Gay planets collided this morning when I opened photographer Dan Kaplan's email containing his photos from San Diego Pride: dozens of gym-perfect, nearly naked men prancing and strutting. "Go Pride!" proclaimed the email.

But the email arrived just as I was reading a very nasty little tidbit from Rockton, Illinois: The local school board held a meeting this past week to hear parents' perspectives on providing a Gay Straight Alliance that "would give gay and lesbian students a place where they feel comfortable and wouldn't be subject to harassment."

One parent showed up at the hearing to support the Gay Straight Alliance. Fifteen parents showed up to denounce it.

So much for Pride, Pride as ridiculously defined by partying muscle-bound boys in the streets of San Diego vs Pride in the real world.

Over a period of two hours, Rockford, Illinois Pride consisted of loving, compassionate American parents consigning gay boys and girls to some level of Hell.

The 15 adults who took the time and trouble to attend the meeting made arguments ranging from the group being part of a wider radical homosexual agenda and promoting a dangerous lifestyle to it being not necessary and possibly illegal.

The teacher who advocates the safe haven for Rockford's gay and lesbian kids pointed out that the hearing "shows why we need (the alliance) in the first place."

The school board will continue to deliberate because the passion of 15 superstition-blinded bigots is more important than the safety and education of the children under their charge.

If you haven't already, go read Part 5 of Suffer The Little Children

My co-blogger in crime Richard Rothstein and I had the following e-mail exchange. We have similar back-and-forth e-swaps all the time, but looking at this one, it just seemed, well, too gay not to share. And of course we want you to weigh in ...


Kenneth wrote:
Richard, I didn't know I was speaking on the record when I said this, but the [Washington] Blade Blog quoted me in this article:

[During Stonewall observations, why] should we celebrate Judy Garland's amazing talent? According to Kenneth Hill, editor of QueerSighted.com, "She was tragic and gays love tragic women. And she was Dorothy and gays love Dorothy. And she was the greatest voice of the 20th century, and that kind of talent is a magnet for gays. There are more reasons, but those are three main ones, according to me."


Richard wrote:
And I thought we loved Judy because she knew where to find the good drugs and married queers.

And now the big question: greatest gayest diva voice of the 20th Century? Judy? Barbra? Edith?


Kenneth wrote:
If I had to pick ONE ... UGH ... GOD ... f**king-A ... this is hard ... I listen to more Barbra, tho lately I've been on more of a Judy kick AND an Edith kick.

I don't know if I could choose between Judy and Barbra for #1. It was Judy, and then she truly did pass the torch in that iconic duet on her show and Barbra ran with it.


Richard wrote:
I kind of lean toward Edith mainly because je suis un gross francophile and because Edith loved rough trade. Moi aussi. Judy and Barbra married pansies.





Readers?

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress."

Frederick Douglass.

In an orderly and festive manner the queers meandered down Fifth Avenue, ever so politely hinting from time to time that it would be nice to have equality. Pretty please? America watched, entertained, some amused by the colorful and outrageous costumes,others offended by the g-strings and brazen celebration of sexuality. But all in all the queers were as polite and as well-behaved as rainbow crayons staying well within the lines. Pride was supposed to be a mass demonstration for equality, instead it's become a festival mostly marked by exhibitionism.

A representative of the LGBT Community Center told one television news reporter: 'You know this used to be a protest march for civil rights, now it's a celebration."

The question I keep asking myself is a celebration of what? Yes, I know, we're beautiful and we're fabulous and we love to huddle together and admire each other. It feels great and it's one hell of a distraction. We are visible. Yes, we are now very visible and we're celebrating our visibility. But some 40 years after blacks and women successfully did battle for and demanded their equality, we're still denied federal protection against discrimination and persecution. Now that's something to celebrate. When will we realize that visibility has nothing to do with equality and visibility is only of value when it is used as a tool to threaten and challenge those who would deny us our full rights as citizens of this nation. Visibility is like cash stuffed under a mattress: it makes you feel good but there are no dividends and no interest until it's properly invested.

