haggard in his "Minority Retort" column in the next issue of The Advocate. Haggard resigned from his Colorado church after he admitted to buying drugs and to soliciting the services of male prostitute Mike Jones.
"It's one thing to be outed as gay, but to be outed as an adulterous, evangelical, rent-boy soliciting meth head? That's gotta smart. You've fallen from grace. Your own church has chucked you faster than a carton of sour milk...your situation reeks of self-hatred."

So, Alec has this advice for the beleagured Haggard:

GO FOR IT: Come out, but for real this time. Wrap yourself the flag and proudly declare yourself a Gay American. Stop referring to yourself as something "so dark and dark that I've been warring against it my entire adult life." That kind of talk went out with shoulder pads and shock treatments....As the former leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, with its purported 30 million members, you have an enormous opportunity to change hearts and minds.

GET OUT OF COLORADO SPRINGS: Spend a year in a gay neighborhood...I'm talking the Castro, Provincetown, Mass., (Chelsea), West Hollywood. You've been spewing homophobic bile because you've never met a gay person you didn't order from a phone book.

GET A REAL BOYFRIEND: Mike Jones is hot, but stepping out on a wife and five kids for a hooker is no way to build a healthy self-image. Grow a pair, own uyp to who you really are, and maybe everyone will eventually end up as friends. Sure, it might take years of counseling and medication, but that's everybody's story. The fall. Redemption. Grace. Forgiveness. I remember reading about that in a book somewhere.

Well said Alec!!!

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 5:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Even if it means my story on gay bloggers got pushed inside, I'm happy to see that The Advocate (where I am a contributing writer) has named Bill Maher as its person of the year and placed him on the cover of its upcoming year-end issue. He is outspoken and smart and I'm always interested in what he has to say about practically anything. I wish we had some politicians that had as much common sense and were able to articulate it as well as Bill Maher.
Here are some excerpts from the article on the host of HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher" written by HeathCliff Rothman:
His pro-gay statements include: "Stop calling homosexuality an unnatural act," ripping Democrats by saying "their refusal to endorse gay marriage is a hypocrisy" and then there's this one:"The only thing abominable about being gay is the amount of time you put in at the gyum. No, in America, when a man puts something in another man, it had better be a bullet."

Maher says of his empathy came from his folks: "My parents were big on the civil rights movement, and [they talked] to me about President Kennedy's forcing the issue about civil rights, which had a big impact on me. So, the empathy wasn't that big a leap. Either we're all free equally, or none of us are free."

On being outspoken on gay rights: "I get called "courageous" a lot. When I hear courage, I think "This isn't really courage, dismantling a roadside bomb is courage." This isn't courage. It's just the right thing to do."

On same-sex marriage: "I think I feel for this issue as someone who has always crusaded for legalization of drugs, especially marijuana, and was always told, 'What do you care if it's legal? You can always step outside the restaurant and take a hit.' It's like Democrats saying to gay people, 'What do you care? You can still live together, we're not stopping you, we're not breaking into your bedroom.' My answer to both was, 'Fuck you. YOU step outside and drink brandy after dinner. YOU call what's under your roof a civil union.' We're all equal, or we're not."

On his gaydar: "Terrible! When I was about 24 years old [and] a young comic in New York, I did a set one night at the Improv. I come off-stage, sit at the bar, and this guy in the show room, he says to me, 'Hey that was funny.' And we're talking and I tell him I'm going to another club, and he says, 'Can I come and watch?' 'Yeah, sure.' So we go over to the other club, I do a set. So after, he's talking to me, and the third time he mentions homosexuality, I think to myself, 'Hey, I must be on a date.'"

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

James Brolin arrived solo to Monday night's premiere of "Wedding Wars" at the Arclight, much to the disappointment of a lot of red carpet press who were hoping for a flashbulb frenzy with his wife Barbra Streisand on his arm. But she no doubt wanted her hubby to have his night and is probably still tired from her recent concert tour!

