The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper: Slog: LGBTQITSLFA

Usually When I'm Sent a Photoshopped Image of a Gun Pointed At Me...

Dan Savage — Thu, 23 May 2013 09:14:10 -0700

...it's from someone who claims to be a Christian.

Thanks for the change of pace, Indianapolis Bisexual Solidarity.

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Senate Democrats Fuck Over Bi-National Gay Couples...

Dan Savage — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:43:16 -0700

...while giving a reach-around to Republicans. Un-fucking-believable.

Sen. Patrick Leahy withdrew his proposed amendment to the comprehensive immigration reform bill that would have recognized the marriages of same-sex couples for immigration purposes on Tuesday night, after several Democratic members of the committee stated that they would not be supporting it.... Leahy offered the amendment a half-hour earlier, saying, “I don’t want to be the senator who asks Americans to choose between the love of their life and the love of their country.” He added, “Discriminating against people based on who they love is a travesty,” noting that he wanted to hear from the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” senators about why they didn’t. Sen. Lindsey Graham went first, saying he opposed the inclusion of gay couples’ protections in the bill.

“If you redefine marriage for immigration purposes [by the amendment], the bill would fall apart because the coalition would fall apart,” he said. “It would be a bridge too far.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein cited Graham’s comments, then, saying, “I think this sounds like the fairest approach, but here’s the problem … we know this is going to blow the agreement apart. I don’t want to blow this bill apart.”

Dems were afraid—Dems are always afraid—that the Republicans would walk away from immigration reform if legally-married same-sex couples were included. Says John...

Really, Rs are going to walk away from immigration reform when they are DESPERATE to woo back Latinos.really?
— John Aravosis (@aravosis) May 21, 2013

Breaking: Spineless, gonadless, clueless Dems refuse to call GOP bluff. Film at... oh, never mind. Who needs to see that rerun again?

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Listen Up, Gays: They're Coming to Recruit You

Cienna Madrid — Mon, 20 May 2013 11:44:27 -0700

You might've seen a variation of this poster around Capitol Hill over the past few days:

The streets.
The guy on the right looks a little youthful, no?

No, it's not a joke. Other posters include wise sayings like, "Keep Calm, Carry Guns" illustrated bizarrely with a tree and firearms, or as Megan posted a few days ago, a lesbian couple embracing a rifle with the caption, "Some people dislike gays. Others dislike Guns. We should not base our laws on personal dislikes."

The streets.

The QR code on all of the posters lead to the same pro-gun website that prompts readers to decide whether guns are a liability or a useful tool. If you click on the "right" answer—useful tool—you're directed to a series of pro-gun links that affirm your choice. If you click on the "wrong" answer—liability—you're ushered through a series of increasingly paranoid and/or off topic questions that equate cyber crime and prohibition with gun crime, or hypothesize how many criminals you'll have to fight off in your life time. Each question is multiple choice, like this:

The proper response to an arson is...

1) prohibit you and other law-abiding citizens from buying gasoline.
2) prohibit you and other law-abiding citizens from buying any flammable fluids, matches and lighters.
3) prosecute the perpetrator of the crime

The questionnaire is supposed to underscore how important it is for you to be armed to the teeth all times. The arguments aren't new or particularly convincing, I just find it striking that a traditionally conservative movement is branching out to recruit gays and lesbians.

It's hard to know who's responsible for putting the posters up all over Capitol Hill. "Nale Dixon," who's credited for drawing the cartoon of the gay couple, returns no search results online. The pro-gun website is run by a dude named Oleg Volk, "An American," but that doesn't necessarily mean he's responsible for papering the hill with them. Without someone to credit, it's impossible to glean the posterer's intentions.

Perhaps being courted by a traditionally right-wing, conservative movement is refreshing and progressive, but it could also just be really effective concern trolling. What better way to make people feel unsafe in gay-friendly Capitol Hill than by slyly referencing homophobia and hate crimes in pro-gun propaganda plastered on every street corner?

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I'll Be Passing Out Hundreds of Dollars' Worth of Sex Toys at DICKSLAP at the Eagle on Friday Night Because Why the Hell Not?

