This went viral yesterday, but if you somehow have missed it, it’s pretty awesome. This is what coming out should be like for everyone:

Hours after the U.S. military repealed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, a young American soldier stationed in Germany had something to tell his father.

“Dad, I’m gay,” the soldier uttered into his cellphone. “Always have been and always known forever,” he adds.

His father’s reaction? “I still love you son.”

So awesome.

This is Kyle.  He has two gay dads and a lesbian mom.

[h/t Joe]

In case you missed this yesterday, it’s stunning.  Ruben Diaz, the Democratic Bigot of the Bronx, who has led New York’s fight against gay people and our lives, has mentioned in passing that his granddaughter is a lesbian, in order that he may suggest that he doesn’t Hate Anyone, because after all, how could he?  He’s got one in his family!  Now?  His granddaughter has had it.  Erica Diaz took to the pages of the New York Post this weekend and decided to address her grandfather’s disgusting bigotry in public, and bless her for it.  Read the whole thing, but here are some of my favorite bits:

But my grandfather should know that as he continues to skewer the marriage-equality bill on the radio, television and in newspapers, I am listening and reading. And I’ve finally conjured the courage to stand up for what is right.

[...]

When I was younger, marriage equality was not an issue for me. But now, as my grandfather ceaselessly and callously comments on the issue, each and every word stings, since I live with my girlfriend of 2½ years, Naomi Torres, and our two sons, Jared and Jeremiah Munoz.

This fight is personal.

My family deserves the same benefits as others. Naomi — whom I would like to marry — should be able to do things that straight married people take for granted, like make a decision for me if I’m sick.

You go, girl. She seems to recognize that her grandfather’s words of “love” are meaningless.  It’s something that a lot of gay people have to slowly wrap our heads around.  That the “unconditional love” that we are supposed to receive from our families is simply nonexistent when family members say things like, “I will never agree with your lifestyle.  I pray for you every day.  I will always love you, blah blah blah.”  No.  They do not.  People who don’t understand sexuality can get a pass for a year or two while they educate themselves and wrap their heads around the idea.  And if the family member doesn’t offer support after that?  Well, then it’s time for the LGBT person to learn to accept that the love they got from that family member was always conditional.  It’s a sad realization, but a healthy one, because sometimes the greatest lessons come not in what was modeled for us, but in what was not.

Old Ruben has had a chance to learn the meaning of unconditional love. He has decided not to.  He has chosen to abandon a key member of his family in his pursuit of state-sanctioned bigotry.  Sad.  Sometimes it means it’s time to move on, and sometimes it means it’s time to write an op-ed about grandpa in the New York Post. Again, I say:  You go, girl.

[h/t Thers]

Last night on Facebook, I gave Jan Brewer a hair of credit for vetoing a birther bill that would require candidates to prove their US citizenship, either through a birth certificate or perhaps, a circumcision record [really], to Arizona’s Secretary of State before being allowed on the ballot.  Apparently even Jan Brewer is weirded out by the idea of a candidate bringing his ritual penis cutting certificate to the State House. 

But let us not get too excited, please?  Jan Brewer is still one of the world’s worst wingnuts, and the goalposts of “too crazy” have been moved so far to the right in the past several years that she really deserves no credit for doing one sane thing.  Moreover, on the same day she vetoed that birther bill, she signed this one:

Yesterday, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) signed Senate Bill 1188, requiring state-funded and private adoption agencies “to give primary consideration to adoptive placement with a married man and woman, with all other criteria being equal.” This doesn’t mean that gay couples wouldn’t be able to adopt in the state, but they would have to fall to the back of the line simply because of their sexual orientation.

Absent any evidence that straight adoptive parents are better than gay adoptive parents [religious dogma is not evidence, fools], and flat against the needs of her state’s children, she decided to go ahead and sign this bigoted bill which simply seeks to make gay and lesbian couples’ lives more difficult.