Got in a few questions to Brolin before someone dragged him away to pose for pics with John Stamos in front of one of the movie's posters. Sheesh! But during our brief time together, the man who rose to fame as hunky Dr. Kiley on "Marcus Welby M.D.," was quite friendly and thoughtful and, well, still very handsome. Brolin's character in the movie is a likeable governor or Maine but publicly opposes gay marriage when it becomes a campaign issue.

"He actually is (in favor) but he won't say so because he won't get elected again. It really represents a situation that's pretty common nowadays," the actor told me. "A lot of our politicians make decisions based on how much lobbying money is available to them, they make decisions based on whether they're elected next time or not.

Brolin believes it is "absolutely" a matter of time before gay marriage becomes legal in the U.S.
"With the polling and the future of voting, for or against it, all the young people in America who haven't voted yet who are going to vote next are all for it."

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 5:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gay Democratic congressman Barney Frank says he has every intention of pushing for a modification of the military's antigay ''don't ask, don't tell'' policy.
"What we have is a shortfall in the military," Frank pointed out on Fox News Sunday. "I think when you have people being fired who can read Arabic and understand Arabic, because of what they do when they're off duty, that that's a grave error.''
The current policy prohibits officials from inquiring about the sex lives of service members but requires discharges of those who acknowledge being gay - as if there is something wrong with being gay. A report in 2005 by the investigative arm of Congress estimated it cost the Pentagon around $200 million to recruit and train replacements for the nearly 9,500 troops that had to leave the military because of the ban on openly gay personnel. The losses included hundreds of highly skilled troops, including translators, from 1994 to 2003.
To continue this legal form of discrimination is, in my opinion, not only bigoted, it's detrimental to the military and to the country. So why does the ban continue? Because some guys are worried about sharing a tent with a gay man or is shy about taking a shower? Get over yourselves and think about what is best for your country which needs trained military personnel more than ever now.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 6:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On a day when three U.S. soldiers were reported killed in Iraq (25 killed this month and 2,843 killed since March 2003) and on a day when 159 Iraqis were killed - including 35 men blown apart while waiting to join Iraq's police force - tonight's episode of ABC's "Brothers & Sisters" really packed an emotional punch in the stomach.

Justin Walker (Dave Annable), who served in Afghanistan, receives a registered letter from the military ordering him to report for duty in two weeks for a tour of duty in Iraq. On the news that day (in the episode) there's a report that 12 soldiers had died in Iraq. Justin calls his brother Kevin in a panic: "I can't watch any more people die! I can't go back!"

The episode had some dramatic flashbacks to Sept. 11 when Kitty (Calista Flockhart) was living only six blocks away from the World Trade Center and the anguish the family went through waiting for word that she was all right. Her ordeal led Justin to enlist in the military and when he did so, he agreed to a clause that, in essence, was a backdoor draft. He threatens to flee to Mexico and even tries to buy a fake passport.

By episode's end, Justin was being rushed to the hospital after injesting too many drugs and booze. He REALLY did not want to go back. And who can blame him? It's a good thing President Bush is open to fresh ideas and strategies after his election day "thumping."

Ironically, this episode of the show was titled: "Mistakes Were Made."

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It seems like the closet is no longer a safe place for any public figure in either Hollywood or Washington! I'm not for outing gay celebrities really but I am very proud of how Neil Patrick Harris handled the situation last week. It's a model for others to follow and I hope they do! But in most cases, I hope it's on their terms.

Politics is a little trickier and I can't say it bothers me when someone who pushes anti-gay policies is outed. And this is what Bill Maher did on tonight's "Larry King Live" according to the blog Towleroad.

Here's the exchange with Larry King:

MAHER: "Frank Rich wrote about this a couple of weeks ago. He said, yes we've heard about Mark Foley...but he said, that's just the beginning of it. A lot of the chiefs of staff, the people who really run the underpinnings of the Republican party, are gay. I don't want to mention names but I will Friday night.