Dan Savage — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:09:51 -0700

This Friday night, May 17, I'll be hosting the monthly gay party DICKSLAP at the Eagle. There will be go-go men, there will be Jell-O shots—or Jell-O injections (as seen above)—and there will be hundreds of Oxballs sex toys that I will be giving away. My huzzzzband, DJ TROUBLE, will be there playing records in his underpants. See there's that, too. See you there? (Oh, and there is a Facebook page.)

Pussy-heavy DICKSLAP poster after the jump...

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Starting Tonight: Translations: The Transgender Film Festival

David Schmader — Thu, 09 May 2013 12:47:26 -0700

Back for its eighth year, Translations is a four-day festival of transgender cinema and art, which this year ranges from the Buck Angel film Sexing the Transman to the live multimedia performance piece Gender Failure (as seen in Stranger Suggests) to way beyond, with 33 offerings total. Read reviews of three of them in this week's Festive; for the full schedule, go here.

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Coming Out In a Big Way

Dan Savage — Wed, 08 May 2013 07:11:36 -0700

Adam D. Chandler writing on yesterday's NYT opinion pages:

At 20 years old, strapped to a polygraph machine, I quietly confessed that “I might be, um ... homosexual.” Technically, I was lying. There was no “might be” about it. The machine’s operator, who stood between me and a summer sinecure at the National Security Agency, broke character with a compassionate squint.

“Could your sexual orientation be the basis of a bribery attempt against you?”

I assured her that no one would find out. I got the job.

That was eight years ago. It was the first time I had ever revealed my sexual orientation. And it was the only time I’d done so, until now. Not even my closest friends know.

They know now. Congrats on coming out, Adam, and I hope you're getting a lot of support from your friends and family.

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Good Gay News and Bad Gay News

Paul Constant — Tue, 07 May 2013 15:55:49 -0700

Bad news first: Looks like visitors to San Francisco won't be flying into Harvey Milk Airport.

A San Francisco lawmaker said Tuesday that he has abandoned a proposal to rename San Francisco International Airport after slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk and instead plans to pursue getting an airport terminal named in Milk's honor.

The Good News: Minnesota could be voting to legalize gay marriage within the week, meaning gay marriage could be legal in nearly a quarter of the US by next Tuesday.

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The Treaty of Versailles Almost Never Comes Up During Gay Sex

Dan Savage — Tue, 07 May 2013 08:37:03 -0700

But apparently there's a gay position on it.

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Walla Walla Senator Mike Hewitt Finally Gives an Interview, and It Is a Doozy

Anna Minard — Fri, 03 May 2013 09:01:41 -0700

Mike Hewitt (R-Walla Walla)

After last week's fumble by a staffer at state senator Mike Hewitt's office, in which the staffer told a caller that "gay people can just grow their own food" if a bill Hewitt is co-sponsoring to loosen our anti-discrimination laws passes, Senator Hewitt didn't return requests for comment. The Republican from Walla Walla didn't return my call, he didn't get back to the Huffington Post, and he didn't return "calls, texts and emails" from his hometown paper, the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin.

Well, he finally gave the Union-Bulletin an interview yesterday, and he says of the bill in question, SB 5927, that it's gone through some changes and he "probably did not read the bill as well as I should have."

He also explained why he'd ignored them before: "He was working in his yard and unable to hear his cell phone over the din of the lawn mower, and later in the day he'd left his phone in a jacket at the Walla Walla Fairgrounds." (No word on why he ignored all the other requests for comment.) The day this all happened, last Friday, he did take at least one call—from his staffer, with whom he says he "had a conversation about treating people appropriately when they call."

He won't identify the staffer in question, but says, "When you see him interact with the disability people, you would be totally impressed... He is a very, very nice person."

In an editorial elsewhere in the paper yesterday (they have a one-article limit if you're not a subscriber, sorry), they mention that in his conversation with their reporter, "Hewitt said his staffer was prodded by The Stranger until he lost his temper and made the inappropriate comment."

Nice try, Senator, but just to clarify: All I did was call your office to ask for comment on a report from Seattle resident Jay Castro, who called all the bill's sponsors that day and had the offensive conversation with your staffer himself. The only "prodding" I did was to ask your mystery staffer if it had happened.