Few people--straight or gay-- associate New York gay culture and history with neighborhoods other than Greenwich Village or Chelsea. The odd thing about this is that aside from the Stonewall Riots and the Christopher Street Pier, the East Village likely boasts more influential and relevant gay history packed into its narrow streets and avenues than the West Village and Chelsea combined.

Among other things, the East Village nurtured such gay artists as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Robert Mapplethorpe. The urban gay party was born in the East Village in a little place called The Saint. New York's gay sexual revolution, a sexual revolution that changed gay culture forever spilled out of Tompkins Square Park and off Avenue A and Saint Marks Place long before Stonewall. And what was undeniably the most famous and influential drag club in American gay history was "hidden" in the basement of an old tenement at no. 82 East 4th Street, long before Lady Bunny was even a twinkle in her the eye of the sales clerk at the Lane Bryant Plus-Sized Lady's department.

As we celebrate Pride throughout America, one must ask what cause we have for celebration. The refrain seems to be that we have come far, very far--and in many ways this is very true. But in critical ways this is an act of self-delusion. In some ways I'm reminded of Mission Accomplished, a bold and completely self-deluded declaration of victory against an enemy that didn't exist and with regard to a war that continues to steal dozens of American lives on a weekly basis.

Many young gay men conduct themselves as if the battle for equality and freedom from persecution is nearly won. I suppose that many of these young gay men also mistake bedroom eyes and a six pack for HIV negative status as they proceed without caution.

It is nothing less than a national shame and a global embarrassment that some 40 years after federal legislation was passed to ban discrimination against minorities--including blacks and women--these civil rights laws still ignore sexual orientation. We still live in a nation where decent, law-abiding productive American citizens are punished, marginalized and abused for simply wanting to build homes and families with the people they love.

The job of delivering the constitutional promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for queer Americans is far from done. Far from done. And today nobody knows this better than 18-year-old high school senior Andre Jackson and his 19-year-old boyfriend, David Escobales. An out gay couple, Andre and David--like many other couples, purchased a special page in their high school yearbook to commemorate their high school experience. And like all the otter couples who did this at $150 each, they included a photo of themselves kissing. In fact, on the page immediately opposite Mr. Jackson's, a young man and a young woman kiss on a couch, his hand on her leg as she sits on his lap. Apparently, the school superintendent doesn't find anything provocative about a straight lap dance.

The Associated Press seeing no need to resort to something as inconvenient as fact checking, objectivity and multiple sources, has been led down the garden path by the increasingly tragic organizers of New York Pride. According to the Heritage of Pride spokesperson, tomorrow's Pride March will have something special to celebrate: Gay Marriage in New York. We gays love to celebrate and party so much that we celebrate when there's nothing to celebrate or when there's a chance that there might be something to celebrate at some point in the future.

The truth is that the Democratic controlled New York state assembly approved a gay marriage bill--as predicted, but it remains a symbolic gesture since the Republican-controlled and dominated New York State Senate will crush the bill--and everyone knows this. But let's celebrate tomorrow...just because we can...which I suppose matters in world of so many things that we can't do and can't be bothered to fight for.

With only a few hours to go before the original Stonewall Pride march is to begin its leisurely meander down Fifth Avenue, an urgent email was delivered to my in-box. The Xanadu section of this key battleground for my civil rights is desperate for half-naked ripped roller skaters. In the immortal words of Elle Woods, OMG, OMG, OMG. Gay New York is abuzz with rumors that the annual march is on its last legs, in financial trouble and fearful of a very low turnout. Why? Because the community seems to be of the opinion that the parade has lost its relevance. Some 38 years after Stonewall, there are still no federal laws protecting us from discrimination in housing, employment and education. Half the nation is working to shove us back into the closet. And the President of the United States and his political party would alter the constitution to deny us the right to honor, respect and protect the ones we love. The job that was begun on June 28, 1969 by a bunch of very courageous and gutsy queers is far from done and in some ways somewhat adrift. Has New York Pride lost its heart and soul? Has it lost its relevance and meaning?