KING: You will Friday night?

MAHER: There's a couple people everybody in Washington knows, who run the Republican party

KING: You will name them?

MAHER: I wouldn't be the first. I'd get sued if I was the first, but...you know, Ken Mehlman, okay there's one I think people have talked about. I don't think he's denied it when people have suggested it (actually, he has). He doesn't say...

KING: Ken Mehlman? I've never heard that. But the question is...

MAHER: Maybe you don't go to the same bathhouse I do Larry.

KING: Why would someone who is gay take public anti-gay positions? Why would you do that?

MAHER: Because Larry, hating yourself is the greatest love of all.

Postscript: CNN edited the west coast feed of Larry King Live and cut out Bill Maher's comments outing RNC Chair Ken Mehlman. See the two versions on Towleroad.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 11:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

"Out in Hollywood" will most certainly return to lighter topics but I did feel compelled to share some post-election thoughts. I woke up this morning, the day after a national election, and I don't feel like staying in bed!

I've spent the last six years increasingly dismayed, disgusted and depressed over the direction our country has been headed - especially since the U.S. began the war in Iraq. I mourn every U.S. life lost and every innocent Iraqi life lost.

Listening to NPR today, it was a different President Bush addressing the press, a humbled man with no "political capital" remaining. Why did it take this kind of "thumping" for the president to see things clearly or even to be open to any other path? I'm beyond disillusioned with him. I believe he has us failed on so many levels and the history books will not be kind.

Anyway, compared to two years ago, when so many of us felt kicked in the stomach with 11 anti-marriage amendments on the Nov. 2004 ballot, this election day had some positives for gays. For the first time, a proposed constitutional amendment to ban any form of legal recognition for same-sex couples was defeated (in Arizona) and even though similar bans did unfortunately pass in seven other states, it was by much slimmer margins than two years ago with 37 percent of voters opposing the bans overall. In 2004, 31 percent opposed such ballot measures.

Other reasons for gays to cheer: sent packing were two of the most anti-gay members of Congress: Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, the third-ranking GOP leader in the Senate who compared same-sex marriage to "man on child, man on dog" sex, lost his seat to Democrat challenger Bob Casey (left), and in Indiana, Democratic challenger Brad Ellsworth defeated Republican Rep. John Hostettler, one of the House’s anti-gay leaders. Hostettler, who was elected in the GOP sweep of 1994, worked to slash funding for AIDS programs and drafted the Marriage Protection Act, designed to prevent federal courts from ordering states to recognize same-sex marriages permitted in other states.

In Ohio, Democrat Ted Strickland (right) beat Republican Ken Blackwell by a wide margin. Blackwell is one of the most virulently anti-gay elected officials in the nation, a chief advocate of Ohio’s 2004 anti-marriage constitutional amendment and an outspoken opponent of Cincinnati’s recent nondiscrimination law. Strickland, on the other hand, voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment as a member of Congress and opposed the 2004 Ohio state constitutional amendment banning same-sex partner recognition of any kind.

In Massachusetts and New York, pro-marriage equality gubernatorial candidates Deval Patrick and Eliot Spitzer were elected by landslides. This is the first time pro-marriage equality candidates have been elected governor of any state.

Hooray! God bless America!

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 9:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

President Bill Clinton (doesn't that sound especially good these days?) surprised everyone when he showed up at last weekend's National Gay and Lesbian Task Force fundraiser in Miami honoring NAACP Chair Julian Bond. The handsome man next to the ex-prez is Chip Arndt who won the "Amazing Race" several years ago with former partner Reichen Lehmkuhl who is now famously with Lance Bass.

Arndt is president of the Freedom Democrats, the Miami-Dade LGBT Democratic Caucus.