Tom Mann of Equality Arizona had this to say:

“The governor’s action today is harmful to children in foster care and group homes who are seeking a permanent home and the support of a loving, caring family,” Mann said. “SB 1188 takes the focus off of what’s in the best interest of a child when adoption decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis, according to what’s in a child’s best interest. Each case is unique. For example, adoption authorities may have the choice between placing a child with a beloved single aunt — or complete strangers. The only consideration should be determining what’s in the best interest of the child.”

Duh.

Of course they do.

Ricky Martin, who announced he was gay in March 2010, is being blasted for his sexuality in a series of homophobic slurs coming from clergy in his native Puerto Rico.

Martin, in the midst of his Music+Soul+Sex tour, was called out in separate interviews by two major Puerto Rican church figures, On Top Magazine reports. Cardinal Luis Aponte Martinez of San Juan urged Martin in an interview with Primera Hora last week to stop promoting his homosexuality.

“Personally, I admire Ricky for the great artistic gifts the Lord has endowed him, but please, for the love of his children, for whom I imagine he wants the best, try to set an example to our youth of the great values we all share, besides sex,” the Cardinal said.

Uh, it has very little to do with sex, but with sexuality, which is actually a different subject. I would not expect a Cardinal, forced into [assumed] celibacy by his career choices, to be an expert on sexuality, so this may be new information for him.

This comes on the heels of an even harsher rant from Pastor Wanda Rolon, the head of a large northern Puerto Rican church.

“[Ricky Martin] wants to take people to hell!” she wrote on her Facebook page. “RM is its ambassador.”

Wanda is dramatic! I would imagine, though, that Ricky Martin is a pretty confounding figure for closed-minded religious leaders to deal with. He’s got a beautiful family, loves his kids, is quite talented, seems by all accounts to be an overall nice guy, and so on; he’s everything that wingnuts lie to themselves and say that gay people are not. He’s an example of why wingnut messages about gay people just don’t play with our increasingly globalized, technologically savvy younger generations. They know better than to buy into the religious hatred, because they’ve seen with their own eyes that it isn’t valid or true.

Your blogger also likes to have an excuse to post pictures of Ricky Martin. Just sayin’.

Truth Wins Out Confronts Divisive, Homophobic Event By Setting the Record Straight with Hard-Hitting Harvard Crimson Ad; Saturday Protest of Conference

BURLINGTON, Vt. – One week after spearheading a successful petition drive that led to Apple removing an anti-gay iPhone app, Truth Wins Out has turned its attention to confronting a bitterly divisive and homophobic conference at Harvard University. On April 1-2, the Harvard Extension Service and Learning Society will be hosting the “Social Transformation Conference,” featuring religious extremists who are falsely billed as “leading voices for the faith-based social transformation culture.”

Truth Wins Out will place a full-page ad (See Below) in The Harvard Crimson on Thursday, March 31, to educate the campus and the local community on the extreme ideas espoused by conference speakers who belong to the “Seven Mountains Movement.” The intolerant idea behind this radical plan is to “reclaim” and “hold dominion” over seven key spheres of society: education, arts, family, media, business, government, and religion. Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director, Wayne Besen, will be in Boston and available for media interviews for the duration of the conference, as well as TWO researcher, Bruce Wilson.

TWO will also co-sponsor a Join the Impact Massachusetts protest against this conference: 12 Noon, Saturday April 2, at the Northwest Science Building (52 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA). There may also be a student protest on Friday evening, further details, TBA.

“This is a divisive conference that demonizes and dehumanizes entire groups of people,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “It promotes religion-based bigotry in the guise of improving society. While these zealots have a right to speak, Harvard University has a moral and ethical responsibility to ensure it provides an appropriate forum where these dangerous views are vigorously challenged. To this end, Harvard failed. As a result, the university is aiding and abetting the dissemination of hateful, exclusionary, totalitarian views that are anathema to Harvard’s values of inclusion, pluralism, fairness, robust intellectual debate, and diversity.”