I don't know. You tell me, As the floats are assembled this coming Sunday morning for Svedka vodka, Red Bull Energy Drink, the trendy Vlada Bar, New York's late night party guide, HX Magazine, tourist mecca Splash Bar, W Hotels, Delta Airlines, Bud Lite and Rentboy.com will my civil rights be served as they were on that late summer night in 1969? If the Broadway show, Xanadu is able to find enough hot skaters before tomorrow will Pride be saved? Will the Xanadu spectacular this coming Sunday deliver on the gay utopia promised to me some 27 years ago by Olivia Newton John?

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree...

Ah, yes, the famous words penned by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, inspired by an opium-induced dream. Most certainly this is what Sylvia Rivera had in mind. Yes, I know, I'm such a cynic.After all the Bud Lite float proves just how much Anheuser-Busch loves me and my kind; it's not at all part of one big Infomercial pretending to be a stand for my civil rights. How cynical of me to even suggest such a thing.

You know you're in for an extraordinary and spectacular evening when the opening act at a music festival is an all drag version of the world famous Radio City Music Hall Rockettes "impersonating" the Rockettes trademark synchronized kicks and precision dancing on the actual Radio City Music Hall stage. As a native New Yorker with traditional childhood memories of RCMH Easter and Christmas Spectaculars, drag Rockettes was as disorienting as imagining Lady Bunny dining with Bush in The White House.

And such was the opening of the New York City stop of Cyndi Lauper's history-making TRUE COLORS tour. History-making because this 5-hour extravaganza is the first official mainstream and over-priced (but for a good cause) lavender "Ozzfest"--a gay music festival in every imaginable way.

I'm sure I'm not alone in experiencing those powerful emotional moments of near explosive Pride. I remember each and every one of them. The first time I saw the Empire State Building in lavender lights for Pride, I was barely able to contain my tears. My city, my ESB, all gayed out. OUT. As I watched the long line of drag queens kick dancing a la Rockettes on THE stage in THE Rockefeller Center, I was once again overwhelmed with Pride. Bluntly, I just prided in my pants--make of that what you will. The notion that I was surrounded by 6,000 queers in Radio City Music Hall watching a drag version of America's most beloved and historical dance troupe was ultimate outness. I was imagining and delighting in a vision of John D. Rockefeller, the industrialist who built the place, spinning in his grave. God knows the man hated Communists and Jews; what must he have thought of queers? And here we were, 6,000 strong, shaking our violated booties all over his Art Deco masterpiece. I was happier than a pig at the Folsom Street Fair.

I've often blogged about the evolution and revolution occurring in gay culture, moving towards a world I can barely imagine. A child of a very different and hidden thoroughly repressed queer world of the 1950s and 1960s, I observe the new and coming OUT world with wonder, joy and pride. Last night I attended the True Colors concert and was awed by the range and unique quality of queer music (more on that tomorrow morning), but this evening I was sent a new video by an Israeli friend that is, in my view, absolutely beautiful and part of a sea change in queer music.

I've enjoyed the incredibly sexy openly queer Israeli singer Ivri Lider before (sadly not that way) and after the break you can cry through one of my favorite music videos by this sweet man, but his latest creation is suggestive of what seems to be a revolution in music, a new OUT queer musical genre that is sweeping the world. I have no idea where it's going but the journey is an absolute pleasure every note of the way. It's far beyond OUT and well into a very new world. I hope you enjoy this romantic new music video from Lider as much as I am. And don't forget to watch the second older video after the break. Oh, and if that Israeli accent doesn't send an extra tingle through you, likely you're dead.

Not that long ago accredited teachers of anthropology, biology and history in many parts of this nation would teach that the "colored races" were intellectually and morally inferior to the white race. Such absurdities and abominations were even taught on some college campuses and supported with grants by such prestigious groups as the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Institute.

They called this Race Science and the science of Eugenics. Feh. Laws supported by such science landed Mildred Loving and her husband in jail back in 1958. The newly married Lovings were very lucky. Many others of their kind had been beaten, shot, lynched and even burned to death in their homes. Women caught in such marriages were sometimes gang raped. Some men were castrated. These folks had married in defiance of Biblical teachings and various state laws that had evolved to compensate for the "loss" of slavery and were designed to "protect the American family."

The view that there was an intellectual and moral difference between races--as offensive , as idiotic and as outrageous as that might seem in the context of 2007--was a commonly held and openly advocated belief.