For a full account of Clinton's appearance at the event, click on Towleroad.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 3:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Why do I get the feeling this is only going to get more and more scandalous? Evangelist Ted Haggard admitted Friday that he bought methamphetamine and received a massage from a gay prostitute who claims he was paid for drug-fueled trysts by the outspoken gay marriage opponent.
Talking to reporters outside his house Friday, the married father of five denied he had sex with the man but said he bought the meth because he was curious. "I bought it for myself but never used it," he said. "I was tempted, but I never used it."

That is just pathetic.

Anyway, Haggard resigned Thursday as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and also stepped down as leader of his Colorado megachurch while the two groups investigate the allegations made by Michael Forest Jones (pictured at right), allegations Haggard intially completely denied.
But now, little bits of the "truth" are coming out. It's my hunch that it's not the whole truth - THAT will come when he feels his back is completely up against the wall. Kinda like alcoholic, molestation victim rehab resident Jim Foley, the disgraced former congressman from Florida. It's gross that Haggard, likely a big closet case, is so anti-gay marriage. Reminds me of Foley, the anti-child abuse advocate who sounds to me like a pedophile but insists that he is "a gay man."
The hypocricy of some of these high-profile Republicans just riles me. I mean, be self-loathing if you want, but get the heck off the national stage as you figure out your twisted self. Invest in therapy and please, please, stop telling people how to live their lives.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The great Elton John, who married his longtime partner David Furnish in the United Kingdom last year, has donated $20,000 to Fair Wisconson, a group trying to defeat a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage in Wisconsin. Voters will decide the issue Nov. 7.

Elton has been giving us memorable music for nearly 40 years now and as he has evolved as an openly gay man, he has become a real activist, raising many millions each year through his AIDS foundation and always speaking his mind on gay issues. It's great to see him putting some of his money where his mouth is!

For more info on Elton's donation, check out the Web site Towleroad.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 1:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I gotta wonder why any staunch Republican go to a Barbra Streisand concert a week before an election. I mean, her music is terrific but her politics are VERY LIBERAL and she has never been one not to express her displeasure with the Bush adminsitration.
Gay icon Streisand was pelted by a beverage in hurled by a concert-goer during her Monday night concert in Sunrise, FL. The incident at the BankAtlantic Center came as Streisand was trading political barbs with a George W. Bush imitator, according to the Miami Herald. After her anti-GOP riff ended, another man in the crowd shouted at the singer and was escorted out of the center.

Streisand appeared to shrug both incidents off, saying some people would do better to buy her records than come to her shows.

Click HERE for an Out in Hollywood report on a similar incident at an earlier Streisand concert this month.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I am very happy about the New Jersey Supreme Court's historic ruling yesterday that will, at the very least, give gay couples absolutely the same legal rights as married straight couples as Vermont does. My hope is that the legislature in the state will take it a step further and follow Massachusetts to become the second state in the U.S. to allow same-sex marriage.

That being said, the LAST person I want to hear from is former NJ Gov. Jim McGreevey who while in office, opposed gay marriage (he did support civil unions at least) because he didn't want anyone to know that he was secretly gay. Now the almost twice divorced McGreevey (still not legally divorced from his wife) is saying he'd like to enter into a legally recognized union with his partner Mark O'Donnell.

He tells the Newark Star-Ledger: "I would obviously look forward to having our relationship recognized. It's a blessing to live in New Jersey...[The ruling is] so profoundly emotional and meaningful. It speaks to the value of marriage and the value of committed relationships, gay or straight. It's groundbreaking and it shows a great generosity of spirit..."

As the Church Lady from SNL would say, "Well, isn't that special?"

But McGreevey did add this little tidbit to the AP: "I applaud the court's courage. I regret not having had the fortitude to embrace this right during my tenure as governor."

Yeah, the gays in your state regret it too.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 2:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is profiled in the November 7 issue of The Advocate by John Caldwell. Here a few highlights:

On same-gender marriage:
"When the [anti-same-sex marriage] Knight bill came along in 2000, I put $10,000 of my own money in [to try to defeat it]."