Castro, for his part, has now sent a letter to Hewitt, the other bill sponsors, and his senator and representatives in Olympia asking that Hewitt have a little chat with him:

I would like to meet with Senator Hewitt, and the other bill sponsors, to discuss my concerns in person. I would also like to briefly share my story of being a teenage civil rights activist in the 90's in Spokane, so you can better understand why this bill is so harmful. I would like to hear from Senator Hewitt himself that his position is in fact not what Staffer Doe stated to me on the phone. An apology to a reporter is simply insufficient to rectify the situation.

He's posted a full copy of his letter online here. Castro tells me, "I want to see that bill withdrawn."

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Jason Collins Comes Out As Gay

Dan Savage — Fri, 03 May 2013 06:44:20 -0700

Huh. I thought Jason Collins was black.

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Jason Collins Is the Envy of Straight Men Everywhere

Sherman Alexie — Wed, 01 May 2013 11:27:00 -0700

As a straight-boy jock, I have been showering with large groups of naked men for decades. And these showers have not taken place in bathrooms where we straight men yell at one another from modest private stalls. No, we athletes clean ourselves in large, communal Roman gladiator bathhouses. My high-school locker room's showerheads were placed so that we boys soaped up while facing one another. And we did this soaping while standing two feet apart.

In other words, I, Sherman, a heterosexual lifelong basketball player, have seen a lot more cock and man-ass than many gay men.

As I age, my cock is essentially the same one I owned in 1983. But my balls and ass are loosening and threatening to avalanche down my body. I think I'm an attractive man wearing clothes, but when I'm naked... well, let's just say that I'm grateful I have a pleasant face. And, grading on a curve, I'm actually a relatively fit middle-aged man. All around me in the health clubs, I encounter mountainous guts that make my chubby belly look like a foothill. I see butt cheeks that look like two Sasquatches playing tennis. I recoil from feet so gnarled, hirsute, and abused that a hobbit would suggest a pedicure.

So why do certain homely straight men worry that gay men are even remotely interested in sexually harassing their concave asses? If strange women don't amass in large numbers to jump your bones, then why would packs of gay men hunger for you?

And, hey, I don't mean to punish those folks who are not hot, hot, hot. The plain and the lovely deserve equal amounts of love. I am only talking about sexual objectification.

Walla Walla Is Embarrassed by Senator Mike Hewitt (R-Walla Walla)

Anna Minard — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:53:13 -0700

Instead of standing behind their state senator's decision to sponsor a bill that would allow religious business owners to refuse service to gay people, it sounds like residents of Walla Walla are pissed at Mike Hewitt, for sponsoring a crappy, offensive bill and letting his staffer defend it crappily and offensively to voters and reporters.

From the Walla Walla Union Bulletin (sic throughout):

In a letter to Hewitt also sent to the Union-Bulletin, Michael Mettler, creative director of Achieva Marketing, called Hewitt’s co-sponsorship of SB 5927 and “the public relations disaster spewing out of your office” an “embarrassment for all of us who live in Walla Walla.”

“...(Y)our support of the bill is short sighted in that the implications effect not only your close-minded sphere of cohorts, but also the tourism industry in Walla Walla upon which people like me (and thousands of your constituents in the Walla Walla Valley) reply upon to make a living,” Mettler wrote.

Calls, texts and emails sent to Hewitt this morning by the Union-Bulletin were not returned.

Mettler later states, "this is certainly the loudest story online and in print this week about Walla Walla, and perfectly timed for Spring Release and the Balloon Stampede!" (Holy crap, that really is a a stampede's worth of balloons!)

For the record: Walla Walla is lovely, Mike Hewitt is a dolt, and hopefully his furious constituents—many of whose paychecks rely on tourist dollars—can get a real apology from his office sometime soon. I'd like to say "it's not your fault, Walla Walla!" But y'all voted him in. Now just vote him out, and we can all have a big gay wine and onions party to celebrate.

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Brave CBS Reporter Speaks Up for Underprivileged Older Christian White Men

Paul Constant — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:59:50 -0700

I was so swept up in this idiot yesterday that I totally missed CBS reporter Tim Brando explaining why he doesn't think Jason Collins is a hero:

.@callmeg_unit Simple Being a a Christian White male over 50 that's raised a family means nothing in today's culture. The sad truth. Period.
— Tim Brando (@TimBrando) April 29, 2013

Yes! Finally, after over 200 years as a nation, won't somebody speak up for the poor, embattled straight Christian white men? Thank God this brave sports reporter has spoken up for the oppressed, voiceless white dude. What a hero he is.

