The music my friends liked when I was a teenager intimidated me. It was the head-banging rock of the early seventies, and it felt alien and unappetizing. Most of all, it just felt… straight, in a way I knew I could never be. Alone in my room, I listened to my beloved Broadway musicals, and resigned myself to the fact that popular music would never really speak to me.
And then in 1977, when I was sixteen years old, I began sneaking into the only gay bar in Shreveport, Louisiana. Inside I found joy and liberty, fashioned with bell bottomed pants and handsome smiles and the dance floor – oh my God the dance floor – centering the nightclub was a glorious explosion of colored light and swinging hips and arms reaching up, up to the sky as if we could clutch it in our hands. The music was an entrancing bombardment of sound, and one song, one mesmerizing invitation to touch the heavens, was played again and again.
Joseph Farah, the mustache-wielding, right-wing blogger, issued a warning to his readers, saying that the United States will feel God's wrath over President Obama's political position on same-sex marriage.
Farah, publisher of the conservative website World Net Daily, writes:
Obama and the other champions of this perversion are arrogantly defying an institution literally defined by God in the Garden of Eden and affirmed by His Son Jesus during His earthly ministry. So anyone claiming to be a Bible-believing Christian who rejects that definition has some serious soul-searching to do – not to mention some exegetic rationalization.
It seems that suicide is spilling into our headlines more than ever before, with another gay teenager falling victim to this tragic trend a couple weeks ago.
Kenneth Weishuhn Jr. of Iowa took his own life at the age of 14, after being tormented by classmates for his decision last month to come out. His mother told The Washington Post that Kenneth quickly became the target of threatening cellphone calls, voicemails, and online comments.
Kenneth was a popular kid in school, but only when classmates thought he was straight. Once they learned his truth, Kenneth’s peers quickly turned on him and that rejection led to his death April 15.
Darian Aaron, the Atlanta award-winning blogger and author of "When Love Takes Over: A Celebration of SGL Couples of Color," discusses his religious upbringing in Alabama in the April issue of Ebony magazine that is dedicated to Whitney Houston.
"In my Bible Belt community, I'd heard plenty of anti-homosexual stories, and I didn't know anyone who was openly gay. If I had mentioned my attraction, I would have been shunned. My feelings were also at odds with what I was taught as a Christian: Being gay is a sin. Whenever I heard that message, I questioned it, because something in my core told me it wasn't true," he says in the story posted in full on his website. The story is currently not found on Ebony's website.
Atlanta black gay blogger sounds off on religion
Does your family accept your sexuality? Do your friends and co-workers? If the answer is no, and there was a pill that would cure them of that prejudice, would you give it to them? I’m sure most would say yes and the possibility of such a pill is not science fiction.
British researchers have been studying the issue of racism and found that a common heart disease drug seems to lower racist attitudes as well as blood pressure. The study was conducted at Oxford University where volunteers were divided into two groups. One was given the drug Propranolol while the other took a placebo. Propranolol is a beta blocker used to treat blood pressure, but can also be used in managing panic and anxiety disorders.
In one test, the groups were asked to sort pictures of black and white faces into categories along with positive and negative words. In another, they were asked to report how warm they felt towards certain groups, including blacks and Muslims.
Our most-read articles of the week
I've been openly gay for nine years, living in Atlanta for almost seven and recently met a pretty cool dude I enjoy spending time with.
This gay thing is old hat by now.
There are gay people on television everywhere. I try to stay away from most of them, but I was caught off guard the other night when Bravo's "It's a Brad, Brad World" happened to follow one of my must-watch TV shows, "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills."
In this particular episode, our protagonist Brad Goreski, a 30-something fashion stylist launching his own company after parting ways with his reality TV mentor Rachel Zoe, is whisked away to Milan for men's fashion week.
Here are the top ten reasons to consider a refinance even if you currently have a low mortgage rate. Some of them are obvious and some are not.
Obvious:
You are in an adjustable rate loan that is either at a high rate now or has the potential to go higher.
You have a second mortgage or home equity line with a high rate and large enough balance that if refinanced into a new first mortgage would save you money.
You want to use your home equity to make improvements to your house that will increase its value or "livability."
What shall we write about this week? It is not like there isn’t a whole mess of topics to pick from.
There's the whole Karen Handle power grab, under the guise of “family values.”
There was some idiot from the political right caught on camera saying that Rachel Maddow was the best excuse he could think for using contraception, under the guise of "family values."
There is One Million Moms.com (a project of the American Family Association) wanting Ellen DeGeneres fired from being a spokesperson for JC Penney’s, of course, under the guise of "family values."