On the roaring ovation he got in summer 2005 when he became the first L.A. mayor to show up and open Outfest, the LA gay and lesbian film festival. The men in the audience were all but whistling at him.
"Oh, I know they're joking," the mayor says. "I've attended almost every Christopher Street West [pride] parade [in West Hollywood]. Sometimes, especially when I was younger, they'd have these big sings saying, 'He's a 10.' I always liked that."

On gay friends and family members:
"I have two openly gay nephews out of three; I have gay cousins. In the 1950s, my mother had gay couples over for dinner."
On what he would say to one of his children if they came out:
"I'd love them. I'd embrace them. I've always said that. The two nephews I mentined, I love them like they're my own sons. I love them dearly."

Has he experienced a backlash from other Latino leaders over his support of same-gender marriage?
"I have from time to time, but you're always going to have people who are upset with a position you take. I don;t preoccupy myself with those who take umbrage with my views on issues. I respect other views, and I've always been very respectful that the views I come with are just those: my views."

Longtime gay rights leader Torie Osborn, who serves as a special advisor to Villaraigosa, says in the article: "Antonio is a rock star. When you're a rock star, you carry a lot of influence. That goes a long way on the controversial issues and he's taking us with him."

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

John Spencer seems to be making a big jackass of himself in the New York senate race against Hillary Rodham Clinton. First he allegedly bags on her looks and now he's allegedly making lesbian jokes.
He sounds, like a moron - allegedly at least.

Clinton's Republican opponent for the U.S. Senate, in an interview with a local Westchester County, N.Y., newspaper, suggested the New York senator and Democratic star is a lesbian. A columnist for the paper, The Journal News, said that Spencer made the insinuation last week in a telephone interview in response to a question about whether he would attempt to portray Clinton as a liberal in two recent debates. "He said words to the effect of, 'Well, you know me, words slip out, but I won't call her a lesbian or anything,'" Phil Reisman, the columnist, told the Times. "He was definitely joking—he laughed after he said it."

Spencer's camp did not deny the remark but offered a lukewarm apology. "As John Spencer said this afternoon, if he offended anyone, he apologizes," Rob Ryan, Spencer's spokesman, said.

Spencer, the former Yonkers mayor, has denied making the comments, which were published by the New York Daily News under the headline "Getting Ugly." "You ever see a picture of her back then? Whew," Spencer was quoted by a Daily News reporter who happened to sit next to Spencer and his wife Friday during a flight from New York to Rochester for a candidates' debate. "I don't know why Bill married her."

Clinton on Tuesday said : "It's unfortunate that when you don't have anything positive to say about the issues that we can get off in some pretty swampy territory."

Outraged women are jumping to Clinton's defense:
"John Spencer's comments about Senator Clinton are an embarrassment to New Yorkers of every party," said Geraldine Ferraro, the party's unsuccessful 1984 candidate for vice president. "Does anyone think if John Spencer were running against a man he would be making comments about his appearance? I think New Yorkers know the answer."

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The brilliant playwright Tony Kushner, whose body of work includes "Angels in America" and "Caroline, or Change," is the subject of an upcoming documentary "Wrestling With Angels" which shares with viewers his work and life during a particularly important time when several of his landmark works were in various stages of being written, being released, or being workshopped. He's so smart and articulate and the SRO audience at Outfest this summer ate this film up.

Anyway, AfterElton.com scored an interview with Kushner posted today and I wanted to share with you some of his thoughts about the damage of being in the closet and his right-on comments about Mark Foley:

“Oh, great, thanks! It's good for you [Foley] to take this moment to come out of the closet now that you have been revealed as a sexual predator.�?

Kushner says the Foley affair is reminiscent of parts of "Angels in America," which featured a fictionalized version of Roy Cohn, a conservative gay lawyer who was willing to sell other gay people and Jews down the river for political expediency.