Yup. It officially starts today. Not the photocopy. Not the emulations, but the original Pride week. New York City, where the girls are tough and the boys are pretty. And what better way to kick off the first day of New York Pride than with a tribute to the Goddess of Gay, the most successful and famous fag hag since Mary Mag. Drop to your knees, bow your head and join me in this Pride tribute to my favorite gay man trapped in a woman's body. The Daddy of Pride Parades is this coming Sunday and, of course, the annual candlelight vigil will be held on June 28 on the 38th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. In the meantime, how about a dose of Medusa Madonna.

Last night I had an interesting conversation with a student of indigenous South American peoples and cultures. A young gay man, "Victor" is spending a year in South America studying "indigenous" issues. I invited him to share his thoughts on the queer experience and queer issues among indigenous peoples of South America. Victor was surprised and bemused, pointing out to me that queer lives were not an "indigenous" political issue among South American peoples. I stared at him in amazement and disappointment.

Homosexuality was prevalent and open enough throughout indigenous populations so that in 1524, the Spanish conquerors of the Americas officially outlawed it. In fact Spanish colonial and church records report several instances of mass slaughter of homosexual "Indians" among the Maya, Inca and other native populations. If that's not an indigenous political and social issue, I don't know what is.

It's both bizarre and tragic when a gay man imagines a human society devoid of homosexuality and queer issues. The curse of invisibility and the permutations of the closet are particularly bitter when embraced and perpetuated by one of our own. From the most remote mountain villages of Mongolia to the deepest forests of Peru, from the frigid settlements of Lapland to the island paradise of Bora Bora, we are there and always have been. Sometimes ignored, sometimes embraced, sometimes worshiped and honored and oftentimes persecuted.

But in 2007, I believe that in each of our individual worlds and professions we have a responsibility to recognize, defend and celebrate our own, in every culture and in every world.

By the way, Victor is a Peruvian-American and Inca blood flows through his very queer veins. The ways in which we fall out of touch with ourselves never ceases to amaze me. If Victor is at a loss to understand queerness as an indigenous South American issue, he need only stare into a mirror. Happy Pride, Victor.

Afternoon, readers!

Whoopi Goldberg has always been a huge supporter of us gays. So much so that she'll be hosting The Fire Island Dance Festival this summer. And I'm going to be interviewing her! And well, YOU might be interviewing her, too. Kind of.


I invite YOU to e-mail me your questions for Whoopi.

If you had the chance, what would you want to ask the Oscar winner? Well, now's your time!

E-mail me at SanfordMarcus@aol.com with your name, your hometown and your question.

I'll post your questions with her answers as soon as she and I are done dishing ... Woo-hoo!

So it's taken just under 60 years for the state of Israel to forget "Never Again!"-- that clarion cry of the post-Holocaust world. Despite the fact that the Pink Triangle stands at the side of the Yellow Star in Holocaust museums throughout Europe and the United States, the Israeli parliament, swayed by militant extremists, singles out a minority and works towards legislation designed to marginalize and exclude that minority from basic constitutional rights. Of all the places on earth where such a horrible thing would be unimaginable, Israel should be at the top of the list, a nation born from the agony and horror of the Nazi era.

When the Polish government attacks Tinky Winky for subversive gay messages, it's a challange to the dignity and intelligence of the Polish people. When the United States Congress considers limiting the civil rights of gay Americans within the framework of the Constitution, it's a betrayal of the Bill of Rights. But when the Israeli parliament considers legislation targeting the civil rights of any minority, but a gay minority in particular, it is a betrayal of a 3,500 year-old tradition, a profound insult to every Jew in every nation across the globe and to every minority struggling for equality in 2007 and, more importantly, it is a foul insult to the memory of the Six Million.

I cried today as I considered the antics in Jerusalem over the past few days. And while this effort is the work of extremists and fundamentalists, and while Israel has proven itself to be a haven for queers in the Middle East and in some ways even more progressive than the United States in providing full civil rights for the LGBT community, this abomination in the Knesset should be considered no less an offense to the memory of the Six Million, democracy and minority rights than the insulting insanity that comes from the lunatic president of Iran.

"Never again" did not mean 60 years, It meant never.