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What He Said: Frank Bruni On Jason Collins and When Gay People Will Shut Up About Being Gay

Dan Savage — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 08:03:04 -0700

NYT columnist Frank Bruni addresses clueless straights who wonder why gay people make such a big deal about coming out:

[Some] conversation in the days to come, perhaps not public discussion but certainly private grumbling, will include questions about why Collins has to rock the boat, why the news media is paying such lavish heed to him and why gays and lesbians in general make such a fuss of things. I know this from my in-box, where some readers routinely tell me that they’d be less bothered by homosexuals if we’d just please shut up about it.

Many of us want to, and will: when a gay, lesbian or transgendered kid isn’t at special risk of being brutalized or committing suicide. When the federal government outlaws discrimination against people based on sexual orientation, which it still hasn’t done. When immigration laws give same-sex couples the same consideration that they do heterosexual ones. When the Defense of Marriage Act crumbles and our committed relationships aren’t relegated to a lesser status, a diminished dignity....

When an athlete like Collins can be honest about himself without he and his co-author having to stress that he’s a guy’s guy, a godly man, someone who stayed mum about himself before now precisely so he wouldn’t disrupt his teams or upset his teammates, someone who’s inhabited locker rooms for 12 seasons already without incident. When a gay person’s central-casting earnestness and eloquence aren’t noted with excitement and relief, because his or her sexual orientation needn’t be accompanied by a litany of virtues and accomplishments in order for bigotry to be toppled and a negative reaction to be overcome.

A society that discriminates against LGBT people—and some in our society are working to expand discrimination against us—is, in a very real sense, refusing to "shut up" about homosexuality. Legislating against homosexuality = lawmakers refusing to shut up about it. Allowing anti-gay laws that already exist to remain on the books = refusing to shut up about it. Gay people will always have to come out to our families, friends, and coworkers. But legal discrimination and anti-gay bias forces us to speak out and fight back. Discrimination, hate, and bigotry puts us in a position of having to organize, argue, and get in your straight faces. Discriminate against us less, harass us less, hate us less and we will have a lot less to talk about.

We might even have the luxury to shut up about it.

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Idiot ESPN Writer Pretends to Be the Voice of God While Talking Shit About Jason Collins

Paul Constant — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:45:29 -0700

This is ESPN reporter Chris Broussard, shooting off his damn fool mouth about Jason Collins. He's probably going to be embraced by far-right Christian groups for his "brave" decision to speak Biblical "truth" in public.

According to ThinkProgress, Broussard said this right in front of an openly gay ESPN reporter named LZ Granderson, who replied, “I really don’t need Chris or anyone else telling me if I’m a Christian because Jesus tells me I am.”

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Yes, It's Different for Men

Anna Minard — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:37:37 -0700

Like I tried to say in my earlier post about gay WNBA players, I am aware that the gender norms are different for men and women, and that Jason Collins coming out is an absolutely historic event. Here, Garance Franke-Ruta at the Atlantic says it much better than I did:

Female professional athletes are already gender non-conforming. Male ones are still worshiped as exemplars of traditional masculinity. Extremely sporty women have to fight stereotyping that they are lesbians and ignore all manner of unkind commentary about how they are mannish, while sporty men are seen as participating in a form of the masculine ideal.

This is the backdrop to why N.B.A. center Jason Collins' revelations in a Sports Illustrated piece today that he is gay are such a big deal—and why it is that similar recent revelations from the this year's W.N.B.A. Number 1 draft pick Brittney Griner were greeted in mid-April with a collective yawn...

The reality is that by becoming a top-ranking female basketball player, Griner had already done hard work violating gender norms and was already seen as a gender outlier.

Truth. (Read the whole thing.)

Thanks, Eli!

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Marriage Equality: How Did We Get Here?

