GayWisdom

A Lovely Video - Nothing Taboo

A Profile in Courage

There just isn't much more to add to what this New York State Senator offered before the defeat of marriage equality in New York State, except that this is what leadership looks like. 

World AIDS Day

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.

Two Spirits

This documentary, reviewed in the most recent issue of White Crane is a MUST SEE. 

YES WE CAN!

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.

Pretty please.

The Maine Idea

"Basic constitutional rights cannot depend on the willingness of the electorate in any given state to end discrimination. If we were prepared to consign minority rights to a majority vote, there would be  no need for a constitution."  - David Boies

"You can't put a civil rights issue on the ballot and let the people decide. You have to have elected officials who have courage to make the right decision. If you left it up to the people, we'd have slavery, depending on how you worded it." - Former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, responding to Maine's vote on CNN.

Bea Arthur: Hero

 The Ali Forney Center in New York City, received a gift of $300,000 today, from the Estate of 
legendary actress Bea Arthur.
 
The Ali Forney Center, the nation's largest organization dedicated to homeless 
LGBT youth, announced at Bea Arthur's Memorial Service on September 14th that 
they planned to purchase a building to house 12 youths and name it her honor. 
 
"We work with hundreds of young people who are rejected by their families 
because of who they are. We are overwhelmed with gratitude that Bea saw that 
LGBT youth deserve as much love and support as any other young person, and that 
she placed so much value in the work we do to protect them, and to help them 
rebuild their lives." says Executive Director Carl Siciliano.

The Ali Forney Center offers emergency shelter and transitional housing in seven residential sites in NYC 

and operates two drop-in centers offering food, clothing, medical and mental health treatment, HIV testing, 

treatment and prevention services, and vocational and educational assistance. It provides 

services to over 1000 young people each year.

It Doesn't Get Better Than This...

Urvashi Vaid. On fire with poetry and blazing wisdom...I love this woman.

Defend Harry Hay's Reputation at the National Equality March

As thousands of LGBT activists prepare to march on Washington, Harry Hay, one of the most important and beloved founders of the modern gay movement, is being used by right wing extremists as a bogeyman to destroy the career of Kevin Jennings, the Obama Administration's highly qualified Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. 
 
Most recently Sean Hannity has mounted the attack. 
 
Harry Hay is being branded as a pederast and anyone who has ever spoken praise of Harry is being condemned as a supporter of pederasty. 
 
As one of the six heirs to the Estate of Harry Hay and John Burnside, I feel it incumbent upon myself to defend his reputation against the attacks that have become a staple of those members of the right-wing establishment who are bent on destabilizing the Obama Adminstration and destroying the careers of members of his administration through guilt by association. 
 

Let us make it clear: 

 

HARRY HAY WAS NEVER A MEMBER OF THE NORTH AMERICAN MAN BOY LOVE ASSOCIATION, known as NAMBLA. 

 
His defense of the organization at several points in his 90-year history of speaking truth to power was based on his experiences as a young teenager exploring the world of sexuality with older men, himself being the aggressor. These experiences were very positive for the young Harry and are described in Stuart Timmons’ excellent biography, The Trouble With Harry Hay. There are no records of the adult Mr. Hay ever having had sexual relations with under-aged youth. It is also innacurate to say, as it is frequently written, that NAMBLA promotes the “legalization of sexual abuse of young boys by older men.” Hay agreed with NAMBLA that in many cases initiation into sexuality, as has been the case across cultures and millenia, is better suited to those with experience than with other youth who also have no knowledge of the complexities and responsibilities of sexuality. Hay also concurred with NAMBLA that age of consent laws are out of step with the age of sexual awakening and exploration. Harry Hay’s ideas concerning youth and sexuality were based on his desire to protect youth, not to exploit and abuse them. 
 
The second instance of his defense of NAMBLA was in 1994 at Stonewall 25: Spirit of Stonewall March in New York City. ILGA, the International Lesbian and Gay Association had been granted NGO status by the UN theprevious year. As a result, the US Senate unanimously passed a motion sponsored by the right-wing senator Jesse Helms that the USA would withhold funds of more than 118 million dollars due to the UN and its sub-organizations unless the President of the USA could certify to the Congress that no agency of the United Nations "grants any official status, accreditation or recognition to any organization which promotes, condones or seeks the legalization of pedophilia or which includes as a subsidiary or member any such organization." On June 23, the week of the march, NAMBLA was expelled from ILGA, on the motion of the executive committee, and it was decided that "groups or associations whose predominant aim is to support or promote pedophilia are incompatible with the future development of ILGA." Hay felt that if the emerging gay movement allowed the outside to define it, outside forces would then control it. It was in this context that Hay was critical of ILGA’s position and stood in defense of NAMBLA. We again stand at a similar crossroads. 
 
It is morally and intellectually dishonest and patently false to reduce the life and work of Harry Hay to one of pederasty. He was a courageous hero who pioneered the movement for the equal rights of an entire class of people denied the basic civil rights guaranteed to them under the Constitution of the United States of America. A Dutch friend who spent some of his youth in a Japanese Concentration Camp in Indonesia told me recently that if Americans remain silent at this critical juncture in our history we will live to regret it. 
 
Speak out. Defend the reputation of our beloved Harry Hay. 
 
Robert Croonquist aka Covelo 
 
(Seen on the left with friend, and White Crane publisher, Bo Young, right.)

West Hollywood Book Fair

Author and poet, Trebor Healey, moderated a panel on inter-generaltional love between gay icons, White Crane authors and contributors, Malcolm Boyd and Mark Thompson at this year's WeHo BookFair. For more pictures look here

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