"Bowers was not correct when it was decided, & it is not correct today. It ought not to remain binding precedent. Bowers v. Hardwick should be & now is overruled." Justice Kennedy in Lawrence v. Texas
One of the most significant of of all legal decisions having to do with gay rights is the infamous Bowers v. Hardwick: Michael Hardwick was a bartender in a gay bar in Atlanta, Georgia who was targeted by a police officer for harassment. In 1982, an unknowing house guest let the officer let into Hardwick’s home. The officer went to the bedroom where Hardwick was engaged in oral sex with his partner. The men were arrested on the charge of sodomy. Charges were later dropped, but Hardwick brought the case forward with the purpose of having the sodomy law declared unconstitutional. Bowers was a response to a particularly insulting police action & repeal advocates had hoped that the case would put an end to sodomy laws in the United States when it reached the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, the 5-4 decision found that nothing in the Constitution "would extend a fundamental right to homosexuals to engage in acts of consensual sodomy." Justice Lewis Powell was the swing vote in the decision, switching from supporting invalidating all sodomy laws to denying homosexuals any right of privacy. In October of 1990, 3 years after his retirement, Powell told a group of New York University Law students, "I think I probably made a mistake in that one." He told the National Law Journal, "That case was not a major case, & one of the reasons I voted the way I did was the case was a frivolous case" brought "just to see what the court would do" on the subject. A more callous opinion is hard to imagine. The case was overturned 17 years later by Lawrence & Garner v. State of Texas.
The summer wind came blowin' in From across the sea It lingered there to touch your hair & walk with me
All summer long we sang a song & then we strolled that golden sand 2 sweethearts & the summer wind
Like painted kites, those days & nights They went flying by The world was new beneath the blue Umbrella sky
Then softer than a piper man One day, it called to you I lost you I lost you to The summer wind
The autumn wind & the winter winds They have come & gone & still those days Those lonely days They go on and on & guess who sighs His lullabies through nights that never end My fickled friend, The summer wind The summer wind warm summer wind The summer wind
Nightswimming deserves a quiet night The photograph on the dashboard, taken years ago, Turned around backwards so the windshield shows Every streetlight reveals the picture in reverse Still, it's so much clearer I forgot my shirt at the water's edge The moon is low tonight
Nightswimming deserves a quiet night I'm not sure all these people understand It's not like years ago, The fear of getting caught, Of recklessness & water They cannot see me naked These things, they go away, Replaced by everyday
Nightswimming, remembering that night September's coming soon I'm pining for the moon & what if there were two Side by side in orbit Around the fairest sun? That bright, tight forever drum Could not describe nightswimming
You, I thought I knew you You, I cannot judge You, I thought you knew me, This one laughing quietly underneath my breath Nightswimming
The photograph reflects, Every streetlight a reminder Nightswimming deserves a quiet night, deserves a quiet night
I had to explain Stonewall to a group of 6 young people that I supervise. 2 of the group are gay. None of them had heard of Stonewall. I had to explain it to them, & they got quite an earful.
That the amazing news from New York State should have happened during NYC's Gay Pride & so close to this landmark anniversary was just icing on the wedding cake.
It was just 50 years ago, homosexuals were classified as subversives by the US Department of State; we were officially recognized as security risks to the country. The FBI kept lists of known homosexuals, as did the US Postal Service. The names of people arrested for public indecency & lewd behavior (men holding hands, women wearing suits) were published regularly in newspapers. Being queer was officially recognized as a psychopathic condition, & was a valid reason to be fired from your job. Gay men & women forced out of the government positions by the 1000s each year. If gay people regularly congregated together, the police department’s “Public Morals Squad” would be called in to intervene. Police brutality was commonplace. Hope for the future was pretty bleak; there were no substantial gay rights organizations. The only real community gay people had was in underground establishments, often maintained with help from the Mafia, or by bribing the police.
On June 27, 1969, the NYC tactical police force raided a popular Greenwich Village gay bar- the Stonewall Inn. Raids were not unusual in 1969; in fact, they were conducted regularly without much resistance. But, that night the street erupted into violent protest as the crowds in the bar fought back. The backlash & several nights of protest that followed have come to be known as the Stonewall Riots.
Prior to that summer there was little public expression of the lives & experiences of gays & lesbians. The Stonewall Riots marked the beginning of the gay liberation movement that has transformed the oppression of gay people into calls for pride & action. In the past 42 years, we have all been witness to an astonishing rise of gay culture that has changed this country & the world, forever.