Dan Savage — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:39:51 -0700

In a piece marking marriage equality's "sweep" of New England—Rhode Island, the last holdout, approved marriage equality last week—E.J. Graff reminds us that the marriage equality movement was a grassroots effort launched by rogue same-sex couples:

It is worth taking a moment to look back on how we got here. It was a rogue Hawaii lawsuit, opposed by all the major LGBT advocacy groups, that launched the marriage-equality movement: Baehr v. Lewin was brought by a few couples and a non-gay lawyer, all on their own. As expected, they lost at the trial court and then on appeal. But in 1993, the Hawaii Supreme Court remanded the case back down for trial on a stricter standard, asking: If Jane could marry Mark but not Mary, why wasn’t that sex discrimination? The odd sound you heard was thousands of lesbians and gay men gasping in shock at the brand-new idea that marriage was possible in our lifetime. In the end, Hawaii wasn’t the breakthrough state. But it gave Mary Bonauto, civil-rights director at New England’s Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD)—and the woman generally considered to be the Thurgood Marshall of the marriage-equality movement—the opening she needed....

Go read the whole thing.

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Jason Collins Isn't the First Openly Gay Pro Basketball Player

Anna Minard — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:11:22 -0700

We just got an e-mail from Slog tipper idaho, asking us to fact-check a tweet that Jason Collins isn't the first major sports star to come out of the closet. Here's what idaho writes:

Hey, I saw a tweet that the WNBA has openly gay players. That is a professional sports league. It just happens to be made up of second-class citizens known as women, so of course if this is true, then they wouldn't really count in the "first professional athlete to be openly gay" category.

It's totally true. From the P-I in 2005:

Three-time Olympic gold medalist. Three-time Most Valuable Player in the WNBA. And, as of Wednesday, the only openly gay athlete to currently play a major professional team sport.

Many people said Sheryl Swoopes' announcement that she is gay was a non-story—either because her sexuality shouldn't matter or because she is far from a household name. But the Houston Comets star, perhaps the best woman to ever work the hardwoods, is in a public club of one. And that has made her revelation a landmark.

Eight years ago, Sheryl Swoopes essentially said, "I'm a 34-year-old WNBA forward. I'm black. And I'm gay." There are other openly gay players in the WNBA, too.

I totally understand that cultural expectations around men's sports and sexuality are different from those around women's, and I don't want to step on history's big basketball-shaped happy face. But I do feel like this should be acknowledged.

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NBA Player Comes Out: "I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay."

Dan Savage — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 08:36:04 -0700

This is a big fucking deal.

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State Senator Mike Hewitt's Office Backpedals on Gay Farming, Calls Earlier Conversation "Poorly Handled"

Anna Minard — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:19:32 -0700

Following up on a post I wrote earlier today, in which a state senator's staffer told a concerned voter that "gays can just grow their own food" if grocery stores are allowed to discriminate against them, the staffer now says "that's not representative of Senator Hewitt's views on the matter," though he won't explain or elaborate.

I just got off the phone with the senator's office (that's 360-786-7630). It turns out I just needed to call from a different area code to get through.

The staffer, whose voice sounded pretty familiar, still wouldn't tell me his name. (The only legislative staffer listed on Senator Mike Hewitt's website is Barrett Pryce, but we can't say with 100 percent certainty that he's the one taking calls today.) I told him I thought he'd hung up on me earlier. He said it was "probably a poorly handled call." I reminded him of our earlier conversation and asked him about his response to Mr. Castro.

"That's not accurate," the unidentified staffer told me. "Half of that is accurate." Care to tell me which half? "No," he answered. "It was a poor response to a question, that's really all I want to say about that. He caught me at a bad time; I'm not interested in answering hypotheticals. It was a combative call. Patience was lost, mistakes were made, and that's it."

I told him I thought the question asked was a legitimate one—what should people do if a business they're trying to patronize turns them away? That question isn't totally hypothetical; the bill Senator Hewitt is co-sponsoring could make it a reality. He said he had "no statement on the proposal whatsoever," only "apologies for a poorly handled call... A poorly handled call that's not representative of Senator Hewitt's views on the matter," he clarified.

"So you won't identify yourself, you won't tell me which half of the reported conversation is not accurate, and you won't tell me the senator's views on the bill he's co-sponsoring?" I asked. He confirmed that, and then I hung up on him. Ha-ha, just kidding—that would be unprofessional.

