The current issue of In These Times offers a rare look at life for "Gay in Cuba."
The piece (indeed all the issue's cover stories) were translated by the Cuban-American blogger and Lambda Literary Award winner Achy Obejas.
The assessment seems to be that nothing's changed since the days of Reinaldo Arenas.
But it's great to know that there's a Reinaldo Arenas Memorial Foundation in Cuba that's working for change there.
The article is definitely worth a read.
It's World AIDS Day.
That's nice.
...and I'm reminded of some Black comic's comment about February being "African American History Month"..."typical...we get the shortest month."
Which is to say, one day to remember is woefully shy of the task.
I remain angry at the homophobic, puritanical, punishing, sex-fearing, "christian" response to HIV-AIDS. And how long it took Ronald Reagan to even say the word "AIDS" (and that it took the death of a closeted movie star and a heroic Elizabeth Taylor to finally get him to utter it.) I remain angry at the idea of "innocent victims" of this disease.
I remain angry at how little memory there is for how Gay people responded to this, growing up, growing together, growing institutions. How little memory there is for how Gay people fed and sheltered and cared for one another...and angry that my friends are still sero-converting in 2009.
I remain angry at how brutally expensive AIDS meds are in the U.S. (and how cheap they are elsewhere) while the nimrods and the bloviators and the moralizing hypocrites in the Congress (yeah...I'm talking to you Joe Lieberman!...you ugly asswipe!) squash a public option...the only real way to provide competition to the profit-seeking, blood-sucking insurance companies...that would provide healthcare coverage for every American citizen, just like every other industrialized nation in the world!
Shame on the Senate. Shame on our elected officials.
Shame on the churches who came so late to the aid of the neediest and who still foment discrimination against gay people.
And every time I hear another fear-mongering "news" report on H1N1 and the vast over-reaction to it (several thousand people die from the flu annually, H1N1 or not) and how people with HIV were shunned by their communities, deserted by their families and died in fear, it makes me want to break something. And it makes me wonder ...it makes me sad... to think of how things might have been different if the reaction when "Gay cancer" first appeared had been anything approaching the H1N1 hysteria.
If you are on Facebook...and who isn't these days?...you can now help White Crane. JPMorgan Chase is promising that the first 100 eligible organizations (and White Crane is eligible) with the most votes, will receive a $25,000 grant and will have the opportunity to share how they would put $1 million to use.
Then, Facebook users will vote on those top 100 charities. Chase will grant the charity receiving the most votes $1 million, with the five runners-up getting $100,000. Additionally, an Advisory Board will distribute an additional $1 million to the organization of their choice from all that are nominated.
So please...if you are on Facebook...take a moment to help White Crane.
The Associated Press is reporting that the Catholic Church's years-long investigation into child-abuse shows no link between homosexuality and the abuse of children.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (infamous of late for injecting themselves in the Gay Marriage debates in Maine and now the District of Columbia, commissioned the study from the John Jay School of Criminal Justice and the results have come in:
"What we are suggesting is that the idea of sexual identity be separated from the problem of sexual abuse," said Margaret Smith of John Jay College, in a speech to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
I guess they're just to have to stow one of their canards away.
"At this point, we do not find a connection between homosexual identity and the increased likelihood of subsequent abuse from the data that we have right now."
Let's hope they pay attention to Margaret.