Orphans. We always seem to have one, but in the summer of 2011 we have 2, a canine & human. I will post about both of them, but the canine orphan's tale is a more sanguine story, so it goes first.
Larry, the dog, moved into Post Apocalyptic Bohemia a few months after Sister, our tiny terror of a terrier left us at age 16. A tough one, that Sister, even to the end. Putting her down was an agonizing decision. It is never easy to decide when to say good-bye to an animal friend, they rely on us for that choice, & I never want to have to make it. At the end, Sister's body was that of a dog half her age & she had no disease, no cancer, & no arthritis. But she was deaf & demented. Sister would find herself in a corner & not be able to figure out how to leave, she would walk in a small circle for hours. Heartbreakingly, Sister didn't seem to know who we were in her final months.
Larry was a rescue dog. He was a baby biter & I of course felt some affinity for this orphan. I am also drawn to biting a baby, babies are both aggravating & appetizing. He came to live with us when he was 8 years old & he recently turned 14. Larry is not the most lovable canine. He is a corpulent, cantankerous, covetous cur. He is the Eric Cartman of tail-waggers. Still, it is woeful to watch Larry loose the use of his back legs & he has cancerous growths that take away from his masculine good looks. Larry's entire focus in life is food. He will be with us until he has no interest in eating. Then we will know it will be Larry's time to leave.
The Husband holding a very rasty Larry. Enjoy... the Husband will make me remove this photo & I will have a reckoning.
A week ago, my handsome, sexy, talented friend Bryan tossed off: "Do you & your husband think you could take on another terrier?" I was a bit taken aback because the Husband & I had recently admitted that we were not looking for another dog, there would be no visiting of shelters or looking online, but if a hardluck story should plop in our lives, we might be able to be Daddy Warbucks for a canine Little Orphan Annie.
She was dropped off at the animal shelter in Tillamook, Oregon, by a family in an RV, saying that they just didn't want her anymore. The shelter is not a "no kill" shelter & because they lack funding in the current economy, this shelter does not hold on to animals long before doing them in. My buddy Bryan's charming mother volunteers at the shelter & she understood that this little female terrier deserved one more chance & decided to foster her rather than leave her on Death Row with the Pit Bulls.
Her first moment in her new home
Meeting her new family
Seemingly stunned by the promise of her fortunate future
She has been with us for only 24 hours, but she seems to sense that she has hit the doggy lotto jackpot. I have brought home all our dogs, with the Husband never having had a say in that decision. But, he has chosen all of our animal family's names. He has dubbed her- Louise. She came with the name- Snickers, but I couldn't abide saying Snickers because it was a name I was bestowed with in kindergarten, & the situation that brought me that moniker is still to painful to think about 55 years later (it had something to do with my inability to make it to the bathroom in time).
We have long ago shortened Junior's name to June... so now we have June & Louise. If you catch that reference, you are in my club.
Dainty June & Baby Louise
She already has my heart, the Husband's too.
Every little breeze seems to whisper 'Louise.' Birds in the trees seem to twitter 'Louise.' Each little rose tells me it knows I love you. Every little beat that I feel in my heart Seems to repeat what I felt at the start. Each little sigh tells me that I adore you, Louise. Just to see & hear you is joy I never knew, But to be so near you thrills me through & through. Anyone can see why I wanted your kiss. It had to be, but the wonder is this: Can it be true, someone like you
In 1998, John Lawrence & Tyron Garner were arrested in Lawrence’s Houston home & jailed overnight after officers responding to a false report found the men having sex. The two men were convicted of violating Texas’s “Homosexual Conduct” law, which made it a crime for two people of the same sex to have oral or anal sex, even though those sex acts were legal in Texas for people to engage in with persons of a different sex. Lambda Legal quickly responded to represent Lawrence and Garner. Battling for years in the Texas courts, they sought to overturn the criminal convictions (which made the 2 men registrable “sex offenders” in several states) & to have Texas’s law declared unconstitutional. When the highest court in Texas eventually refused to even hear the arguments, the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case On this day in 2003, in a stunning victory, the highest court in the land found the “Homosexual Conduct” law unconstitutional & established, for the 1st time ever, that lesbians & gay men share the same fundamental liberty right to private sexual intimacy with another adult that heterosexuals have.
The mere existence of sodomy laws often had been used to justify wholesale discrimination against LGBT people. In striking down those laws, this historic ruling removed a major roadblock in the battle for LGBT rights. No longer can gay people be considered “criminals” because they love others of the same sex. Moreover, laws that deny gay people liberty or equal protection no longer can be justified on moral grounds alone.