Once example of “red meat” rhetoric comes from conference speaker Lance Wallnau who said during an October 2010 webcast:

“You’ve got Islam invading the United States. So you’ve got your homosexual activity, your abortion activity here, Islam coming in, you’ve got a financial collapse — all of this, to those of us who are Christians, is an apocalyptic confirmation that when you remove God from public discourse, when you don’t line up your thinking with kingdom principles, you inevitably hit an iceberg like the Titanic and you go down”

“These religious supremacists may attempt to tone down their radical views at Harvard in a deceptive effort to appear mainstream,” said TWO researcher Bruce Wilson, who has done extensive research for Truth Wins Out on the Seven Mountains Movement. “However, even a cursory glance at their rhetoric shows that they are dangerous demagogues and utopian extremists who dream of taking over America. We will shine a spotlight on this fringe movement to make it more difficult for them to use the prestige of Harvard University to legitimize their outlandish views and whitewash their radical agenda.”

TWO believes exposing this movement is important because prominent politicians, such as Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, and Sarah Palin, have courted it. The university’s ostensible stamp of approval will make it easier for these theocrats to appear respectable and create powerful political alliances at the expense of America’s future.

Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights anti-LGBT religious extremism and the “ex-gay” myth. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.

Not to stigmatize single parenting, but all the studies do show that kids do best with two parents.  The Religious Right lies and uses statistics on single parenting to argue against gay couples raising children, because that’s what lying liars do, but all of the social science shows that it’s not the gender of the parents that matters, just that two committed parents have the best shot at raising happy, successful kids.  The American public seems to recognize this:

One third of Americans say they are comfortable with a variety of family situations, according to a study by the Pew Research Center. That group is called “acceptors.” Another third, called “skeptics” by researchers, have mixed views on nontraditional family structures. The final third group, known as “rejectors,” believe nontraditional families can have a negative impact on society.

The majority of acceptors and skeptics say that families headed by gay and lesbian parents are an acceptable, if not a positive, asset to society. The view on single mothers, however, is quite polarized. Ninety-eight percent of acceptors think women can raise children alone, but 99% of skeptics and 98% of rejectors believe it’s bad for society. The survey did not ask about single fathers.

I went ahead and used the same picture The Advocate used because, really, wow.

Hi, I’m playing catch-up here, so if you’ve seen this already, great! You already know about the bubble that you, as a gay, are blowing, that is messing up Michele Bachmann’s concept of the “family.” If not:

“The family is on a bubble right now. The rate of cohabitating couples in one year increased 13 percent,” she said. “The family is the ultimate first form and first unit in government and society.”

She added, “The bureaucrats now hate our values; there’s a war on marriage, a war on family, a war on fertility all while funding and promoting abortion.”

Bachmann continued, “We don’t need political correctness because most fundamentally I believe the building block of the family is what the government needs to do right now and support two-parent families as the foundation of our economic and social policy.”

She said for that reason, social issues need to be a priority. “We can’t put the so called social issues on the back burner while we are solving our economic challenges because the family is the solution to those challenges.”

Yet another bubble Bachmann sees is the “national security bubble,” and the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the ban on gay and lesbian servicemembers repealed by the U.S. Senate in December, is one of those things that is creating the bubble.

“President Obama is applying a politically correct standard to the United States military that cannot be tolerated in our country,” she said, adding that Obama is babying jihadists.

Bubbles! But if she really wants to support two-parent families, I’d suggest that she wrap her crazy eyes around the fact that there are lots of GAY two-parent families out there raising children, so unless Michele Bachmann wants to be seen as only supporting SOME children, she’d better sharpen up. Also, all sane military analysts agree that DADT repeal will strengthen our military.

So that’s the part about gayness, but since this woman fancies herself a presidential candidate, it’s also important to note that in the same speech, Michele Bachmann suggested that Glenn Beck could fix our deficit with his chalkboards. Oh, goody.

