Today in Gay History

On March 19, 2010 celebrity Kathy Griffin headlined a rally at Freedom Plaza in DC calling for the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Openly gay West Point graduate, Lt. Dan Choi, and Capt. James Pietrangelo marched from the rally site to the White House and handcuffed themselves to the fence. They were arrested and spent the night in jail, being denied the right to make a phone call and bail until the next day. "But what I was taught at West Point and learned in war is -- hope is not a strategy. As officers, James and I both find it a dereliction of our moral duty to remain silent while thousands of our brothers and sister are not allowed to serve openly and honestly." Within a year, the Democratic Congress voted to repeal the 18 year old policy, and before he signed the bill into law, President Obama stated that ending the ban will mean that "thousands of patriotic Americans" won't be forced to leave the military "despite years of exemplary performance, because they happen to be gay…" and that gay people will no longer be be "asked to live a lie in order to serve the country they love."

Today in Gay History

On March 10-12, 1987, ACT UP is founded by Larry Kramer.



Credit to GayWisdom.org
1987 - ACT UP was formed [on March 12,1987 following a meeting-speech on March 10th] at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in New York. The writer Vito Russo wrote at the time that "living with AIDS in this country is like living through a war that's happening only for those people in the trenches. Every time a shell explodes you look around to discover that you've lost more of your friends. But nobody else notices, it isn't happening to them." Larry Kramer had been asked to speak at the Lesbian and Gay Community Center as part of a rotating speaker series, and his well-attended speech focused on action to fight AIDS. Kramer spoke out against the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), which he perceived as politically impotent. Kramer had actually co-founded the GMHC but had resigned from its board of directors in 1983. According to Douglas Crimp, Kramer posed a question to the audience: "Do we want to start a new organization devoted to political action?" The answer was "a resounding yes." Approximately 300 people met two days later [March 12] to form ACT UP.

They became confrontational about the government's complete lack of urgency towards the plight of the thousands of Gay men dying of AIDS. That was the face of AIDS at the time and no one seemed to care that so many were dying. And many were actively blocking (as many still do) the use of condoms for AIDS prevention. They called out Ronald Reagan and Cardinal O'Connor and Pope John Paul for their responsibility in the deaths of millions while they prevented treatment and prevention. Because of ACT UP, political leaders and the media were forced to pay attention to what was happening. Because of ACT UP things moved for the care and treatment of people living and dying with AIDS. Their work is not finished and their model is one that has been replicated by many dealing with entrenched hostility and animus.

Today in Gay History

March 11, 1967 – Today is the birthday of Scottish singer, actor, and activist JOHN BARROWMAN. Best known for his role as Captain Jack Harkness in the science fiction series Doctor Who and Torchwood. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Barrowman and his family emigrated to the U.S. when he was nine. Growing up in the state of Illinois, his high school teachers encouraged his love for music and theatre and he studied performing arts at the United States International University in San Diego before visiting the United Kingdom and landing the role of Billy Crocker in Cole Porter's Anything Goes in London's West End.



Barrowman met his partner Scott Gill in 1993 and in 2005 they registered as civil partners under British law. They do not call their relationship a marriage: "We're just going to sign the civil register. We're not going to have any ceremony because I'm not a supporter of the word marriage for a Gay partnership." Barrowman explained later: "Why would I want a 'marriage' from a belief system that hates me?" A small ceremony was held in Cardiff with friends and family, with the cast of Torchwood and executive producer Russell T Davies as guests.





In 2009, Barrowman published I Am What I Am, his second memoir detailing his recent television work and musings on fame. In the book, Barrowman reveals that when he was just beginning his acting career, a Gay producer told Barrowman that he should try to pretend to be heterosexual in order to be successful. Barrowman was offended by the incident, and it made him more aware of the importance of his role as a Gay public figure: "One of my explicit missions as an entertainer is to work to create a world where no one will ever make a statement like this producer did to me to anyone who s Gay." To this end, Barrowman is active in his community supporting the issues that matter to him most. He worked with Stonewall, a Gay rights organization in the UK, on the "Education for All" campaign against homophobia in the schools. In April 2008, the group placed posters on 600 billboards that read, "Some people are Gay. Get over it!" Barrowman contributed his support to the project asking people to join him and "Help exterminate homophobia. Be bold. Be brave. Be a buddy, not a bully." In the same month, Barrowman spoke at the Oxford Union about his career, the entertainment industry, and gay rights issues. The event was filmed for the BBC program The Making Of Me, in an episode exploring the science of homosexuality

In 1998, Barrowman was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical, and in 2006 he was voted Stonewall's "Entertainer of the Year."

credit gaywisdom.org

Another Great Hallelujah

Today in Gay History

Monday, February 28, 2011

credit to Dan Vera and SEE MORE @ gaywisdom.org

1824 - on this date Karl-Maria Kertbeny or Károly Mária Kertbeny (born Karl-Maria Benkert) (d. 1882) was born in Vienna, the son of a writer and painter. He was an Austrian-born Hungarian journalist, memoir-ist and human rights campaigner who in 1869 coined the word homosexual. This was part of his system for the classification of sexual types, as a replacement for the pejorative terms "sodomite" and "pederast" that were used in the German- and French-speaking world of his time. In addition, he called the attraction between men and women "heterosexualism", masturbators "monosexualists", and practitioners of anal intercourse "pygists." [Please note that "homosexuality" was defined first. Then they had to come up with the term for "heterosexuals."]