The breadth of this landmark case is extraordinary. The Supreme Court declared all sodomy laws unconstitutional, putting an end to the sodomy laws that remained on the books in 13 states at the time of the ruling, including laws that criminalized only same-sexual conduct & laws that criminalized oral & anal sex irrespective of the sex of the participants. The Court also reversed Bowers v. Hardwick, its 1986 decision that upheld Georgia’s sodomy law that had been extraordinarily harmful to gay people’s struggles both for liberty & equality. The decision’s sweeping language about gay people’s equal rights to liberty marked a new era of legal respect for the LGBT community. Lawrence v. Texas is considered the most significant gay rights breakthrough of our time.
I think I may have to celebrate this historic anniversary with some hot & very legal man sex.
He won me over big with Wham! & Careless Whisper in 1984 (my favorite year of my life, so far), & I never let him go. The hits kept coming & I was right there for the next 25+ years. I am just a sucker for a hot ass in a tight pair of jeans, a leather jacket, & some stubble. Add in those phenomenal pipes & the killer hooks & it is a love affair for Stephen. The love has never wavered.
George Michael was the 1st white male to top the Black Music charts & the 1st white male to duet with Aretha Franklin with the infectious single- I Knew You Were Waiting. His breakout solo album Faith (1987) had 5 #1 hit singles & spent 51 weeks in the Billboard Top 10, including 12 weeks at #1.
Faith left Michael struggling to deal with his secret homosexuality. The feelings of loneliness, disaffection were themes in his next album- Listen Without Prejudice Vol.1. (1990) The album had a more soulful & stripped-down sound, producing 5 U.S. Top 40 hits: Waiting For That Day, Cowboys & Angels,Heal the Pain, Praying for Time & the personal confessional song Freedom! 90. It sold 7 million copies & spent 42 weeks in the Billboard Top 100 charts.
George Michael's album- Older is my personal favorite, an album that speaks to me in a deep personal way. Older was the soundtrack of my life in the late 1990s & I was moved by the title track & the mournful Like Jesus To A Child in a way the was profound & very moving. Like Jesus to a Child is a salutation to Michael’s secret partner- Brazilian fashion designer Anselmo Feleppa. Feleppa had died 3 years earlier of an AIDS-related brain hemorrhage, leaving Michael feeling alone & despondent. Michael was not openly gay & no one knew who the song was about. Older went on to sell more than 12 million copies worldwide & spent more than 96 weeks on the charts.
After grappling with the death of Feleppa, he met his future husband, American Kenny Goss. In 2005, Goss opened the Goss Gallery in Dallas, which shows contemporary art, including those collected by the couple. They have homes in London and Dallas. While the joy of his new relationship started to ease his pain, he soon lost his mother to skin cancer, a loss that tormented George for several years. He did not write or record during that period, except Songs From TheLast Century (2000), an album of standards & covers.
In 1998, Michael was arrested in Beverly Hills, California, on a charge of lewd conduct in a park bathroom. The arrest made worldwide headlines & led him to come out of the closet. He poked fun at the arrest in the hit single- Outside.
In 2004 Michael released Patience, which sold more than 200,000 copies in the first week. It spun several Top 10 hits including Freeek!,Amazing & Flawless (Go to the City), all dedicated to Kenny Goss. In 2006, George Michael announced his 1st tour in 15 years. The 25 Live tour was a massive & worldwide, & spanned 3 individual tours over the course of 3 years. He still looks & sounds terrific.
Last year on this day, I posted on Larry Kramer's birthday, the essence of that post is repeated below. I discovered that Mr. Kramer had commented on that post, providing me with one of the top thrilling turning points in my life. On my modest little spot on the Internet, I have been blessed with comments from writers & musicians that I have posted about, but Kramer is a pivotal, phenomenal, & have to say it- most QUEER figures in my life.
His work & his life have informed, impressed & influenced my life like few others. From his novel- Faggots to his most recent rants, Kramer is a part of who I am today. I remember coming home from work & dancing, screaming to the Husband- "Larry Kramer left a comment on Post Apocalyptic Bohemian! Oh, my God, Oh, my God!"
In April of 2011, Kramer took on editor/writer Thomas Rogers of Salon, in a generation on generation debate about gay identity. I understood Kramer's position. Like Kramer, I am not Post-Gay. Before I am an American, before I am a white male, before I am a progressive... I am a Gay Man. The struggles, sensibilities & spirit that give me breath are linked directly to being a gay man. As I have stated before, if I was not gay, I would be a white- straight- Protestant male, I would be- The Man. I have always considered being gay to be a gift from God. I would not wanted to live my life as an insider.
