It’s Sunday Funday and Nobody’s Gonna Mess With The Gays This Week
It’s really hot out, right? Is it hot out? I didn’t notice; I’m eating chocolate sorbet. But if it’s actually really hot out, you should stay inside and read the Sunday Funday in your underwear. Or naked. Because I’m about to deliver to you a wonderful world where everyone is fighting for our equality and getting down.
Like this
This Sunday Funday, people are coming over to the gay side, holding hands, watching porn, and getting married. Plus, there are baby animals inside!
Miami-Dade County Takes Action Against Gay Bullying
1.55 million students in Florida – almost 60% of the state’s total school population – are now protected from bullying based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity. This means Florida is fourth in the nation for number of students safe from that kind of harassment and violence. It also means the fourth-largest school district in the nation has added gender identity to their antiharassment and antibullying policy, and that everyone else should, too.
The measure was approved on Thursday to protect LGBT youth, and is the result of over 10 years of work by Equality Florida and the Miamia-Dade Safe Schools Coalition around the issue.
Keep Holding Hands, It’s Cute
Two lesbians at a Gertrude Stein exhibit at the San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum were told to stop holding hands. A guard told them, actually, that “manual touching” was not allowed. Sounds frisky! To make up for the huge mistake they’ll never make again, today is the museum’s “Hand Holding Day.” Go. Go hold hands! Girls look really nice holding hands in the grass, but I’m sure a museum setting will be fine, too.
The Phillies Think It Gets Better
The Philadelphia Phillies will be producing a video for the “It Gets Better” campaign around the time of “back-to-school.”
The French Like Sex, AIDS Testing, Colors
Believe it or not, this is a PSA about getting tested for AIDS that came out of France:
Gay Marriage in NY is Romantic, Silly, Newsworthy
Nobody is ever going to stop talking about the marriages in New York. It’s finally here! So while we’re on the topic…
+ All We Do Is Wed: 823 couples entered a lottery to be wed in NYC. All 823 couples won. And last week’s Sunday Funday headliner Christine Quinn was super happy about it:
“Everybody wins!” said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. “This Sunday, all New Yorkers will be winners when we make history and move human rights forward in all five boroughs.”
+ The very first gay marriage in New York, though,was not in New York City: it was at midnight, and it was at Niagara Falls. And it was a lesbian wedding. I’m swooning. Seriously.
+ Rod and Ricky, the gay male puppets from Avenue Q, joined in the festivities and made it official – right before a matinee.
+ And the NY Times has an etiquette guide for all you wedding n00bz.
From NOM to NOME
Louis Marinelli already apologized to the gays for working at the National Organization for Marriage and took it all back and promised he wanted us to have equal rights. And nobody really knew what to do, since, I mean, c’mon, awkward. But Marinelli took a big, pointed step toward our equality by creating the National Organization for Marriage Equality, or NOME. From its mission:
Specifically, the organization is dedicated to the following objectives: to protect marriage equality in states where it exists; to educate the public about the importance of marriage equality in states where it does not exist; to grow support for civil marriage equality among conservatives, Republicans and Independents; to separate misinformation about the LGBT community from the facts.
And to make it even more awkward, Marinelli is already taking swipes at Obama for national marriage equality:
“Frankly, if I, a conservative-Republican can change my mind and evolve from opponent to advocate of marriage equality, it’s about time President Obama does, too. This announcement, while an important step forward, is a situation of ‘better late than never’ and I certainly hope it doesn’t take him too much longer to lend his full support to marriage equality.”
Other People Who Notably Support Gay Marriage
+ John Kerry, who ran for president via the first state to legalize gay marriage, has only supported civil unions for a while now. But Kerry “quietly” came out as supporting full marriage rights recently, probably because of how long it took him.
+ Maryland Governor Martin O’Malle has said he will sponsor marriage equality legislation next year and make sure it succeeds.