1973 - on this date two members of the GAY ACTIVIST ALLIANCE appeared on the popular national television program JACK PAAR TONITE show to demand that the host stop using the terms "fairies", "dykes" and "fags" to disparage Gay people. It was the first such conversation on network television and resulted in Paar apologizing for his deluge of anti-gay remarks (he had a long track-record of homophobic remarks over his career).

Hymn to Love

HYMNE à L'Amour

(Lyrics by Edith Piaf  ~Music by M. Monnot / E. Constantine)

Edith Piaf (France), and many covers such as Thierry Amiel, nice one by Josh Groban

Le ciel bleu sur nous peut s'effrondrer

Et la terre peut bien s'écrouler

Peu m'importe si tu m'aimes

Je me fous du monde entier

Tant que l'amour inondera mes matins

Tant que mon corps frémira sous tes mains

Peu m'importent les grands problèmes

Mon amour, puisque tu m'aimes... 

J'irais jusqu'au bout du monde

Je me ferais teindre en blonde

Si tu me le demandais...

J'irais décrocher la lune

J'irais voler la fortune

Si tu me le demandais...

Je renierais ma patrie

Je renierais mes amis

Si tu me le demandais...

On peut bien rire de moi,

Je ferais n'importe quoi

Si tu me le demandais... 

Si un jour la vie t'arrache à moi

Si tu meurs, que tu sois loin de moi

Peu m'importe, si tu m'aimes

Car moi je mourrai aussi...

Nous aurons pour nous l'éternité

Dans le bleu de toute l'immensité

Dans le ciel, plus de problèmes

Mon amour, crois-tu qu'on s'aime?...

...Dieu réunit ceux qui s'aiment!

HYMN TO LOVE~  ENGLISH LYRICS

Original : Hymne À L'Amour

(Eddie Constantine / Marguerite Monnot)

Recorded by : Edith Piaf, Thierry Amiel, Christine Albert; Corey Hart; Cyndi Lauper.

NOT a literal translation, but an artistic one

If the sky should fall into the sea

And the stars fade all around me

All the times that we have known here

I will sing a hymn to love

We have lived and dreamed we two alone

In a world that's been our very own

With it's memories ever grateful

Just for you I sing a hymn to love

I remember each embrace

The smile that lights your face

And my heart begins to sing

Your eyes have never lied

And my heart begins to sing

And my heart begins to sing

If one day you should ever disappear

Always remember these words

If one day we had to say goodbye

And our love should fade away and die

In my heart you will remain here

And I'II sing a hymn to love

O for love, we live eternally

In the blue we'll roll this harmony

With every day we are in heaven

As for you, I'll sing a hymn to love

Don't you ever worry, dear

And the stars shall fade from the sky

All the times that we have known here

I will sing a hymn to our love

Oh darling,

Just for you I sing

A hymn to love

ENCORE PAR THIERRY AMIEL

Strange Videos

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This is just plain wrong on so many levels



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I'm Glad I Have My Tétard

Happy St. Valentine Day, My Baby

For Egypt

Don't Worry: It's Only timeschangin' !





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Today in Gay History

Del Martin (left) and Phyllis Lyon (right) at their 2004 wedding

On this day in 2004, and after 50 years together, LGBT pioneers Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin were the 1st gay couple wed in San Francisco weddings. Del died just two short years later in August 2006 at age 87. Phyllis still lives in San Francisco, the undisputed gay female icon of the last 70 years.

In their younger years, Del and Phyllis had founded the lesbian organization, The Daughter’s of Bilitis in 1956. They published for several years the newsletter “The Ladder,” with Phyllis being the first editor for about a year, and Del becoming the editor for the next several years. They also were very involved advocating for the entire LGBTQ community for over 58 years.

For more on their remarkable and very public activism over 50+ years, see Wiki here.

Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin in the 1950s

Herewith a letter published in “The Ladder” from Del in 1956, explaining the rationale for the Daughters of Bilitis.

“ . . . The Daughters of Bilitis is a women’s organization resolved to add the feminine voice and viewpoint to a mutual problem. While women may not have as much difficulty with law enforcement, their problems are none the less real — family, sometimes children, employment, social acceptance.

However, the lesbian is a very elusive creature. She burrows underground in her fear of identification. She is cautious in her associations. Current modes in hair style and casual attire have enabled her to camouflage her existence. She claims she does not need help. And she will not risk her tight little fist of security to aid those who do.

But surely the ground work has been well laid in the past 5½ years [referring to earlier references to the male-dominated groups such as The Mattachine Society]. Homosexuality is not the dirty word it used to be. More and more people, professional and lay, are becoming aware of its meaning and implications. There is no longer so much “risk” in becoming associated with [text missing].

And why not “belong”? Many heterosexuals do. Membership is open to anyone who is interested in the minority problems of the sexual variant and does not necessarily indicate one’s own sex preference.

Women have taken a beating through the centuries. It has been only in this 20th, through the courageous crusade of the Suffragettes and the influx of women into the business world, that woman has become an independent entity, an individual with the right to vote and the right to a job and economic security. But it took women with foresight and determination to attain this heritage which is now ours.

And what will be the lot of the future lesbian? Fear? Scorn? This need not be — IF lethargy is supplanted by an energized constructive program, if cowardice gives way to the solidarity of a cooperative front, if the “let Georgia do it” attitude is replaced by the realization of individual responsibility in thwarting the evils of ignorance, superstition, prejudice and bigotry.

Nothing was ever accomplished by hiding in a dark corner. Why not discard the hermitage for the heritage that awaits any red-blooded American woman who dares to claim it?

S/ Del Martin, President
Daughters of Bilitis