This month marked the 30th anniversary of the first diagnosed cases of AIDS.
Larry Kramer was there & he wrote a play- The Normal Heart, which I have a bit of history with.
The Normal Heart, which is currently on Broadway, on the high holy day of Tony Award night, won for Best Revival of a Play, along with Best Supporting Actor & Actress for John Benjamin Hickey & Ellen Barkin. Kramer was on stage to accept the award with the producers: “To gay people everywhere, whom I love so dearly, The Normal Heart is our history. I could not have written it had not so many needlessly died. Learn from it & carry on the fight. Let them know that we are a very special people, an exceptional people, & that, our day will come.”
Here is my story with my link to Larry Kramer & The Normal Heart:
Despite my reputation as a hedonist, a fellow known to swig & smoke & swallow substances to feel better, forget, or lose myself; I have never performed while anything less than stone cold sober. As an actor & a singer I was always clean as a whistle, had my homework done, was prompt for rehearsals & performances, & made it a point to get along with the cast & crew.
I had done a lot of work, a lot of good work, sometimes with some troublesome behavior swirling around me, at the now defunct- Pioneer Square Theatre in the 1980s. I was not completely surprised, but still thrilled, when the artistic director & the managing director told me that they had seen a production of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart in London, & that they had secured the rights for the 1st Seattle production with me in mind for the role of Ned Weeks (the stand in for Kramer himself). I had already read the play & I was very intrigued with the idea of playing someone so close to my own personality. I usually was chosen for roles that were not anything like the real me. It was a breathtakingly good role in a powerful play. I never assumed for even a moment that the role was sewn up. I worked especially hard at the audition & call back, but I had a different kind of confidence, knowing that it was originally chosen with me in mind. I didn’t get the part. I never portrayed Ned Weeks, a role on paper that haunted me with the likeness to my own psyche. The role went to the artistic director himself, a straight man, who must have realized how juicy the character was. I was offered another role & was told- “you are much too good for the part, but we would still like you to be a part of this project.” I should have been a better man & a better actor; I turned down the smaller role. I had an inner dialogue congratulating myself on dealing with my dreams being dashed in such a mature way. I never shed a tear or had a regret. I wished them all well & moved on. I had read a week’s worth of press before the opening & didn’t flinch with a sadness for opportunities lost. But, on the afternoon of the opening of The Normal Heart… I broke out in a serious case of the hives. Every inch of my body covered in welts & rashes. 6 weeks of bottling up my feelings & putting on my proud face took a toll on my body & I was a mess. I finally cried. I would never be Ned Weeks. The Husband: “The body is a powerful thing. Yours in giving you a really strong message.”
Larry Kramer was an accidental leader, thrown into action during the 1st days of the AIDS epidemic when his friends began getting infected. Kramer: "I was just a New York faggot like everyone else who was gay then. I didn't march in Pride. We used to be at Fire Island & make fun of all that." Kramer is an immensely accomplished playwright, screenwriter, novelist, & journalist. Kramer described himself as a shy person who "gets nervous when I'm away from my computer." He was nominated for a Tony for The Normal Heart, won an Obie Award for his 1993 play The Destiny ofMe (also a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize), & his screenplay for the film Women in Love was nominated for an Academy Award in 1969.
Larry Kramer's Faggots has been in print since its original publication in 1978. It has become one of the best-selling novels about gay life ever written. The book is a fierce satire of the gay ghetto & a touching story of a man's desperate search for love. I guess little has changed since 1978. Celebrated & reviled, this gay classic is not for the faint of heart. It is a harsh, fascinating look at the excesses of a generation that couldn't hear the bell tolling over the disco beat.
As AIDS threatened the lives of his friends, & fueled by fear & anger at the government for ignoring the epidemic, Kramer co-founded Gay Men's Health Crisis, the first & world's largest service provider to people with AIDS, in 1981. Frustrated by that organization's non-confrontational nature, he launched the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power-ACT UP in 1987, leading a grassroots effort for the approval process for drugs to treat AIDS. At its height from the late1980s to the mid 1990s, ACT UP boasted 140 chapters nationwide.
He is a powerful & profound writer & a real crank. Kramer: "You do not get more with honey than with vinegar. You get it by being harsh & demanding and in-your-face – constantly. We're all anxious to have everyone love us. It's difficult to maintain that if you have strong opinions."
Larry Kramer lives in NYC & in a country house in Connecticut, with David Webster, an architect, & the man for whom Mr. Kramer has waited 17 years. The pair met in the late 1960's & dated in the 1970s, but spent the 1980's apart.. Webster came back into Kramer's life in the 1990's, HIV negative & ready to live out his life with Kramer. The effect he has had on Kramer is said to be palpable, the calm that comes with finally being seen, finally being heard, & finally being loved.