“All this really does is that it reminds us over and over again that the closet is a horrendous place,�? Kushner says of the Foley scandal. “People who really need psychological help don't seek it. When you pathologize your entire sexual being, you are making it more likely that you aren't going to openly seek the kind of psychological help that you actually need.�?

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you've been watching Fox News Channel, disgraced former congressman Mark Foley has apparently had his party affiliation switched post-resignation. I wouldn't want him either but c'mon!
This is what appeared on Bill O'Reilly's show twice last night and one other time on Fox:

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I came down hard on Jim McGreevey a few weeks back but good God, he now looks pretty good when you compare his misdeeds and lies with the possibly illegal activity of Mark Foley! Afterelton.com interviewed McGreevey about his book and he lays his cards out on the table. For that, he deserves some measure of credit. He also seems to have done a great deal of self-reflection as opposed to Foley's excuses to preying in teenage male pages: I'm gay, I'm an alcoholic and I was molested by a priest. Dude, Get. A. Shrink.

Anyway, here are some excerpts from the McGreevey chat:

AfterElton.com: The title of your book is The Confession — not The Apology, or The Coming-Out, or My Life in the Closet. But a confession takes place after some sort of wrongdoing. What is it, exactly, that you see yourself confessing to?
James McGreevey: I’m confessing to my inability to live my truth, and confessing to the fact that for the majority of my adult life, I lived a lie. I’m confessing to the reality that I embraced fear as opposed to my identity, and most basically, that I didn’t accept my truth.

AE: The media have been focusing on the sexual aspects of the book, although it’s mostly about your political career and your family life — and the quandaries of the closet with respect to those parts of your life. Why has the media ignored the much larger political aspect of your story in favor of the sexual details?
JM: I can only say why I wrote it. I believe that I wrote a book with [co-author] David France with a heartfelt sense of describing where I got what I wanted, but [I only wanted] what I thought was available to me. I wanted what I think most people want; namely, a loving, committed relationship with another person. I thought because I was gay, it was beyond my capacity ever to have that level of love, that embrace. So, in part because of messages I accepted in my youth, I thought being gay was shameful, and a lot of that shame was wrongly accepted. Because of the shame that I wrongly accepted, I acted out in inappropriate and, for me, unhealthy ways.

I remember when I was a young man, a freshman or sophomore in high school, going to the local public library and trying to find writings regarding homosexuality, and at the time, the American Psychiatric Association referred to homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder, a perversion. And my church, the faith that I love, Roman Catholicism, referred to being gay as an abomination, a mortal sin, a damnable [thing].

And so, being 12 or 13 years of age, being gay was not something I wanted to embrace. I wanted to keep it as far away from me as possible. I thought at first that I could change who and what I am. I tried my own amateurish, boyish form of aversion therapy, of looking at girlie books and trying to channel, with all my mind, my sexual energies toward women. And when that failed, I tried to deny and repress, and subsequently tried to manage, however so badly, my sexuality.

The reason I was so specifically honest [in the writing of the memoir] was the need to show how, as I accepted that shame, I thought that I couldn’t live openly, in the bright light of day, a gay, loving lifestyle, that I then began to do things that were not only unhealthy, but the wrong course for me. I wanted to be candid and truthful in a story which involves a life of deception, and I wanted to share with the greater American public how shame — and particularly for youth, once it’s accepted and internalized — ironically produces actions which are in themselves shameful.