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Office of Anti-Gay Bill Sponsor Reportedly Argues That "Gay People Can Just Grow Their Own Food" If Stores Won't Serve Them

Anna Minard — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:39:44 -0700

When Slog reader Jay Castro called state senator Mike Hewitt's (R-Walla Walla) office this morning to ask about Senator Hewitt's co-sponsorship of SB 5927, a bill that would amend our anti-discrimination laws to allow people to discriminate against gays and lesbians because of their "sincerely held religious beliefs," Castro says he was hit with a surprising response: Gay people should be prepared to fend for themselves.

Castro's aware that this bill isn't likely to pass but he tells me, "Regardless of if it's just a publicity stunt, it's my livelihood and my life that's on the line." He added: "I fought very hard for gay rights in Spokane in the '90s, as a kid," and he was horrified to wake up to headlines about this bill. So he spent his morning calling its sponsors to let them know. During the phone calls, he says he asked staffers some variation of the question "What are rural gays supposed to do if the only gas station or grocery store for miles won't sell them gas and food?"

Castro says the staffer at Hewitt's office surprised him with the answer "Well, gay people can just grow their own food." When Castro then asked the male staffer his name, he refused to identify himself, reportedly responding, "I don't have to tell you that," then, "Don't call here again," and hanging up the phone. This happened at around 11:00 this morning.

About an hour after Castro's call, I called Hewitt's office myself to find out if—and more importantly why—government staffers are telling gay people to "grow their own food" if straight Christians don't want to sell them groceries. My conversation was brief, to say the least. When I asked about the bill, the male staffer who answered the phone immediately directed me to a spokesperson for the state Republicans. When I clarified that I was calling to ask about Hewitt's sponsorship of the bill in particular, he said he had no comment.

Then I asked him about the conversation Castro had just had with someone from that office. Did he have any comment on that? "I don't know about that," he said, and hung up the phone. When I called back, someone picked up the phone and then hung it up again. Same thing when I called from another number.

Weird! I guess their phone's broken? Maybe you feel like testing it out yourself: 360-786-7630.

Like I said, this bill ain't gonna pass—because the votes aren't there and because holy shit this bill is backwards and ridiculous—so we didn't make much hay of it on Slog. It's hateful and embarrassing, but it functions more as a roll call of the senators who'd sponsor an awful, bigoted bill like this, and that's helpful, at least.

But confidential to Hewitt's office: If you care to call me back and politely explain your stance, I almost guarantee I won't hang up on you.

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Watch a Nevada State Senator Come Out of the Closet

Paul Constant — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:32:46 -0700

Yesterday, during the Nevada Senate's discussion over a bill to repeal the state's 2002 ban on gay marriage, this speech happened:

What a great, brave thing for Kelvin Atkinson to do, and what a perfect time to do it. This is just 100% awesome, all around.

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The First Openly Gay Player In the NFL?

Dan Savage — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 12:20:36 -0700

Cyd Zeigler at OutSports thinks it could be this guy.

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LGBT Antidiscrimination Bill in Pocatello, Idaho, Fails

Anna Minard — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 10:30:43 -0700

Paul reported earlier on the Boy Scouts' weird bullshit compromise on gay rights. In smaller gay news... Yesterday, I mentioned that Pocatello, Idaho, has been considering a controversial LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance and that the city council was voting on it last night. This morning, the news:

Mayor Brian Blad cast the deciding vote Thursday night to defeat a proposed new ordinance designed to protect the LGBT community from discrimination when it comes to housing, employment or public accommodations.

The Idaho State Journal quotes the mayor as saying, "Either way I'm going to be loved or hated by half this crowd," and a "lone man in the back of the room" as shouting "How does it feel to be a one-term mayor?"

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Boy Scouts Propose Dropping Ban on Gay Members but Keeping Ban on Gay Leaders

Paul Constant — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 09:19:23 -0700

Zack Ford at ThinkProgress:

Earlier this year, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) proposed lifting its ban on gay Scouts and leaders, but a swift backlash — particularly from Mormon-funded chapters in Utah — delayed action. Today, the BSA announced a proposal that would lift the ban on gay Scouts, but maintain the ban on gay leaders. This proposal would have to receive approval from the roughly 1,400 voting members of the Scouts’ National Council when it meets the week of May 20.