2nd Annual Day of Being Gay In the USA
The Advocate’s second annual Day in Gay America is on August 12. They want you to start getting ready; go dig up your lace-up boots now:
So get your cameras charged and ready, because we want to see what happens in your lives from dawn to late at night all over America on Friday, August 12, 2011. We want to see every aspect of gay life, from the mundane to the insane, from the glamorous to the gritty, whether you’re on an adventure or experiencing a quiet moment of solace.
Gay Vets Honored in Chicago
Gay veterans will be honored at Chicago’s 9th annual salute. It’s the only municipally sponsored salute to gay veterans by the military, according to the Chicago Commission on Human Relations. It’s an important show of equality for gay people serving in the armed forces, and it echoes the recent news that DADT is finally, finally going away.
Skyler Cooper is Still Hot
Image via the advocate
Famous butch lesbian Skyler Cooper was on RuPauls’ DragU and talked to the Advocate about it. Cooper, a lesbian actress who is known for her gender-bending roles, underwent a bioqueen makeover on the show. When it came to the Advocate, she talked a lot about her feminine side:
A personal trainer in what little spare time she has, Cooper has been a body builder for nearly two decades. She says she identifies “as having two spirits in one body. So when I inhabit something that is completely opposite of the other I can really feel the shift. Internally, I straddle the line of masculine and feminine for most if not all of my life. But I’ve got to say feminine sex appeal is really powerful. I now see why for some women it can be intoxicating to know you don’t have to lift a finger to control someone.”
Let’s Watch Porn
Melinda Wenner Moyer’s Scientific American piece called “The Sunny Side Of Smut” speaks out in defense of pornography:
The most common concern about pornography is that it indirectly hurts women by encouraging sexism, raising sexual expectations and thereby harming relationships. Some people worry that it might even incite violence against women. The data, however, do not support these claims. “There’s absolutely no evidence that pornography does anything negative,” says Milton Diamond, director of the Pacific Center for Sex and Society at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “It’s a moral issue, not a factual issue.”
I don’t know how this makes anyone feel or how anyone feels about sexism in porn, but Moyer claims that a rise in porn’s accessibility (thank you, world wide web) might even be responsible for lowering rape rates. You heard me right, so go read it for yourself. Or go watch porn. I won’t judge you.
My Little Pony, Hungover
This parody is almost like The Hangover for girls! Or was that what Bridesmaids was? Either way.
*A disclaimer: I loved The Hangover / The Hangover II, don’t judge me because I’ve already judged myself.
More Gay Comics: That Dude in Archie Has His Own Strip!
This week I stirred controversy about gay comics and then we kept talking about gay comics and now, on a completely weirdly relevant note, the gay dude in Archie is going to have his own comic. Kevin Keller has been described as “a cool kid” by his creator, Dan Parent, in the NY Times’ recent ArtBeat about the character. It’s the perfect interview to end your Sunday Funday, because by now you know that nobody is going to mess with you. Even the people behind Archie are on your side, for God’s sake. And just take a listen, in Parent’s own words (emphasis mine):
The whole Kevin thing came up pretty organically. I had an idea in the back of my head about Veronica chasing the “unobtainable” guy. In her case, a gay guy. And the humor would stem in everybody knowing it except Veronica. At the same time, our fearless leader, Jon Goldwater was looking to bring more diversity to Riverdale, so things just seemed to meld together.
As far as the reaction goes, I haven’t really been surprised, since I know most of our fans are pretty cool. I was relieved though, because we were sailing into unchartered waters, for sure. The best experiences since Kevin’s introductions have been his broad acceptance by our readers and the heartfelt feelings from the gay community. Many gay readers have explained how Kevin would have made a difference in their growing up and how much Riverdale played a part in their childhood. But the best part is the reaction from parents of gay kids, as well as the kids themselves.
I think we sometimes overlook the parents of gay kids, and how they worry about their kids in society. And when there’s a positive gay role model in print or film, it can be meaningful to a family dealing with gay issues. As far as negative experiences, there are always the haters out there, but they’re not really worth the ink on this page, so who cares about them?
OMG Baby Cheetah Alert!
There’s an entire gallery of these cheetahs getting their first check up at ZooBorns. Obviously it’s the cutest thing ever besides lions.