Click HERE to read the complete interview with McGreevey.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 9:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I try not to get blatantly political on this blog but I've been watching all the television reports about that creepy former congressman Mark Foley for days now and have been sickened. I just about lost my lunch today when I read on the Web that his attorney was telling the world that his client "wants you to know he is a gay man." Oh, great. Just what we need. If Foley had been sending inappropriate e-mails and instant messages (and God knows what else) to female teen congressional pages would the attorney have stated that yes, his client is straight? I don't think so. Foley appears to me to be a pedophile. He gives gay a bad name and having his attorney tell the world that he is a homosexual (as some sort of explanation for his illegal behavior), makes it harder for gay people to fight this misguided notion about them that some ignorant people often have.
If he is gay, why did this creep find it necessary to prey on teens? If he wanted to stay closeted, he could have had anonymous sex in alleys like Jim McGreevey. I just hope that readers of "Out in Hollywood" who might not be gay have been reading enough about some really terrific gay people who are authentic and contribute to society in such positive ways either through their talent or good works.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 5:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey was AWOL on last night's Letterman show where he had been slated to read the Top Ten List...about himself. Maybe he got wind of the list which were mock chapter titles of his book "The Confession."

10. "The Day I Got Caught Governing Myself"
9. "How to Pretend to Like Girls for 47 Years"
8. "From Schwarzenegger to Pataki: Governors I'd Like to Oil Up"
7. "Another Confession – I Can't Resist Entenmann's Pound Cake"
6. "At First I Just Thought I Was Bipartisan"
5. "The New Jersey Budget Crisis – What Would Judy Garland Do?"
4. "A Look at the Governor's Balls"
3. "Politicians Who Left a Bad Taste in My Mouth"
2. "How to Push Through a Bill – Or a Steve or a Larry …"
1. "Why I Don't Like Bush "

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 1:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Former New Jersey Governor James E. McGreevey, now openly gay, has been all over the airwaves this week, from "Oprah" to "The Today Show" hawking his new memoir "The Confession."

I've decided that next time I see him on the airwaves, I'm changing the channel because he's already turning my stomach a little.

Living in the closet sucks and I'm for anyone coming out, whether they are in public life or not. But with McGreevey, who dramatically announced on national television in Aug. 2004 that he is a "gay American," is now talking all about being "authentic." But would he be so "authentic" now if his former lover, who, McGreevey had hired for a position in his administration that he was not qualified for, not threatened to file a sexual harassment suit against the then-governor?

A strong Irish Catholic, McGreevey, 49, has been talking about how terrible life in the closet was but admits that had he not had to come clean about the blackmailing lover, he would have stayed in that closet and stayed in the Governor's mansion. So, ambition trumped authenticity.

This is not some young kid afraid of telling his parents or friends for fear of rejection. This is a man then in his mid-40s, married with children, who was living a very public lie and was planning to continue doing so. As governor, he was having sex in alleys and other seedy places and even had sex with the lover he had appointed to a state homeland security post while his wife was still in the hospital after giving birth to their child!

McGreevey was also opposed to gay marriage while he was in office but said on "Oprah" that he is now supporting it quite openly. He did, however, sign one of the nation's first civil unions bills so at least he wasn't totally self-loathing while in office.

His book is already a best-seller (number seven on Amazon.com as of Thursday) and the "Oprah" segment got huge ratings. I just hope that when a true gay American hero like Martina Navratilova writes another memoir, it gets this kind of attention. Talk about authentic!

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 2:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I recently attented a birthday party at iCandy in West Hollywood for a friend of mine, known around the Web as Boi From Troy, who is gay and is a Republican! So, I met lots of other gay Republicans and it was interesting to talk to many of them about their politics and how their party platform squared with their personal lives. It made for a very interesting evening!

So, I'm very interested in checking out the documentary "The Elephant in the Room" which airs on MTV's Logo channel on Sunday, Aug. 20 at 7:30 p.m. and again on Wednesday, Aug. 23 at 8:30 p.m.

"Elephant" follows three gay Republicanswho are all very different from each other and explores how their political beliefs inform their lives. They are: Ellen, a gun-shooting sugar farmer who wants to help Katrina survivors; Ted, a Log Cabin Republican who works with Democrats to block a gay marriage ban in Texas; and Greg (pictured with Pres. Bush), who has trouble finding a date to a gay wedding in Hawaii because he is a Republican.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 2:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)