Is there a word for a compromise that's not really a compromise? Besides "bullshit," I mean?

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A Small Town in Idaho Debates LGBT Nondiscrimination Bill

Anna Minard — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 10:20:49 -0700

The front page of the Idaho State Journal (sent in by Slog tipper J).

Pocatello, Idaho, a small town in southeastern Idaho, is looking to pass an LGBT nondiscrimination bill at a city council meeting tonight—a bill set to "protect members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community when it comes to housing, employment or public accommodations," according to the Idaho State Journal.

The reader poll next to that article online, asking if the nondiscrimination ordinance should be passed, is currently at 53 percent "no." Meanwhile, yesterday, the paper reported on a "threat" to a city council member over the vote:

Councilman Jim Johnston said he received a call on his cellphone Saturday from local businessman Kevin Lish. Johnston says that Lish told him he would take his business to Idaho Falls if Johnston didn’t vote in favor of the nondiscrimination ordinance. The Pocatello City Council is set to discuss the ordinance on Thursday.

Johnston said he felt the call was a threat, and it frustrated him. He said it’s not fair to do something to hurt Pocatello’s economy over decisions made by city officials.

Here's hoping it passes.

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"Oopsie-Daisy Homophobe"

Dan Savage — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 08:07:58 -0700

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,Video Archive

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Slog's Annual Pride Flag & Space Needle Poll

Dominic Holden — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 08:55:50 -0700

As you don't remember, because your mind was blown, the Space Needle blew every gay mind two years in a row—2010 and 2011—when they flew a pride flag. Gays squealed in gay unison: "That corporation loves gay things." But then, last year, there was no pride flag. "GRRRRRRRRR!!!!" growled literally every homosexual in Seattle (except for a large percentage of gays who did not care).

Which brings us to this year. Every gay-rights group in the universe has issued the press release below with their marching orders for the Space Needle Corporation, saying that they want the Space Needle to be nice to their workers and fly a pride flag:

Ten lesbian, gay, bisexual, trangender and queer (LGBTQ) organizations have banded together to urge the Space Needle Corporation to fly the Rainbow flag, annually, during the month of Pride and to settle a fair contract soon that includes living wages, continued benefits, job security and strong anti-discrimination language for sexual orientation and gender identity. The sponsoring organizations are: LGBTQ Allyship, PrideFest, Entre Hermanos, Ingersoll Gender Center, The NW LGBT Senior Care Providers Network, Pride At Work AFL-CIO, Social Outreach Seattle, The Seattle Lesbian, Trans Lives Matter and Gender Justice League representing tens of thousands of LGBTQ and allied individuals.

I got a call from Allyship director Debbie Carlsen, who said she was disappointed after meeting earlier this month with Space Needle CEO Jeffrey Wright. When the groups asked him to fly the pride flag, Wright "said no," Carlsen says. "For our icon to be representative of Seattle's progressive values is a must."

I do not think strapping a flag to a stick is "a must." I think this crusade—impudently demanding that this company do a thing every year forever—is "a must not." But I'm always wrong. To the polls!

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The NHL Announces Formal Partnership with You Can Play Project

Megan Seling — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 11:55:30 -0700

Both the NHL and the NHL Player's Association have been very supportive of the You Can Play Project, an organization that is "dedicated to ensuring equality, respect and safety for all athletes, without regard to sexual orientation." Today they've made it official—the NHL and the NHLPA announced that they've partnered with the group:

The partnership will involve a significant commitment to education for teams, players, media and fans. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman stated that the partnership unequivocally displays the league's motto that hockey is for everyone. NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr stated the union is pleased to formally join with You Can Play.

Over 100 players have already made videos for the cause and/or supported the inclusion of gay teammates, and now You Can Play will also be a part of the NHL's Behavioral Health Program, "which will allow players to seek confidential counseling about matters of sexual orientation."

Good job, hockey! Just one more reason why I love you.

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John Corvino: It Gets Better

Dan Savage — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:00:00 -0700

A new video series from John "The Gay Moralist" Corvino. John's new book—What's Wrong With Homosexuality?—was published earlier this month.

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