[h/t Joe Sudbay]

In case you missed this yesterday, this is truly awesome:

[h/t Towleroad]

I am a fan of Dustin Lance Black.

He represents what is right with the LGBT community. He is talented, smart, easy on the eyes, and fights for equality.

That said, I take issue with his attack today on the Human Rights Campaign. The award-winning screen-writer of Milk inexplicably teamed up with the Log Cabin Republicans to berate HRC for its plan to turn the late Harvey Milk’s camera shop into a retail store and Action Center. According to Black in a joint statement with the (gag) Log Cabin Republicans:

“Harvey Milk spent the last years of his life fighting not only for rights for gays and lesbians across the nation, but also against the idea that the only way to achieve those rights is to lobby the government and financially support so-called ‘straight allies’. Harvey believed the best way to secure our rights was through grassroots action, coalition building and the election of LGBT people to office at all levels of government. He encouraged people to come out of the closet and be vocal about who they were and why they deserved full equality, not partial equality or crumbs. For the HRC leadership, which still advocates a piecemeal, wait-and-see approach to try and co-opt and profit from Harvey’s legacy is an outrage.”

It is disappointing to watch Black throw a petty little tantrum that is unworthy of his honorable reputation. If he does not like HRC that is his prerogative. However, the answer is to start an organization of his own, not take underhanded swipes at our nation’s largest LGBT group.

As Black must know, real estate is quite pricey on San Francisco’s Castro Street. The alternative to HRC running this store is to have a bland chain outlet take over the space that offers no value to the LGBT community. At least HRC has an action center, where people can make a difference by reaching out to their elected officials.

Black’s cheap shot was made worse by his teaming up with the Log Cabin Republicans. Here is what the Log Cabinites said in a press release:

“HRC has proven time and again that its main goal is not to advance rights for LGBT Americans but to raise funds amongst the LGBT community for Democratic candidates,” stated LCRSF president Dan Brown.  ”Harvey Milk supported both Republican and Democratic candidates throughout his life, and continually sought to reach consensus on both sides of the aisle for the benefit of us all. He tried to get everyone involved in fighting for their rights, whether by volunteering, lobbying, protesting, running for office, talking to friends, coworkers and family, and yes, even fundraising. If HRC, as the largest LGBT rights organization by funding, took a page from Harvey’s book rather than relying on empty promises from elected officials that rarely materialize, then we would be much closer to full equality than we currently are.”

This statement is offensive and factually inaccurate. The Human Rights Campaign has endorsed many Republicans over the years, even at the price of alienating much of its liberal base. The only reason that HRC has not embraced more members of the GOP is that they are so crappy on LGBT rights that they are not worthy of support. Since the Log Cabin Republicans were formed, the GOP has lurched right and embraced extremists from Pat Buchanan to Sarah Palin.  What the hell has this group done to shift the overall direction of the Republican Party so its candidates can be supported by HRC?

Wake up call: The leading Republican presidential candidates so far are Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney. I would love the Log Cabin Republicans to explain exactly how their wonderful party came to support such wing-nuts and exactly how a sane group like HRC is expected to endorse these “conservative” clowns.

Indeed, the biggest problem the LGBT movement currently has is that we have absolutely no leverage with Democrats. Why are we in this conundrum? Clearly, it is because the Republican Party is so abominable that we rarely have but one choice on the ballot — the Democrat.

Before I hear the Log Cabin Republicans whine about HRC, I want to see these Uncle Marys pave the way by making the Republican Party more friendly towards LGBT Equality. When Log Cabin recruits and puts forth viable candidates that can actually be endorsed, we can begin an honest discussion. Until then, they are just blowing smoke where the sun don’t shine.

As for Black, he ought to pick his fights and friends more carefully. Right now he is a hero. I would hate to see his moral authority erode by getting bogged down in community infighting when he ought to keep his eye on the ball by battling our real enemies — most of whom happen to be Republicans.

HRC should be applauded for their brilliant marketing move, as well as keeping the Harvey Milk store in the hands of LGBT activists.