Happy Easter 2012!

Happy Easter everyone!  Even if you don't celebrate this holiday we wish you an awesome day filled with love and lots of goodies! Remember...the world looks better with chocolate! Today we are going to let the kids hunt for Easter eggs and then, after they are done enjoying their Easter haul, we will be going to brunch with family. Mimosa's for everybody! We hope everyone has a great holiday and....

Until next time dear readers...

Testimony...The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus

"And when I die....When it's my time to go....I want to come back......as me"

Well The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus has gone and done it again...they have gone and made something so beautiful it made me cry dammit. Thanks a lot guys. I was wondering this morning what to write about for Easter when I stumbled upon their video for the making of "Testimony". The song is a collaboration project with Broadway producer Stephen Schwartz and can best be described as a musical interpretation of the "It Gets Better Project"....and most especially of the deep feelings behind what made that project necessary. While I have often wondered if the It Gets Better Project was reaching those who most need to hear it, I have never doubted the ability of honestly sharing our stories to make a positive difference in someone else's life. After all, it is one thing to intellectually realize that you are not the only one...it is something else to experience that reality in the shared experience of others. There was a time in my life when I could not imagine saying the words of the song above. That is why hearing 250 beautiful voices singing the way I felt almost twenty years ago reduced me to tears and had me singing along with them. Check out the video and join in the conversation to share your experiences with us.

Civil Rights and Gay Rights March Together in the life of Bayard Rustin

"The only weapon we have is our bodies...and we need to put them in places so that wheels don't turn."...Bayard Rustin

There are some people in life who have helped me change how I think about being a gay person. Growing up as I did, in a home in which it was made crystal clear to me how wrong my parents, the church, and society as a whole looked at LGBT life as something sick and to be ashamed of. As a part of my journey to self acceptance, those messages had to be undone and one of the ways that was accomplished has been in the examples of great LGBT people who by their examples have rocked the way I thought about myself...and the world. One such person is Bayard Rustin.

I had known of Bayard...that he was an adviser to Martin Luther King Junior, an outspoken activist and organizer,...and gay. That alone was a revelation to me. Most people think of Martin Luther King Jr. as one of the great leaders of our time for his work in helping drive forward the civil rights movement. It had hit me like a bomb then, to discover that standing by his side was a gay man...one who not only worked along side him, but advised him. The questions I had were endless. How out was Rustin to MLK and the rest of the leaders of the movement? What was his life like? Did he have relationships or was his a life marked with solitude? and finally....why had I never heard this before?

Again, my ideas about who we are as gay men and women had been changed and I needed to know more. Fortunately, because it was recently the anniversary of Rustin's 100th birthday there has been some talk about him and his life which led me to a documentary about his life....Brother Outsider, The Life Of Bayard Rustin. What I have learned about him not only answered all those questions I had and made me feel a personal connection to events that happened before my birth...they showed me and a singular individual, who was amazing all in his own right

Being Seen

This blog entry may not be specifically about gay issues....however, it is a beautiful story about equality that just happens to intersect with one of my passions...futuristic Sci Fi. In their zeal to support their favorite obsessions, Star Wars Fans and Star Trek fans have often battled it out over which of the two is the best...a debate that still rages. Now...I know that my readers know that I love Star Wars....perhaps some would say a little too much. But Like most kids my age I grew up loving Star Trek too. Anything that took me out into space was(and still is) a good thing. I watched it in syndication and dreamed of better tomorrows in which the noblest of human instincts carried us beyond our destructive capacities and into the stars. The fact that Both Star Trek and Star Wars carried an unspoken subtext about race and difference may not have been foremost on my mind as a kid...but the lesson was learned all the same. Star Trek just did it first and a bit more directly.

In absent-mindedly dusting my living room I was listening to a documentary on Television about Star Trek called "Trek Nation". It was hosted by Star Trek Creator Gene Roddenberry's son "Rod" Roddenberry as a tribute to the series his father created. It was an interesting show to watch....but I wasn't supposed to be watching, I was supposed to be cleaning...and so I listened while I worked. that is...until a segment with Nichelle Nichols(Lt. Uhura) discussing a meeting with Martin Luther King Jr. caught my ear and made me drop everything to listen....