Thank you, New York State. I have been alive long enough to remember that in NY, a person could be arrested for dancing with someone of the same sex; now in NY a you can marry the person you love, even if they happen to be the same sex. That is amazing.
I was once a New Yorker, & although I understand that it is a large & diverse state,I always think of NY State as NYC, the city that is the center if the universe.
I happen to like New York, I happen to like this town. I like the city air, I like to drink of it, The more I know New York the more I think of it. I like the sight & the sound & even the stink of it. I happen to like New York. I like to go to Battery Park & watch those liners booming in. I often ask myself, why should it be that they come so far across the sea. I suppose it's because they all agree with me. They happen to like New York. Last Sunday afternoon I took a trip to Hackensack, But after I gave Hackensack the once over, I took the next train back. I happen to like New York. I happen to love this burg. When I have to give the world a last farewell, & the undertaker starts to ring my funeral bell, I don't want to go to heaven, don't want to go to hell. I happen to like New York. I happen to like New York.
Cole Porter 1930
We were married in Vancouver BC, my 2nd favorite city, on our 25th anniversary of being a couple. We had decided that we would never have another wedding, after all, we are actually married. But, if he would have me, & if we don't divorce before then, I would feel very good about getting married again in NYC.
One of my very favorite memories of our 32 years together, was watching my husband's face as we emerged from the subway at 42nd Street, & stepped into Time Square at sunset, ablaze in neon & racket, on our first visit together in the city that never sleeps.
It's a lazy afternoon & the beetle bugs are zooming & the tulip trees are blooming & there's not another human in view but us 2
It's a lazy afternoon & the farmer leaves his reaping In the meadow cows are sleeping & the speckled trouts stop leaping upstream as we dream
A far pink cloud hangs over a hill Unfolding like a rose If you hold my hand & sit real still You can hear the grass as it grows
It's a hazy afternoon & I know a place that's quiet except for daisies running riot & there's no one passing by it to see Come spend this lazy afternoon with me Come spend this lazy afternoon with me Lazy afternoon
It's a hazy afternoon & I know a place that's quiet except for daisies running riot & there's no one passing by it to see Come spend this lazy afternoon with me, with me
You know, maybe the weather is off. You know? The atmospheric pressure is getting to me or something. Maybe it's the new glasses... but I gotta tell you- tonight I was feeling creative. Also, I've been reading intructables.com for maybe too long today. The point here, Readers is that what I learned is that you can make anything out of anything. An imitation coach purse out of duct tape for example.
Coach bags are expensive. Sure, I jones for them. I'm not sure why I feel like I should have a $500 purse in which to store my ipod, lady supplies and loose cheerios, but I do. There is, however, enough rebel in me to reject excessive spending like that and be more practical. Creative. People have been making their own purses for centuries and there is no reason why I couldn't also figure it out.
The only problem tonight, you guys, is that i didn't have the stuff to make a real coach bag. All i had was a coloring sheet that my kid left out, featuring an antelope, some twine, a zip tie and some duct tape. Luckily I went on that button making binge for a while there too, because I had, available to me: one super sculpey button. It totally looks like bone.
So of course I made a purse and some instructions so that you can make one too at home.... I also wrote a song about it and have added that to the end of this post. Those are some of the things I did with my time today. *sobs*
Ok. Here it is:
Supplies I had on hand.
First I had some beer.
Folded the paper into a "purse shape" and taped the back.
Made creases in the new duct tape fabric.
Cut little tabs in sides of the "bottom"... not sure why, it seemed like a great idea.
I found my science fiction novel the perfect size to mold the inside of the purse. Just the right thickness.
I wrapped the "purse" around the book. Before I taped it together though, I covered the other side of the paper with tape. We want our duct tape purses to be fully covered inside and out. No coloring pages sticking through. That would be humiliating.
Secured the edges with tape, inside and out and folded the sides in like a little duct tape accordion.
Folded the flap over the top...
Made a nice duct tape strap by folding a long piece of tape over itself in 3.
Strap's almost on...
secured the strap.
made a button hole and and attached the zip tie.
Attached the awesome button I was telling you about..
TADA. Just needs some decorative touches with a sharpie..
The back...
The front.
It's basically exactly like a real coach purse as you can tell from this grainy photo. AH.MAZING, amiright, Ladies?
But enough of that, here is the song. PS, Neil helped me with the artistic direction:
