T H E W E E K LY N E W S P A P E R F O R L E S B I A N , G AY, B I A N D T R A N S N E W Y O R K E R S

Gay
G City
ay City
NEWS

J U N E 2 6 - J U LY 2 , 2 0 0 8
VOLUME SEVEN, ISSUE 26

FREEDOM::
FREEDOM
LIVE. LOVE. BE.
PRIDE 2008
FERNANDO PREDA AND JEFF VASQUEZ – FRIENDS, NOT LOVERS – DEMONSTRATE FOR THE CAMERA JUST A BIT OF THE EXUBERANCE OF
THE DAY AS THEY CELEBRATE WITH GLOBE, GAYS AND LESBIANS OF BUSHWICK EMPOWERED, ON SATURDAY, JUNE 21. GAY CITY NEWS

A M E R I C A’ S L A R G E S T C I R C U L A T I O N L G B T N E W S P A P E R | G AY C I T Y N E W S . C O M
2/ Crime 26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008

Two ‘Jersey 4’ Convictions Tossed

Lesbians convicted in 2006 West Village assault win on appeal; one cannot be retried
BY DUNCAN OSBORNE attacked him. The young her conviction on a misde- tally misinstructed on two a common feature at some
women charged that Buckle meanor charge in the case issues that were central to community protests. The

A
state appeals court
has overtur ned the
convictions of two of
four young lesbians who were
found guilty last year in a
2006 West Village attack on a
straight man.
“I’m ecstatic at the deci-
sion,” said Jan Hoth, the
attor ney who represented
Terrain Dandridge, 21, and
is the lead appellate counsel
at the Center for Appellate
Litigation, a non-profit law
firm that handles appeals. “I
never believed that Terrain
should be in prison for this
crime.”
Dandridge, Patreese John-
son, 20, Renata Hill, 26, and
Venice Brown, 20, were con-
victed on various charges,
including gang assault, and
given prison sentences that
ranged from three-and-a-half
to 11 years.
The victim, Dwayne Buck-
le, said he only flirted with
one of the girls and they
was the aggressor and they
were defending themselves.
“In Dandridge’s case, the court
specifically found that there was
insufficient evidence of her guilt.”
Citing jury instruc-
tion err ors by Edward J.
McLaughlin, the trial judge,
the four -judge appellate
panel threw out the Dan-
dridge conviction and dis-
missed the indictment
against her.
“She cannot be retried in
this case,” Hoth said. “In
her case, the court specifi-
cally found that there was
insufficient evidence of her
guilt... It’s over. The Court
of Appeals doesn’t even have
jurisdiction in this case.”
Hill’s gang assault conviction
was also overturned, though
stands. The Manhattan district
attorney could retry her.
“She can now be retried on
the gang assault count,” said
Alexis Agathocleous, Hill’s
attorney and a senior staff
attorney in the Office of the
Appellate Defender, also a
non-profit law firm. “We don’t
have any indication from [the
district attorney]. We cer -
tainly hope that they agree to
dismiss the felony charge.”
The appellate panel fault-
ed McLaughlin for giving the
jury “confusing and errone-
ous” instructions on the legal
meaning of self-defense and
of acting in concert.
“The jury was fundamen-
the trial,” Agathocleous said.
“I can’t overstate how abso-
lutely central these concepts
were in these cases.”
A single jury decided the
cases against all four women.
Hoth said that Brown will
likely have her conviction
overturned as the same jury
instructions issues occurred
in her case.
“Ms. Brown will probably
get her conviction reversed as
well and a new trial ordered,”
she said. Brown’s appeal will
be filed by July 7.
Johnson was convicted
of actually stabbing Buckle
so the acting in concert and
justification errors may not
apply in her case. Her attor-
neys had already filed their
appeal when the June 19
Dandridge-Hill opinion was
released so her attor neys
could not cite it.
The verdicts and sentences
angered some activists. “Free
the Jersey 4” signs became
four African-American lesbi-
ans were from New Jersey.
“We’re really excited,” said
Rickke Mananzala, executive
director of FIERCE, or Fabu-
lous Independent Educated
Radicals for Community
Empowerment. “This is what
all four of them deserve...
Obviously, the two the
women, Venice and Patreese,
we hope they get the same
thing.”
Three other women who
were involved in the alterca-
tion pleaded guilty and were
sentenced to six months in
jail and five years on proba-
tion.
The case was also notable
for lurid press coverage with
the four being called “seven
bloodthirsty young lesbians”
in the New York Post, “a pack
of marauding lesbians” in
the New York Times, and the
Associated Press said they
were “all avowed lesbians
from Newark.”

faces
of change
POINT FOUNDATION is the nation’s
largest scholarship-granting organization
for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
(LGBT) students of merit. Point Foundation
provides financial support, leadership
training, mentoring and hope to LGBT
individuals who are marginalized because
of their sexual orientation, gender identity
or gender expression.

Invest with Point Foundation and help change

the LGBT community through education.

www.pointfoundation.org | 866.337.6468
 Green-E Logo is a trademark of Center of Resource Solutions. All other trademarks are owned by Frito-Lay North America, Inc. © 2008.
Corporate Equality Index is a trademark of the Human Rights Campaign.
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

Actual solar collectors at our Sunchips® plant in Modesto,California.

26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008

Lofty goal for chips?

A better world for everyone.
3
4/ Legal 26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008

The Strategy Behind a Challenge

National Center for Lesbian Rights’ Shannon Minter explains last week’s California court filing
BY ANDY HUMM “is completely unprecedented,” also saying that the Cali-
Minter said, “using the initia- fornia amendment is mis-

T
he biggest LGBT rights
battle of the year is the
fight to defeat a Califor-
nia ballot initiative that would
amend the state constitution
to limit marriage to different-
sex couples. But the groups
that won marriage equal-
ity there filed suit on June 20
challenging the validity of the
amendment on a variety of
grounds, a case that might not
be heard until after the vote in
November.
Shannon Minter, the attor-
ney from the National Cen-
ter for Lesbian Rights who
successfully argued the his-
toric case in the California
Supreme Court opening mar-
riage to gay couples just this
month, told Gay City News,
“The most important thing
is that we defeat the initia-
tive. We don’t want to dis-
tract from that. At the same
time there is a serious legal
issue here and we thought
tive process to mandate that
the government discriminate
versus a group of people.”
While several challenges to
initiatives on these grounds
The attorney for the groups
is Stephen Bomse, who has
the distinction of litigating the last
successful challenge of this type.
have failed, the attorney for
the groups in this case is
Stephen Bomse, who has the
distinction of litigating the
last successful challenge of
this type in 1990, overturn-
ing an enacted amendment
that prevented the California
Supreme Court from “provid-
ing greater protection to a
criminal defendant than pro-
vided under the federal Con-
stitution,” Minter said.
leading because it explicitly
states that it would have no
“fiscal effect” and that “there
would be no change to the
manner in which marriages
are currently recognized by
the state.” In the wake of the
California Supreme Court
marriage decision, its pas-
sage would cause profound
change since same-sex cou-
ples have been marrying
legally there since June 16.
The timing of the case is
not certain. While the State
Supreme Court has original
jurisdiction, Minter said, it
“has to decide whether they

we would be shirking our
responsibility if we didn’t
press it.”
According to Minter, voters
can validly put constitutional
amendments on the ballot if
they “would add to or better
carry out the purposes of the
Constitution as it currently
exists.” But if the amend-
ment constitutes a revision
of the Constitution itself,
it must first receive a two-
thirds vote of the Legislature
or be approved in a consti-
tutional convention before
going to the voters.
The marriage amendment
Bomse told the San Fran-
cisco Chronicle, “If enacted,
[the marriage amendment]
would eviscerate the principle
of equal citizenship for gay
and lesbian people and strip
the courts of their authority
to enforce basic guarantees.”
That means it may run afoul
of the US Supreme Court
decision in Romer v. Evans in
1996, overturning a Colorado
state constitutional amend-
ment barring the enactment
of laws banning discrimina-
tion on the basis of sexual
orientation.
The pro-gay groups are
want to hear it before or after”
the vote. “I’m absolutely cer-
tain the court will take it seri-
ously.”
As to the question of
whether the same-sex mar -
riages being licensed now
will still be legal in California
if the amendment passes,
Minter said he felt “strongly
they would be valid. It would
be unprecedented to take
away someone’s marriage.
Nothing in the initiative says
it is retroactive.” The offi-
cial text, however, says it
“amends the California Con-
stitution to provide that only
NCLR
Shannon Minter spoke to Gay City News about NCLR’s legal challenge to the way the anti-
gay amendment is being put before California voters.
marriage between a man and sibility. It would be such a legal
a woman is valid or recog- mess if it passes.”
nized in California.” Minter said he is “pretty
Minter also addressed the confident” that when legal
novel idea that if the amend- scholars read their brief in
ment passes and only mar - this challenge to the amend-
riages between a man and a ment they will concur with
woman can be recognized, the their argument that “this is a
state may be compelled not to revision” rather than a mere
marry anyone lest they consign amendment to the Consti-
gay couples to a second class tution and thus requires an
status again — a violation of alternate process of approval.
the equal protection clause. He “We just want everyone to be
called that “an interesting pos- able to get married,” he said.

Suit Filed Against voters, the case would be moot. But in

their memorandum of law supporting
way. Revision is possible only after
each house of the Legislature gives its
their motion, the petitioners have made approval in a two-thirds vote and sends

California Referendum strong arguments along two lines.

Gay groups argue the question requires
legislative review before going to voters
BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD
First, they argue, because of the
a ballot question to the voters.
The key question is what consti-
significant impact that passage of this tutes a revision as distinguished from
The key question is what constitutes
a revision as distinguished from
being sued in her official capacity. The a mere amendment?
case was filed by the National Center

A
coalition of LGBT rights groups
and law firms filed suit in the
California Supreme Court on
June 20, seeking to have the proposed
initiative to ban marriage for same-sex
couples excluded from the general elec-
tion ballot this November.
In Bennett v. Bowen, filed on behalf
of three named individuals, Califor-
nia Secretary of State Debra Bowen is
for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal, two
California affiliates of the American
Civil Liberties Union, and two cooperat-
ing local law firms.
Litigation against ballot measures
filed prior to an election is by no means
unprecedented, though courts typically
prefer to avoid deciding controversial
questions unless they have to do so,
and if the initiative were defeated by the
initiative would have on fundamental
rights and equality guarantees of the
California Constitution, identified in the
State Supreme Court’s marriage equal-
ity ruling in May, the referendum rep-
resents a revision, not a simple amend-
ment. The California Constitution may
be amended by a referendum initiated
by voters, but may not be revised that
a mere amendment? A revision is a
change affecting the “underlying prin-
ciples” of the Constitution — either
because it is sweeping and wide-rang-
ing, covering many different subjects,
or because it qualitatively alters the
“nature of our basic governmental
䉴 REFERENDUM, continued on p.13
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 5

7 DAYS
䉴
7 NIGHTS
JUMP, from p.5

PERFORMANCE
THU.JUN.26 Storewide
30% Off
American
Nightmares
Split Britches, the groundbreaking
theater duo of Peggy Shaw and Lois
Weaver, turn their unapologetic critique
and riotous humor loose on the dissolu-
tion of the American Dream, in “Miss
America,” a beauty pageant on a land-
fill full of too much information in the
midst of a giant storm. The pair expose

Wine Sale
what is lost in a society still hopelessly
clinging to winning. La MaMa ETC,
74A E. Fourth St. btwn. Bowery
& Second Ave. Jun. 26-28, 8 p.m.;
Jun. 29, 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $18; $13
for students & seniors at http://www.
lamama.org or 212-475-7710.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯

30/30
Queer Brainiacs
Reinvigorated after a three-year hia-
tus, the Homogenius Festival will feature
documentaries, narrative films, play read-
ings, music, and live performance from
the LGBT community. The lineup includes
“Ready? OK!,” winner of the FilmOut
San Diego Award for Best US Narrative
Film and the popular 48-hour play festival
“Spontaneous Combustion,” in which

SALE
actors, writers, and directors will create
new LGBT-themed short plays in 48 hours.
Documentaries include “Eye on the Guy”
about famed 1950s beefcake photog-
rapher Alan B. Stone; “New York Drag”
about New York’s drag scene; and “Trans-
mission,” three films about the transgen-
der experience by Johna Mancini. The
play reading series will include new works
by Bill C. Davis (“Mass Appeal”), Manny
Igrejas (“Kitty and Lina”), Kathleen War-
nock, Meryl Cohen, Bill McMahon, David
Caudle, Neil Konigsberg, Vanda, and Kevin
Brofsky. manhattantheatresuorce,
177 MacDougal St., btwn. Waverly Our complete current table wine inventory is included—nothing has been held
Pl. and W. Eighth St., through Jun.
28. $10-$15 for films and “Spontaneous back! The only items not included are spirits, sparkling wines, future offer-
Combustion;” other events are free. For a ings, and the staff (but we’re willing to listen to offers).
full schedule and tickets, visit http://www.
theatresource.org.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
HOW DOES IT WORK?
WTF Come in, select your items, and receive 30% off at the counter on any items
Annie Lanzillotto appears with
Jenny Bass, Audrey Kindred, and $30 or more. No limit, no exclusions.
Jampa Wangdue in “The Flat Earth:
WheredaFFFhuck Did New York Go?” in

CROSSROADS
which a New Yorker looks for New York
in all the wrong places. Lanzillotto’s nar-
rative asks: Is New York for New York-
ers anymore? Where can a New Yorker
go? How can a New Yorker stay? Dixon

Wines & Spirits

Place, 258 Bowery, btwn. Houston
& Prince Sts., second fl., Jun. 26-28;
Jul. 3 & 5, 8 p.m. Tickets are $15; $12
for students & seniors at http://www.
dixonplace.org or 212-219-0736.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯

THEATER
Squall on
the Horizon
55 W. 14th St. (between 5th and 6th Avenues)
Tennessee Williams’ seldom-seen f~…„{PHGHCOHJCIFLF©\wŽPHGHCLIICHNLI
䉴 JUNE 26, continued on p.14
6 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

The Empire State Pride Agenda A.82@ =?612 in the 108 Assemblymembers
who voted for the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA).* We appreciate
your commitment to making sure that New York State is free from discrimination.

:.?0 .92@@6 7233?2F 16;<D6AG 6C.; 9.3.F2AA2 4.?F =?2A9<D

A5<:.@ .93.;< 7.;2A 1B=?2F ?<?F 9.;0:.; =5696= ?.:<@

0.?:2; .??<F< =.A?606. 2116;4A<; 42<?42 9.A6:2? ?</2?A ?2699F

7233?6<; .B/?F @A2C2; 2;492/?645A 05.?92@ 9.C6;2 7<@2 ?6C2?.

?</2?A /.??. .1?6.;< 2@=.699.A 7<@2=5 92;A<9 ;.<:6 ?6C2?.

:605.29 /2;212AA< 52?:.; 3.??299 1<;;. 9B=.?1< =2A2? ?6C2?.

7<;.A5.; /6;4 46;;F 36291@ D6996.: :.422 96;1. ?<@2;A5.9

D6996.: /<F9.;1 12;;6@ 4./?F@G.8 D6996.: :.4;.?2996 A2?2@. @.FD.?1

=5696= /<F92 @.;1?. 4.923 .9.; :.6@29 :6052992 @056:29

.1.: /?.192F :605.29 46.;.?6@ :.?4.?2A :.?82F :.?8 @05?<212?

7.:2@ /?2;;.; 12/<?.5 49608 ;2AA62 :.F2?@<5; 1212 @0<GG.3.C.

?605.?1 /?<1@8F A6:<A5F 4<?1<; ?<F :01<;.91 .;A5<;F @2:6;2?6<

.920 /?<<88?.@;F ?605.?1 4<AA3?621 1.C61 :01<;<B45 @5291<; @69C2?

82C6; 0.5699 .B?296. 4?22;2 7<5; :02;2;F :682 @=.;<

?<;.91 0.;2@A?.?6 .6922; 4B;A52? A5<:.@ :082C6AA .9/2?A @A6?=2

.;; :.?4.?2A 0.??<GG. 0.?9 52.@A62 7<29 :6992? ?</2?A @D22;2F

7<.; 05?6@A2;@2; .;1?2D 52C2@6 7<.; :699:.; 3?21 A56292

/.?/.?. 09.?8 2.?92;2 5<<=2? 7<@2=5 :<?2992 :.AA52D A6A<;2

D6996.: 0<9A<; @.: 5<FA 1.;629 <·1<;;299 :605292 A6AB@

7.:2@ 0<;A2 7.;292 5F2?@=2;02? 3296E <?A6G 1.??F9 A<D;@

C6C6.; 0<<8 ?5<1. 7.0</@ D6996.: =.?:2;A ?</2?A D.982?

09633<?1 0?<B05 2992; 7.3322 .:F =.B96; 5292;2 D26;@A26;

@A2C2; 0F:/?<D6AG 5.822: 7233?62@ 0?F@A.9 =2<=92@ 5.?C2F D26@2;/2?4

3?.;06;2 129:<;A2 @B@.; 7<5; 7<@2 =2?.9A. :.?8 D2=?6;

?<.;; 12@A6A< /?6.; 8.C.;.45 ;608 =2??F 826A5 D?645A

9B6@ 16.G :60.5 8299;2? .B1?2F =52332? 2992; F<B;4

?B/2; 16.G 1.C61 8<<; .1.: =<D299 82;;2A5 G2/?<D@86

;<D 6A·@ A6:2 3<? A52 @A.A2 @2;.A2 A< .0A

on GENDA and end discrimination against transgender New Yorkers once and for all.

*The New York State Assembly voted 108-34 to pass the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (A.6584a) on June 3, 2008.

2:=6?2
@A.A2
=?612
.42;1.


#
DR`a
[Q
@a_RRa
[Q
3Y\\_


;Rd
F\_X
;F





aRY'
#$ "


]_VQRNTR[QN-]_VQRNTR[QN\_T


ddd]_VQRNTR[QN\_T
26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008
Bruno Departure No Game-Changer
Leading gay advocate says gaining Democratic control of Senate still the priority
BY PAUL SCHINDLER
W
ith Albany politi-
cal circles still reel-
ing from the abrupt
June 23 announcement by
Republican Joseph Bruno that
he was immediately stepping
down as Senate majority leader,
a post he held for 14 years, and
leaving the Senate after serving
for 32 years, New York’s LGBT
political lobby said the depar-
ture does not alter the calculus
in this political year.
“Our game plan remains the
same, it has not changed one
iota,” said Alan Van Capelle,
executive dir ector of the
Empire State Pride Agenda.
Noting that Long Island
GOP Senator Dean Skelos’
succession to the leadership
post was not the change ESPA
“envisioned,” Van Capelle said,
“That change will happen in
January 2009 and we eagerly
look forward to Malcolm Smith
becoming the majority leader
then.”
Smith, a Queens Demo-
V`
<;.6?
F<B
?2.1F
A<
V`
<;96;2
f\b
_RNQf
S\_
f\b_
PY\`Rb],
>B2@A6<;' Sean Connery, the original James
V`
aUR
bYaVZNaR
R[aR_
N[Q
YRN_[
Z\_R
cV`Va
S\_
]R\]YR
Y\cR
»YZ
cratic, is currently the minor-
ity leader, but his party needs
a net pick-up of just two seats
in the November elections to
take over the Senate. The GOP
edge there has shrunk consid-
erably in recent years.
For some time, ESPA has
concluded that its key legis-
lative goals — the marriage
equality bill, transgender civil
rights legislation, and a mea-
sure to protect gay, transgen-
dered, and other categories of
public school students — will
not be achieved until the Dem-
ocrats control the Senate. All
three measures have passed
the Democratic-controlled
Assembly and are supported
by Governor David A. Pater-
son, also a Democrat.
Van Capelle said he has not
had significant interactions
with Skelos, but that on those
occasions that he had, the
new majority leader’s “com-
ments have tended to range
from non-supportive to hos-
tile.”
Tom Duane, the Chelsea
.?2
Your Saturday night at the movies begins at 9PM —
42A
?229,
?229
QR`aV[NaV\[
dU\
?229 <?4
Funding is made possible in part by the Rubin Museum of Art, the SYMS Corporation, the Sy Syms Foundation and by Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee.
Parents Rodrick Dial and Adam Weinstein join members of four leading gay political clubs in
denouncing State Senator Marty Golden for his opposition to marriage equality.
Democrat who is the Senate’s
only out gay member, offered
a more positive assessment of
Skelos, saying, “I don’t get any
homophobia from him on a
Politics/7
had evolved considerably in
his views on LGBT rights —
in response to more favorable
attitudes among New York
voters generally — to the point
where he stated his support
for civil unions when speaking
out against marriage equal-
ity. Duane acknowledged that
he’s “not had the sort of heart-
to-heart conversations with
Dean Skelos that I’ve had with
Bruno over the years.”
As the Democrats and their
PIERRE CHIN/ LAMBDA INDEPENDENT DEMOCRATS
allies in the LGBT commu-
nity work to gain control of
the Senate, there have been
repeated reports in the press
that Paterson does not have
the same commitment on that
score as did former Governor
Eliot Spitzer, who ferociously
pitched in on a successful
turnover effort in a Long Island
special election last year. Last
week, a curious story emerged
personal level, far from it. His that Darrel Aubertine, a Dem-
comfort with members of the ocrat newly elected to an open
LGBT community — there is Senate seat in the Watertown
no question about that.”
Duane noted that Bruno 䉴 ALBANY, continued on p.91
?RRY
CLASSIC MOVIES, NEW SHORT FILMS, and INDIES on
Channel Thirteen.
?RRY
On REEL13.ORG, you can CHAT about movies, VOTE for
your favorite short films, and WATCH exclusive video
previews. If you’re an aspiring filmmaker, SUBMIT your
short film — and it may be broadcast on Channel Thirteen.
._R
Visit REEL13.ORG and enter the REEL 13 TRIVIA CONTEST.
Answer the following question correctly and you could
win your choice of Channel Thirteen program DVDs and
be featured on Reel 13’s Facebook Fan page!
A?6C6.
Bond, battles a mad scientist in Dr. No. Name the six
actors who played James Bond in the official film series
— in chronological order.
A\
8 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

■ POLITICS

Happy Pride! Amendment Fight Relies

on Narrowcasting
Anti-gay and pro-gay sides on marriage
question hone careful messaging strategies
BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

S
peaking to the New York Times
as gay marriages began in Cali-
fornia on June 16, Tony Per-
kins, president of the right-wing Family
Research Council (FRC), struck a mod-
erate tone.
“We’ll let them have their day as
they go through this,” he said. “Our
focus will be on educating voters.”
Jeff Waddle, Agent But in an FRC direct mail piece
that arrived in mailboxes as the
images of gay and lesbian couples
getting hitched were being broadcast
58 West 8th Street across the nation, Perkins was any-
New York, NY 10011-9044 thing but polite.
212-253-2230 “At this moment, wealthy homo-
sexual extremists are raising mil- Tony Perkins, a fierce opponent of marriage equality,
www.thewaddleagency.com lions to defeat the amendment,” Per- knows how to put on a moderate face.
Se habla español kins wrote referring to a proposed
anti-gay marriage amendment to the are used by advocates on all sides
California Constitution that is on the of issues because they can use lan-

State Farm
® November 4 ballot.
If California voters fail to approve
that amendment overturning the
Providing Insurance and Financial Services May ruling by that state’s highest
Home Office, Bloomington, Illinois 61710 court that allowed marriage for same-
sex couples, it would “spread court-
mandated homosexual ‘marriage,’
forced acceptance of homosexual
behavior, and eventual suppression
guage they might not employ when
they speak to the general public,”
said Patrick J. Egan, a professor of
politics at New York University.
When talking to the broader pub-
lic, the right wingers have toned
down their language, but when they
are raising money from allies or try-
ing to turn out their voters, they turn

CONGRESSWOMAN of your values across America,” Per-

kins wrote in the mailer that sought
to raise $2 million “to help negate the
CAROLYN MALONEY court’s disastrous ruling and restore
voter-approved traditional marriage
up the heat.
“I suspect things are going to get
very dirty on the ground in direct
mail, political email,” said D. Sun-
shine Hillygus, the author, along with

* Proud to Support Marriage Equality Only 12 percent of California voters

described themselves as “white conservative
Protestant” and 28 percent said
* Proud Author of the Family & Medical Leave
Inclusion Act for LGBT Families they were conservative.

* Proud Co-Sponsor of the City’s
Landmark 1986 Civil Rights Bill
* Proud Author of the City’s First-Ever
Domestic Partnership Legislation
* Proud to Stand with New York
City’s LGBT Community!
in Califor nia law and across the
nation.”
For the right wing, the use of
multiple messages aimed at differ -
ent groups will be a feature of the
amendment fight. As homosexual-
ity has gained greater acceptance,
Americans have grown less tolerant
of the harsh anti-gay rhetoric that
right-wing groups once used very
effectively.
Gay groups opposing the amend-
ment will use a similar tactic.
“We will use some arguments,
slightly different arguments, in dif-
ferent places, but it won’t be a situ-
ation where we are putting on one
face in one community and another
in another community,” said Steve
Smith, a principal at the Dewey
Todd G. Shields, of “The Persuadable
Voter: Wedge Issues in Presiden-
tial Campaigns” and a professor of
government at Harvard University.
Hillygus was not referring only to
pro-amendment forces.
In their book, Hillygus and Fields
describe how the 2004 presidential
campaigns used direct mail, email,
and other technologies to target seg-
ments of voters with varied messag-
es. While the amendment fight will
not achieve the level of sophistica-
tion and complexity that was seen in
those campaigns, advocates on both
sides will use related methods.
To a degree, the pro-amendment
coalition comes with a network to
promote its work. It has several
dozen churches on its roster where

HAPPY Square Group, a consulting firm,

and the campaign manager of Equal-
ity for All, the coalition that opposes
messages can be made to members.
On June 24, mainstream press
outlets reported that the Church of

PRIDE! the marriage amendment.

“These micro-targeting ef forts 䉴 MARRIAGE, continued on p.10
26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008
Labor Moves Behind Marriage Drive
Union movement steps up to fight anti-gay California ballot measure
BY DUNCAN OSBORNE
S
peaking by phone from
the nation’s capital,
Hans Johnson was just
back from a fundraiser in Cali-
fornia.
“The one in Hollywood
was a way of recognizing the
heroic efforts of the LGBT
and allied leaders who stood
up to Briggs in 1978,” John-
son said.
The Briggs initiative,
named for State Senator
John Briggs, would have
banned gay and lesbian
teachers in California’s pub-
lic schools. It was defeated,
in part, by opposition from
California teachers unions
and an alliance made two
years earlier between the
gay community and 22
union locals that included
the Teamsters, the Building
and Trades Council, and the
International Longshoremen.
“It was a crucible of the
moder n gay rights move-
ment,” Johnson said. “It was
New York State Senator Tom Duane
Wishes all in the LGBT Community a Safe and Happy Pride Month
Politics/9
also a teachable moment for aid Honor PAC, a gay Latino
labor about its mutual inter- political group, in its work to
ests with the LGBT commu- defeat a California ballot ini-
nity.” tiative that would amend that
While organized labor has a
decades-long record of support
for gay and lesbian causes, it
has only slowly supported the
push for same sex marriage.
Roughly 120 people state’s constitution to define
attended the Hollywood marriage as solely between
event including Dolores one man and one woman
Huerta, a co-founder with and perhaps also nullify any
Cesar Chavez of the United same-sex marriages entered
Farm Workers, Sal Rosselli, into in that state between
the openly gay president of June 16 and the November Dolores Huerta, who with Cesar Chavez founded the United Farm Workers, was on hand
the 130,000-member Ser - vote. for a recent Hollywood union fundraiser aimed at defeating the anti-gay California marriage
vice Employees International The fundraiser was spon- amendment.
Union (SEIU) United Health- sored by the 340,000-mem-
care Workers-West, and Rev- ber California Teachers fornia, SEIU 721, a public organized labor is stepping
erend Troy Perry, founder of Association, which officially employee local in southern up to aid the gay and les-
the Metropolitan Community opposed the marriage ini- Califor nia, and Rosselli’s bian community in battling
Church, a gay denomination. tiative on June 7, Planned union.
They raised $20,000 to Parenthood Affiliates of Cali- Thirty years after Briggs, 䉴 LABOR, continued on p.10
District Office:
322 Eighth Avenue, Suite 1700
New York, NY 10001
*)*!
.++%0(-*
œ
ooo&lge\mYf]&[ge
paid for by Tom Duane for Senate
10 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

䉴 MARRIAGE, from p.8
Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints
had issued a letter to be read in Cali-
fornia Mormon churches on June
29 asking members to “support the
proposed constitutional amendment
by donating of your means and time
to assure that marriage is legally
defined as being between a man and
a woman.”
But the pro-amendment group will
still have a harder time winning in
California than groups in the 28 states
that have passed gay marriage bans.
Those earlier states had large popula-
tions of religious conservatives.
In 2004 exit polls, only 12 percent
of California voters described them-
selves as “white conservative Protes-
tant” and 28 percent said they were
conservative.
Smith said Equality For All also
has a network that can carry its mes-
sage to California voters.
“It’s not the same kind of coali-
tion, but we certainly do have a very
extensive grassroots organization,”
he said.
For both sides, getting individual
supporters to convince friends and
relatives to adopt their position is
vital and one of the most effective
ways of gaining support.
“The most persuasive are friends,
family,” Hillygus said.
In addition to FRC, the right-wing
Focus on the Family, which has
donated $50,000 to the pro-amend-
ment group, could also give or rent
the California sections of their direct
mail lists to protectmarriage.com,
the website of the pro-amendment
coalition.
“They will, I believe, use the specter
of gay and lesbian marriages to raise
their money,” Smith said. “I think
they will fan the flames of homopho-
bia to raise money from that base.
They are going to try, at the same
time, to put on a more moderate
front for their voters.”
Calls seeking comment from
the pro-amendment leaders and
their public relations firm were not
returned.

䉴 LABOR, from p.9
another onerous initiative.
“It reflects the insult to union
members in having a small cadre of
religious right activists dictate what
can and cannot be bargained for, and
to undo hard-won family recognition
policies,” said Johnson, an officer of
Pride at Work, an LGBT labor group
affiliated with the AFL-CIO.
The Hollywood fundraiser was
the second event that Johnson has
produced. The first, done with the
National Council of La Raza, a Latino
group, benefited the Task Force Cali-
fornia Committee, an anti-initiative
effort coordinated by Johnson and
run by the National Gay and Lesbi-
an Task Force. He will produce three
other gay-labor fundraisers over the
next three months.
While organized labor has a
decades-long record of support for
gay and lesbian causes, it has only
slowly supported the push for same-
sex marriage.
When California voters passed a
law barring same-sex marriage in
2000 by a margin of 61 to 39 percent
— California’s highest court struck
it down in a May ruling — labor was
less engaged.
A “handful” of labor groups in Cal-
ifornia’s 58 counties took a stand on
the 2000 initiative on the slate cards
that show the union position on can-
didates and ballot proposals, accord-
ing to Johnson. The slate cards are
given to union members before they
vote.
Since then, dozens of union locals
across the country and national
organizations have supported same
sex marriage. In 2006, the California
Labor Federation, an umbrella group
that represents more than 1,200
union locals and 2.1 million union
members, passed a resolution that
supported the “rights of all California
workers to access the full and equal
rights of civil marriage.”
Sensing that they can defeat the
November 4 California initiative,
gay trade unionists and groups are
pressing labor harder this year to
take a position against the initiative.
“I would expect that we will have far
more than a handful of county fed-
erations,” Johnson said.
Steve Smith, a principal at the
Dewey Square Group and the cam-
paign manager of Equality for All, the
coalition that opposes the marriage
amendment, agreed.
“I think most of organized labor
with be with our side of the cam-
paign,” he said.
In July, at the labor federation’s
biennial conference, gay and lesbian
union members will seek a resolu-
tion that “will call on all labor unions
and central councils to oppose the
amendment,” said Jeremy Bishop,
executive director of Pride at Work.
“This would encourage all unions to
get involved in the fight.”
They will also ask labor leaders to
speak out against the initiative and
support same-sex marriage, as well
as place pro-same-sex marriage mes-
sages in labor newsletters. These are
not insignificant.
In 2004 exit polls, 28 percent of
California voters said they had a
union member in their household
and 17 percent said they belonged to
a union. Getting those people to con-
vince friends and family members to
oppose the amendment is one of the
most effective ways to win votes.
“Labor has come out really vocally
against the amendment,” said San-
dra Telep, program director for Pride
At Work. “We’re trying to get that to
translate into action.”

Live! Love! Be!

"Who I am Makes a Difference"
This Pride, MCCNY celebrates with our theme: "Who I am Makes a Difference."
The Reverend Pat Bumgardner says "Many different people have made many of God's dreams and visions for NYC and the world
around us possible, because they believed in the simple truths that comprise the foundation of our faith here: God is with us and
with God all things are possible. We have held steadfastly to our faith in love and its power to heal and save all of us. We look
forward with faith, hope and love! Truly, Who We Are Makes a Difference!"

MCCNY’s Pride Events:

June 27: AIDS Candlelight Vigil, 7:30 pm; Sheridan Sq. Park & Christopher St.
June 29: Open Communion Service, 12 noon at the MCCNY march site,
52nd St. btw. 5th/6th Aves. (Come march with the MCCNY float and musical contingent!)
Pride Sunday Services: 9 am, 11 am and 7 pm at MCCNY
The Reverend Pat Bumgardner, Pastor
Weekly Sunday Services: 9 am (Traditional), 11 am (Celebration),
3 pm (Mandarin, 2nd & 4th Sundays) and 7 pm (Praise & Worship)
11 am features ASL interpreter (1st and last Sunday of each month only)
a church of lesbian, gay, bisexual and 446 West 36th St. bet. 9th & 10th Ave. NY, NY 10018 212-629-7440
transgender people - open to all website: www.mccny.org email: info@mccny.org
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 11

FeAle\(0k_#)''.#
k_\E\nPfibJkXk\8jj\dYcpgXjj\[
DXii`X^\<hlXc`kpc\^`jcXk`fe%

FeAle\*i[#)''/#
k_\E\nPfibJkXk\8jj\dYcpgXjj\[
k_\>\e[\i<ogi\jj`feEfe$;`jZi`d`eXk`fe8Zk%

Pflic\jY`Xe#^XpXe[Y`j\olXc8jj\dYcpd\dY\ij¿

C\X[`e^flidXiZ_kfnXi[\hlXc`kp%

Assembly Member Assembly Member Assembly Member Assembly Member

DEBORAH J. GLICK DANIEL O’DONNELL MATTHEW TITONE MICAH Z. KELLNER
66th Assembly District 69th Assembly District 61st Assembly District 65th Assembly District
853 Broadway, Suite 1518 245 West 104th Street 853 Forest Avenue 315 East 65th St.
New York, NY 10003 New York, NY 10025 Staten Island, NY 10310 New York, NY 10065
Tel: 212-674-5153 Tel: 212-866-3970 Tel: 718-442-9932 Tel: 212-860-4906
Fax: 212-674-5530 Fax: 212-864-1095 Fax: 718-442-9942 Fax: 917-432-2983
glickd@assembly.state.ny.us odonned@assembly.state.ny.us titonem@assembly.state.ny.us kellnerm@assembly.state.ny.us
12/ Community
Completing Their Family
Legally related to their son, Long Island couple heads to California to join themselves
BY DAVID GREBE
W
hen Jeff Friedman
had a heart attack
two years ago, his
husband and son followed the
ambulance to the hospital.
Friedman’s partner of 23
years, Andy Zwerin, was
allowed to fill out all of the
paperwork. But they wouldn’t
let him sign the paperwork.
That brought home the
reality that the pair needed
some sort of recognition for
their relationship. It’s also a
reminder that, for all of the
heated rhetoric, gay marriage
is an issue of simple justice for
real people.
Friedman and Zwerin first
met 24 years ago, in high
school, and now live in Rock-
ville Centre.
“You don’t expect to have a
heart attack at age 38,” Fried-
man said.
Fortunately, his mother
arrived at the hospital soon
afterward to sign the docu-
ments.
But it wasn’t just the rela-
tionship between them that
was an issue. The needs of
their son, Joshua Zwerin,
nearly five years old, finalized
their decision to marry in Cali-
fornia.
“What made us ultimately
decide was … wanting to do
what was the best interest of
our son,” Friedman said.
Many of the approximately
1,300 rights related to mar-
riage under New York State
law revolve around children,
Friedman said.
And that’s where New York’s
half-hearted embrace of gay
rights becomes an issue,
he noted. New York allowed
them to jointly adopt Joshua,
but won’t acknowledge their
relationship. Moreover, as
residents of Nassau County,
there’s no civil partnership rec-
ognition available at all.
“The state of New York creat-
ed this family,” Friedman said.
“But they refuse to acknow-
ledge it.”
And Joshua is now at the
26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008
riage legal there earlier this
month — and California has
no restrictions on out-of-state
couples. And Democratic
Governor David A. Paterson
recently issued an executive
order directing state agencies
to recognize legal same-sex
unions performed in other
states.
It’s also possible for same-
sex couples to go to Canada
to marry, but that was an idea
Zwerin said they were uncom-
GAY CITY NEWS
fortable with.
“We just felt it would be
strange to have to leave the
Jeff Friedman and Andrew Zwerin, with their son Joshua Zwerin, seen at last year’s Mar- country,” he said.
riage Equality Wedding March across the Brooklyn Bridge. While Friedman said Pat-
erson’s decision didn’t affect
age where’s he learning his couples cannot marry there – their plans — he expected his
and his family’s place in the due to a 1913 law that forbids planned marriage to be judged
world. Being wed offers his out-of-state couples marrying valid if ever challenged — it
parents the same stature as there if the marriage would be offers the potential of making
those of other parents. illegal in their home state. The matters simpler.
“It teaches him the equality,” law’s original purpose was to Friedman and Zwerin call
Friedman said. prevent out-of-state interracial each other their “husband”
That wasn’t possible until couples from flocking to Mas- and said they’ve considered
recently. Although same-sex sachusetts. themselves married a long
marriage is legal in Massachu- But a California Supreme
setts, out-of-state same-sex Court ruling made gay mar- 䉴 FAMILY, continued on p.13
New website!
20 N e w produ c t s !
www.KPAXpharm.com
Pharmaceutical Quality
Supplements
You Can Trust.
New sections include:
Ask the Expert
Retail Store Locator
Research Study Information
Top 10 Health Stories
New Product Information
Medical Condition Information
Visit our “Members Area” for a free offer.
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 13

䉴 REFERENDUM, from p.4
plan.” The proposed initiative appears
on its face narrow in focus, but in light
of the Supreme Court’s marriage rul-
ing, the petitioners argue, it is actually
a dramatic and far-reaching measure.
That’s because the court’s decision
established two important points of con-
stitutional law that would be altered by
the initiative — that sexual orientation
is a “suspect classification” under Cali-
fornia constitutional law, a finding that
places a high burden on the state in jus-
tifying any differential treatment, and
that the right to marry is a “fundamen-
tal right.” By decreeing that marriages
of same-sex partners would not be valid
or recognized in the state, the initiative
would in effect make an express consti-
tutional exception to the equality guar-
anteed to LGBT people under the Con-
stitution, and deprive them of a funda-
mental right at the same time.
The argument is not that the Consti-
tution cannot be amended in that way,
but rather that the significant effect
of doing so on the existing structure of
California constitutional rights means
that a marriage ban is a “revision,” not a
mere amendment.
The petitioners argue that the pro-
posal is unprecedented in California —
allowing a simple majority vote of the
electorate to revise the state’s due pro-
cess and equal protection guarantees to
carve out for inferior treatment a specific
class of people. Some past initiatives
may have enacted rules that benefited
some people at the expense of others,
but the gay advocates argue that this
initiative, unlike those that have sur-
vived judicial review in the past, works a
direct deprivation of a fundamental right
for a specific group of Californians.
The petitioners’ alternative argument
goes to the core requirements of the Cal-
ifornia initiative process. The law man-
dates that when solicitors seek voter
signatures to get their measure on the
ballot, they must show them wording
that has been approved by the secretary
of state providing an accurate descrip-
tion of the proposed measure, including
an appraisal of its fiscal impact. At the
time this initiative was submitted to the
secretary of state, the language stated
that the measure would have no fiscal
impact because it would not change
existing law.
That may have been literally true
when the petition signatures were col-
lected, but the marriage case was
already in play and a more honest eval-
uation of fiscal impact would say that
the fiscal impact was unknown.
And now that marriages have begun,
there would be adverse fiscal impact
on the state, in light of the benefits that
spending on marriage celebrations are
already having on the state economy
and tax receipts. The petitioners point
out that the ballot description was mis-
leading when it was circulated, and is
now downright inaccurate.
In addressing the court’s likely reluc-
tance to take the matter up now, they
also point out that court precedents
show that if a misleading description
was circulated with a proposed mea-
sure, doubt would be cast on the sig-
natures obtained in the process and
so the measure should not qualify for
the ballot at all. A referendum ques-
tion that shouldn’t even be on the bal-
lot has adverse consequences, diverting
resources from other matters and dilut-
ing voter attention.
Does either of these arguments stand
a chance of getting the initiative knocked
off the California ballot? Hard to say,
though the petitioners make a compel-
ling case.
The Alliance Defense Fund and Lib-
erty Counsel and others who worked so
hard to prevent the Supreme Court’s
marriage decision from going into effect
in the first place will do their best now
to offer persuasive arguments as to
why “the people” should be allowed to
vote to deprive their fellow citizens of
a fundamental right. One hopes the
court sees through that argument and
decides that only the more deliberative
process of the Legislature or a constitu-
tional convention should be the mecha-
nism for this question to be addressed
further by California.

䉴 FAMILY, from p.12

time, spiritually, if not legally. Part of 6WULNHXSWKHNOH]PHUEDQG

the reason they started using the term
is because Friedman, before becoming
a full-time dad, worked as an attorney,
a job where the phrase “partner” could
cause confusion, Zwerin said.
After nearly a quarter -century
together, they both said there weren’t
too many pre-wedding jitters.
“I feel no pressure, we’ve been in this
relationship a long time,” Zwerin said.
“The hardest part of it all is deciding
who to invite.”
The couple plans to wed near Los

'U0DUMRULH-+LOO
Angeles on October 11. Their choice
of National Coming Out Day is not a
political statement, Friedman said; it
was simply the best date available—
especially since it takes a long time
to plan on getting so many family
members out to the West Coast for a
wedding.
&KLHI([HFXWLYH2IILFHU*0+&
In November, California voters will
have the chance to repeal the court’s
decision, and enshrine marriage
limitations into the state’s constitu-
tion. It’s unclear, at this point, what *XHVW6SHDNHU3ULGH6KDEEDW
)ULGD\-XQHDWSP
the initiative’s prospects are. It’s
also unclear how a victory for anti-
marriage forces would affect those
already married.
Friedman said that even if same-sex
WK$YHQXHDQG:HVWWK6WUHHW
marriage is banned, he doesn’t expect
it to affect his marriage.
Planning a cross-country wedding is
a cumbersome task, and not the ideal
solution. Nor is it a complete solution
either, as same-sex marriages still
aren’t recognized by the federal gov-
ernment. But it is progress.
Friedman said both of their rela-
tives are supportive of the relationship
– Zwerin’s cousin in California offered
his house for the wedding – but admit- &RQJUHJDWLRQ%HWK6LPFKDW7RUDKLV1HZ<RUN&LW\·V6\QDJRJXHIRU*D\/HVELDQ%L
ted not everyone was always on board. VH[XDODQG7UDQVJHQGHU-HZVRXU)DPLOLHVDQGRXUIULHQGV)RUPRUHLQIRUPDWLRQ
“Stereotypes vanish with time,” he
said.
It’s something we can hope happens
more often throughout the country.
“Hopefully, in about 15 years, people
will look back and wonder what all the
fuss was about,” Friedman said.
SOHDVHFDOORUYLVLWZZZFEVWRUJ
5$%%,6+$521./(,1%$80z5$%%,$<(/(76&2+(1z
&$1725'$9,'%(5*(5z
(5,&526(1%$803UHVLGHQWz
,/(1(56$0(7+([HFXWLYH'LUHFWRU
14/ Civil Rights
No Longer A Bridesmaid
Robin Tyler, inveterate activist, weds Diane Olson
BY KATHLEEN WARNOCK
“T
he day we got mar-
ried, at seven in the
morning somebody
called and said: ‘I hope you
faggots die of AIDS.’ And I said:
‘What makes you think Diane
is a boy’s name?’ ” This is how
Robin Tyler and Diane Olson’s
wedding day began.
At 5:01 p.m. on June 16,
Tyler and Olson received their
marriage license at the Bev-
erly Hills Courthouse, followed
immediately by what Tyler
called “My Big Fat Jewish
Lesbian Wedding,” when she
blogged about it in the Huff-
ington Post. (Read Tyler’s blog
at www.huffingtonpost.com/
robin-tyler.)
For Tyler, her sense of
humor, sharpened by years of
comedy performance, kicked
into high gear as she and
Olson got ready to make his-
tory. Along with friends, family
and well-wishers, there were
the requisite protesters and
hecklers at the Beverly Hills
courthouse — which Tyler
described as looking like “a
Joan Crawford prison movie
with flowers.”
Tyler paid the pr otest-
ers no attention, “since they
have been yelling at me for 35
years,” she explained.
“Why would you assume
that they’re nor mal?” she
asked. “They’re the real face of
the ludicrousness when they
say they have to save hetero-
sexual marriage. If straight
people want to save heterosex-
ual marriage, they need to stop
getting divorced. There were
some crazy-looking people,
representative of the attorneys
who went to court against us,
but the attorneys were dressed
in suits and ties.”
Tyler knows from attorneys
in suits and ties. She and Olson
were the original plaintiffs, along
with the Reverend Troy Perry
and his husband Phillip De
Blieck in the 2004 lawsuit that
wound its way through the Cali-
fornia courts, ultimately result-
ing in the ruling on May 15 by
the Supreme Court of California
overturning the state’s ban on
same-sex marriage. Perry and
De Blieck sued to have their
Canadian marriage recognized;
Tyler and Olson for the right to
marry in California.
Tyler also knows from
“firsts”: She was the first out
comic to appear on television,
the first to release a comedy
album, and an organizer of the
Robin Tyler and Diane Olson as they approached the Beverly Hills Courthouse to obtain their marriage license on June 16.
first gay March on Washington
in 1979. She was also one of
the first producers of women’s
music and comedy as well as
organizer of some of the first
women’s music and comedy
festivals. Her influence and
lineage extend today to people
and events from the likes of
Ellen and Rosie, to the indie
music scene and today’s queer
solo performance artists.
Tyler has often run up against
the “politically correct” position
in her various careers.
Getting married fulfilled a
50-year dream for Tyler, who
tells of wanting to marry her
friend Sherry Berkowitz when
she was 16, in her one-woman
show, “Always a Bridesmaid,
Never a Groom.”
Tyler first performed the show
off-off Broadway, where she was
a regular on the scene in the late
’70s. She was New York City-
based and performed for two
years at the East Village 82 club
singing — she performed as a
Judy Garland impersonator
— and doing standup. She did
“Always a Bridesmaid” in rep-
ertory with Harvey Fierstein’s
“Torch Song Trilogy” in 1980
during the first Gay American
Arts Festival, produced by The
Glines, which also featured Jane
Chambers’s “Last Summer at
Bluefish Cove,” Doric Wilson’s
“Forever After,” and Robert Pat-
rick’s “T-Shirts.”
The milestone this festival
represented was not without
its detractors — just as there
was some resistance from gay
organizations to the California
lawsuit. Chambers’s play made
some lesbians uncomfortable
with its realistic portrayal of
dyke drama and Tyler recalls
getting together with Kate Mil-
lett to rally behind Chambers’
show. She also recalls that
she received some criticism
of her own show “because the
premise of same-sex marriage
would never fly.” A well-timed
pause. “Ha!”
Tyler has often run up
against the “politically correct”
position in her various careers,
both within and outside the
LGBT community.
“Those of us who are artists
always have to push against
the movement, either the politi-
cally correct or the organiza-
tions,” she said. “Our art gives
us control over what we think.
We can express ourselves
through that. I don’t believe
there is any greater influence
than art.”
Tyler said some of the
gay legal organizations were
26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008
7 DAYS
䉴
7 NIGHTS
JUNE 26, from p.5
kaleidoscope of loneliness, “Small Craft
Warnings,” directed by Le Wilhelm,
plays at the (air-conditioned) Parker
Theatre at the Algonquin, 123 E.
24 St., Jun. 26-28, 8 p.m.; Jun. 29,
7 p.m. Tickets are $18 at http://www.
theatermania.com or 212-769-7973
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
ACTIVISM
FRI.JUN.27
Freedom of
Gender Expression
The fourth annual Trans Day of
Action for Social and Economic Jus-
tice 2008, is endorsed by the Audre
Lorde Project, the Ali Forney Center, the
COURTESY: BILERICO.COM
Callen-Lorde Community Health Center,
the Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization
Project (CHAMP), Congregation Beth
Simchat Torah, FIERCE (the Fabulous
Independent Educated Radicals for
Community Empowerment), the GRIOT
Circle, Irish Queers, the LGBT Communi-
ty Center, the New York City AIDS Hous-
against her filing the suit, and ing Network, the New York Trans Rights
complained they were not con- Organization, Queers for Economic Jus-
sulted by the plaintiffs before tice, Sex Workers Outreach Project, and
they filed. “They asked how the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, among
could we not consult them; many groups. The action will be begin
they’ve been working on it for a with a rally at City Hall Park, 3 p.m.
decade. I’ve been working on it A march through Lower Manhattan will
since 1974. I’m 66.” follow. For more information about the
In fact, it was Tyler’s age march contact Elizabeth Marie Rivera
that was a catalyst in her and at 718-596-0342, ext. 18 or visit http://
Olson’s decision to sue for the www.myspace.com/transjusticenyc.
right to marry. In 2004, she ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
retired and discovered that her
union’s pension plan did not BENEFIT
permit her health insurance to Dykes Are Dancing
cover Olsen, because they were Team Gina — Gina Bling and Gina
not married. Genius — two hyper fly ladies with
“I couldn’t believe that verbal dexterity and excellent taste
AFTRA [the American Federa- in shoes are the stars of a late eve-
tion of Television and Radio ning show to benefit Saturday’s Dyke
Artists] wouldn’t give my ben- March. Don Hill’s, 511 Greenwich
efits to Diane, after I had been St. at Spring St., 10:30 ’til late. More
vested all these years,” Tyler information at http://www.nycdyke-
said, adding that the union march.org.
prior to the lawsuit’s comple- ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
tion changed its rules to cover
domestic partners. “SAG [the In a New
Screen Actors Guild] is still York Hour
stonewalling people,” she The New Neo Futurists have adapt-
said. “They say they’re going ed their hysterical show “Too Much
to change it, but they haven’t Light Makes the Baby Go Blind” for a
passed it. All these unions that special Gay Pride edition: “Too Much
are supposed to be pro-worker; Pride Makes the Baby Go Gay.” A
how many other unions do the super-big cast presents a unique menu
same thing to lesbian and gay of 30 plays exploring sexual and gen-
couples? Do civil rights stop at der identity, politics, sexuality, libera-
age 65?” tion, romance, love, song, dance and all
Tyler — a naturalized U.S. things gay, all in 60 little ole’ minutes.
citizen who was born in Cana- These three performances benefit the
da, which permits its gay citi- Ali Forney Center that provides hous-
zens to marry — feels that mar- ing and social services to homeless
riage is a civil right. LGBT youth. Kraine Theatre, 85 E.
“In other words, it’s not Fourth St. at Second Ave., Jun. 27
really gay marriage, it’s mar- & 28, 10:30 p.m. Teatro Iati, 59-61 E.
䉴 BRIDESMAID, continued on p.16 䉴 JUNE 27, continued on p.26
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 15

Come Out!
THE SULLIVAN COUNTY CATSKILLS WELCOMES GAY AND LESBIAN TRAVELERS.
Join us for a dip, or a trip down the river. Take in a Broadway-style show or see a world-class performance at a world-class destination.
And there’s so much more… golf, antiques, farmers’ markets, boating, fishing, gourmet restaurants, B&B’s and charming country inns.

Be sure and ask

for a copy of our
Out & About
Travel Guide

Just a 90-minute ride from New York City.

1.800.882.CATS
www.scva.net
www.outinthecatskills.com
16 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

䉴 BRIDESMAID, from p.14
riage equality,” she said. “What this
ruling means is that we have become
entitled to the existing marriage system
in California. The marriage movement,
it changed what we’re doing from being
a liberation movement to a civil rights
movement, squarely to a civil rights
movement.”
And for someone who’s been an orga-
nizer and an agitator for half a century,
it proves to Tyler that activism is alive
and well and making a difference.
“We should listen to our hearts.
Our gut tells us what to do,” she said.
“Change never happens from the top
down, but from the bottom up. We
stand on the shoulders of all the mar-
riage activists for all these decades.
It took enormous work of grassroots
people, and protesting as far back as
the ones we did in front of the IRS when
we did the first March on Washington
in 1979. Marriage Equality USA here in
California did all the grassroots work,
along with Metropolitan Community
Church. We’re this huge sort of family of
activists that are very organized, know
each other, and are very supportive.
Grassroots activism… it’s not over.
“This is what happens when you
really work in a movement. The payoff
is, for us, a wonderful world of activ-
ists who are into passion rather than
Prozac. It doesn’t come from anger; it
comes from this passion of wanting
something good, like equality, not all
this agita. This sounds really California,
The payoff is, for us, a wonderful world
of activists who are into passion
rather than Prozac.
but it’s like walking toward the light.
You’re not alone. There’s this bright
light. And we’re all in it. And sometimes
we win, and a lot of times we lose. But
we keep going.”
And 28 years later, Tyler has an end-
ing to her show. In the last few years,
she has updated “Always a Brides-
maid…” performing it with film and
music clips from throughout her career,
taking to the stage once more in Los
Angeles and around the country as a
reminder that there is still unfinished
business for a girl who wants to marry
a girl.
And on the day of her wedding to
Olson, the ceremony was carried live
on three local television stations in
LA; their pictures, crying, exchanging
rings, cutting their cake, were in news-
papers and magazines, on broadcast
and cable TV, the Internet, and the
topic of uncountable news stories and
blog posts around the world.
“My friend, who has a company
called Cake and Art — he’s known me
back since the first March on Wash-
ington — baked the biggest wedding
cake for 150 people, and donated it to
us as a thank-you. And you know how
much we got? We got one piece! I had
to get someone to go save a piece. But
I’ve still managed to gain four pounds
in the last week. I think the real down-
side to not being able to get married
15 years ago was not just the rights. I
was 20 pounds lighter, and my photos
didn’t require airbrushing.”
The artist is always at work; here! TV
filmed the ceremony and Tyler will use it
in the latest revision of her show, which
she is making into a film. She plans to
tour with the film, the record of her life
and career, and keep spreading the word,
answering — and asking — questions.
“We have not one right on a federal
level since Jean O’Leary began pushing
for it in the ’70s,” Tyler said, referring to
the late New York lesbian activist who
organized the first LGBT White House
meeting in 1977. “We need to look at the
Democratic Party’s commitment to mar-
riage. We never demand it. They haven’t
given us anything, because we haven’t
insisted on taking it. If Obama is elected,
he can hopefully change the Supreme
Court; though I think it’s important to
mention that three of the four judges on
the California Supreme Court who voted
for us were Republican appointees. But,
after all of the years of avoiding us, I will
only believe in the national Democratic
Party when they fulfill the promises they
have made to our community for the
past 30 years.
Tyler sees other states recogniz-
ing marriage equality soon; she thinks
the right of gay and lesbian couples to
marry in New York will happen sooner
rather than later.
“Governor Paterson is blind, and yet
he sees what other people don’t,” she
said.
Everyone else can always count on
Robin Tyler to point it out to them.
See Robin Tyler and Diane Olson’s
wedding at http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=A3PFErGrhgo.

Happy Pride!
From the Stonewall Democrats of New York City (SDNYC)

SDNYC is the Citywide voice for LGBT Democrats.

We regularly meet every 4th Wednesday of the month at the LGBT Center,
208 W. 13th St. at 8:00PM (except in June, August, and December).

Our 2008 Endorsement Meeting will be Thursday, July 10th, 6:30PM at the Center.

For more information, visit our website, www.SDNYC.org

gaycitynews.com
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 17

New York University

celebrates
Gay Pride Month
and salutes
local LGBT leaders
and friends
WHOSE TIRELESS ADVOCACY
FOR LGBT CIVIL RIGHTS
BUILDS COMMUNITIES OF INCLUSION
AND FOSTERS SUPPORT AND TRUST
IN NEW YORK CITY AND BEYOND.

Office of Government and Community Affairs

community.affairs@nyu.edu • 212.998.2400 • www.nyu.edu/ogca
Gary Parker, Director
18 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

MERMAIDS BACK ON
SHORE AT CONEY
On Saturday, June 21, Coney Island, the
fabled Brooklyn playland of yesteryear, played
host to the 16th annual Mermaid Parade,
which dubs itself the nation’s largest art
parade and is an homage to the long-forgot-
ten Mardi Gras held there from 1903 to 1954.
Organizers say the parade is intended to celebrate
the sand, the sea, the salt air, and the beginning of
summer, with participants dressed in hand-made
costumes as Mermaids, Neptunes, and other sea
creatures, as well as many, many other beings
whose shapes and sizes are bounded only by the
limits of the imagination.
— Photos by Maggie M. Koopmans

WISHING EVERYBODY AN
EXCELLENT PRIDE
CELEBRATION!!
www.lidbrooklyn.org
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 19
20 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

%*4$07&3
Provincetow n
Provincetown Art
N E W E N G L A N D ’ S PA R A D I S E
To Advertise Contact: Lee A Castoro - 646-452-2505 - lee@gaycitynews.com

The Inn at Cook Street

Association and Museum Celebrating 170 years, this Provincetown bed and
breakfast is a lovingly maintained 1836 Greek Re-
Located in the heart of America’s oldest continu-
vival, rich with history. The award-winning Inn at
ous art colony, PAAM serves as the epicenter of
Cook Street has two cottages and has been newly
Provincetown’s creative activity. Visitors enjoy more
updated with numerous amenities that include:
than 30 contemporary and historical art exhibi-
Wireless internet, DVD players and DVD library, in-
tions each year, as well as an exciting schedule of
room phones, refrigerators, hair dryers, cosmetic
jazz concerts, film screenings, public lectures, and fine art auctions featuring vintage Provinc-
mirrors, beach towels, and Egyptian 800 thread
etown works. The Museum School at PAAM offers classes and workshops for art students and
count sheets and towels. Innkeepers Doreen and Lisa invite you to experience the classic charm
professionals year-round. This summer, enjoy complimentary admission to opening receptions
and serenity of this Provincetown treasure. Fodor’s, Travel & Leisure, Pink Choice, Out and
Fridays after 5pm. For upcoming exhibitions and events, please call or visit us online at www.
About—Five Palms and highly recommended. The ultimate getaway!
paam.org.
460 Commercial Street | Provincetown, MA 02657 7 Cook Street | Provincetown, MA 02657
508-487-1750 | www.paam.org 508-487-3894 | www.innatcookstreet.com

Anchor Inn The Red Inn

Provincetown’s finest beach house on the water,
the Anchor Inn is sure to please the most discern-
ing traveler. When you enter our spacious lounge,
you’ll know that you have arrived in a special home
that pays tribute to the past with all of the luxurious
amenities of the present. As you relax by the English
grandfather clock or have breakfast from the Irish
Sideboard, our staff will pamper you with attention and help with any detail that will make your
visit truly memorable. Located in the heart of Provincetown, the Inn is central to fabulous shop-
ping and dining. A getaway to the Anchor Inn is an absolute delight for anyone. We invite our
friends to explore the many wonders of Provincetown year-round.
Located on beautiful Provincetown Harbor, in one
of the world’s most spectacular settings, The red Inn
has welcomed guests since 1915. The 200 year-old
Inn has played host to United States Presidents, ce-
lebrities, international dignitaries, and most impor-
tantly, our everyday guests who have enjoyed the
hospitality that has made The red Inn Provincetown’s
premier accommodation. Dining at The Inn is an experience you will not want to miss. The inn’s
internationally renown, fifty-four seat restaurant offers an ever-changing view of Provincetown
Harbor, Cape Cod Bay, the lighthouse at Long Point, and the sandy cliffs along the shores of the
Outer Cape. We warmly welcome our friends from the New York/Metropolitan area.

15 Commercial Street | Provincetown, MA 02657 15 Commercial Street | Provincetown, MA 02657

508-487-0432 | www.anchorinnbeachhouse.com 508-487-7334 | www.theredinn.com

Boatslip Resort Surfside Hotel

The Boatslip, the legendary waterfront landmark and and Suites
home of the World Famous Tea Dance is located on
If you’re planning a Cape Cod vacation at the
Commercial Street steps away from Provincetown’s
southern end of the Cape, Surfside Hotel is in the
retail shops, galleries and nightlife. Situated in the
heart of Provincetown. Our spacious, tastefully
West End on Provincetown Harbor, the Boatslip of-
decorated guestrooms are specially configured
fers guests waterfront rooms with private balconies,
with your comfort in mind. For your extended stay
on-site parking, continental breakfast, a pool and
in Provincetown our NEW first floor Jacuzzi Suites
sundeck and of course, free admission to Tea Dance!
overlooking our private beach and Cape Cod Bay will be ideal. Amenities include our outdoor
Every afternoon at the stroke of four the deck is turned into P-Town’s largest outdoor dance party. Hot
heated pool, private beach, free parking and free internet access in our Lighthouse Bar. Enjoy a
bodies, good friends and great dance music make this daily event a “must-do” for seasoned travelers
Margarita by the pool on the hot summer day! We offer pet-friendly accommodations and are
and first time visitors alike making the Boatslip the # 1 destination for the GLBT community.
just minutes from Provincetown’s finest beaches, restaurants, shops, and attractions.
161 Commercial Street | Provincetown, MA 02657
543 Commercial Street | Provincetown, MA 02657
508-487-1669 | www.boatslipresort.com
508-487-1726 | www.surfsideinn.com

ENZO Restaurant, The Lobster

Guesthouse & Grotta Bar Pot Restaurant
ENZO, housed in a beautifully restored Victorian, lies Overlooking historic Provincetown harbor, an in-
within walking distance of everything Provincetown stitution and part of what makes Provincetown
has to offer. Upstairs are five uniquely appointed, air- such a special place. We’re featured in Zagat
conditioned guestrooms, each with private marble Survey -Top Restaurants on Cape Cod, Cape Cod
baths, parking and continental breakfast, in season. Life- “Best of” on the Outer Cape, and The Phan-
Gracing the first floor is ENZO’s popular restaurant. tom Gourmet 100. Enjoy the finest and freshest
Classically trained Executive Chef Jeremiah Reardon masterfully presents native seafood’s, local pro- in seafood, Portuguese specialties, steaks, poultry, vegetarian and light fare. Open from the
duce and wonderful meats with innovation and style. Outside the terraced patio offers terrific street beginning of April through the end of November, our complete menu is served the entire day
and harbor views; inside dining is elegant, intimate and air- conditioned. Downstairs, the casual starting at 11:30 am. Visit the Top of the Pot for a cocktail, an appetizer and a fantastic view
Grotta Bar serves diverse beers, signature cocktails and great food. Experience live entertainment of the harbor.
with ‘KooK’ on Sundays and “Scream Along With Billy” on Tuesdays and Fridays.
321 Commercial Street | Provincetown, MA 02657
186 Commercial Street | Provincetown, MA 02657 (508)- 487-0842 | www.ptownlobsterpot.com
508- 487-7555 | www.enzolives.com
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 21

%*4$07&3
Provincetow n N E W E N G L A N D ’ S PA R A D I S E
To Advertise Contact: Lee A Castoro - 646-452-2505 - lee@gaycitynews.com

Lyman-Eyer Gallery Ernden Fine Art Gallery

Contemporary & Modern Fine Art Ernden Fine Art Gallery is a cutting edge modern and contem-
porary art gallery located in the heart of the Gallery District in
Landscape, Abstraction, Male & Female historic Provincetown, MA. Provincetown is the oldest estab-
Figurative, Still Life & Sculpture by 35 na- lished artist colony in the USA and Ernden is among one of the
tional artists. Please visit in person or pe- finest galleries representing 15 artists whose creative expres-
ruse our web site to experience our wide sion both tell their story while as the same time enlightening
selection of fine art & download our 2008 the viewer. Our summer hours are daily from noon-4pm and
Exhibition Brochure and Event Schedule. I 7-11pm. For further information call 508-487-6700 or email us
hope to visit with you soon. at erndengallery@att.net.

- James Lyman, Director. 397 Commercial Street

Provincetown, MA 02657
P.O. Box 492
Phone/Fax: 508-487-6700, 1-888-304-ARTS | www.ernden.com
432 Commercial Street
Provincetown, MA 02657
508-487-3937 Architect, oil on canvas by E.Gibbons
www.lymaneyerart.com Bowersock Gallery
Bowersock Gallery represents Provincetown artists, as well as,
regional and nationally known Artists and Artisans from New
England, with artists whom are members of The Guild of Bos-
ton Artists, Copley Society of Art, National Sculpture Society
and Pastel Society of America. Featuring Fine Art highlighted
for both the contemporary, modern, abstract and classic col-
lector. Our works on show include; portrait, landscape, still life,
figurative, sculpture, nude, photo-realism, encaustic and glass
work in a wide range of styles. Be sure to stop by for our open-
ing of “Summer Bliss”, June 20th through July 22nd.

373 Commercial Street | Provincetown, MA 02657

A Summer Treat, pastel on Nocturne, pyrograph with wood stains/ 508-487-4994 | www.bowersockgallery.com
paper by Michael Breyette shellac by Robert Sherer

Thomas D. Brown Real Estate Associates Bubala’s by the Bay

Bubala’s is a buzzing bistro, gateway to the West
End of Provincetown. It has earned its reputation
for serving fantastic food made with high quality
GRACIOUS EAST END HOME ingredients, flavored with a big dash of fun. Burg-
ers to lobsters, exotic salads to rack of lamb, you
Lovely Federal style home on quiet lane in Gal- could eat here every day of your visit and not have
lery District; hidden terrace, fascinating features, the same thing twice. Brunch, lunch, and dinner
living & dining rooms, library, fireplaces, master daily, with free parking. The bar offers martinis,
suite, wood floors; perfect for entertaining. Park- specialty drinks, beers, a celebrated wine list and
ing. $1,200,000 live music nightly in season. Whether you prefer
water view seats inside or a ringside street scene table outside, Bubala’s delivers big time!

185 Commercial Street | Provincetown, MA 02657

508 -487-0773 | www.bubalas.com

EAST END WATERFRONT The Crown & Anchor

Premier location & casual beachfront living with Provincetown’s Premier Entertainment Complex,
this 2-family residence; stunning views of Cape located in the heart of P-Town, The Crown & An-
Cod Bay, Provincetown Harbor, Long Point Light. chor features six unique bar venues including the
5BR home enjoys large yard, multiple decks, inc. town’s largest nightclub (Paramount), the town’s
beachfront deck, stairs to beach. $2,995,000 only video bar (Wave), a cabaret venue, a poolside
bar with heated pool, a piano bar and an ever-
popular leather bar (The Vault). The Crown also
Lucy J. Brown features the Central House Bar & Grille—a year-
Thomas D Brown round restaurant offering lunch and dinner—and
the Crown & Anchor Inn—a waterfront hotel with eighteen rooms and luxury suites.
Real Estate Associates
Cape Vacation Rentals, Inc. 247 Commercial Street | Provincetown, MA 02657
Office: 508-349-2700 | Cell: 508-237-1006 | www.thomasdbrown.com 508-487-1430 | www.onlyatthecrown.com
22 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

GAY CITY NEWS

Fernando Preda and Jeff Vasquez on Bushwick’s Knickerbocker Avenue during GLOBE’s Saturday march.

A BRIGHT FLASH OF PRIDE IN BUSHWICK

LGBT Pride hit the streets on Bush-
wick on Saturday, June 21, when roughly
50 members and allies of GLOBE, Gays
and Lesbians of Bushwick Empowered,
staged a one-hour march through the
Knickerbocker Avenue shopping district
before returning to its home base on
Grove Street near Myrtle Avenue for a
barbeque that drew a crowd of 100.
Despite the small size of the march-
ing contingent, participants were lively
and colorful, showing the rainbow
colors and engaging in boisterous
chants that seemed to take onlook-
ers by surprise, but elicited no nega-
tive responses in the largely Puerto
Rican working-class neighborhood. At
one point, when marchers occupied
one street lane, a long series of cars
passing alongside of them honked
and waved in apparent support of the
event’s inclusive message.
Participants alternated between
spirited shouts of joy and more pointed
assertions of pride. At times, the group
chanted “Sí se puede,” Spanish for “Yes
we can,” and they also serenaded those
on the streets with a rendition of Diana
Ross’ “I’m Coming Out.” But at other
times, the messages were angrier —
“Hey, hey, ho, ho, transphobia has to go”
and “Hi haters, you see me, I see you.”
Back on Grove Street, the celebration
descended on a small park restored by
Make the Road by Walking, the commu-
nity action initiative of which GLOBE is
a part. Among the crowd on hand were
the two young men, Fernando Preda, 18,
of East Harlem, and Bushwick resident
Jeff Vasquez, 23, who are shown on
the cover; the two are not a couple, but
rather agreed to kiss for the camera as a
good-natured Pride Day lark.
Vasquez talked about the abuse he
suffered in high school from fellow stu-
dents who threw things at him, jumped
him, and warned others to steer clear of
him based on their bigoted, and incorrect
䉴 BUSHWICK, continued on p.23

World-class inn’s can be found on just about every corner. Some have spa services and provide
%*4$07&3
Provincetow n
exceptional amenities to make your stay a true getaway. The historic element of the inns cre-
ates a quaint and warming environment; I found many visitors perfectly happy sipping a glass
of chardonnay, reading their favorite novel on a 150-year-old porch. The New England feel
is ever prominent, and sets a laid-back, “Sunday drive” mood. If your idea of unwinding is
lemonade and a rocking chair, you are most surely in luck!
N E W E N G L A N D ’ S PA R A D I S E
If it is a more flamboyant and wild scene you’re looking for, P-Town has you covered. Some
of the best DJ’s spin into the morning hours, and everywhere you can find a crowd of people
looking to let their hair down on a dance floor. The cabaret shows are delightfully entertaining
Provincetown: An All-Season Destination and engage the audience. The Tea Dance is great way to unwind in the afternoon sun and
form new friendships international in scope.
By Lee A. Castoro
The town’s greatest asset is by far its people. Talking to locals is an experience all its own.

A
s I stepped on board the Ferry from Boston’s World Trade Center, I could not help
but to examine the fellow passengers. They were all smiling, cheerful and excited.
Children were being carried by their parents; their strollers have a special place in the
cabin. It was obvious from the very beginning that we were heading to a very special and
unique place.
The ride is absolutely beautiful. The sunset against the Boston skyline provides the picture per-
fect backdrop for a photograph with family and friends on the main deck. Suddenly it’s open
water with nothing in sight and after an hour or so, we arrive.
Provincetown rests on the tip of Cape Cod and is easily accessible by car, rail, ferry, bus or
flight. The town has deservingly earned a reputation as a safe haven—a place where nine-to-
fivers are free to express, where diversity and individuality is celebrated and where people can
truly escape to what many had called “the tip of the earth”. For over a century the community
has inspired many notable American artists and writers and that appeal continues to this day,
as many creative types from around the globe bring their imagination and talents to this tiny
wonderland.
Art is the pulse of this lively town and it’s clear to see why; Provincetown is surrounded by
water, dunes, lighthouses and unmatched natural splendor. Culture is deeply embedded in its
history and it resonates throughout every brushstroke on canvas. There are dozens of fabulous
galleries to browse representing the finest in historic to contemporary works. The East End
Gallery District could rival SoHo—without the attitude. Rows of eclectic shops, boutiques and
restaurants line Commercial Street. Food ranges from burgers to Filet Mignon Au Poivre and
of course, the freshest seafood, which is served in a variety of ways. Prices can be high, but
well worth the ambiance of the Bay.
Each of them has such a unique, colorful story. Everyone arrives in Provincetown for different
reasons, yet all seem to have one common thread—they planted roots because they are free
to live their dream—a dream of self-expression, of water views, of complete inclusiveness.
A dream where there is no judgment, where two mommy’s is a majority, where marriage is
recognized as a fundamental human right on the basis of love. Provincetown is the type of
community where LGBT and our straight friends co-exist in perfect harmony. It’s a town that
one wishes America as a whole would become; safe, enchanting and full of love and respect
for each and every person. There are no minorities in Provincetown, everyone is equal—one.
Whatever you desire in an escape, Provincetown can offer. Autumn, spring and winter are just
as beautiful as the summer, albeit in different ways. The season extends well beyond the Labor
Day (many of the inns have fireplaces and serve cider!). I highly recommend a vacation to this
lovely place of beauty, history, charm and equality. One visit will have you hooked. You may
contemplate moving there, and will most surely make arrangements to go back.
DIRECTIONS
THE FASTEST WAY: Jet Blue to Logan, Cape Air to Provincetown.
THE SCENIC WAY: Amtrak to South Station. Ferry from Boston’s Seaport.
THE BUDGET WAY: Chinatown-Chinatown Bus. Ferry from Boston’s Seaport

To Advertise Contact: Lee A Castoro - 646-452-2505 - lee@gaycitynews.com

WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 23

䉴 BUSHWICK, from p.22

assumption, that anyone who is gay must

have AIDS. Three months ago, as a mem-
ber of GLOBE, he spoke to an assembly
at a high school in Flushing, explaining
the harm done to gay students because
of homophobia from their peers and also
talking about the need to protect them-
selves from HIV transmission.
“At first it was scary, because I was
there as a gay man,” Vasquez said of
his appearance before the high school
students.
Vasquez also talked about the diffi-
culties his father had “as a Latino man”
when he came out to him as a teenager.
He explained that it took his father about
two years to come around to accepting
that his son was gay. Vasquez urged
his father to join him at a GLOBE meet- Magic Minthe, RaShawn Chisolm, and Lila Andrianov and Enid Torres during the picnic in the
ing, telling him, “If you say you love me, park Make the Road By Walking restored.
just try it.” In time his father did, and the
experience proved powerful and benefi- program at GLOBE. munity activist, Chisolm also works on
cial. Magic Minthe, whose wife Rhonda an Internet radio operation that hosts
Preda talked about growing up, in Stubbs does HIV outreach at GLOBE, both gay hip hop music and public events
both the Castle Hill section of the Bronx said that the march was a response to programming.
and in California, with parents who those in Bushwick who think LGBT peo- For Enid Torres and Lila Andrianov,
were drug users and who abused him at ple don’t “exist” there. “Now they know Ridgewood, a Queens neighborhood that
times. Still, he explained, both his father, we’re here,” she said. Minthe was at the abuts Bushwick, has been home for five
who died, and his mother, now two years barbeque with her two of her four chil- years.
sober, were supportive of him when he dren and Stubbs. “Ridgewood is beautiful,” said Andri-
came out to them at 14. RaShawn Chisolm, a 37-year-old res- anov, who is preparing to start nursing
It was at that age that Preda con- ident of Bedford-Stuyvesant, explained school.
tracted two STDs, an experience that that he moved to Brooklyn in the past Torres, a carpenter currently on dis-
talked him about the importance of safe several years after living in Harlem ability after injuring her knee on the job,
sex. because he is concerned that gentrifica- said that Friday afternoon GLOBE gather-
“Sex is fun, but wrap it up,” he said, tion in Harlem is displacing the vibrant ings gave the couple the opportunity to

GAY CITY NEWS

in a message he would like to share with African-American cultural life that has meet others and “talk about the commu-
younger gays through the peer education long defined that neighborhood. A com- nity.” — Paul Schindler

Happy Pride!

From State Senator

LIZ KRUEGER
Pround co-sponsor of the
Same Sex Marriage Bill (S5994)

211 East 43rd Street, Suite 1300 | New York, NY 10017

www.lizkrueger.com | Email: liz@lizkrueger.com | (212) 490-9535
24/ Legal 26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008

Court Blasts Immigrant Verdict

Federal appeals panel said gay’s deportation finding betrayed “bias,” “hostility”
BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD Appeals, or BIA] decision, and resolve his own issues about herring raised by Ali to delay tured because he was a crimi-
remand this case for a rehear- his sexual orientation until late his deportation. nal deportee, and he “won-

I
n unusually direct lan-
guage, a three-judge panel
of the New York-based
2nd Circuit Court of Appeals
criticized federal Immigration
Judge (IJ) Alan Vomacka for
his handling of a Guyanese
man’s appeal that he not be
deported for fear that his life
would be endangered if he did.
The man, who will be iden-
tified in this reporting only as
Ali given the potential harm he
faces, made his appeal under
the international Convention
Against Torture (CAT), one of
the legal avenues available for
immigrants aiming to stay in
the US.
“In light of the inappropriate
remarks by Vomacka — which
included gratuitous comments
on the petitioner’s sexuality,
as well as unfounded specu-
lations about homosexuals
in general — we believe the
appropriate course is to grant
the petition for review, vacate
the [Board of Immigration
ing before a new IJ,” wrote Cir-
cuit Judge Guido Calabresi for
the court in Ali v. Mukasey,
decided on June 18.
Ali, it appears, is no angel —
he “established a long arrest
record and was convicted of
nine theft-related crimes” from
the time of his US entry with
other family members as a
teenager in 1980. He was twice
previously deported to Guy-
ana, but managed both times
to escape from security forces
there and find his way back
into the US.
Ali recounted that after his
first deportation he was imme-
diately placed in police cus-
tody in Guyana and subjected
to harsh treatment including
outrageous physical and sexu-
al abuse. When it seemed the
same thing was going to hap-
pen on his second deportation,
he immediately took steps to
evade his captors and return
to the US.
Apparently Ali did not
in this process — he did not
raise it as a ground for seek-
ing CAT relief until the third
removal proceedings were
already underway. That raised
credibility issues for Vomacka,
the immigration judge.
One other complication was
that it was a different immigra-
tion judge, in Maryland, who
earlier found credible Ali’s tes-
timony that he had been mis-
treated upon his earlier depor-
tations. Vomacka complained
that he found it difficult to
listen to those tape-recorded
proceedings that had not been
transcribed.
Judge Calabresi noted that
Vomacka also stated that it
was difficult “to understand
why a respondent would be
willing to disclose forcible rape
by jail guards, but not willing
to discuss his own sexual ori-
entations [sic] as a homosex-
ual.” The immigration judge
speculated that the issue of
homosexuality might be a red
But Ali had explained that
homophobic comments made
by the police officers who
raped him — they called him
anti-man, a synonym for faggot
— and his fear of life imprison-
ment for sodomy, along with
the fact that for a long time he
did not consider himself gay,
all led to his failure to raise his
sexuality earlier in the immi-
gration proceedings.
Calabresi summarized the
horrifying testimony from the
Guyana Human Rights Asso-
ciation about the violence and
hostility aimed at gay people,
which Vomacka had accepted
into evidence.
According to Calabresi,
Vomacka viewed Ali’s claims
as incompatible, writing that
“violent dangerous criminals
and feminine contemptible
homosexuals are not usually
considered to be the same peo-
ple.” Vomacka concluded there
was a “lack of specific objective
evidence” that Ali would be tor-
dered how anyone in Guyana
would even know that Ali was
a homosexual,” since there
was no “ partner or cooperat-
ing person” with whom he had
a relationship which would
mark him as gay — nor was
he “likely to form such a close
relationship within a foresee-
able period of time.”
Noting that Ali is a convicted
criminal with “professed men-
tal problems” and “some prob-
lems with his personality” who
“is not particularly communi-
cative or articulate” nor “par-
ticularly skilled and mature
in the way he expresses him-
self, shows his feelings, etc,”
Vomacka concluded that “the
picture of him as a proud, pro-
fessed homosexual in Guyana
seems to be more an expres-
sion of wishful thinking than
something that’s particularly
likely to come true.”
To top it off, Vomacka con-
䉴 ASYLUM, continued on p.59

THE BEST CAT CARE IN NYC.

I am happy to join the
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Community

in the celebration of Pride,

and the continuing fight for equality.

 West th Street

New York NY 
By appointment
Monday—Saturday

  CATS(

)
wwwmanhattancatscom
Arnold Plotnick MS DVM ACVIM ABVP
Board Certified in Feline Medicine
Board Certified in Internal Medicine

The doctor with a couple of new patients

Paid For By Nadler For Congress, Ira N. Brophy, Treasurer
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 25

NEWS BRIEFS By ANDY HUMM

NYS Opens
Family Court to
Gay Partners
The New York Legislature
voted unanimously this week for
a bill allowing domestic partners
— including same-sex couples
—access to protections granted
by Family Court, the Empire State
Pride Agenda said in a release.
The measure, which Governor
David A. Paterson supports, will
let the court issue orders of pro-
tection to “unmarried committed
couples and those in dating rela-
tionships.” Prior to this, gay part-
ners had to go to criminal court
to obtain such an order — a step
toward criminalization of domes-
tic life that many were reluctant
to take.
“Until now, New York has
been one of the last states in the
nation to protect same-sex cou-
ples against domestic violence,”
the Pride Agenda noted.
Al Sharpton
on Anderson
Cooper Going
to Hell
During a discussion on Ander-
son Cooper’s CNN show about
the attacks that right winger
James Dobson made on Barack
Obama’s religious views, the Rev-
erend Al Sharpton raised some
gay eyebrows when he said, “I
may have some very conserva-
tive personal feelings, but I feel
you have the right to live your life
differently. I may think that what
you do Anderson is gonna put you
AL SHARPTON
in Hell, but I’m gonna defend your
right to get there.”
Cooper replied, “I appreciate
all your concerns about my after-
life. I’m personally not all that
concerned, but that’s a whole
other discussion.”
Internet debates arose on
Towleroad.com and PageOneQ.
com about whether Sharpton, a
strong supporter of LGBT rights,
was referring to Cooper’s homo-
sexuality as his possible sin. But
Sharpton, unaware of the contro-
versy, told Gay City News, “I have
no idea of his sexuality. I was
not talking about him as an indi-
vidual anyway. It could have been
anybody.” He said any thoughts
ANDERSON COOPER
he might have about things that
condemn people wouldn’t include
homosexuality. “I support same-
sex marriage and have been lam-
basted by the right for it,” he said.
More than a decade ago, this
reporter asked Sharpton at a
party if his support extended to
performing same-sex marriages
as a minister. “Step outside,” he
shot back. “I’ll do you right now.”
Some wag on Towleroad said
that Sharpton must have been
referring to Cooper’s work on
CNN as his sin.
Mormons
Mark Pride
with Attack on
Rights
On Sunday, June 29, a letter
will be read at all Mormon wor-
ship services worldwide calling
on all members to contribute
financially and with their time to
pass the California initiative this
November that would limit mar-
riage different-sex couples.
The letter, from the Office of
the First Presidency of the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints, said, “The Church’s teach-
ing and position on this moral
issue are unequivocal. Marriage
between a man and a woman is
ordained of God.”
Mormon teaching against
black people serving in the
Church’s priesthood was also
unequivocal until it became politi-
cally untenable for it to maintain.
As with polygamy, which was
dropped so Utah could become
a state in 1896, Church elders
received a revelation from God
on June 8, 1978 that it was okay
to elevate black people to leader-
ship positions.
Dave Melson of Affirmation,
the LGBT Mormon group, told
the Salt Lake Tribune, “We had
hoped the Church would back off
and stay on the sidelines on this
one.” As if!
The Mormon Church provided
significant financial resources
for the successful campaign to
pass a constitutional amendment
in Hawaii in 1998 allowing the
Legislature to regulate marriage
there when state court rulings
were moving toward an embrace
of marriage equality. They also
heavily backed anti-gay marriage
campaigns in Alaska in 1998 and
in California in 2000.
Despite this direct involve-
ment in political campaigns, no
serious challenge to the Church’s
tax-exempt status has been
mounted.
LUKE RAVENSTAHL
Partners Bill
Passed
The Pittsburgh City Council
voted 7-1 on June 17 to create
a registry for couples who have
a “mutual commitment,” allow-
ing same-sex and different-sex
pairs to sign up “unless they are
too closely related to be mar-
ried under state law,” the Post-
Gazette reported.
City employees who register
will be able to share their ben-
efits with their partners, though
domestic partner benefits have
long been offered to them, the
newspaper said. The registry can
be used by private employers to
verify an employee’s relationship
status for the purpose of provid-
ing partner benefits, though they
will not be required to do so.
Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said
he expected to sign the bill.
TOM AMMIANO
Gay Bigs
Boycott SF
HRC Dinner
Some of the leading gay
activists in San Francisco are
boycotting the Human Rights
Campaign’s annual dinner there
over the group’s support for a
federal non-discrimination bill
that includes sexual orientation
but dropped gender identity and
expression when Representative
䉴 BRIEFS, continued on p.73

SPACE
TO MEET TO DANCE TO TEACH TO WORK TO PLAY
)4!).´49!-!-!´3*##

TO RENT :il`j\lgkfnekf
Affordable new facilities are available for one-time, K?<A::@ED8E?8KK8E
short-term or ongoing rental in Manhattan. ]fik_\Z`kpËjdfjkle`hl\
C>9KH\m\ekj¿
■ Flexible use spaces include: conference facilities, seminar rooms,
classrooms, dance studios, gymnasium and swimming pool.
WHOKNEW
■ State-of-the-art amenities.
■ Conveniently located near public transportation.
■ Non-profit rates starting at $25/hour.
9FPJMJ%>@ICJ1
■ All rental proceeds benefit the charitable activities of University Settlement. :<C<9I@KP>8D<E@>?K
@kËjXYXkkc\f]k_\j\o\j¿fi^\e[\ij¿
fin_Xk\m\i%Gi`q\jXe[jeXZbj`eZcl[\[%
N\[#Alc(-#.gd#,&.
K?<;8K<J@DLC8KFI)'''
Fe\$[Xk\nfe[\i6C\Xiek_\\jj\ek`Xcj#
Õ`ikkfpfliX[mXekX^\Xe[kipflk
jkiXk\^`\jÇXccfm\ij`e]lc[\jj\ikjXk
flikXYc\j]fiknf%
Kl\#Alc)0#.gd#()&(,

7ANTMOREPflbefnpfl[f 
M`j`kljXkJCCMANHATTANORGLGBTQ
Call or 212-475-5008
come 273 Bowery at Houston Street K?<A::@ED8E?8KK8E -+-%,',%,.'/
for a tour **+8djk\i[Xd8m\Xk.-k_Jk XY\e\ÔZ`Xipf]LA8$=\[\iXk`fe
universitysettlement.org
26/ Pride
Long-Term Commitments
As Center celebrates 25 years, three vets discuss decades of service
BY PAUL SCHINDLER
I
n looking at the Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual and Trans-
gender Community Cen-
ter a quarter of a century
after its founding, one of the
most striking factors that
emerges in trying to get to
the core of its success is the
amazing institutional memo-
ry that some of its key staff
members bring to West 13th
Street every day.
Just over 18 months ago,
executive director Richard
Burns celebrated his 20th anni-
versary at the helm, and in an
interview with Gay City News,
he talked about the Center’s
previous two decades, weaving
it into the history of the LGBT
community nationwide, its
promising advances, its politi-
cal reversals, and the devastat-
ing heartbreak it endured from
the scourge of AIDS — as well
as his own personal story as
an activist, gay journalist, and
attorney going back ten years
earlier to his life in Boston.
In interviews last week,
three other longtime Center
employees brought their own
stories to bear on a facility
that one said “would be hard
not to know about now” if
you’re an LGBT New Yorker.
Robert A. Woodworth ran
his own consulting business
and was a member of the gay
Greater Gotham Business
Council in the early 1980s
when talk first sur faced
among New York LGBT lead-
ers about the need to launch
a community center.
“Nobody knew where
anybody was,” Woodworth
recalled about a queer com-
munity experiencing an
explosion of organization-
building without benefit of
email or cell phones.
As it happened, several
early LGBT organizations —
including SAGE, the Metro-
politan Community Church,
and the Community Health
Project, what was then a
new amalgam of two existing
efforts serving gay men and
is now the Callen-Lorde Com-
munity Health Center — were
subleasing space at 208 W.
13th Street along with other
progressive and community
action groups. At the time, the
city owned the building and
rented it to a group called Car-
ing Community.
But the city wanted to
unload the building and as
the fledgling LGBT groups
Barbara Warren and Robert Woodworth have been key leaders at the LGBT Community Center dating back to the 1980s.
worried about where they
would next turn for space,
Woodworth was among an
ad hoc group of activists and
leaders who began a con-
versation about the possi-
bility of buying the building
to establish the community
center they felt was need-
ed. The first hurdle was the
lack of any model out there
The first hurdle was the lack
of any model for how
the gay community would
make this happen.
for how the gay community
would make something like
this happen.
But then Gay Men’s Health
Crisis — itself just getting off
the ground in a frantic effort
to mount some response to
AIDS amidst considerable
indifference at every level of
government from City Hall
up — showed the way. In May
1983, the group held a Ringling
Brothers Circus fundraiser at
Madison Square Garden that
drew more than 15,000 people.
The move was risky — nobody
knew for sure how many would
in fact turn out and more criti-
cally somebody had to put out
the rental money upfront.
“It was an amazing event,”
Woodworth recalled.
What GMHC discovered is
that gay people with money
were willing to stand up for
the community by making
interest-free loans to float
the rent, and those working
to launch a community cen-
ter seized on that lesson. The
group quickly raised north
of $200,000 in donations
or no-interest loans; a year
later they began the process
of persuading the lenders to
renew the loans for another
year. By the end of 1983, the
city had approved the new
community center’s pur -
chase of its current home, at
a price of $1.5 million, with
ten percent down required.
Woodworth worked on a
consulting basis — yet still
put in a lot of hours — until
becoming a full-time employee
in 1985. He remembers two
critical decisions made about
the Center’s original name —
the Lesbian and Gay Commu-
nity Services Center.
“Using the word lesbian at
that time was not that com-
mon,” he recalled, “let alone
putting it first.”
And in trying to win city
approval for the purchase
26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008
7 DAYS
䉴
7 NIGHTS
JUNE 27, from p.14
Fourth St. near Second Ave., Jun.
29, 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 at http://
www.nyneofuturists.org.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
Work Out For
Hope
Steel Gym once again holds a day-
long benefit for Hope’s Voice Internation-
al, a non-profit organization that works
to educate youth worldwide about HIV,
AIDS, and their prevention. Ten percent
of all proceeds generated at the gym that
day will be donated to the group. 146 W.
23rd St., 5:30 a.m.-10 p.m. For more
information on Hope’s Voice Interna-
tional, visit http://www.hopesvoice.org,
and learn about its “Does HIV Look Like
Me?” campaign, at http://www.doeshiv-
looklikeme.org.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
PERFORMANCE
Brokeback
PERRY BRASS
Mormon
Steven Fales, the star of the “Con-
fessions of a Mormon Boy,” first seen
in New York to critical praise from Gay
of the building, “the use of City News’ David Kennerley at the 2004
the word ‘services’ was quite International Fringe Festival, presents his
conscious because the New newest solo piece, “Mormon American
York gay crowd was not seen Princess” — an evening of stand-up,
as a cooperative crowd. We singing, irreverence, and political com-
wanted to put the emphasis mentary. “God has seen me through
on services, not on egos.” excommunication, divorce, prostitu-
The moment when the 13th tion and drugs; now we’re working on
Street building became the narcissism.—and it’s not going well,”
Lesbian and Gay Community Fales says. Joe’s Pub, 425 Lafayette
Services Center, Woodworth St. below Cooper Sq. adjacent to
said, “was a watershed shift for the Public Theater, Jun. 27, 9:30 p.m.;
the gestalt of the community. Jun. 28, 11:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 at
Crossing the threshold, people http://www.joespub.com.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
would have this amazing epiph-
any because the normative
experience of gay people at that No Olive Please
time was all about the need to Basil Twist’s signature sights and
protect yourself. The commu- innovative puppetry unite with drag diva
nity had a concrete place, a Joey Arias’ legendary voice to transport
home, for the first time.” audiences to unpredictable worlds, chan-
During the intervening neling ecstatic desires, lavish nightmares,
years, the Center’s function and bizarre premonitions. “Arias With a
has broadened from opening Twist” is a feast for the senses, centering
up community meeting spaces on rare songs and reinventions of popular
and similar facilities to pro- favorites. The production marks Arias’
viding a deepening range and return to the New York stage following
sophistication of social services, six years with Cirque du Soleil in Las
producing cutting-edge cultural Vegas. HERE Arts Center, 145 Sixth
programming, and pursuing Ave., entrance on Dominick St. Wed.
public policy goals. And Wood- & Thu., 9 p.m.; Fri. & Sat., 9 p.m. &
worth, now director of meeting midnight; Sun., 8 p.m. through Jul. 13.
and conference services and Tickets are $35-$50 at http://www.here.
capital projects, recalls that he’s org or 212-352-3101. More information
probably had “eight or ten jobs at http://www.basiltwist.com.
since I started.” The current ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
challenge facing him is over-
sight of a major capital expan- THEATER
sion that by 2012 could double Love Conquers
the Center’s space through Fear
construction of a building adja- Billed as a gay rap opera, “Bash’d”
cent to the current one over the is a nearly sung-through piece created
䉴 LGBT CENTER, continued on p.36 䉴 JUNE 27, continued on p.32
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 27

To Advertise Contact: Lee A Castoro - 646-452-2505 - lee@communitymediallc.com

Cold Spring-on-Hudson The Bird & Bottle Inn

Step back in time in historic Cold Spring, a quaint This historical 1761 pre-revolutionary Inn with oak plank floors,
village nestled in the Hudson Highlands, that ca- wood beam ceilings, and beautiful old wood burning fireplaces
ters to the shopper, the diner, the outdoorsy and takes you back in time to stagecoaches, the Pony Express, and
the history buff. Stroll along tree-lined Main St. or Washington’s army. Enjoy seasonal outdoor dining, Tavern
ride the jaunty green trolley. Visit art and antiques Menu, Saturday and Sunday Brunch, or Fine Dining Thursday
galleries, charming boutiques, gift and novelty through Sunday in cozy, romantic dining rooms. Our award
stores. Hike the Highlands and tour historic Mani- winning American cuisine delights even the most sophisticated
toga or Boscobel Restoration, home of the Hudson palate. Join us at the bar for cocktails or an evening nightcap.
Valley Shakespeare Festival. Please call for a free Make all your special occasions memorable at one of the finest
travel guide and events calendar. No car necessary, Inn’s in America.
take Metro-North Hudson Line.
1123 Old Albany Post Road (Route 9) | Garrison, New York 10524
Putnam Visitors Bureau | 110 Old Route 6 | Carmel, New York 10512 845-424-2333 | www.thebirdandbottleinn.com
1-800-470-4854 | www.VisitPutnam.org

The Pig Hill Inn The Garrison

Our European hospitality is sure to relieve the pres- Located an hour north of New York City in the
sures of your everyday routine. From our gorgeous picturesque Hudson Highlands, The Garrison is
individually decorated rooms to the peacefulness a 300-acre property with sweeping views of the
of our garden terrace you will enjoy privacy and Hudson River and surrounding mountainous land-
romance while our staff pampers you. When you scape. The Garrison offers guests an 18-hole golf
return home you will feel refreshed, relaxed and re- course with stunning views, a critically-acclaimed
juvenated. Cold Spring-on-Hudson is easily reached fine dining restaurant called Valley, overnight accommodations in the four-room Inn, private
from New York City by train or car. This quaint little Hudson River town is home to fine dining, event spaces, and a day spa and yoga center. A relaxing refuge that offers an abundance of
antique shops, boutiques, art galleries, theatre festivals, hiking trails, numerous historic attrac- outdoor and nearby cultural activities, The Garrison is perfect for a restorative weekend get-
tions and so much more. Come for a weekend getaway or stay for a whole week! away of spa treatments, outdoor activities, and fabulous cuisine.

73 Main Street | Cold Spring, New York 10516 2015 Route 9 | Garrison, New York 10524
845-265-9247 | www.pighillinn.com 845-424-3604 | www.thegarrison.com

Cathryn’s Tuscan Grill The Cold Spring Depot

One of the best Italian Restaurants in the US, as Enjoy succulent clams or oysters at the raw bar or
rated by the Zagat Survey, Cathryn’s is sure to have a lunch, dinner, or weekend brunch at out-
please. After receiving the Award of Excellence door umbrella tables as you listen to the Dixie band
from Wine Spectator, Cathryn’s now has a lovely playing weekends and watch the many trains whiz
informal wine tasting every Tuesday evening and by the station. The Depot is the original 124-year-
delicious $16.09 lunches M-F. The freshest ingre- old train station for Cold Spring. The menu ranges
dients combined with a brilliant chef, create culi- from sandwiches and salads to steaks and seafood
nary splendor at this lovely restaurant tucked away with a variety of daily specials. Entertainment is
along a garden walkway in Cold Spring. Cathryn’s is rated “Very Good” by The New York Times provided Thursday-Sundays. Open 7 days 11-11. We take all major credit cards and warmly
and graciously welcomes all Hudson Valley Getaways travelers. We are open seven days. welcome you to Cold Spring!

91 Main Street | Cold Spring, NY 10516 1 Depot Square | Cold Spring, NY 10516
845-265-5582 | www.TuscanGrill.com 845-265-5000 | www.coldspringdepot.com

Hudson Valley Outfitters Garrison Art Center

39th Annual Fine Arts & Crafts Fair
Stop by Hudson Valley Outfitters on your way to
August 16 - 17, 10-5pm (rain or shine)
Breakneck Ridge, Mt. Taurus or the Appalachian
Trail and pick up a local trail map and get some Step off the train and step into the Fair!
good friendly trail suggestions. We carry a great Metro-North One Day Getaway Discount Package
assortment of New York and New Jersey Trail Con- Package info: www.mta.info or call 800-METRO-INFO
ference Maps. Located one block from the Cold Enjoy: FREE rides on the Woody Guthrie Sloop, acoustic
Spring train station, you’ll find great clothing and music, gourmet food, a riverside picnic, and crafts by over
footwear for hiking, paddling and keeping fit! 80 remarkable, juried artists.
Kayak sales, tours, rentals and instruction. We provide all you need to explore the Hudson Val-
ley and the many natural wonders of the area. Who’s There? View Exhibitor List and more information at:
www.garrisonartcenter.org, click “Arts & Crafts Fair”
63 Main Street | Cold Spring, New York 10516 23 Garrison’s Landing, P.O. Box 4 | Garrison, NY 10524
845-265-0221 | www.hudsonvalleyoutfitters.com 845-424-3960 | www.garrisonartcenter.org
28 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

Le Petit Chateau Inn Millbrook Vineyards & Winery

One –half mile from Culinary Institute of America, Called “the Hudson Valley’s flagship winery” by The New
Le Petit Chateau is nestled amongst the trees and York Times, Millbrook Winery is located in the magnificent
a beautiful pond in Hyde Park. Our Chefs are CIA Dutchess County just 90 minutes north of New York City
graduates. Breakfast is an event as they impart – 5 minutes from the village of Millbrook. Considered one
techniques while preparing sumptious meals. Lo- of the top wineries in not only the Hudson River Valley but
cal produce from our garden and the surrounding all of New York State, our 130-acre estate is planted with
farms is served. Artisanal Cheese Plates from Hud- 30 acres of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc.
son Valley purveyors and French wine prepare you for a relaxed escape. Our rooms have mod- The Winery is open daily throughout the year for guided
ern amenities with beautiful linens, private baths, cable TV, Movies on Demand and wireless tours and wine tastings. The hours are 12:00-5:00 PM with extended hours from Memorial Day
internet. Concierge services: Private Chef Dinners and Lunches, Seasonal Packages, restaurant through Labor Day. Picnic area available.
reservations at the CIA.
26 Wing Road | Millbrook, NY 12545
39 West Dorsey Lane | Hyde Park, New York 12538 1-800-662-WINE | www.millbrookwine.com
845-437-4688 | www.lepetitchateauinn.com

Robert A. McCaffrey Limited Editions Realty

Realty Inc. We are celebrating the 23rd Anniversary of Lim-
ited Editions Realty this year and pride ourselves in
Robert A. McCaffrey Realty Inc. was established
the personalized service we continue to offer. All
in 1987 and is a major realtor serving Philipstown
of our agents live locally, know our products, and
(Garrison, Cold Spring), Putnam, Dutchess and Or-
present them in a fair and honest manner. It is very
ange Counties. Offering a wide range of proper-
gratifying to see the growth of the company, the
ties, from luxurious Hudson River estates to village
changes in how we do business, and ultimately, the resulting customer satisfaction. Located 50
cottages, residential and commercial, R. A. McCaffrey Realty is especially active in the luxury
miles north of NYC, in Cold Spring-on-Hudson, we serve the areas of Cold Spring and Garrison
market. Our office team of associate brokers and sales agents, all local residents, can provide
in Putnam County. We can also locate and bring you to your new home in Dutchess County, as
the personalized, knowledgeable service you deserve. Mr. McCaffrey is a fourth generation
members of the Mid-Hudson MLS.
resident of Philipstown and can provide answers to any questions about the area.
21 Main Street | Cold Spring, New York 10516
143 Main St. | Cold Spring, NY 10516
845-265-3111 | www.limitededitionsrealty.com
845-265-4113 | www.mccaffreyrealty.com

We’ve Made it Easy to be Green!

Wilder Balter Partners, Hudson Valley’s Premier Green Builder Presents:

30% more energy efficient than standard new construction! From $479,900

A Luxury Adult Lifestyle Community (55+)

Semi-attached Townhomes with main level master suites

Call: (845) 265-9600 or Visit: www.glassburycourt.com

New York Energy Star ® labeled homes
– built for superior energy performance,
Sales office open daily. Closed Wednesday & Thursday.
comfort, health and safety.
ENERGY STAR
HOMES
Wilder Balter
The complete terms are in an Offering Plan available from Sponsor. General File Number CD07-0669. Sponsor: WB Philipstown LLC, 570 Taxter Rd. Elmsford, NY 10523 PA R T N E R S I N C.
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 29

To Advertise Contact: Lee A Castoro - 646-452-2505 - lee@communitymediallc.com

Shadows on the Hudson The Poughkeepsie

Shadows on the Hudson is the Hudson Valley’s
premier waterfront dining experience. Delicately
placed alongside the majestic Hudson River, this
restaurant provides panoramic views, which should
be a part of your travels. Enjoy a culinary prepared
lunch or dinner and stay for an evening of world-
class mixology. We invite you to celebrate your
special occasion overlooking the beautiful Hudson
River with us. Don’t forget that Poughkeepsie’s first Authentic Vintage Trolley Car is at your
disposal every weekend to connect you to The Poughkeepsie Grand Hotel. Use this exclusive
promotional code for reservations: HVNY08
176 Rinaldi Boulevard | Poughkeepsie, New York 12601
845-486-9500 | www.shadowsonthehudson.com
Grand Hotel
The Poughkeepsie Grand Hotel offers the only full
service hotel experience in Poughkeepsie. Explore the
historic mansions, the Culinary Institute of America,
take a cruise along the Hudson River, visit the many
shops, or allow our very own trolley to connect you
to the Downtown Waterfront District, home of Hud-
son Valley’s Best Restaurant with a view—Shadows on the Hudson. The Hotel has just completed
a major renovation, showcasing a brand-new lobby, bar, restaurant, and all new guest rooms. Our
staff is knowledgeable on all of the great offerings of this beautiful and historic area. For an exclusive
Hudson Valley Getaways rate, use this promotional code to make your reservations: HVNY08
40 Civic Center Plaza | Poughkeepsie, NY 12601
845-485-5300 | www.pokgrand.com

★ ★

W
elcome to the Hudson Valley, one of the most beautiful regions in America,
rich with history and full of distinctive character and charm. We have pre-
pared a spectacular itinerary for you. Sip some wine at a vineyard, dine at a
top rated restaurant, go kayaking, enjoy a round of golf, explore a fabulous art center
and unwind at a quaint B&B. This region is my home and I am sure you will fall in love the
way so many have and want to plant roots for yourself. Enjoy!
-Lee Castoro
Director, Hudson Valley Getaways

★
★
30/ Community 26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008

Designing Queer Youth

Top creative execs help forming homeless youth discover their dreams
BY WINNIE MCCROY uate. While in the program,
Horne said she collaborated on

A
ccording to the first a photo essay with Peter Turn-
comprehensive survey ley of Newsweek and Harp-
of homeless New York ers, directed a photo shoot for
City youth, funded by the City appreciate.org, and worked
Council and led by the Empire with Matt Paco, a former pro-
State Coalition of Youth and ducer from MTV, to learn how
Family Services, 3,800 home- to create and edit videos.
less teens are out on the street “All of those experiences
every night in New York City. helped me to know what’s pos-
Now, homeless youth advoca- sible, to have an idea of what
cy programs Green Chimneys is going to make me happy,
and the Reciprocity Founda- and to have a good plan for my
tion have teamed up with top future,” Horne said. “I believe
executives from Essence mag- that I am a catalyst for change.
azine, ASCAP (the American I am doing more with my talent
Society of Composers, Authors, than I have ever done before. I
and Publishers) Calvin Klein no longer dream about becom-
Home, Atlantic Records, and ing a photographer or an artist
MTV for “Design Your Future,” — I call myself that.”
a workshop series aimed at The first session in a four-
teaching these kids how to week series, funded by vari-

MAGGIE M KOOPMANS
harness their career potential. ous grants and the supporting
“Before coming to Reciproc- organizations, began on May
ity I did not really have any 14 at the Reciprocity Founda-
plans. I was moving from job to tion on Church Street in down-
job without any real direction,” town Manhattan. According Claire Savage; Koalani Sallas, Reciprocity Foundation youth interface director; Theresa Nolan, New York City division director at Green Chim-
said Lysette Horne, a 23-year- neys; Nick Winowsky, Adam Bucko, managing director at the Reciprocity Foundation; and Natasha Johnson-Lashley, director of education at
old “Design Your Future” grad- 䉴 YOUTH, continued on p.34 Reciprocity.

HAPPY PRIDE!
AD;43
>E4A C7420B4
C70C1A>D67C3>
F=B>3>

[TSc^aTb_
TRcU^a
<H;0F B

A Lambda Legal Production

T]cXc TP]
^]TabPaT ]]^cST\
>E4AAD;

ºCWT_TcXcX XeTbCWTbcPcTRP STbcX]hQh

T[ Xa
cWTXa_aXePc T]RT^aR^]ca^[cWT dRcPRaX\T»
cWTXaTgXbc _aXePcTbTgdP[R^ ]S
Sh
Xa ^]h:T]]T
\PZX]VcWT \T2^dac9dbcXRT0]cW
_aT
¸DBBd
43C7420B
4C70C1
A>D6
7C3>F=

Lambda Legal is proud to celebrate five years since

B>3><H

Lawrence v. Texas — the case that brought down

;0FB

sodomy laws. See the documentary today!

www.la

Visit www.lambdalegal.org/overruled
mbdaleg
al.org

verruled

NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS
120 Wall Street, Suite 1500
New York, NY 10005-3904
tel 212-809-8585
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 31
32/ History
Carry the Flag to California
A rainbow, once stitched, must be held aloft on everyone’s shoulders
High above the rotunda of the San Francisco City Hall in 2004, Gilbert Baker peers down at his original creation.
BY GILBERT BAKER
Gilbert Baker created the
Rainbow Flag, which quick-
ly became the banner of the
LGBT rights movement, 30
years ago, in 1978. In com-
memoration of that anniver-
sary, Baker will be one of the
grand marshals in Sunday’s
Pride Parade down Fifth Ave-
nue. This past Sunday, June
22, Baker delivered the follow-
ing remarks at the LGBT Pride
Rally in Manhattan’s Bryant
Park.
T
.S. Elliot said “the end
of our exploring will be
to arrive where we start-
ed and know the place for the
first time.”
People find out I’m from
Kansas and they always ask
me “Oh, are you a friend of
Dorothy? And I always tell
them — I am Dorothy.
I had your typical unpleas-
ant suburban black-and-
white childhood, a Freudian
nightmare of parents, friends,
atomic bombs, assassina-
tions, the lonely fears of being
different. I loved rock and roll
and my dog Bruiser. I liked to
dance and dress up, and most
of all I liked to draw and play
the trumpet.
But I was afraid of what
would happen to me beause I
was gay. I had to lie to survive
in a world where being gay was
illegal and you could be locked
up and electroshocked. I had
to lie to everyone all the time,
trying to get through yet anoth-
er day of insults and punches
on the playing fields of teenage
cruelty. It made me sick.
My parents took me to a psy-
chiatrist when I was in junior
high, because they thought I
might be a latent homosexual.
But there was nothing latent
about it. I was born gay and I
always knew it.
Jesus said, “No one lights a lamp
and puts it in a place where it will
be hidden, or under a bowl.
I invented my own art thera-
py as an answer to suicide.
At night I would read the
encyclopedia and any books
and magazines I could find
and then dream of a life some-
where over the rainbow.
Then one day it happened
— the ’60s, civil rights, the
Vietnam War — and when the
tornado came, I ran right for it
saying, “Take me away.”
And it did — to San Francis-
co, exploding in color and rev-
olutionary ideas. I learned how
to sew, a talent inherited from
my grandmother. I’d push the
gowns aside and stitch up
protest banners. My craft was
always my activism. It con-
nected me with community,
and when I made the rainbow
flag in 1978 it changed my life.
Those red shoes have
brought me here, to New York
City, where today I see so
many who are making a differ-
ence for our children that they
may love freely, truthfully,
equally.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said,
“Do not go where the path may
lead, go instead to where there
is no path and leave a trail.” We
have not followed a worn Yel-
low Brick Road to a world ruled
by wizards behind a curtain
of conformity. We built a new
one paved with personal cour-
age, respect for the individual
and have made a bridge to the
future. But it is a suspension
bridge that hangs in the bal-
ance of our hands today.
MARIE JO FERRON
The thread of our strength is
our visibility.
Jesus said, “No one lights
a lamp and puts it in a place
where it will be hidden, or
under a bowl. Instead he
places it on its stand, so that
those who come in may see the
light.”
To come out is to be true to
one’s self. When I was a kid in
Sunday School we’d sing, “This
little light of mine, I’m gonna’
let it shine,” and I believed I
was loved by God — even while
those around me thought oth-
erwise. My whole life was a
silent rebellion against a pro-
grammed inner hatred for who
I really was. All of it over love.
But somewhere deep in my
soul, I knew, even as a child in
Kansas, that my love was just
as good as everyone else’s.
I ask myself, “Equality — it
is a question of difference? Is
love equal?
In the Bible, God speaks
in the first person — Genesis
9:13 — and says, “I set my
bow in the cloud as a sign of
a covenant between me and
the earth.” We are a part of life
from the beginning.
“Democracy arose from
men’s thinking that if they are
equal in any respect, they are
equal absolutely,” said Aristo-
䉴 RAINBOW, continued on p.40
26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008
7 DAYS
䉴
7 NIGHTS
JUNE 27, from p.26
in 2005 in response to increased hate
crimes in Alberta during the Canadian
equal marriage debate. Creators Chris
Craddock and Nathan Cuckow initially
conceived just one rap song to satirize
political events through rap, which they
see as a kind of hyper-masculine music
form to gay people and women. But,
they say, for satire work, it has to be a
legitimate example of the form being
satirized — and that inspired the fully
developed piece, hailed at last summer’s
International Fringe Festival, including by
Gay City News’ David Kennerley. They
call it an opera because the emotions
are very operatic. It is, Craddock says,
“really a love story.” Zipper Factory
Theater, at 336 W. 37th St., Fri., 7:30
& 10 p.m., Sat., Mon. & Thu. 8 p.m.
Tickets are $25-$55 at http://www.thez-
ipperfactory.com or 212-352-3101.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
Masculine
Invasions
Loosely based on a Sophocles clas-
sic, Dave McCracken’s new play, “Fever,”
tells the story of two legendary gener-
als, Atrox and Bonitas, who clash in a
desperate struggle to win the soul and
affections of a young man while deter-
mining whether the fate of all mankind
will continue in light and truth, or wither
in darkness and deception. The Diony-
sus Theater’s L’il Peach, 270 W. 36th
St., Wed.-Sat., 8 p.m. through Jul. 5.
Tickets are $25 at http://www.Grape-
vineTickets.com or 646-621-5171.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
DANCE
Now Get Out
There & Create
LAVA formed out of the Contact
Improvisation dance community of the
Midwest, a grassroots, community-
based art form with fluid, weight-shar-
ing, and aerial partnering style that is
one of the best-known and most char-
acteristic forms of postmodern dance.
Watching an improvisational dance
performance by LAVA offers an oppor-
tunity to witness the human creative
process. Dance Theater Workshop,
Jerome Robbins Studio, 219 W. 19th
St. Jun. 27-28, 8 pm. Admission is $17;
$13 for students & starving artists at
the door only. Reserve seats by calling
773-351-7195.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
ACTIVISM
SAT.JUN.28
Take to the Streets
What’s the Dyke March, you say?
It’s the time to hit the streets! Make
some noise. Be visible. Be heard.
Demonstrate, agitate, liberate! Bring
signs, banners, drums, giant puppets,
䉴 JUNE 28, continued on p.51
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 33

3 day local 3, 6 or 12 month

delivery finance offer!
of available items! Ask for details. Subject to
credit approval.

You take pride in who you are, take pride in your home as well!
Door Store Furniture. Proud to serve the GLBT community.

Apollo Queen Platform Bed $74999† (above)

Apollo Queen “Lift” Storage Bed $94998† (right) White lacquer or chocolate finish.

Storewide Independence sale going on now! 10-68% off everything!

3 day local delivery of in-stock items

Sleek Splitback Sleeper $79999

Sleek Reclining Chair $44999
Available in black or white faux leather, beige microfiber.

Open the door to great savings.

M A N H A T T A N • B R O O K L Y N • Q U E E N S • W E S T C H E S T E R • L O N G I S L A N D • N E W J E R S E Y
UPPER EAST SIDE: 969 3rd Ave. at 58th St. (212) 421-5271 MIDTOWN: 1 Park Ave. at 33rd St. (212) 679-9700 UPPER WEST SIDE: 601 Amsterdam Ave. at 89th St. (212) 501-8699
CHELSEA: 123 W. 17th St. Bet. 6th & 7th Aves. (212) 627-1515 BROOKLYN, NY: Showroom & Clearance Store, 475 Atlantic Ave. (718) 237-6888 QUEENS, NY: 88-12 Queens Blvd.at 56th Ave. Elmhurst. Across
from Queens Center mall. Free parking! (718) 478-DOOR SCARSDALE, NY: Showroom & Clearance Store, 945 Central Ave., Midway Shopping Center, near Linens ’n Things (914) 723-5313
CARLE PLACE, NY: 167 Old Country Rd, btwn. Panera Bread & Linens ‘n Things. Across from Roosevelt Field Mall. (516) 747-DOOR MANHASSET, NY: 1457 Northern Blvd. at Shelter Rock Rd, opp. Lord & Taylor.
(516) 627-2420 EAST HANOVER, NJ: 136 Rte. 10 West, 2nd floor, in front of Target,opp. Loews Cinema. (973) 884-8766 SECAUCUS NJ: Showroom & Clearance Store, 100 Enterprise Ave. South (201) 864-8844
www.doorstorefurniture.com • For national ordering call: 1-877 DOOR STORE
Sale ends 7/6/08. Reduction off suggested retail. Sale pricing not applicable to prior orders. †Bed assembly required.
34
䉴 YOUTH, from p.30
to Theresa C. Nolan, division director
of New York City programs for Green
Chimneys Children’s Services, about
20 formerly homeless LGBT youth par-
ticipated in the first evening’s events.
Green Chimneys houses 66 homeless
and foster care youth, while the Reci-
“I no longer dream about becoming a
photographer or an artist — I call
myself that.”
procity Foundation provides services
to youth at risk of homelessness; both
work with LGBTQ youth.
“Government funding doesn’t seem
to put much aside to help these kids.
It makes it more important that we
do this kind of program,” said Nolan.
“When you have youth that have mul-
tiple issues — that they are youth of
color, queer, young — it sometimes
makes it difficult for them to access
programming needs.”
That most of these youth come from
a disadvantaged background or were
formerly homeless made the “Design
Your Future” project even more impor-
tant, said Nolan. At the event, the teens
learn how to dress for success, make
a good first impression, and harness
their personal skills to build relation-
ships with successful professionals
from creative industries.
“The kids loved it; it felt very glamor-
26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008
ous to them,” said Nolan. “They were
excited about the people and compa-
nies they got to meet, and for them to
be able to touch it a little bit, and think
about making it a possible career path
was very exciting.”
She added that she had plans to
start a similar on-site career program
at Green Chimneys.
The initial four-week program, as
explained by Natasha Johnson-Lash-
ley, director of education for the Reci-
procity Foundation, is intended to do
much more than merely encourage
teens to consider career options; its
aim is to provide basic building blocks
on which to plan one’s future. After the
initial “Design Your Future” four-week
program is complete, said Johnson-
Lashley, youth return as alumni for
weekly sessions and Thursday evening
workshops to help articulate their skill
set and define the careers they may be
interested in, to identify how to build
those skills through education or train-
ing, to discuss obstacles and how to
overcome them, and to learn how to
network and brand oneself for today’s
market.
“From there, we will teach them
how to make themselves distinguish-
able from others they are competing
Formerly homeless LGBT youth gain access to skills and estimable role models through “Design Your Future.”.
against,” said Johnson-Lashley. “We
will cover résumé building, interview
building, and teach them how to cre-
ate a balanced lifestyle to continue and
sustain themselves in their industry of
choice.”
The program will also match youth
with mentors, allow them to shadow
established professionals, and offer
help to get into college or a long-term
internship.
“My favorite part of the program was
being able to network, and get indi-
vidual advice from leading executives
from different industries, be inspired
by their stories, and to know that we
can relate to each other’s experiences,”
Preparing and delivering
nutritious meals
- with love -
for our community since 1985!
God’s Love We Deliver
166 Avenue of the Americas
For more information:
212-294-8100
www.godslovewedeliver.org
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
MAGGIE M KOOPMANS
said Horne.
She said that her work with “Design
Your Future” gave her the self-confi-
dence to create The Border Line Arts
(http://www.myspace.com/theborder-
linearts), an “online interactive commu-
nity where gay and lesbian artists can
connect, empower each other, collabo-
rate on projects, and co-create media
pieces that speak to them.”
Nolan said that the initial success
of the program seemed to bode well for
its future as a life-changing force for
formerly homeless gay youth, adding,
“These young people are so excited and
so resilient, no matter what their expe-
riences, they have such creative ideas.”
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 35

marriage
equality
new york
36
䉴 LGBT CENTER, from p.26
space now occupied by the outdoor gar-
den and the youth services offices.
The Center is currently at the early
stages, both in terms of design — sig-
nificant city landmarks issues, to name
just one area of concern, need to be
examined — and budget projections,
but Woodworth estimated that total
construction expenditures and oper-
ating cost endowment requirements
will likely total $50 million. Nearly $12
million in government commitments,
from both the city and state, have
been secured, while the private dona-
tion campaign, which is expected to
raise half of the total, is still in its “quiet
phase,” largely confined to date to
efforts among Center board members.
I
n 1987, Dr. Barbara A. Warren
was a psychologist affiliated with
Pace University downtown doing
work on substance abuse. Recently
divorced — yes, she’s heterosexual!
— she felt it was time for a change
and had tentatively decided on a
big one. She was prepared to move
to Auburn University in Alabama to
work as a sports psychologist.
Then she got to know Richard
Burns, who convinced her that her
expertise on substance abuse treat-
ment and her experiences in counsel-
ing LGBT students at Pace, coupled
with a relationship to gay liberation
activists dating back to her college
days at Antioch in Ohio, suited her to
run a recovery program at the Center.
She and Burns discussed at some
GLID wishes all of NYC
Pride celebration!
26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
length, Warren said, the issue of her
sexual orientation — not with regard to
her qualifications for the job, but rather
in terms of how the Center community
and LGBT New Yorkers generally would
respond to a straight woman in such a
prominent post.
In terms of flak, time would prove,
Warren took it coming and going. There
was backlash among some in the queer
community.
“Lesbians in particular often seemed
suspicious or wary of me,” she recalled.
Later when Warren assumed leader-
ship of all the Center’s social services, she
became the target of criticism over the
founding of the Gender Identity Project to
serve the transgender community. Some
lesbians organized a zap in protest.
But, the GIP was a mission that
Burns was right with her on, though it
needed selling to some on the board. In
the view of some lesbians at the time,
Warren said, “there is only a Gender
Identity Project because a straight
woman started it.” Another formula-
tion, she said, was the charge of hypoc-
risy against the Center’s “gay men who
are feminists but are capitulating to
these fake women.”
But friction with some in the LGBT
community was nothing compared to
the negative attention she received from
many straight professional colleagues
outside the Center. Warren described
being at a conference of roughly 3,000
mental health professionals in Wash-
GAY CITY NEWS
ington at the end of the Reagan era.
She was the only one with a name tag
䉴 LGBT CENTER, continued on p.94 Lou Avanzato, perhaps the Center’s first employee, says she already misses the job she will likely leave next year.
a wonderful
www.glid.org
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 37

www.gmhc.org
HIV/AIDS Hotline: 800-243-7692 . hotline@gmhc.org
38/ Editorial 26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008

■ LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

PUBLISHER & CO-FOUNDER

Pride’s Winds of Change
JOHN W. SUTTER BY PAUL SCHINDLER
646.452.2500

A
JWSutter@communitymediallc.com s Pride Month crescen- What the gov- their country lyn for 21 years. Having met
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER & CO-FOUNDER dos with this Sunday’s er nor’s ruling to assert their in Boston, we initially were
TROY MASTERS Fifth Avenue parade, means is that equality. intrigued, when gay marriages
646.452.2502 we here in New York’s LGBT any gay couple With Califor- began in Massachusetts, by the
troy@gaycitynews.com community have much to who marries in nia’s landmark prospect of returning there to
EDITOR IN-CHIEF & CO-FOUNDER celebrate. In the past month California or court ruling marry, but those thoughts were
PAUL SCHINDLER alone, Governor David A. Pat- Canada — or and Paterson’s quickly dashed when then-
646.452.2503
editor@gaycitynews.com
erson has ordered all state Spain, South leadership here, Governor Mitt Romney made
agencies to develop blueprints Africa, Holland, Belgium, or New York gay couples can now clear the state would enforce its
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Duncan Osborne for ensuring that any gay or Norway, for that matter — will marry in this country and have peculiar out-of-state exclusion.
lesbian couple legally married be eligible for and bound by their unions recognized back Meanwhile, every few weeks
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Christopher Byrne (Theater), Susie Day, outside of New York will have the 1,324 rights and obliga- home in the Empire State. this newspaper reports anoth-
Doug Ireland (International), their unions recognized as tions that marriage in New The efforts by anti-gay forc- er story about the pitfalls fac-
Brian McCormick (Dance) marriages here. York entails, exactly the same es in California to turn back ing gay and lesbian couples
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS And, after five years, a as if they had married here. As that state’s Supreme Court and families because of the
Betsy Andrews, Seth J. Bookey, transgender civil rights bill has with Massachusetts and Cali- order in a ballot initiative this simple fact that we are not
Anthony M.Brown, Kelly Jean Cogswell,
Dean Daderko, Tate Dougherty, Andres Duque, finally been approved by the fornia, married gay and lesbi- November will likely prove a treated equally. And, we attend
Michael Ehrhardt, Steve Erickson, Nick Feitel, Democratic-controlled State an New Yorkers will not benefit milestone — a loss would be weddings of nieces and neph-
Jim Fouratt, Joe Fyfe, Deborah Garwood, Assembly. from federal recognition — that devastating for the marriage ews who weren’t even born at
Erasmo Guerra, Emily Harney, Andrey Henkin,
Frank Holiday, Andy Humm, James Jorden, The governor’s action on is a battle that will not be fully equality movement in Amer- the time Bert and I first met,
Brendan Keane, David Kennerley, Gary M. Kramer, marriage recognition was for- engaged until political changes ica, while a win would prove and our joy in their happiness
Arthur S. Leonard, Rachael Liberman,
Michael T. Luongo, Lawrence D. Mass,
ward-thinking, bold, coura- are effected in Washington. that the nation is firmly on the has a bittersweet edge.
Winnie McCroy, Eileen McDermott, geous — and entirely in line Change is also required in path to full equality. California But marriage equality is an
Gregory Montreuil, Ioannis Mookas, Carrie Moyer, with an evolving pattern of Albany if the gender rights needs and deserves our sup- achievable goal here in New
Stephen Mueller, Christopher Murray,
David Noh, Wayne Northcross, Lori Ortiz, administrative and judicial and marriage equality legis- port. Find out how to help at York. The State Assembly and
Pauline Park, Sheila Pepe, John Reed, decisions in recent years. The lation are to become law. The http://www.eqca.org. the governor are on our side,
Nathan Riley, Andrew Robinson, Gerard Robinson, city and state of New York, Republican majority in the The opportunity to marry and public polling shows that
Chris Schmidt, Sarah D. Schulman,
Jason Victor Serinus, Linda Shapiro, since 2004, have recognized Senate — even in the wake of in California will benefit many more and more the voters are
David Shengold, Gus Solomons Jr., David Spiher, out-of-state same-sex marriag- Joe Bruno’s resignation this gay and lesbian couples here too. One way or another, the
Drew B. Straub, Stefen Styrsky, Jerry Tallmer,
Stefanos Tsigrimanis, Kathleen Warnock,
es for purposes of their public week — stands as the obsta- in New York. For some, this Republicans who currently run
Benjamin Weinthal, Lee Ann Westover, employee pension funds. The cle to progress on both. Gay may be precisely the point in the Senate are going to have
James Withers, Kai Wright, Susan Yung state Civil Service Commission advocates clearly understand their relationship where mar- to own up to these truths —
GRAPHIC DESIGNERS has applied the same principle that Democrats will need to riage is the right step — and maybe by changing, but more
Mark Hasselberger, Greg Miller to public employee health pro- gain the two seats required to California without doubt pro- likely by losing their power.
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF ADVERTISING grams for the past year. become the majority — and vides countless romantic spots So Bert and I are making our
FRANCESCO REGINI Most significantly, in Febru- likely a few more for comfort — to hold the celebration of a life- bet on New York. We’re fully
Francesco Regini
646.452.2496
ary, an appellate court in Buf- if the two bills are to make it to time. Couples with children aware that in addition to elect-
francesco@gaycitynews.com falo concurred with that prin- Paterson’s desk. may not wish to wait any lon- ing a Democratic president this
ADVERTISING MANAGERS
ciple as well — finding unani- Part of what makes the gov- ger to ensure that their chil- year, our community here at
mously that precedent clearly ernor’s marriage recognition dren live in a home where the home has to focus on the criti-
MATT LEWIS
646.452.2504 dictates that such marriages order so potent right now is family has the full measure cal job of being the change we’ve
matt@gaycitynews.com deserve to be protected in New the recent opening of marriage of legal protection. And some been waiting for in Albany.
COLIN GREGORY York. to gay couples in California. couples with concerns about This year’s Pride season
646.452.2468 That ruling has not yet Given the law Massachusetts advancing age or illness may offers good cause for optimism,
colin@gaycitynews.com
been tested at the State Court has effectively barring out-of- welcome the chance to put but only if we are keen to the
ALLISON GREAKER
646.452.2485
of Appeals, but the strength state marriage by same-sex their minds at ease that each opportunities borne by the
allison@gaycitynews.com of a unanimous decision by couples, most New Yorkers partner has done as much as winds of change. So as we cel-
JENNIFER HOLLAND an appeals court in the most interested in marrying have possible for the other to ensure ebrate this weekend, let’s also
646.452.2499 conservative part of the state to date traveled to Canada, their future well-being. commit to redouble our efforts
Jennifer@gaycitynews.com vindicates Paterson’s thinking a wonderful opportunity for But for many New Yorkers, in the four months to come.
LEE CASTORO that it was time for the state some but an alienating thought marrying here at home is what We can make marriage
646-452-2505
lee@gaycitynews.com
to act to forestall the lawsuits for other couples unhappy at we want. My partner Bert and equality a reality. Yes. We.
that inaction would invite. the prospect of having to leave I have shared a home in Brook- Can.
ACCOUNTING
MICHAEL HALLERAN
646-452-2477
■ LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
michael@gaycitynews.com
NATIONAL DISPLAY ADVERTISING LETTING KATE’S NIECE
Rivendell Media
no objection to Houghton’s effort to, yet a person’s sexuality. Has she not seen dler’s timely caveat about Sam Nunn
212.242.6863 HAVE TOO MUCH HER SAY again, spin the legend exactly as Hep- “Brokeback Mountain”? Read about (remembered for expressing horror at the
Web master burn maintained it for so long. Senator Larry Craig? prospect of gays sharing close quarters
Arturo Jimenez June 23, 2008 In my book, I was careful not to place I can understand a niece misguidedly with straight seamen) as a possible run-
Arturo@gaycitynews.com
To the Editor: labels on either Hepburn or Tracy, but trying to “protect” her aunt’s legacy, but ning mate for Barack Obama (“What’s
Gay City News, The Newspaper Serving Gay and Lesbian NYC, is pub-
lishedby Community Media, LLC. Send all inquiries to: Gay City News, I am surprised that Gay City News Houghton seems perfectly comfortable not a gay newspaper allowing such an Next for Obama”).
145 Sixth Ave., First Fl., NYC 10013 Phone: 646.452.2500 Written
permission of the publisher must be obtained before any of the contents didn’t challenge Katharine Houghton’s doing so, calling them both “rampantly outright dismissal and denial of gay expe- Those old-timers who support a
of this paper, in part or whole, can be reproduced or redistributed. All
contents (c) 2008 Gay City News. dismissive statement “Come on!” when heterosexual” —whatever that means. It rience to pass without any challenge. policy that discriminates against well-
Subscriptions: asked about the same-sex experiences is beyond absurd at this point to attempt William J. Mann educated, law-abiding citizens invariably
26 issues, $90.00 of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy to position Hepburn as exclusively het- Palm Springs invoke the idea of “cohesion.” We have
(c)2008 Gay City News. (“Aunt Kate,” by David Noh, Jun. 19-25). erosexual (rampantly or otherwise). As learned in recent weeks that our badly
All rights reserved.
Despite the ample evidence of the com- for Tracy, it is no longer enough to simply June 16, 2008 over-stretched military is granting “moral
Gay City News is a registered
trademark of Community
plicated sexualities of both Tracy and use the “come on!” approach, as Hough- To the Editor: waivers” to large numbers of high school
Media, LLC. Hepburn — documented in 100 pages ton does when she says, “If I ever knew Thank you for Arthur Leonard’s lucid dropouts, many with criminal records,
John W. Sutter, President
Fax: 646.452.2501; of footnotes in my book “Kate: The a man who was heterosexual, it was explanation of how “Don’t Ask” is far- thus enabling them to serve. Apparently
E-mail: JWSutter@community-
mediallc.com Woman Who Was Hepburn” as well as Spencer” — as if outward appearances ing in the courts (“Boston Panel Upholds
in other books and articles — there was or mannerisms can tell us anything about Don’t Ask,” Jun. 12-18) and Paul Schin- 䉴 LETTERS, continued on p.58
26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008
■ PERSPECTIVE/ MY BODY MYSELF
H
e pinned me to the
car as his cohorts
rummaged through
my pockets for my wallet. But
when one of them tried to
remove my watch, I flipped out.
I elbowed one, tried to knee the
other, and yelled at the gun-
toting leader as we had a tug of
war over my wallet.
The result: he got the busi-
ness card holder, and I kept
my wallet — but not before
being pistol-whipped in the
eye. The cowardly trio fled —
and, still not in possession
of my senses, I chased them
for a block and a half before a
crossing taxi — and the blood
dripping from my eyebrow —
thwarted me.
I was robbed at gunpoint
in my old neighborhood, Fort
Greene, in the spring of 2000.
I was coming home from my
friend Caroline’s house in Park
Slope a little after midnight
when I passed three neighbor-
hood boys hanging out around
a bicycle on the curb. I thought
nothing of it — or that my out-
fit, with its secondhand-store-
bought green polyester shirt,
brown Banana Republic five-
pocket stretch pants, and artsy
black denim sneakers and
Army-Navy man-purse, made
me appear different from them
— and kept on strolling. Less
than 100 feet later, I heard the
bike approaching and before I
could turn around, its driver
leapt off of it and into my face
with a pistol.
■ PERSPECTIVE/ A NEW CENTURY’S EPIDEMIC
I
have a friend whose late-
night romps with casual
partners take place after
he gets high. At dinner, he told
us that nobody would lie about
their HIV status. We were dis-
mayed and argued vigorously
in favor of assuming your part-
ner is positive.
Researchers at NYU’s Stein-
hardt School of Culture, Edu-
cation, and Human Develop-
ment are taking a different
slice on this problem. They
don’t focus on the truth or
falsity of my friend’s belief,
but instead are eager to dis-
cover why he believes it. This
is important. Our arguments
with my friend didn’t take.
He simply shut up, but I am
convinced he didn’t change
Making My Own Safety A Priority
That I fought them off was
stupid; that I’d chased them
was insane. Still, I felt proud
for defending myself, hav-
ing often been bullied out of
money in my youth. My pride
took a hit two-and-a-half
years later, when another trio
jumped me the day before
Thanksgiving. Instead of
wielding a pistol, they struck
me in the face with their fists.
The blows knocked my gray
herringbone rex hat from my
head and tore the matching
double-breasted three-quar-
ter coat I’d bought in London.
No amount of yelling or resis-
tance helped, so I was left with
no choice but to surrender my
wallet. Punch drunk, I stum-
bled the two-block distance to
my apartment and tended my
wounds.
I’m no Boy Scout, but I
believe in being prepared. I
always carry my contact lens
case and some saline, in case I
need to clean or remove them.
I pack tissues and moist tow-
elettes in case I spill some-
thing on myself. And I always
carry condoms.
I also always pester the
women in my life to take self-
defense classes, but my pleas
consistently fall on deaf ears.
Last fall’s Michael Sandy ver-
dicts coupled with the near-
ten-year anniversary of Mat-
thew Shepard’s murder have
prompted me to wonder why
I have not heeded my own
advice.
Voices Behind the Fears
his mind. He just thought his
friends were being difficult,
giving him a hard time.
His belief doesn’t exist in
a vacuum — it’s tied to other
ideas and desires that make
casual encounters appealing.
Dr. Perry Halkitis and his col-
leagues are seeking insights
into the psychological basis of
their decision-making logic. To
be blunt, they want to know
why some men bareback casu-
ally.
The object of their research,
said Dan Siconolfi, assistant
director of Project Desire, is to
“allow their voice to be heard.”
Young gay men have an oppor-
tunity to talk calmly about
HIV, and their sexual habits. It
also gives this group an oppor-
BY LAWRENCE EVERETT FORBES
Duncan Osborne, in Gay
City News (“Brooklyn DA Aims
at Hate Crimes”; May 1-7,
2008), reported a statement
from Inspector Michael Osgood
of the NYPD’s hate crimes unit
Why aren’t we availing
ourselves of resources
to avoid violence or protect
ourselves if it finds us?
that “312 hate crimes were
reported to police in 2007, a 30
percent increase from 2006…
The New York City Gay and
Anti-Violence Project (AVP) will
report 403 hate crimes dur-
ing 2007 and just 130 of those
were reported to the police.”
A Google search for “gay
self-defense” or “queer -self
defense,” reveals only one
place that offers LGBT-specif-
ic training: the Center for Anti-
Violence Education (caeny.
org), in Brooklyn. This comes
as a sad and disappointing
surprise. One of the things I
treasure most about the queer
community is its ability to
rally around causes crucial to
the lives and evolution of its
fellow lesbians, gays, bisexu-
als, and transgendered folks.
It is because of this ability —
this power — that we have
made such awe-inspiring
progress on AIDS research,
workplace anti-discrimination
BY NATHAN RILEY
tunity to explain why the safe-
sex message isn’t working.
The research is a reaction
to the continued increases in
unprotected sex and with it
The interview techniques aimed
at uncovering the gay men’s
inner voices.
spiking rates of HIV infection.
The latest numbers are only
the latest chapter in a long-
standing problem. Rather
than wringing their hands, the
researchers at Project Desire
are actually doing something.
Op-Ed/39
laws, adoption, domestic part-
nership, marriage (California
marriages, thanks to Gover-
nor David A. Paterson’s recent
order, will be recognized in
New York), and hate crimes.
Which leads me to wonder
why the issue of self-defense
sits so low on the prior -
ity totem pole. It isn’t as if the
numbers have dwindled. It
isn’t as if New York — or the
United States — has become
a safer place for LGBTs on the
go. Kevin Aviance, like me a
black gay man, was viciously
attacked in front of the Phoe-
nix bar in the East Village —
on a Saturday night — two
years ago.
There are resources for
victims of hate crimes — the
police department, AVP, and
the United States Commission
on Civil Rights’ hate crime/
discrimination complaints
hotline, to name just a few
— so why aren’t more of us
availing ourselves of proactive
resources to avoid violence or
protect ourselves if it finds us?
Brooklyn District Attorney
Charles J. Hynes was able
to convict Michael Sandy’s
Funded by the city’s Depart-
ment of Health and Mental
Hygiene, they started with a
street survey of 540 youth and
then followed up with inten-
sive interviews with 54 of the
original group of men. The
researchers are listening care-
fully to this high-risk popula-
tion. The objective is to make a
fresh assessment of a chronic
problem.
attackers for hate crimes by
proving they targeted him
based on his sexual orienta-
tion and their belief that his
homosexuality made him an
easy target. And while I have
resisted to a good degree the
conclusion that my attacks
were hate crimes — the f-word
was not used during either
incident — my choice of attire
and the otherness it made vis-
ibly clear may well have con-
tributed to my downfall.
I did report both cases to the
police and browsed the mug
shots — and the neighbor -
hood via patrol car — for sus-
pects. I didn’t recognize any
of the faces but found myself
always looking over my shoul-
der and afraid of going out at
night. Instead of seek counsel-
ing or taking the sort of self-
defense course I have nagged
my mom, aunts, and cousins
to take, I winced when stared
at by neighborhood b-boys. I
became my own victim.
This Pride month, I plan
to call the Center for Anti-
Violence Education, register
for its next class, and work
on restoring some of the con-
fidence I lost when I moved
out of my apartment, left the
neighborhood, and fled to Cal-
ifornia for nearly five years. I
hope those of you reading this
consider doing the same.
Lawrence Everett Forbes, a
freelance writer, can be reached
at lef@bourgeoisdork.com.
The interview techniques
aimed at uncovering the
gay men’s inner voices. For
example, they track the sen-
tences with the word “I” look-
ing for clues about what each
man thinks about himself. “I
should” or “I could” sentences
offer clues about personal atti-
tudes while “I don’t know” sen-
tences may be related to the
inability to stop activities that
cause anxiety and are unsafe.
Twenty-seven years into the
epidemic, this project is trying
to attach words and intentions
to the attitudes and feelings of
young gay men. In this sense,
the researchers believe they
are starting with a clean slate
䉴 EPIDEMIC, continued on p.44
40 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

䉴 RAINBOW, from p.32 into the abyss of a new dark age.”




tle, and now that test is here. We will
Today, we celebrate our freedom,
but are mindful we celebrate a strug-
have to prove the math on this Novem- gle, a struggle at its moment of truth.



 
ber election day.
In the long history of the world only
Equality yes or no.
Change will not come if we wait for


a few generations have been granted
the role of defining freedom in its hour
some other person or some other time.
“We are the ones we’ve been waiting
of maximum danger. John F. Kennedy for. We are the change we seek,” to

 said, “Do not shrink from this respon-
sibility, welcome it.”
quote Barack Obama. “Yes we can.
Yes we can” — win the popular vote in

Our foes will argue religion and per-

version. We must answer them with
California. But that won’t happen if we
are a silent majority.
love and equality. They will argue Our movement is built on the shoul-

special rights, but it is they that have
them.
ders of individuals who stand for free-
dom and equality. One at time, in every



 /
State Senator, 31st S.D.
On Pride Sunday
Join us in worship at the
11am Festal Eucharist
and march with us at the parade.
St. John’s in the Village Episcopal Church
A welcoming and inclusive community of faith
218 West 11th Street, Manhattan
[just west of 7th Avenue]
Air-conditioned
For more information call 212-243-6192
or visit our website at www.stjvny.org
St. Marks Church celebrates
Gay Pride Month
This Sunday, June 29 at 11 a.m.
Featuring Velvita Louise a.k.a. James Solomon Benn;
Benji Dunn, “Born to Be Alive;” Earl Giaquinto,
Laura Stillwell, choreographer and Jahneen of Paradise,
“Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and featured vocalist in
the film “It’s My Party.”
Jeannine Otis, Music Director
Be There or Be Queer !!!
Saturday evenings at St. Mark’s Church
5:00 pm - MUSIC
5:30 pm - MISA/MASS (worship service)
Followed by a community meal
St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery
An Episcopal
The Rev. MichaelChurch in The
Relyea and the Rev.
Diocese
Frankof New York
Morales, Associate Pastors
131 East 10th St. at 2nd Avenue
www.stmarkschurch-in-the-bowery.com
We must do more than fly flags and
have parades; we must enlist ourselves
— right now, in every way, with every
resource of mind and action. The stakes
are freedom and democracy itself.
Brothers and sisters coast to coast
must join hands to turn the tide
against the marriage amendment in
California, or we will drown in apathy.
To quote Barack Obama.
“Yes we can. Yes we can” — win
the popular vote in California.
The gospel according to Madonna:
“It’s better to live one year as a tiger
than a hundred as a sheep.”
In 1978, as the Rainbow Flag took
shape, Harvey Milk spoke up and
faced the same California electorate,
confronting the same opponents we
face today with a message of truth and
equality. That battle begun 30 years
ago has never stopped. Our foes have
packaged their relentless campaign
of fear and violence as one of strictly
enforced values with the morality of a
phony master race marching in lock-
step, right-wing supremacy. We have
taken a beating — in state after state,
unconstitutional amendment after
amendment, but we will never give up.
Securing the right to marriage will
not end homophobia; when interracial
marriage was legalized it didn’t end rac-
ism. Martin Luther King said, “Nothing
in the world is more dangerous than
sincere ignorance and conscientious
stupidity.” Those are the towers of prej-
udice we face.
I bear in mind the words of President
Dwight Eisenhower: “There is nothing
wrong with America that the faith, the
love of freedom, intelligence, and ener-
gy of her citizens can not cure.”
He also said, “It’s not the size of the
dog in the fight, but the size of the fight
in the dog.”
Run Toto, run — to California and
stop the wicked witch and the evil mar-
riage restriction amendment before
time runs out.
Things do not happen. They are
made to happen. Efforts and courage
are not enough without purpose and
direction. Our aim is victory — victory
at all cost. Victory, in spite of all ter-
ror. Victory, however long and hard
the road may be. For without victory,
there is no survival. Winston Churchill
warned us, “If we fail to stand up to
them, then the whole world, including
the United States, including all that
we have known and cared for, will sink
town, in every country, people who live
openly, truthfully. Each one of us is a
drop of water in a wave of change for
human rights and justice. Indeed we
are a rainbow of hope, love, and libera-
tion that wraps around the Earth.
In my view the Rainbow Flag is as
unfinished as the movement it repre-
sents — an arc that begins well before
me, its breadth far broader than all of our
experiences put together, reaching the
farthest corners of the world with a mes-
sage of solidarity and a beacon of hope
for those who follow in our footsteps.
In the beginning the Rainbow Flag
was about liberation, about breaking
free of an existence limited by fear and
conformity, the right to express the
spectrum of love and sexuality without
shame or retaliation but truthfully,
freely, and equally
The Rainbow Flag is in-your-face
political. It is an art action. John Ken-
nedy said, “Art is not a form of pro-
paganda, it is a form of truth.” When
people fly the Rainbow Flag — put it
on a bumper sticker, or T -shirt, or
use any of its endless variations, they
are saying something. Right out front
they’re saying, “This is who I am.”
Harvey Fierstein said, “Never be bul-
lied into silence, never allow yourself
to be made a victim. Accept no one’s
definition of your life. Define yourself.”
Judy Garland said. “Always be a
first-rate version of yourself instead
of a second-rate version of somebody
else.” White light streams down to be
broken up by human prisms into all
the colors of the rainbow. Take your
own color, and be just that.
The Rainbow Flag is the direct visi-
bility gay people are doing everywhere.
The rainbow is a connecter, a global
channel, a conscious thought, a brave
and fearless action. It belongs to every-
one, for a true flag cannot be designed,
it is torn from the soul of the people.
Emily Dickinson said, “Flags are a
brave sight, but no true eye ever went
by one steadily.”
I challenge all who see the Rainbow
Flag today to think of it as God-given
provenance and the humanity it repre-
sents, and seize the moment, do some-
thing, say something, get involved,
fight back against oppressors, express
freedom always, rise up, love all, and
join to carry the torch.
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
A SMALL BUT ENTHUSIASTIC BRYANT PARK RALLY
Steven Fales; Donald Kingston, John Selleck, and Mañuel Lopez; Maria Francisco; and Elina Kyro and Paivi Mesiranta at Sunday’s LGBT Pride Rally.
Heritage of Pride officially opened its week of activities leading up
to Sunday’s Pride March and the parties that follow with the annual
rally in Bryant Park on June 22.
Despite an impressive roster of performers, activists, and political
leaders, the crowd gathered on the Bryant Park lawn was small, num-
bering only in the hundreds, though those on hand praised the program
presented.
Performers included comics Judy Gold, Bob Smith, and Julie Gold-
man; singing acts Sister Funk, Corey Andrew, and the Gay Men’s Cho-
rus; and the Gender Offenders, a performance troupe. Catherine Mari-
no-Thomas represented Marriage Equality New York, the grassroots
advocacy group; out gay State Senator Tom Duane spoke, SAGE’s
executive director Michael Adams appeared; and Pride March grand
marshal Gilbert Baker, who 30 years ago created the Rainbow Flag,
offered a stirring address (see p. 32).
“There’s great music, and I enjoy the stage banter,” said Donald
Kingston of Queens, who was there with John Selleck of Suffern, and
Mañuel Lopez, a Manhattanite originally from Spain. Lopez said that
the speeches were very good.
All three men sported Obama Pride patches, though Selleck said he
Dignity/New York
CELEBRATES PRIDE
PRIDE LITURGY
June 28, 7:30 pm
Judson Memorial Church 55 Washington Sq. S.
Homilist: Mark Matson President, DignityUSA
NYC PRIDE MARCH
June 29, 12:00 pm
5th Ave. and 52nd St.
Line-up at 1:30 pm on 53rd St.
between 5th Ave. and Madison
DIGNITY/NEW YORK’S WITNESS
St. Patrick’s Cathedral (sidewalk)
June 29, 12:30 pm
Gather at 11:15 am at Madison Ave. and 51st St.
FEAST OF MARY MAGDALA
July 27, 7:30 pm
St. John’s in the Village Church

QebGl^kEbiibo*Af^kb?bok^oa
We meet each Sunday at 7:30 pm for Mass at St. John’s in the Village
Church, 218 West 11th St. at Waverly Place. We will not have Mass
on the night of the NYC Pride March. For further information, please
contact us at 646.418.7039 or online at www.DignityNY.org.
DIGNITY EMPOWERS LGBT PEOPLE ON THEIR SPIRITUAL JOURNEYS.
26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 41
had originally supported Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential
nomination.
Elina Kyro and Paivi Mesiranta were in New York for Pride Week
while on a two-week honeymoon after their commitment ceremony
in their hometown of Tampere, two hours from Finland’s capital
Helsinki. Coming from a nation of only five million people, the cou-
ple said the scope of Gay Pride celebrations here dwarfed anything
back home.
Mara Francisco, who lives in Queens, said she came to America
from her home in Angola four years ago. Asked if it were tough for les-
bians and gays in that African nation, she said, “I’d say they’re tough
for gay people in New York. There is no such thing as gay rights in
Angola. It’s like they’re in the Stone Age.”
Another attendee from out of town, in this case Salt Lake City, was
Steven Fales, who wrote and performed “Confessions of a Mormon
Boy,” first seen in New York during the 2004 International Fringe Fes-
tival. Fales is doing the show for two weeks beginning July 2 in Cherry
Grove on Fire Island, but this weekend appears Friday and Saturday
GAY CITY NEWS
night at Joe’s Pub, presenting his newest solo piece “Mormon Ameri-
can Princess” (see 7 Days/ 7 Nights). — Paul Schindler
cbiiltpefmp
#^t^oapJ
 Sfpfqttt+`i^dp+lodclojlobfkcloj^qflk C>II/--5
@I>DP,Co^jbifkbP`obbkfkdPbofbp
PQ R A B K Q  Q O >S B I  >T> O A P 
Lmbkql^ii@RKVbkoliibado^ar^qbpqrabkqpmi^kkfkdqlmobpbkqID?QNobibs^kq
pr_gb`qj^qqbofkqebfoobpmb`qfsbÛbiap8cloRPlofkqbok^qflk^i`lkcbobk`bp+
>t^oap7qtl`^pemofwbpb^`efkqeb^jlrkqlc!/2-
Ab^aifkbp7Pbmqbj_bo.2^kaCb_or^ov.2
QebOl_boqDf^oaJbjlof^iC B I I LT P E F M
Dfsbkql^kbjbodfkd)b^oiv)lojfa*`^obbo^oqfpqtlohfkdfkmelqldo^mef`jbaf^)
sfabl)lopeloqÛij+Qeb^t^oatfiiprmmloq^afob`qbamolgb`q)lkbqe^qfpkbtlofk
moldobpp)qe^q^aaobppbpfpprbplcpbur^ifqv)dbkabo)loID?QNfabkqfqv+Rkfsbopfqv
^cÛif^qflkfpklqobnrfoba+
>t^oa7!4)2--
Ab^aifkb7Klsbj_bo.2)/--5
Q e b  @ I > D P C B I I LT P E F M
Dfsbkql^do^ar^qbpqrabkq)^k^`^abjf`)lo^kfkabmbkabkqp`eli^oclotlohlk^
afppboq^qflkloÛopqlopb`lka_llh+
>t^oa7!0)2--
Ab^aifkb7Klsbj_bo.2)/--5

C B I I LT P E F M  F K  I B P ? F > K  > K A  D>V  PQ R A F B P
Prmmloqpobpb^o`e_v^grkflop`eli^o%do^ar^qbpqrabkq)rkqbkrobarkfsbopfqvmolcbpplolofkab*
mbkabkqobpb^o`ebo&^ka^pbkflop`eli^o%qbkrobarkfsbopfqvmolcbpplolo^as^k`bafkabmbkabkq
p`eli^o&+P`eli^op`lkar`qfkdobpb^o`elkibp_f^kp^obbpmb`f^iivbk`lro^dbaql^mmiv+
>t^oa7Qtl^t^oapb^`efkqeb^jlrkqlc!2)---
Ab^aifkb7Klsbj_bo.2)/--5
J^[9[dj[h\ehB[iX_WdWdZ=WoIjkZ_[i
032Cfcqe>sbkrb)KbtVloh)KV.--.3y`i^dp=d`+`rkv+baryttt+`i^dp+lody/./*5.4*.622
42 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

■ PERSPECTIVE/ SNIDE LINES

Sex Sans the City (A Post-Marxist Preview)

BY SUSIE DAY
MIRANDA: It is, comrade! Today,

M
any capitalist roaders say the
Left is out of touch with pop-
ular culture. Well, I say NYET
to that! Here, for instance, is an episode
of “Sex and the City” that I translated
for my Marxist-Leninist study group,
so that we may better throw off our Tif-
fany chains.
[Scene I: Chic, Upper West Side res-
taurant]
SAMANTHA: [Striding in elegantly
and sitting at table where the girls are
I defend sexy Fortune 500 Company
owning Indian Point — nuclear power
plant making much electricity for city
— from selfish, unsexy officials who
warn of nuclear disaster. My logic: Why
upset capitalist system?
CHARLOTTE: [Sighing pertly] For
myself, comrades, I — token person
of dark hair color — esteem the find-
ing of Perfect Monogamous Soul Mate
as most high goal in consumerist free
market society. This is exalted dream
for which masses labor, regardless of

HBO FILMS/NEW LINE

waiting] Greetings, comrades! How glad
I am that I — sexy, 50-year-old blonde
girl, being fabulous, and having much
sex with men — meet you in favor-
ite haute bourgeois bistro for sex talk.
Look at dick of sultry, ethnic waiter —
is not fabulous?
MIRANDA: [Rummaging impatiently
through briefcase] Waiter dick unim-
portant for proper ordering, comrade.
I, being caustic, hard-driven attorney
with bright red hair, styled to evoke
Great Mistakes in Hedge Trimming,
no have time for frivolity. Must get
back to office to shill for corporate
capital —
SAMANTHA: Ooh, “shill” — sounds
sexy, comrade!
increasing work hours, fear of layoff,
dwindling surplus profit, endless war
— and possible nuclear disaster. Heed-
less, heedless masses!
CARRIE: [Flexing highly toned abs,
set off to perfection by jaunty, $5,000
Christian Dior ensemble resembling
clothes of Carmen Miranda after were-
wolf attack] Ah, comrades — how good
it is to exploit our lives in my column,
earning many thousands of dollars
more than other writers who, unlike
me, have college vocabulary and
knowledge of world history! [She sig-
nals waiter]
Greetings, comrade bit actor of exot-
ic descent who is destined to receive
five dollars each time this episode is
played in rerun! Please give us four of
(l to r) Kristin Davis stars as “Charlotte York-Goldenblatt,” Sarah Jessica Parker stars as “Carrie Bradshaw,” Cynthia Nixon
stars as “Miranda Hobbes,” and Kim Cattrall stars as “Samantha Jones.”
your most costly watercress omelets, rade. We must order many expensive
removing yoke and other caloric nutri- things — regardless of whether we shall
ents. Hurry — before more radioactive actually consume them — so that our
groundwater leaches from Indian Point power may grow! Profit motive of late
into Hudson River! capitalism dictates terms of feminine
value and we must obey.
CHARLOTTE: Comrade! This is too
much food! Is not anorexia neoliberal CHARLOTTE: Agreed.
pre-condition for true female happi-
ness? MIRANDA: Carrie, I am loving of
CARRIE: You are mistaken, com- 䉴 SEX, continued on p.44

Assembly Member Warm wishes for a

Dick Gottfried fantastic Pride celebration!
wishes you a Assemblyman Jonathan Bing
Happy Pride!
Working with the community for
civil rights:
• Sponsor of same-sex marriage bill
• Sponsor of GENDA
(gender identity & expression)
• Health and other insurance
coverage
• Funding for HIV and other services
for the LGBT community
Assemblyman Jonathan Bing
Dick Gottfried’s Community Office: 360 East 57th Street, Mezzanine
242 West 27th St., ground floor New York, NY 10022
www.assembly.state.ny.us
Ph: 212-807-7900 Email: bingj@assembly.state.ny.us
E-mail: gottfrr@assembly.state.ny.us (212) 605-0937
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 43

St.Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan

www.svcmc.org

St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan

Comprehensive HIV Center

We serve people of all ages with

primary care, HIV prevention
and education programs and
the following services:

s0RIMARYAND3ECONDARY
()60REVENTION3ERVICES
s0SYCHIATRY
s#ASE-ANAGEMENT3ERVICES
s.EUROLOGY
s$ERMATOLOGY
s-ENTAL(EALTH3ERVICES
s3UPPORT'ROUPS
s.UTRITION3ERVICES
s,EGAL3ERVICES
s#LINICAL4RIALS
s3UBSTANCE!BUSE#OUNSELING
AND0EER%DUCATION
s#OMPLEMENTARY4HERAPIES

For more information or to make

an appointment, please call us
at 212-604-1701.

Delivering high quality care that centers around you.

44 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008
䉴 EPIDEMIC, from p.39
in developing effective prevention mes-
sages.
One reason for probing an intervie-
wee’s inner voice is the likelihood that
fear is an explanation for much of the
casual barebacking behavior. This
theory contrasts with pop psychol-
ogy claims that young people have lost
their fear of HIV. Yet, too much fear can
lead to a psychological paralysis that
interferes with avoiding the disease.
Halkitis believes for many young
people, “It’s overwhelming to talk about
becoming positive.” He sees this group
of young people living with constant
stress, and the project hopes it will
discover a way for them to talk about
the desires they have by removing the
stonewall erected by fear. “Young gay
me are having unprotected sex because
it gives them something,” Halkitis said.
There are many possible explana-
tions. Sex without condoms give a
feeling of intimacy, or it’s an accom-
modation to the perceived demands
of potential partners in the gay world.
Many people coming out, Halkitis said,
find the “demands of the gay world just
as harsh” as those encountered in the
straight world they thought they left
behind.
“The pressures are still there, and
in some case the pressures are worse,”
explained Rob Moeller, the project’s
䉴 SEX, from p.42
your shoes!
CARRIE: They are foot-warping,
spine-crippling Manolo Blahniks,
costing $765! You see, comrades,
glamorous allure of destructive foot-
wear comes not only from physical
sacrifice to wearer, but also from
labor of anonymous, underpaid
peasants who toil in abusive, out-
sourced factories. It is suffering of all
classes that creates societal clout of
Manolo Blahnik — brand name you
can trust!
ALL: [Toasting] Carrie is our leader!
Long live vanguard of post-industrial
alienation from means of production!
[SCENE II; Carrie at home. Posed on
her bed in the adolescent contortions of
a 12-year-old with a stamp collection,
she types on her sleek Mac laptop, now
available online for under $13,000.00.
Her voiceover narration:]
CARRIE: Later that night, I wonder
why virile mogul boyfriend, Mr. Beeg,
refuse to commit. Could this mirror
my own sublimation of need for basic
human contact into acquisition of
designer commodities?
[Close-up of glowing computer
screen, as Carrie types:] “Commod-
ity fetishism: good or bad — and what
if meltdown occur at Indian Point?”
[Suddenly, sirens blare; horrific explo-
sion is heard]
[Scene III: Back at stark ruins of Man-
hattan bistro; the stunned, disheveled
four are staring, in bleak, Chekhovian
fashion, into a dimming sun setting over
the roiling Hudson.]
MIRANDA: Men are annoying.
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
director. “Your identity is a reflection of
who you think you are and what you
think other people think you are,” he
said, citing one of iconic psychologist
Erik Erikson’s seminal insights.
The interviews are currently being
reviewed by the Project Desire staff to
discern what they can learn and gen-
eralize from the reactions of the young
men intensively studied.
There is every reason to believe that
young men are responding to pres-
sures and views that aren’t clearly
understood. The object of the project is
to create safe-sex messages that reso-
nate with the concerns of 21st-century
young gay men. The messages, which
will be crafted in conjunction with the
city health department, will be tested
on focus groups. The goal is to have
results available within about a year —
the schedule is on track to begin hav-
ing an impact by then.
This last point — having safe-sex
messaging out there within a year or so
— distinguishes this effort from other
HIV-prevention research. The goal is
not peer-reviewed academic publica-
tion, but rather approaches that can
be tested on the ground. Halkitis and
his team are convinced that young gay
men, given an unfettered opportunity
to talk about their desires, their sex,
and their fears will help them shape
a message that can save the lives and
wellbeing of a new generation.
CARRIE: Men are peegs.
SAMANTHA: I try lesbian sex. Too
much talk.
CARRIE: Gay men better. Make
good pets.
CHARLOTTE: I, with Jewish hus-
band, for whom I convert, have
adopted child from faux-Communist
country. Husband is kind; we are
happy. Yet we never speak of Pales-
tine.
MIRANDA: Please halt unsexy talk
of Middle East, comrade.
SAMANTHA: Say, does anybody
know why we are only four left alive
after tragic — and totally unexpected
— disaster at Indian Point?
CHARLOTTE: Perhaps something
about Carrie’s shoes?
CARRIE: Correct, comrade! Thanks
to healing power of Manolo Blahniks
— commodity onto which we magically
project desire to survive — we are, for
now, protected.
CHARLOTTE: [Clutching stomach]
Comrades, I don’t feel so good.
CARRIE: You must believe, comrade
— believe in the brand.
MIRANDA: Must get her to shoe
store, quick!
SAMANTHA: Ooh, “store” — sounds
sexy, comrades…
[Holding one another up, they hobble
off in search of Fifth Avenue.]
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 45

“MIAMI’S FREQUENCIES MOVE THE SOUL.

ONCE YOU TUNE IN, YOU’LL NEVER TURN AWAY.”
-Lauren Reskin, Music Promoter/DJ
...........................

Come forth, inspiration seeker, to thrill body and mind. Immerse yourself in
sun, sand, and nature, and you’ll float in bliss. Plunge beneath the surface,
where hidden cultural treasures indulge your passions. Explore deeply into
your own imagination, and let your boldest desires come to the surface.
................................................................

White Party (11/26/08 - 12/1/08) • Winter Party Festival (2/25/09 - 3/2/09)

Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (April 2009) • Aqua Girl (May 2009) MiamiandBeaches.com • 888.76.MIAMI

©GREATER MIAMI CONVENTION & VISITORS BUREAU

GMCVB1358_GayCityNews_1B.indd 1 6/20/08 10:09:25 AM

46/ Health 26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008

■ PERSPECTIVE

Everyday A Challenge
Meth update: Why are gay men in crystal recovery so prone to relapse?
BY CHRSITOPHER MURRAY per’s Duncan Osborne has to go for even a week with- sober requires an all-out what made them vulnerable
taken pains to point out — out binging. “It’s like I’m try- effort, not infrequently an to getting hooked on meth,

S
o what happened with
gay men and meth?
A couple of years ago
everyone was in a panic.
Eighth Avenue was crowded
with bus stop posters decrying
the scourge that was crystal
methamphetamine, it seemed
like everyone knew someone
who had just lost their job or
soul to Tina, brunch pals were
dropping like flies. Health offi-
cials and community activ-
ists made the direst possible
predictions about the perfect
storm of meth and HIV, not
to mention flesh-eating, drug-
resistant bacterial infections.
Yikes!
We l l , t h e t r u t h i s t h a t
meth, like crack cocaine, is
still around and still wreak-
ing havoc in the lives of gay
men and others; it’s just gone
underground. The public
panic has waned, as it always
does — a point this newspa-
and all the hoopla has subsid-
ed into the daily grind of users
using and former users strug-
gling to stay clean.
The effort to silence the
seductive siren’s call of crys-
tal meth has proven in many
cases to be a tremendously
difficult battle that still takes
enormous effort even years
after a user has admitted he
has a problem and taken sub-
stantial steps to address it.
Just ask anyone in the still
crowded rooms of the 12-step
group Crystal Meth Anony-
mous (http://www.nycma.
org), which has more than
30 meetings a week in Man-
hattan. Those guys know the
different cycles of relapse,
because they hear about it
every day.
There are people like Davis
(all the names in this article
have been changed) in early
recovery but still struggling
ing to climb up the slope of a
mountain and just can’t get
traction. I keep sliding back.
If I have money, I’ll buy drugs.
If I feel down, I’ll go online to
try to hook up with someone
who’s using. I just can’t get
over the hump.”
Achieving abstinence can
be particularly difficult with
meth because the way it oper-
ates on the brain may actu-
ally interfere with a person’s
ability to withstand triggers to
use. Cocaine is known to flush
the brain with more than 500
percent the normal level of the
feel-good neurotransmitter
dopamine, whereas meth can
stimulate the release of more
than 1,500 percent. But when
the party’s finally over, a user
is running only on fumes to
support his emotional stability
as the brain slowly attempts
to recover.
For many people, getting
inpatient detox program with
specific experience in treating
meth addicts like the ones at
Manhattan’s Addiction Insti-
tute (http://www.addiction-
instituteny.org), at the Pride
Institute (http://www.pride-
institute.com), a long-time
presence in Minnesota that
now operates in New Jersey
as well. But go-away rehab
programs are costly and often
not covered by stingy man-
aged care companies. Luckily,
there are other options, like
the LGBT Community Cen-
ter’s new outpatient recovery
program (http://gaycenter.
org/health/recovery) that
operates on a sliding scale
based on people’s ability to
pay and accepts Medicaid.
But all too often, even when
someone has been able to
cobble together a few months
of clean time, and has a whole
host of new perspectives on
and has even re-crafted their
world from a shady network of
users into a supportive sober
community, relapse is more
often the norm than an excep-
tion.
“I was six months off meth,”
said Charlie, “I was going to
CMA meetings every day. But
I was lonely I hadn’t learned
how to have sex and be inti-
mate with another guy with-
out meth. Slowly I started
back sniffing around online,
then jerking off thinking about
crystal sex. An old fuck buddy
from like more than a year ago
texted me one day I called in
sick to work and was back in
the saddle with meth.”
For Charlie, his relapse was
luckily just a slip and within
a couple days, he was back
at CMA and slowly counting
each clean day again. But for
䉴 METH, continued on p.56

Saint Thomas Church – Fifth Avenue

1 West 53rd Street, New York NY 10019
212-757-7013

An inclusive faith community, Hebrew Tabernacle Congregation

welcoming to everyone. Joins in the Salute to Gay Pride
Hebrew Tabernacle Congregation, the only Reform con-
Saint Thomas Church is a parish gregation in Manhattan located above 96th Street, ap-
of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. plauds the Gay Pride Parade. Our congregation is proud
to be part of the Pride in the Pulpit, a network of congre-
gations and leaders of faith throughout New York State
Our mission is to worship, love, and serve who advocate for quality and justice for lesbian, gay, bi-
Our Lord Jesus Christ through the Anglican sexual and transgender New Yorkers and their families.
tradition and our unique choral heritage.
Hebrew Tabernacle Congregation
551 Fort Washington Ave. at 185th St.
For services and fellowship opportunities, please visit
our website at www.SaintThomasChurch.org 212-568-8304
email: office@hebrewtabernacle.org www.hebrewtabernacle.org
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 47

DOES YOUR GYM

INSPIRE YOU?

JOIN IN JUNE AND SAVE OVER $450

The Sports Center at Chelsea Piers
www.chelseapiers.com/sc | 212.336.6000
Offer valid through 6/30/08. Restrictions apply. Photography: Scott McDermott
48 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

In combination with other antiretroviral agents for the treatment of HIV-1 infection in adults

USE OF TRUVADA: IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION:

TRUVADA is indicated in combination with other antiretroviral agents (such as non-
nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors or protease inhibitors) for the treatment
of HIV-1 infection in adults.
TRUVADA must be used as part of combination therapy. TRUVADA should not
be used with ATRIPLA® (efavirenz 600 mg/emtricitabine 200 mg/tenofovir
disoproxil fumarate [DF] 300 mg), VIREAD® (tenofovir DF), EMTRIVA®
(emtricitabine), Combivir® (lamivudine/zidovudine), Epivir® or Epivir-HBV®
(lamivudine), Epzicom® (abacavir sulfate/lamivudine), or Trizivir® (abacavir
sulfate/lamivudine/zidovudine).
Contact your healthcare provider right away if you experience any of the
following side effects or conditions while taking TRUVADA:
• Nausea, vomiting, unusual muscle pain, and/or weakness. These may be
signs of a buildup of acid in the blood (lactic acidosis), which is a serious
medical condition
• Light colored stools, dark colored urine, and/or if your skin or the whites
of your eyes turn yellow. These may be signs of serious liver problems
(hepatotoxicity), with liver enlargement (hepatomegaly), and fat in the liver
(steatosis)
• If you have HIV and hepatitis B virus (HBV) and stop taking TRUVADA, your
liver disease may suddenly get worse. Do not stop taking TRUVADA
unless directed by your healthcare provider

TRUVADA, VIREAD, and EMTRIVA are trademarks

© 2008 Gilead Sciences, Inc.
All rights reserved. PT0342 3/08
of Gilead Sciences, Inc.
ATRIPLA is a trademark of Bristol-Myers Squibb &
Gilead Sciences, LLC.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 49

Once a day TRUVADA can help get you to undetectable and

keep you there. As part of an HIV regimen, the meds in TRUVADA can:
Be taken with or without food
Reduce viral load and increase CD4 cell count
Ask your doctor if TRUVADA can be part of a complete
once a day regimen.

TRUVADA is the #1 Prescribed HIV Med *

TRUVADA does not cure HIV infection or prevent passing HIV-1 to others.

• If you have had kidney problems or take other medicines that can cause kidney
problems, your healthcare provider should do regular blood tests to check
your kidneys
• It is not known whether long-term use of TRUVADA causes damage to your
bones. If you have had bone problems in the past, talk to your healthcare provider
before taking TRUVADA
Changes in body fat have been seen in some people taking TRUVADA and other
anti-HIV medicines.
The most common side effects of the medicines in TRUVADA when taken with
other anti-HIV medicines are dizziness, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, headache, rash,
and gas. Skin discoloration (spots and freckles) may also occur.
Discuss all medicines you take with your healthcare provider and
be aware:
• Your healthcare provider may need to follow you more closely or adjust your
therapy if you are taking Videx® or Videx® EC (didanosine), Reyataz® (atazanavir
sulfate), or Kaletra® (lopinavir/ritonavir) with TRUVADA
You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs
to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch, or call 1-800-FDA-1088.
Please see Patient Information on next page, including “What is the
most important information I should know about TRUVADA?”

*Based on data from PHAST retail monthly data;

September 2005–January 2008; Wolters Kluwer Health.
50 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008
Patient Information
TRUVADA® (tru-VAH-dah) Tablets
Generic name: emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate
(em tri SIT uh bean and te NOE’ fo veer dye soe PROX il FYOU mar ate)
Read the Patient Information that comes with TRUVADA before you start taking it and each time you get a refill.
There may be new information. This information does not take the place of talking to your healthcare provider about
your medical condition or treatment. You should stay under a healthcare provider’s care when taking TRUVADA. Do
not change or stop your medicine without first talking with your healthcare provider. Talk to your healthcare
provider or pharmacist if you have any questions about TRUVADA.
What is the most important information I should know about TRUVADA?
• Some people who have taken medicine like TRUVADA (nucleoside analogs) have developed a serious
condition called lactic acidosis (build up of an acid in the blood). Lactic acidosis can be a medical
emergency and may need to be treated in the hospital. Call your healthcare provider right away if you get the
following signs or symptoms of lactic acidosis.
• You feel very weak or tired.
• You have unusual (not normal) muscle pain.
• You have trouble breathing.
• You have stomach pain with nausea and vomiting.
• You feel cold, especially in your arms and legs.
• You feel dizzy or lightheaded.
• You have a fast or irregular heartbeat.
• Some people who have taken medicines like TRUVADA have developed serious liver problems called
hepatotoxicity, with liver enlargement (hepatomegaly) and fat in the liver (steatosis). Call your healthcare
provider right away if you get the following signs or symptoms of liver problems.
• Your skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow (jaundice).
• Your urine turns dark.
• Your bowel movements (stools) turn light in color.
• You don’t feel like eating food for several days or longer.
• You feel sick to your stomach (nausea).
• You have lower stomach area (abdominal) pain.
• You may be more likely to get lactic acidosis or liver problems if you are female, very overweight (obese), or
have been taking nucleoside analog medicines, like TRUVADA, for a long time.
• If you are also infected with the Hepatitis B Virus (HBV), you need close medical follow-up for several months
after stopping treatment with TRUVADA. Follow-up includes medical exams and blood tests to check for HBV that
could be getting worse. Patients with Hepatitis B Virus infection, who take TRUVADA and then stop it, may get
“flare-ups” of their hepatitis. A “flare-up” is when the disease suddenly returns in a worse way than before.
What is TRUVADA?
TRUVADA is a type of medicine called an HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) nucleoside analog reverse transcrip-
tase inhibitor (NRTI). TRUVADA contains 2 medicines, EMTRIVA® (emtricitabine) and VIREAD® (tenofovir disoproxil
fumarate, or tenofovir DF) combined in one pill. TRUVADA is always used with other anti-HIV medicines to treat
people with HIV infection. TRUVADA is for adults age 18 and older. TRUVADA has
not been studied in children under age 18 or adults over age 65.
HIV infection destroys CD4 (T) cells, which are important to the immune system.
The immune system helps fight infection. After a large number of T cells are
destroyed, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) develops.
TRUVADA helps block HIV reverse transcriptase, a chemical in your body
(enzyme) that is needed for HIV to multiply. TRUVADA lowers the amount of HIV
in the blood (viral load). TRUVADA may also help to increase the number of
T cells (CD4 cells). Lowering the amount of HIV in the blood lowers the chance
of death or infections that happen when your immune system is weak (oppor-
tunistic infections).
TRUVADA does not cure HIV infection or AIDS. The long-term effects of
TRUVADA are not known at this time. People taking TRUVADA may still get
opportunistic infections or other conditions that happen with HIV infection.
Opportunistic infections are infections that develop because the immune system is weak. Some of these conditions
are pneumonia, herpes virus infections, and Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) infection. It is very important
that you see your healthcare provider regularly while taking TRUVADA.
TRUVADA does not lower your chance of passing HIV to other people through sexual contact, sharing needles,
or being exposed to your blood. For your health and the health of others, it is important to always practice safer
sex by using a latex or polyurethane condom or other barrier to lower the chance of sexual contact with semen,
vaginal secretions, or blood. Never use or share dirty needles.
Who should not take TRUVADA?
• Do not take TRUVADA if you are allergic to TRUVADA or any of its ingredients. The active ingredients of
TRUVADA are emtricitabine and tenofovir DF. See the end of this leaflet for a complete list of ingredients.
• Do not take TRUVADA if you are already taking ATRIPLA™, Combivir (lamivudine/zidovudine), EMTRIVA, Epivir
or Epivir-HBV (lamivudine), Epzicom (abacavir sulfate/lamivudine), Trizivir (abacavir sulfate/lamivudine/
zidovudine), or VIREAD because these medicines contain the same or similar active ingredients.
What should I tell my healthcare provider before taking TRUVADA?
Tell your healthcare provider if you:
• are pregnant or planning to become pregnant. We do not know if TRUVADA can harm your unborn child. You
and your healthcare provider will need to decide if TRUVADA is right for you. If you use TRUVADA while you are
pregnant, talk to your healthcare provider about how you can be on the TRUVADA Antiviral Pregnancy Registry.
• are breast-feeding. You should not breast feed if you are HIV-positive because of the chance of passing the HIV
virus to your baby. Also, it is not known if TRUVADA can pass into your breast milk and if it can harm your baby.
If you are a woman who has or will have a baby, talk with your healthcare provider about the best way to feed
your baby.
• have kidney problems or are undergoing kidney dialysis treatment.
• have bone problems.
• have liver problems including Hepatitis B Virus infection.
Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take, including prescription and non-prescription
medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements Especially tell your healthcare provider if you take:
• Videx, Videx EC (didanosine). Tenofovir DF (a component of TRUVADA) may increase the amount of Videx in your
blood. You may need to be followed more carefully if you are taking TRUVADA and Videx together. Also, the
dose of didanosine may need to be reduced.
• Reyataz (atazanavir sulfate) or Kaletra (lopinavir/ritonavir). These medicines may increase the amount of tenofovir
DF (a component of TRUVADA) in your blood, which could result in more side effects. You may need to be
followed more carefully if you are taking TRUVADA and Reyataz or Kaletra together. TRUVADA may decrease
the amount of Reyataz in your blood. If you are taking TRUVADA and Reyataz together, you should also be
taking Norvir (ritonavir).
Keep a complete list of all the medicines that you take. Make a new list when medicines are added or stopped. Give
copies of this list to all of your healthcare providers and pharmacist every time you visit your healthcare provider
or fill a prescription.
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
How should I take TRUVADA?
• Take TRUVADA exactly as your healthcare provider prescribed it. Follow the directions from your healthcare
provider, exactly as written on the label.
• The usual dose of TRUVADA is 1 tablet once a day. TRUVADA is always used with other anti-HIV medicines. If
you have kidney problems, you may need to take TRUVADA less often.
• TRUVADA may be taken with or without a meal. Food does not affect how TRUVADA works. Take TRUVADA at
the same time each day.
• If you forget to take TRUVADA, take it as soon as you remember that day. Do not take more than 1 dose of
TRUVADA in a day. Do not take 2 doses at the same time. Call your healthcare provider or pharmacist if you are
not sure what to do. It is important that you do not miss any doses of TRUVADA or your anti-HIV medicines.
• When your TRUVADA supply starts to run low, get more from your healthcare provider or pharmacy. This is very
important because the amount of virus in your blood may increase if the medicine is stopped for even a short
time. The virus may develop resistance to TRUVADA and become harder to treat.
• Do not change your dose or stop taking TRUVADA without first talking with your healthcare provider. Stay under
a healthcare provider’s care when taking TRUVADA.
• If you take too much TRUVADA, call your local poison control center or emergency room right away.
What should I avoid while taking TRUVADA?
• Do not breast-feed. See “What should I tell my healthcare provider before taking TRUVADA?”
• Avoid doing things that can spread HIV infection since TRUVADA does not stop you from passing the HIV
infection to others.
• Do not share needles or other injection equipment.
• Do not share personal items that can have blood or body fluids on them, like toothbrushes or razor blades.
• Do not have any kind of sex without protection. Always practice safer sex by using a latex or polyurethane
condom or other barrier to reduce the chance of sexual contact with semen, vaginal secretions, or blood.
• ATRIPLA, Combivir (lamivudine/zidovudine), EMTRIVA, Epivir or Epivir-HBV (lamivudine), Epzicom (abacavir
sulfate/lamivudine), Trizivir (abacavir sulfate/lamivudine/zidovudine), or VIREAD.
TRUVADA should not be used with these medicines.
What are the possible side effects of TRUVADA?
TRUVADA may cause the following serious side effects (see “What is the most important information I should
know about TRUVADA?”):
• Lactic acidosis (buildup of an acid in the blood). Lactic acidosis can be a medical emergency and may need to
be treated in the hospital. Call your doctor right away if you get signs of lactic acidosis. (See “What is the most
important information I should know about TRUVADA?”)
• Serious liver problems (hepatotoxicity), with liver enlargement (hepatomegaly) and fat in the liver (steatosis).
Call your healthcare provider right away if you get any signs of liver problems. (See “What is the most important
information I should know about TRUVADA?”)
• “Flare-ups” of Hepatitis B Virus infection, in which the disease suddenly returns in a worse way than before,
can occur if you stop taking TRUVADA. Your healthcare provider will monitor your condition for several months
after stopping TRUVADA if you have both HIV and HBV infection. TRUVADA is not approved for the treatment of
Hepatitis B Virus infection.
• Kidney problems. If you have had kidney problems in the past or take other medicines that can cause kidney
problems, your healthcare provider should do regular blood tests to check your kidneys.
• Changes in bone mineral density (thinning bones). It is not known whether
long-term use of TRUVADA will cause damage to your bones. If you have had
bone problems in the past, your healthcare provider may need to do tests to
check your bone mineral density or may prescribe medicines to help your
bone mineral density.
Other side effects with TRUVADA when used with other anti-HIV medicines
include:
• Changes in body fat have been seen in some patients taking TRUVADA and
other anti-HIV medicines. These changes may include increased amount of fat
in the upper back and neck (“buffalo hump”), breast, and around the main part
of your body (trunk). Loss of fat from the legs, arms and face may also
happen. The cause and long term health effect of these conditions are not
known at this time.
The most common side effects of EMTRIVA or VIREAD when used with other anti-HIV medicines are: dizziness,
diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, headache, rash, and gas. Skin discoloration (small spots or freckles) may also happen
with TRUVADA.
These are not all the side effects of TRUVADA. This list of side effects with TRUVADA is not complete at this time
because TRUVADA is still being studied. If you have questions about side effects, ask your healthcare provider.
Report any new or continuing symptoms to your healthcare provider right away. Your healthcare provider may be
able to help you manage these side effects.
How do I store TRUVADA?
• Keep TRUVADA and all other medicines out of reach of children.
• Store TRUVADA at room temperature 77 °F (25 °C).
• Keep TRUVADA in its original container and keep the container tightly closed.
• Do not keep medicine that is out of date or that you no longer need. If you throw any medicines away make sure
that children will not find them.
General information about TRUVADA:
Medicines are sometimes prescribed for conditions that are not mentioned in patient information leaflets. Do not
use TRUVADA for a condition for which it was not prescribed. Do not give TRUVADA to other people, even if they
have the same symptoms you have. It may harm them.
This leaflet summarizes the most important information about TRUVADA. If you would like more information, talk
with your healthcare provider. You can ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist for information about TRUVADA
that is written for health professionals. For more information, you may also call 1-800-GILEAD-5 or access the
TRUVADA website at www.TRUVADA.com.
Do not use TRUVADA if seal over bottle opening is broken or missing.
What are the ingredients of TRUVADA?
Active Ingredients: emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate
Inactive Ingredients: Croscarmellose sodium, lactose monohydrate, magnesium stearate, microcrystalline cellu-
lose, and pregelatinized starch (gluten free). The tablets are coated with Opadry II Blue Y-30-10701 containing FD&C
Blue #2 aluminum lake, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose 2910, lactose monohydrate, titanium dioxide, and triacetin.
r Only
May 2007
TRUVADA, EMTRIVA, and VIREAD are registered trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc. ATRIPLA is a trademark of
Bristol-Myers Squibb & Gilead Sciences, LLC. All other trademarks referenced herein are the property of their
respective owners.
© 2007 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved.
21-752-GS-20
26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008
7 DAYS A Garden Party on a River
䉴
7 NIGHTS Center’s annual fundraiser benefits ambitious capital improvements drive
JUNE 28, from p.32
flags, hula hoops, or just be there!
The Dyke March is a protest march,
not a parade — no permit was sought
or received. Thousands of dykes take
over the streets every year in celebra-
tion of lesbians and to protest against
ongoing discrimination, harassment,
and anti-lesbian violence in schools, on
the job, in families, and on the streets.
Step off at 5 p.m. from Sixth Ave. at
42nd St., heading downtown. For more
information, visit http://www.nycdyke-
march.org.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ter’s capital expansion pro-
PRIDE
Herstory Matters
The Lesbian Herstory Archives, the
world’s first archive chronicling the lives
and struggles of lesbians in New York
and elsewhere, hosts an open house
and tour. Learn about the archives from
the experts or just browse on your own.
484 14th St., btwn. Eighth Ave. &
Prospect Park W., Park Slope,
Brooklyn (F train to 15th St. stop),
noon-4 p.m. Free. For more informa-
tion, visit http://www.lesbianherstor-
yarchives.org or call 718-768-3953.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ vitality of our community
PERFORMANCE
Post-Cruise Giggles
Join Alec Mapa, America’s Gaysian
Sweetheart and clearly a hero to Gay
City News’ David Noh (see p. 68), for
an uncensored, unbridled evening of
hilarity. After a year of traveling around
the globe on a gay cruise and shaking
things up on “Desperate Housewives,”
“Ugly Betty,” and Logo’s dating show
“TransAmerican Love Story,” Mapa has
some Pride tales to tell. Joe’s Pub,
425 Lafayette St. below Cooper
Sq. adjacent to the Public The-
ater, Jun. 28 & 29, 9:30 p.m. Tickets
are $30 at http://joespub.com.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ Clinton echoed these sen-
BOOKS
Yippy for the IPPY
Perry Brass, author, most recently,
of “Carnal Sacraments,” winner of the
2008 Independent Publisher Online
Magazine IPPY Award for Gay and
Lesbian Fiction and a finalist for a
ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year
Award, will be showing some of his
books at the New York Book Festival in
Central Park. Naumberg Band Shell,
just south of Bethesda Fountain
(enter at 72nd St.), 12:30 p.m. on.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ the Council commemorating
GALLERY
Uptown Pride
Harlem’s Casa Frela Gallery cele-
brates Pride 2008 with “Rainbows Over
Harlem III,” a group show of gay female
artists exploring the idea of woman.
䉴 JUNE 28, continued on p.55
BY WINNIE MCCROY
P
r i d e We e k o f f i c i a l l y
kicked off on Monday,
June 23, with the 25th
Annual Garden Party, a big
annual fundraiser staged by
the LGBT Community Cen-
ter. Comedian Kate Clinton
returned to reprise her long-
running role as emcee of an
evening of food, fun, and
entertainment on Hudson
River Park’s Pier 54. The event
raised $300,000 for the Cen-
gram, which in time will see a
dramatic expansion into the
land currently occupied by the
garden west of the main build-
ing.
“The Center, which we think
of as sort of Grand Central
Station of queer New York,
provides a home for more
than 300 LGBT organiza-
tions,” said executive director
Richard Burns. “It’s a place
where queer kids come out of
the closet and LGBT seniors
go, and it’s a reflection of the
that we’re filled to overflow-
ing. There are people meeting
in the basement, the garden,
the attic… we have more kids
in our youth program than we
can fit.”
Burns added, “It’s great to
celebrate our 25th anniversary
and really honor those people
who had the vision to found
the Center and bring it to
where it is today, and now our
job is to look ahead and ensure
the Center remains as flexible
and nimble and continues to
evolve and meet the changing
needs of our community.”
timents, saying, “The Center
is just bursting at the seams.
It’s sort of like Ellis Island — if
you’re gay and come to town
and want to connect, you go
to the Center. It’s all about the
health and welfare of the peo-
ple who are here, so the more
money we can raise, the more
we can make accessible to
everyone.”
City Council Speaker Chris-
tine C. Quinn was on hand to
deliver a proclamation from
the Center’s 25th anniversary,
and to urge the community to
support Governor David Pat-
erson when he marches in
the annual Pride Parade down
Fifth Avenue. Last month,
the governor ordered all state
agencies to draw up regula-
tions for providing full recog-
Speaker Christine Quinn presents a City Council proclamation to Center executive director
Richard Burns while Gourmet magazine editor in chief Ruth Reichl, the evening’s event chair,
joins Emperor XVII Rob Hunter de Woofs and Empress XXII Charlene Chivoe of the Imperial
Court of New York.
nition to marriages by gay or
lesbian couples legally entered
into in other jurisdictions, in
line with a recent appellate
ruling out of Buffalo binding
on the entire state.
“There really is no group out
there in the city in any com-
munity that has the breadth
and depth of programs that
the Center does,” said Quinn.
“There is no other organiza-
tion… that literally has pre-
cradle to grave services like the
Center does, so we should be
very proud of ourselves. And
you should be proud, because
you are the ones who have
supported the Center, allowed
it grow and expand, and real-
ly challenged government to
catch up with your generos-
ity.”
Other politicians pres-
ent included Congressman
Anthony Weiner and Comp-
troller William C. Thompson,
Jr., both, like Quinn, likely
Pride/51
LGBT identity, it’s everything
from legal services to counsel-
ing… to part of our history.”
Broadway star Gavin Creel
from “Mary Poppins” per -
formed for the crowd, as did
Eric Himan, Robert German,
and Stewart Lewis, young, per-
sonable singers volunteering
their time for the cause. “Gay
Pride for some people is about
celebrating their sexuality…
and that’s great, but my boy-
friend and I like to do stuff like
volunteer doing face-painting
for the Center Kids. It’s reward-
ing, but also, it’s needed,” said
German.
DONNA F. ACETO
As is Garden Party cus-
tom, the Lavender Light Gos-
pel Choir performed. Special
guests Ted Allen and Andrew
Cohen of Bravo TV fame pre-
sented the results of the silent
auction. Allen’s new show
“Food Detectives” debuts on
the Food Network on July 29.
“The Center has been at the
forefront since virtually the
beginning of the gay rights
movement,” said Allen. “I think
it’s especially important for
the young gays to have a place
to go, especially those whose
parents are maybe not sup-
portive. It’s not necessarily
the best idea for young guys to
sneak into places where booze
is served, to think that’s the
only place where gay guys can
be accepted. The work that the
Center has done is fantastic,
and I’m thrilled to be here.”
Celebrity chefs for this year’s
event included David Chang of
Momofuku fame, April Bloom-
mayoral contenders next year. field of Michelin Star -win-
Weiner called for New Yorkers ning gastropub The Spotted
to rally around same-sex mar- Pig, and pastry chef Johnny
riage rights, saying, “We can’t Iuzzini. Of the 30 participat-
be sanguine that this prog- ing restaurants, crowd favor-
ress will happen on its own, ites were Agave, Vynl Chelsea,
it’s only with your help,” that Brick Lane Curry House, Ate
civil rights gains are achieved. Avenue, Sueños, and 5 Bor-
Thompson echoed Quinn’s oughs Ice Cream. Restaurant
kudos to the governor for his Florent sponsored the event’s
marriage recognition directive. open bar, and the evening’s
City Council hopeful Yetta lead corporate sponsor was
Kurland, who is aiming for the Prudential.
seat Quinn will be term-limited The annual silent auction
out of next year, spoke about featured items ranging from
what the Center means to her, gym memberships to lunch
saying, “I live three blocks with “Project Runway” winner
away from the Center, so for Christian Siriano, and dinner
me it’s a source of resourc- made by former “Top Chef”
es and inspiration in my life contestant Lisa Fernandez.
on a day-to-day basis, but I Between the silent and online
also think it’s one of the best auctions, the event raised
resources for LGBT folks in more than ever to expand the
the city of New York. The Cen- Center’s many mental health,
ter and our community have social service, public policy,
really grown up and come into educational, and cultural pro-
ourselves; the programming in grams for LGBT adults and
the Center isn’t just one area of youth.
52 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

THE COMMUNITY PHARMACY THAT CARES !!!!

346 Bleecker Street (Corner West 10th)

212-807-7566
Open 7 days a week
Monday - Saturday 9am - 9pm
Sundays 10am - 7pm
Most insurance plans accepted, ADAP,
Medicaid & Insurance Assignments

Visit us at http: www.villageapothecary.com

PROUDLY SALUTING GAY PRIDE MONTH!

We wish to express our love & thanks to all our

customers, friends & neighbors for their support.

WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 53

Pride Is What
We Stand For...
And serving you the
best gourmet food is what we do

Proudly Serving The Gay Community

GARDEN OF EDEN
Temptations in every aisle!

Union Square: %ASTTH3Ts4EL  s&AX  

#HELSEA 7RD3Ts4EL 
s&AX 

5PPER7EST3IDE "ROADWAY THs4EL 
s&AX 

"ROOKLYN(EIGHTS -ONTAGUE3Ts4EL 
s&AX 

!TLANTIC#ITY.*4HE0IER3HOPSAT#AESARSs!TLANTIC/CEANs4EL 
s&AX 

(OBOKEN.*7ASHINGTON3Ts4EL 
s&AX 

3OUTH/RANGE.*
3OUTH/RANGE!VEs4EL 
s&AX 

Visit us on our website www.edengourmet.com
54/ Legal
A Chink in DOMA’s Armor
Social Security benefits okayed for child from civil union
BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD
T
he Justice Department
released a memoran-
dum stating that the
federal Defense of Marriage Act
(DOMA) presents no obstacle
to paying Social Security Dis-
ability benefits to a child based
on the disabling condition
of the child’s non-biological
mother, who is in a Vermont
civil union with the biological
mother.
The memorandum could
affect a variety of situations in
which states accord some type
of legal recognition to gay and
lesbian couples.
The memorandum, from
Justice’s Office of Legal Coun-
sel (OLC) to the Social Secu-
rity Administration (SSA), was
dated October 16, 2007 but
was made public on June 9.
DOMA provides that the fed-
eral government will not recog-
nize any legal status for same-
sex couples, even if they enjoy
the status of spouses, domes-
!$/04YOURNEXTPETFROMASHELTERORRESCUEGROUP
.OTREADYTOADOPT
tic partners, or civil-union
partners under the state law
where they reside.
Karen and Monique, identi-
fied in the memorandum only
by their first names, entered
into Vermont civil union in
2002, and Monique gave
birth to a son, Elijah, in 2003.
Under Vermont’s civil union
law, Karen is one of Elijah’s
parents — and is so named
on his birth certificate — and
need not undertake a second-
parent adoption.
When Karen became dis-
abled, she applied for Social
Security disability benefits for
herself and for her child. The
Social Security Administration
expressed doubt about wheth-
er it could provide benefits to
Elijah based on the view that
federal law would not recognize
the Vermont civil union status
that forms the basis of Karen’s
parental status. SSA turned
to the Justice Department for
legal advice.
Deputy Assistant Attorney
General Steven A. Engel from
the OLC signed the memoran-
dum, which states that the
relationship of the two women
to each other is irrelevant for
purposes of the Social Security
Act. The only germane ques-
tion is whether Karen and Eli-
jah have a parent-child rela-
“That Elijah’s inheritance rights
derive from Vermont’s recognition
of a same-sex civil union
is immaterial under DOMA.”
tionship under state law; and
that was determined by looking
at whether Elijah would have a
right to inherit from Karen if
she were to die without leaving
a will. The Social Security Act
explicitly provides that state
law governing “intestate suc-
cession” determines whether
there is in fact a parent-child
relationship.
Under Vermont law, if a
child is born to a woman who
is in a civil union, the child has
the right to inherit from her
partner in the event she dies
intestate. Engel concluded
that under the Social Security
Act Elijah is Karen’s child and
is entitled to child’s insurance
benefits because of her disabil-
ity.
Engel specifically noted the
Vermont Supreme Court’s
decision in a recent custody
dispute between two women
who were former civil union
partners. That court deter -
mined that the birth mother’s
26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008
partner was entitled to paren-
tal visitation rights after the
women ended their union and
Engel found that an authorita-
tive statement of Vermont law
on Karen’s parental standing.
Engel found that “by its
terms,” DOMA “does not apply
because Elijah’s eligibility is
based on the Vermont Intestate
Succession Statute and not on
the relationship between Karen
and Monique as such.
“The fact that Elijah’s right of
inheritance ultimately derives
from Vermont’s recognition of
a same-sex civil union is sim-
ply immaterial under DOMA,”
Engel concluded.
The ruling is significant
beyond both the parties and
Vermont, since the reasoning
would clearly apply to couples
whose marriages are recog-
nized by their home states as
well as to those in civil unions
and domestic partnerships
in states where intestate suc-
cession rights are attached to
those relationships.
&/34%2AHOMELESSPETAND3!6%ALIFE

30!9OR.%54%2YOURPETSAND-)#2/#()0THEMTOO

&ORINFORMATIONANDRESOURCESFORADOPTIONFOSTERINGLOW
COSTSPAYNEUTERANDMICROCHIPPING
VISITWWW!NIMAL!LLIANCE.9#ORGORCALL 


Adopt a Little
New Yorker Today! ®

www.AnimalAllianceNYC.org
26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008
7 DAYS Conventional Wisdom Is the Goal
䉴
7 NIGHTS New York trans activist heads to Denver to shape Democrats’ rules
JUNE 28, from p.51
The artists include Kelly Beeman, D.C.
Gable, and Allicette Torres. Through
painting, illustration, and photography,
these three women will uncover the
female form as seen through the eyes
of gay women. The idea of the female
is presented in a way that is unique to
gay women as both the embodiment of
the feminine and as the observer of the
feminine. Opening reception this eve-
ning, 5-10 p.m., 47 West 119th St.,
btwn. Fifth & Lenox Aves. Exhi-
bition runs through Jul. 5, Mon.-
Fri., noon-4 p.m. For more information
visit http://www.casafrela.com or call
212-722-8577.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ten New Yorkers on the Rules
I’d Do Him
Nayland Blake, working on a book
called “1000 Guys I Would Fuck,” the
subject being exactly what it sounds
like, has organized an exhibit of his
friends, fellow artists, and former stu-
dents submitting “Guys.” And “The
Guys I Would Fuck” also allows gal-
lery visitors to make use of a computer,
printer, and zine kit to create their own
fuckables. Monya Rowe Gallery,
526 W. 26th St., suite 605, Tue-
Sat., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. through Aug. 1.
212-255-5065.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ collections manager at the
When Sex
Is Funny
Morgan Lehman Gallery presents
“Sexy Time: A Group Effort,” an exhi-
bition of emerging and mid-career art-
ists working in a variety of media that
attempts to address the multiple ways
we filter, confront, and communicate
sexuality through humor and satiri-
cal means. Artists participating are
Michael Caines, Richard Colman, Chris-
sy Conan, Franklin Evans, James Gobel,
Kris Knight, Sabrina Marques, James
Merrell, Susan Anderson Matthew Pal-
ladino, Sabeen Raja, Huston Ripley, Ali-
son Ruttan, John Salvest, Alix Smith,
Taravat Talepasand, Paul Villinski, and
Rob Wynne. 317 Tenth Ave. btwn.
28th & 29th Sts. Tue.-Sat., 11 a.m.-6
p.m. (closed Sat. in Jul.) through Aug. 1.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ Committee as one of the repre-
Mapplethorpe
Evolving
A remarkable but little-known
body of work by Robert Mapplethorpe
(1946-1989), with about 100 works
including self-portraits, figure stud-
ies, still lifes, and portraits of lovers
and friends such as Patti Smith, Sam
Wagstaff, and Marianne Faithful, go on
exhibit today. “Polaroids: Mapplethorpe”
demonstrates, in curator Sylvia Wolf’s
words, “Mapplethorpe learning to see
photographically.” Whitney Museum
䉴 JUNE 28, continued on p.68
■ LGBT Q&A
BY CHRISTOPHER MURRAY
A
lthough she snagged
only a cameo in the
2005 film “TransAmer-
ica” starring Felicity Huffman,
Melissa Sklarz has played a
long-standing role as one of
the most respected and effec-
tive transgender community
activists in New York. After
proving an important mover in
the recently successful push
to finally get GENDA, a gender
expression non-discrimination
bill, through the State Assem-
bly, she was just named one of
Committee of the Democratic
National Convention set for
Denver this August. In 2004,
Sklarz was one of only six
transgendered delegates at the
convention in Boston.
A director of the New York
Trans Rights Organization,
she’s currently the vice chair of
National Stonewall Democrats’
board of directors and is a for-
mer president of Manhattan’s
Gay and Lesbian Independent
Democrats.
By day, Sklarz, 57, is the
Actor’s Fund Credit Union,
having previously worked for
Gay Men’s Health Crisis and
the Gay Games. A former high
school varsity athlete, she’s a
center fielder on the Vikings
team in the Big Apple Softball
League, where she’s played the
last eight years.
A 14-year resident of Man-
hattan, Sklarz recently moved
to Woodside in Queens. Grow-
ing up on Long Island, she
went to her first transgender
bar in 1976 and has “never
really looked back.”
CHRISTOPHER MURRAY:
So, you are heading to Denver!
MELISSA SKLARZ: I have
been elected to be on the Rules
sentatives from New York State
at the Democratic National
Convention.
CM: Does that mean you are
an Obamamaniac?
MS: I was elected as Hillary
Clinton supporter, and the New
York part of the Rules Commit-
tee is made up of about 60 per-
cent former Clinton supporters
which is no surprise, since she
did so well in New York. State
Assemblymember Jonathan
Bing was also selected, and he
supported Hillary. Gay activist
Melissa Sklarz, a New York transgender rights advocate, shown here with New York Gover-
nor David A. Paterson, will be on the Rules Committee at the Democratic National Conven-
tion in August.
Corey Johnson will come, too,
and he is an Obama support-
er. For all of us, going on the
Rules Committee, but not as
delegates, will mean we have
credentials and access without
having a floor vote.
CM: Are you supporting
Obama now? How is he on
trans issues?
MS: Yes, I am. He is sup-
portive of a trans-inclusive
ENDA [the proposed federal
Employment Non-Discrimina-
Hearing the Republican
perspective for the first time
during the debate was ugly.
tion Act] and trans-inclusive
hate crimes legislation. Those
are the two big issues, the only
ones that either of the candi-
dates will ruminate on.
After he’s elected, Obama
may well think more outside
the box. But anything progres-
sive that the congressional
Democrats manage to pass
legislatively will be challenged
by the conservatives through
legal action and — guess what?
— the courts have been thor-
oughly Republicanized. Just
look here in New York State,
where we are seeing conserva-
tives suing Governor Paterson
for saying he’ll recognize any
gay marriage performed out-
side of New York.
CM: Do you think the trans
community nationwide shares
Politics/55
the optimism of Senator
Obama’s supporters?
MS: I cannot speak for an
entire national community,
but here in New York, we are
thrilled about the passage of
GENDA in the State Assem-
bly. That victory provided for
reasonable and serious debate
about our community on the
floor of the Legislature. So we
are doing good here, as for the
other 49 states… I think our
trans community is used to
being victimized and it’s hard
sometimes to even acknowl-
edge our victories. I think trans
people carry their personal
hurts and defeats along with
them. However, I expect the
political environment of 2009
to be very different, and that it
will enter the realm of exciting
possibility.
CM: Will there be any other
trans people at the conven-
tion?
MS: From coast to coast,
there will be eight or nine
of us in Denver, a few more
than last time, so we’ve seen
an increase, which is good.
In Boston in 2004, the most
important thing for us was the
coming together of a national
trans community working as
one to create a foundation for
our political process. We had a
meeting with the Kerry people
with a full national transgen-
der agenda prepared. They
were not very open to it, but
what we did ask them to do
was to stop saying “gay, gay,
gay” all the time and instead
refer to “the LGBT communi-
ty,” and that they did.
CM: You mentioned the pas-
sage of GENDA in the State
Assembly, what’s the next step
there?
MS: Having the bill come
before the State Senate. Sena-
tor Tom Duane is carrying the
bill, but I don’t think we have
any Republican involvement
yet. The Senate has histori-
cally been unfriendly to LGBT
issues, but we either need to
find Republicans to support it,
or to take back the Senate, so
that’s the next step.
CM: What to your mind was
the tipping point on passing
GENDA in the Assembly?
MS: Well, the Empire State
Pride Agenda made it a num-
ber -one priority of election
year 2008. We got our coali-
tion together — who told their
Assembly people, who even-
tually were able to convince
Speaker Sheldon Silver of its
importance. The explosion over
ENDA in Washington may also
have had an impact. But the
clear commitment of ESPA is
to make the Democrats the
majority in the State Senate.
The process for GENDA in
the Assembly this year was
great. The bill went through
quick and easy. I was there for
the debate and was very moved
by hearing our friends and
rather shocked by listening to
our enemies, I’ve never heard
firsthand what the conserva-
tive Republicans think of our
GENDA bill before. I’ve spent
almost ten years trying to con-
vince our Democrat friends
this is important and valid. But
hearing the Republican per-
spective for the first time dur-
ing the debate was ugly. The
conservative party has their
talking points about GENDA,
and it has to do with locker
rooms and bathrooms, and the
idea that sexual predators will
now be dressing up as women
and getting access to women-
only spaces
CM: How does it feel to hear
䉴 SKLARZ, continued on p.56
56 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

䉴 SKLARZ, from p.55
these things?
MS: Simple — more work. More work
is all. Hell, they are lawmakers, and
they are entitled to their opinion. They
just need more education. We need
more voices, more faces, more edu-
cation. But our friends were great —
Danny O’Donnell, Deborah Glick, Dick
Gottfried, and Brooklyn’s Jim Brennan,
they were all great.
CM: Tell me about the pain of the
last Congressional session’s debate
about ENDA.
MS: We had spent years… how do I
put this? In the Bush agenda there is
no room for trans rights or LGBT rights.
They worked very hard to de-gay their
legislation. All the work of the Clin-
ton administration, they worked hard
to remove. Only since 2006, since the
Dems took over Congress, have new
ideas come into play. I started lobby-
ing federally in the Clinton years and
stopped in the Bush years. It didn’t
seem to make sense.
CM: Are you saying you weren’t sur-
prised by what happened to ENDA?
MS: As recently as 2002 we were
trying to get the language of ENDA
changed to be trans-inclusive. It finally
had a chance when the Human Rights
Campaign changed their mind in 2004.
After the fiasco here in New York when
trans-language was never included in
the gay rights bills, Matt Foreman went
to bat for us, while he was running the
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force,
but then last year HRC reversed its
decision.
CM: So why did the powers that be
decide to exclude the trans-inclusive
language?
MS: Hard to say, really. My guess
is that perhaps it came from George
Miller [the California Democrat who
chairs the House’s Committee on Edu-
cation and Labor] or it’s very possible
that the supportive Republicans came
together in conference with [Connecti-
cut] Representative Christopher Shays
and demanded a gay-only ENDA. We
don’t know, but the Dems didn’t want
a war on this. Whether it was ultimately
Miller, Barney Frank, or Nancy Pelosi’s
strategy decision, I don’t know. But
HRC supported it. In any event, it would
be hard to change it back now that it’s
gone through the House. I’m not all that
optimistic.
CM: I’m struck by your dispassion-
ate stance, how practical you are. Is
that the voice of experience?
MS: My focus is the fight. I don’t
focus on victory. I’m in it for the fight.
Our trans community is so small and
virtually invisible, and for me to make
demands of the culture at large where
so few relate to and recognize our needs
would be a waste of energy.
CM: How to you keep going?
MS: I think the fight is worth it. I like
the fights. I like the ideas behind the
fights.

䉴 METH, from p.46
some guys, getting back to sobriety
can take months. “I was so ashamed
of myself,” said Gordon who relapsed
last year after being two-and-a-half
years off meth. “I was supposed to be a
pillar of sobriety, advising people who
just got clean. I was supposed to have
it figured out. When I broke up with
my boyfriend, I got so depressed, and
then when I relapsed, I just couldn’t
face telling people it had happened.
And so it kept happening. It was really
a nightmare.”
While Gordon has stopped again,
the sense of fragility — that the spec-
ter of meth addition might raise its
head at any time — plagues him daily.
“It’s never over with crystal,” he said.
“As long as it’s out there somewhere, I
need to be constantly vigilant.”
While the intensity of the drug and
its effect on the brain explains some of
the frequency of relapse, it’s likely that
there are other contributory factors.
Internalized homophobia may find
expression in the power of the drug to
silence all the self-lacerating chatter
that goes on in the minds of gay men
as they attempt to find love and con-
nection in a world still freaked out by
HIV and where standards for physical
beauty and success can often seem
unattainably high.
Crystal’s sneaky specialty is that
it puts gay men in a precious mental
zone where they can be with them-
selves, with their own bodies and with
other men and their bodies, with-
out the often covert self-sabotaging
thoughts that tell them they are too
fat, too stupid, too something to be
loved. The problem, of course, is the
awful price that meth exacts for the
few hours of unalloyed pleasure.
If relapse is regularly a part of the
recovery process with meth, the chal-
lenge is learning how to quit through
slips — not let them deter you but
rather teach you, helping you to
get back up on the horse. Relapse is
dangerous, certainly, but the hope is
that the skills that someone learns
in getting clean once can be applied
when they are needed again — skills
like reaching out to others, making
sure there are plenty of resources to
help and not the bare minimum, and
uncovering the shadowy influence of
internalized homophobia.
Gay men are nothing if not resilient.
In the ongoing battle against addiction
to crystal meth, meeting the challenge
of relapse means being fully who we
are and not allowing a drug to turn us
into mere shells of ourselves.
Christopher Murray, LCSW, is a ther-
apist in private practice in Chelsea who
can be reached at http://www.chris-
tophermurray.org.

WIN A
Mac Air
David Restrepo RPH
Elina Kaminsky RPH
1235 1st Ave | New York, NY 10021

Laptop tel: 212-628-1110 | fax: 212-628-1117

toll free: 866-628-5255
mon-fri 8:30-8 and sat 9:30-7:30
Free delivery | All plans accepted | vitamins | organic and non toxic products
injectables | chemo | surgical supplies & beauty aids
Your Private & Trusted Source for HIV Pharmacy Care
We deliver free to all of NYC and ship nation-wide!

Judson Memorial Church

55 Washington Square South
(212) 477-0351
www.judson.org

Go to
UOgQWbg Judson Church joins the LGBT
community in celebrating

\SeaQ][ Gay Pride Week!

Join us Sunday’s at 11:00
June 29-Rev. Donna Schaper on Interpretation of Dreams
Whoever you are, wherever you are on life’s journey,
for details and register to win! you are welcome at Judson!
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
■ LEGAL
Ohio Courts Decide Two
Lesbian Mom Cases
Co-parent win in Columbus; in Springfield,
mom loses custody to dad
BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD
T
wo inter mediate appellate
courts in Ohio have recent-
ly ruled in custody disputes
involving lesbian mothers. In a Frank-
lin County case, in the Columbus area,
the court on June 18 refused to set
aside a joint custody agreement that
the birth mother sought to avoid after
breaking up with her partner. In a case
from Springfield-area Clark County,
the court upheld a trial judge’s deci-
sion to switch custody from the lesbian
mother to her ex-husband, based on
best interests of the children.
The Franklin County couple, iden-
tified as D.F. and T.F., had a child in
1997 borne by D.F. through anony-
mous donor insemination. When the
child was four, the women submitted
an “Agreed Entry” to the local domes-
tic relations court, agreeing to “co-
custodial status” of their child that
neither could rely on any biological or
legal relationship to the child to gain
advantage over the other should a dis-
pute arise in the future. Judge Peggy
Bryant’s opinion for the appellate court
quoted the agreement as stating that
the couple were to be treated legally as
The women agreed that neither could rely
on any biological or legal relationship to the
child to gain advantage over the other.
equal parents of the child, “the same
as they would be treated under the law
if they were any other two unmarried
parents of a child.”
Three years later, the couple split up,
and T.F. filed a motion for contempt
with the domestic relations court,
complaining that D.F. refused her con-
tact with the child. A court-appointed
“guardian ad litem” for the child that
visitation be restored, while D.F. filed
a motion that the “Agreed Entry” be
declared null and void. A magistrate
advised the trial court that T.F. was
a suitable person to have visitation
rights and that the Agreed Entry was
an enforceable court order, and the
trial judge concurred, ordering visita-
tion rights for T.F.
D.F. appealed to the court of appeals,
which found that the case should never
have been decided on the merits, since
the birth mother’s only recourse would
have been to have challenged the origi-
nal order from the domestic relations
court accepting the Agreed Entry. Hav-
ing missed the short window of appeal
of that order years before, D.F. had no
basis to have raised her motion, and
that it should have been dismissed out
of hand. In any event, the result is the
same — T.F. will now enjoy visitation
rights with her child.
26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 57
“Get your tickets and go see The Rarest of Birds.
Omar Prince will astonish you with his portrayal
of Montgomery Clift. You will feel as if you have
been given a chance to go back in time to see
Clift, one of the wonderful acting geniuses of the
Golden Age of Hollywood, live on stage.” -Vivian
Grand, Wordpress
The Clark County case is a more
traditional custody dispute between a “So there’s no doubt that Monty’s life would
make for a riveting drama. And sure enough,
lesbian mother and her ex-husband.
The Pages divorced in 2000, and the
domestic relations court order “shared
here comes the play.” -Musto, Village Voice
parenting” between the mother and
father of their two sons, age eight and
six.. Two years later, the couple mutu- THE RAREST OF BIRDS
ally decided that the children would
reside with their mother and the father
was granted visitation rights and
A one-man show based on the life
ordered to pay child support. But, in and works of:
2006, citing changed circumstances
MONTGOMERY CLIFT
regarding the children’s best interests,
the father filed a motion that the chil-
dren live with him.
The former Mrs. Page had become
romantically involved with another
Conceived, written and directed
woman, had a commitment ceremony by John Lisbon Wood
with her, and on very little notice moved
with the two boys to live with her part-
ner in West Virginia. By 2006, the boys
were 14 and 12, and the domestic rela-
tions judge found that the boys had “a
poor relationship” with their mother
and her partner.
The court found that the mother’s
partner “has not developed the social
skills necessary to enable her to effec-
tively interact with young men of this
age,” and cited the fact that both boys
entered counseling since the women
got together, the older for “anger man-
agement issues” and the younger for
“depression issues.”
“The credible evidence in this case
suggests that both of the children’s
issues for which they were in coun-
seling were primarily a result of the
environment in which they were liv-
ing at their mother’s,” the judge wrote,
concluding that there were sufficiently
changed circumstances to award the
father residential custody.
In reviewing this conclusion on
appeal, Judge Thomas J. Grady, writ-
ing for the court of appeals, stated that With Omar Prince (member of AEA)
the mother’s lesbian relationship “has
WINGS THEATRE
no relevance… absent proof that the
parent’s relationship presently has an
adverse collateral impact” on the chil- 154 Christopher Street
dren. Grady went on to write, however,
that “competent, credible evidence” SHOW DATES:
was presented to demonstrate such
collateral impact in the boys’ “person- SAT June 7- 3PM SAT June 21- 3PM TUE July 1- 8PM
ality development disorders that are SUN June 8- 8PM SAT June 28- 3PM WED July 2- 8PM
neither slight nor inconsequential.” TUE June 10- 8PM SUN June 29- 8PM FRI July 4- 8PM
As a result, the court found no abuse
of discretion by the domestic relations Tickets $18, $15 for students and seniors
court, that there had been a substan-
RESERVATIONS: 212 627-2961
tial change in circumstances.
On the question of the boys’ best
www.wingstheatre.com (Click on play partner link)
䉴 OHIO, continued on p.59
58
IS SNORING DANGEROUS?
Has anyone ever mentioned to you that you snore while you sleep? Over 10 million
Americans suffer with the medical condition known as Sleep Apnea.
People with untreated sleep apnea stop breathing repeatedly, sometimes hundreds
of times a night for up to a minute or longer.
Sleep Apnea may strike at any age, including children!
If left untreated, it may lead to several other serious health conditions such as: high
blood pressure, diabetes, headaches, heart attack, stroke or “erectile dysfunction.”
Luckily, using an FDA approved oral appliance can easily treat most cases.
People that presently use oral appliances, find it to be more convenient than using
a CPAP machine.
Dr. Lily Eng’s office is conveniently located in lower Manhattan near Chinatown and
City Hall.
She works in conjunction with Sleep Physicians and is a member of the Academy
of Dental Sleep Medicine.
To schedule an appointment, please contact us at (212) 842-5300 so that we can
discuss which treatment will work best for you.
215 Park Row, Suite 1, New York, NY 10038
(212) 842-5300 Fax (212) 842-8042
drlilyeng@aol.com
26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008
䉴 LETTERS, from p.38
this contributes to cohesion.
We also learn that record numbers of combat
soldiers are committing suicide and self-mutilating,
largely because of extended and repeated tours.
It should be obvious to anyone not blinded by
homophobia that time in the field could be dramati-
cally reduced were tens of thousands of new troops
recruited. Politicians who fear that such a rational
course of action would somehow threaten cohe-
sion should be helped to understand that members
of this generation of young men and women have
classmates and teammates who are out and hence
they are not likely to be unhinged by continuing to
associate with individuals who are, after all, imper-
ceptibly different from themselves.
If military men and women who are in harm’s
way were polled about whether they would wel-
come fewer combat tours if it meant serving with
gays the response would be overwhelmingly posi-
tive. Clearly a policy that not only fosters discrimina-
tion but actually results in suicides should be aban-
doned, and the sooner this happens the more lives
will be spared.
Dr. Joel Conarroe
Manhattan
An army veteran, Joel Conarroe is a former presi-
dent of PEN American Center.
June 23, 2008
To the Editors:
Dennis deLeon raised important points in his Op
Ed about efforts to modify informed consent for HIV
testing, but portions of the piece contain question-
able history at best (“Advancing Public Health —
And Not,” online at gaycitynews.com as of Jun. 19).
Nancy Dubler is quoted as saying that Article
27-F “was intended to discourage people from get-
ting tested.” Actually, the reverse is true. At the
time 27-F was written, many AIDS organizations
were advising people not to get an HIV test, since
doing so could lead to a loss of job, home, and
health insurance. Article 27-F ensured that HIV test
results were kept confidential in order to encourage,
not discourage, testing.
But 27-F also recognized that an HIV test was
different from nearly all other blood tests in that it
informed patients of a life-threatening incurable
infectious disease that carried a significant stigma
for those infected. Due to the seriousness of this
test result, it was essential to provide effective
pre- and post-test counseling and to obtain written
informed consent, ensuring that no one was tested
without prior knowledge and consent.
None of these concerns has disappeared since
1989 when 27-F was passed. Yes, HIV disease no
longer invariably leads to an early death, although
this certainly still happens in some cases. And peo-
ple with HIV can no longer legally be denied hous-
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
ing, employment, or health insurance in New York
State.
But the stigma connected to HIV remains strong,
particularly in some communities at risk for HIV. And
the level of ignorance surrounding the disease and
its transmission is shocking, something HIV educa-
tors at ACRIA encounter every day in the community
trainings they provide.
The “compromise” legislation, A. 11461, main-
tains the sham of written informed consent in its
language, but allows HIV testing to be included as
an “opt-out” choice on a general medical release
form, virtually assuring that people will be tested
without their knowledge or true consent, and with-
out the still strongly needed pre- and post-test coun-
seling.
We all agree with the goal of wider HIV testing.
But increasing the number of people tested only to
identify those who test positive is short-sighted at
best. We can’t treat our way out of this epidemic.
Prevention is key, and the counseling currently
required for all HIV tests is needed to help those
who are negative stay that way. The way to achieve
that is to increase our efforts to inform people of the
facts about HIV and the need to be tested, not to
test people without their true consent and without
providing them the information they need to protect
themselves from the pandemic we have been fight-
ing for 27 years.
Mark Milano
HIV Health Educator
AIDS Community Research Initiative of America
Editor, Thrive
WRITE US!
Address letters to the editor, of no more than 250
words, to:
Editor@gaycitynews.com;
Or fax them to 646-452-2501;
Or mail them to 145 Sixth Ave., 1st fl., New York
10013.
Please include your phone number, for confirma-
tion purposes only. The editors reserve the right to
edit all letters due to space constraints.
gaycity
news.com
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 59

䉴 ASYLUM, from p.24
cluded that “the evidence failed to
establish that homosexuals in Guyana
are persecuted, much less tortured,”
Calabresi noted.
Despite concerns about Vomacka’s
possible bias in deciding Ali’s case, the
Board of Immigration Appeals judge
who heard Ali’s appeal affirmed the
IJ’s ruling. Calabresi noted that the
BIA judge was “troubled” by Vomacka’s
“gratuitous remarks” as well as his
speculative reasoning about what
skills it takes to form a gay relationship
in Guyana, but concluded none of that
had “rendered the hearing unfair.”
The BIA judge also affirmed
Vomacka’s conclusions that insuffi-
cient evidence existed that either crimi-
nal deportees or homosexuals face tor-
ture in Guyana.
Calabresi, noting the expert testi-
mony about harsh treatment of both
groups, the evidence of detainee rape,
and the practice of “death squads,”
with the acquiescence of the govern-
ment, hunting them down and mur-
dering them, found Vomacka’s finding
a gross distortion of the record.
Calabresi wrote, “Vomacka clearly
abrogated his ‘responsibility to function
as a neutral, impartial arbiter,’ ” in voic-
ing stereotypes about homosexual ori-
entation — particularly in pointing to
“common understanding… that violent
dangerous criminals and feminine con-
temptible homosexuals are not usually
considered to be the same people” —
without any supporting evidence in the
record
Calabresi also wrote, “Ali claimed
that he would likely be tortured in
Guyana (a) because he is a homo-
sexual, and (b) because he is a crimi-
nal deportee, but also (c) because he
is a homosexual criminal deportee. In
other words, he is a homosexual who,
because of his criminal deportee sta-
tus, almost certainly would be detained
by government authorities upon arriv-
al. By treating aspects of Ali’s identity
as incompatible, IJ Vomacka essential-
ly dismissed, without consideration, a
crucial component of Ali’s application
for relief.”
In arguing that Ali would not be con-
sidered gay unless he had a partner,
Vomacka relied on “stereotypes about
homosexuality and how it is made
identifiable to others,” Calabresi wrote.
Finally, Calabresi dismissed as
“impermissible” Vomacka’s speculation
about Ali’s inability to form relation-
ships, in a way that betrayed “disre-
spect for the petitioner.”
Overall, “the appearance of bias or
hostility” in Vomacka’s ruling makes
meaningful review of his conclusion
impossible and Ali’s case must be sent
back for re-hearing by a different immi-
gration judge.

䉴 OHIO, from p.57
interests, Grady noted that any modi-
fication in custody must be “necessary
to serve” those interests and that any
“harm” caused by the changed must be
“outweighed by the resulting advantag-
es.” In line with the law, the two boys
had been asked their preference, and
both favored living with their father,
though the trial judge concluded only
the older one was mature enough to
make such a choice. The trial court
found that the boys had a good rela-
tionship with their father and their
maternal grandmother, with whom he
lived.
In contrast, the mother “has become
unable to maintain a positive relation-
ship with her two children,” the trial
court found, complicated by the “rela-
tively poor relationship” between the
boys had with their mother’s partner.
The court expressed particular concern
for the younger boy; finding that if he
were “not removed from this environ-
ment, his depression will most likely
worsen and his development will be
stalled even greater than it already has
been.”
The appeals court concluded that on
the best interest question the domestic
relations court had also acted within its
discretion.
One argument the boys’ mother
made was that the trial court relied on
evidence that her younger son’s depres-
sion was due in part to his inability
to make friends at school, which was
attributed to social disapproval of her
lesbian relationship. Allowing that to
affect the custody decision, she argued,
violated her constitutional right to
equal protection of the law. She cited
a 1984 US Supreme Court ruling that
the impact of social disapproval of an
interracial marriage on a child could
not form the basis of a custody deci-
sion.
Judge Grady acknowledged that
the mother had a constitutional liber-
ty interest in the custody of her sons,
but wrote that it was not absolute. The
impact of the child’s problems at school
on his depression “were not the sole or
primary reason” for the custody modi-
fication, which was mainly due to the
mother’s “poor interpersonal relation-
ship” with both boys and the prospects
that the two would do better with their
father.
If the mother’s relationship with her
new partner is creating problems for
her sons, she “cannot shield herself,”
Grady concluded, from the court’s
power to step in by making an equal
protection argument related to other
problems facing one of the boys.
60
■ PERSPECTIVE/ THE VIEW FROM LABOR
The Other L Words
BY HANS JOHNSON
L
ooking back at history often
lights a path forward for social
movements. So it does today for
gay rights supporters determined to
win passage of long-awaited federal
legislation on hate crimes, military
service, and nondiscrimination and
to preserve marriage equality in the
nation’s most populous state.
Now, as in the past, two big and
overlapping blocs of the electorate
and their leaders play a pivotal role
in deciding whether fairness will or
won’t prevail on these priorities. They
are labor union members and Latina
and Latino voters.
This year marks the 30th anniver-
sary of one of the LGBT movement’s
landmark victories — beating the
anti-gay Briggs Initiative in Cali-
fornia. In 1978, as the disco music
blared, gay people faced a fron-
tal assault from the religious right,
whose leaders launched the first in
a wave of statewide antigay refer -
enda to slam the door on newfound
openness and reverse legal protec-
tion from discrimination. Defeating
the hate-based Briggs measure in the
Golden State showed that gay people
could muster the resources to mount
a serious campaign in self-defense
and that we could make a convinc-
26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008
ing case to civil rights and commu-
nity allies that attacks on us posed a
mutual threat.
Labor and Latino voters were vital
to the victory over Briggs. Last week
in Hollywood, Dolores Huerta, a con-
science of California politics who with
Cesar Chavez founded the United
Farm Workers, bore witness to that
fact. “In the ’70s, gay people came
out to march with us in the straw-
berry fields and in the grape boycott,”
Huerta recalled at an event commem-
orating the defeat of Briggs and rais-
ing funds to stop the current attack
on marriage equality in the state.
“When some of the same people
we were battling went after them,
we knew we had to stand with our
friends,” she added. “That is just as
true today as back then. We cannot
be afraid or confused or divided in
any way. And I say that as a Latina,
as a Catholic, and as the mother of
11 children.”
Solidarity of the heart is one part of
the appeal to Latino and labor voters
that the LGBT movement must con-
tinue to make. Another aspect of the
ties that bind our interests at the bal-
lot box comes down to collective bar-
gaining.
By “some of the same people,”
Huerta might well be referring to foes
of labor, Latinos, and LGBT people
such as National Right to Work Legal
Defense Fund. Last year, Iowa Con-
gressman Steve King wrote a fund-
raising appeal for the anti-union
outfit that has long taken aim at the
minimum wage and overtime pay.
King is the same person who bran-
dished a barbed-wire fence on the
floor of Congress in comparing Mexi-
can immigrants to livestock and who
blocked an appropriation for housing
homeless LGBT youth in California,
some of whom are kicked out of their
homes by intolerant parents.
In answering cruelty with com-
passion, California has led the way.
California unions were among the
first in the nation to win healthcare
coverage for the domestic partners of
public-service workers in the 1980s.
Like Archimedes who vowed he could
move the world with a lever and a
firm foothold to stand on, those early
contract provisions proved a toehold
in the law. They yielded a platform on
which a generation of scholars, attor-
neys, activists, labor leaders, and civil
rights allies have built a structure of
relationship- and family-recognition
policies that has extended health
care to millions of Americans, includ-
ing committed same-sex couples and
their children.
Taking aim at marriage equality
puts even this patchwork of benefits,
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
piecemeal in nature and lacking in
parity to the protections afforded by
marriage, in jeopardy. That is a les-
son no one can ignore in the wake
of litigation in Michigan. There the
State Supreme Court, pushed by reli-
gious right activists and a state attor-
ney general beholden to them, inter-
preted a 2004 state ballot measure
forbidding equal marriage as barring
even basic relationship safeguards
secured by local and state workers at
the bargaining table.
In this way, the fight for equal
rights by LGBT people is a fight
against givebacks in negotiations. It
is a struggle to ensure that working
people not get slapped in the face and
told what they can and cannot hope
to win through cohesion and good
contracts. It is nothing less than a
quest to renew and extend the Ameri-
can Dream and to realize the vision of
the beloved community in which the
labor, Latino, and LGBT communities
are common stakeholders.
Hans Johnson is president of Pro-
gressive Victory, based in Washing-
ton, DC, and a board member of the
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
A union member and political commen-
tator, he has assisted and advised
ballot measure campaigns for nearly
two decades.
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 61

Pride:
(prid) noun
A sense of one’s own proper dignity or value; self-respect.
... Show yours!
WHY NOT Acappella Home of
MEN’S SPA 1 Hudson Street the Week
New York, NY 10013 Orange County,
(212) 337-9880 (212) 240-0163
(212) 337-8551 New York
www.whynotmenspa.com George V. Wontz,
Acappella, home of the Broker
235 West 19th Street First Soprano’s episode (917) 403-6799
New York, NY 10011 and the finest Northern
174-04 West 4th Street Italian cuisine, boasts 16 1750 Home, renovated
New York, NY 10014 foot high beam ceilings, for the 21st Century Commuter, Fireplace,
exposed brick and Italian tapestries that make Wide Plank Floors, Stone Walls, Deck
WHY NOT MEN’S SPA is located in the heart of it a true masterpiece. Enjoy an Oscar worthy overlooking Moodna Creek,1.5 Mi to Salisbury
West Village and Chelsea. We are specialized dining experience from the fresh veal, rack of Mills-Cornwall Metro North. $189,000
in facial, and ancient eastern body work. With lamb, chicken, lobster, and fish to the extremely
our Om-Elegant Spa style, WHY NOT MEN’S attentive tuxedoed staff pouring from a world- re-
SPA is the perfect place to rejuvenate and
harmonize both your body and your mind.
nowned wine list. Enjoy a complimentary glass of
grappa as an encore. Don’t miss the opportunity
We Salute
to feel like royalty!
Gay Pride!
The Supple Spa Wood Designè Fish Market
55 West 19th Street 136 West 22nd St.
Restaurant
(212) 929-5948 New York, NY 10011
111 South Street,
www.supplespa.com (212) 229-0536
NY NY 100038
www.woodesigne.com
(212) 233-3301
The Supple Spa is
now open and offering The Fish Market
a multitude of mas-

Salute
Restaurant welcomes
sage service, trans- guests with a warm, yet
porting you away nautical atmosphere.

from the city noise
and stress and into a place of sheer tranquility.
If you are suffering from muscle tension from
always being on the go, a Swedish massage at
Supple Spa is perfect for you.
to Gay Pride
We are redoing our showroom. All our display
models will be sold. The original prices will be dis-
counted 75%. Our sale begins now through July.
Visit our show-room soon.
The red-clothed, can-
dlelit tables reflect a soft glow of light off the
exposed brick walls. The rustic upholstered ban-
quette seating; photographic displays of the Ful-
ton Fish Market in the 1930’s, copper tin ceilings
and a view of the Brooklyn Bridge makes it an
ideal place to fall in love.
62/ Books 26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008

Death’s a Chapter Too

David Sedaris on boyfriends, boils, butts, and body bags
BY MICHAEL EHRHARDT crossed with Samuel Beckett, for business, it was still pos- WHEN YOU ARE ENGULFED
Sedaris’ universality lies in his sible to smoke. Not as possible IN FLAMES

H
umor, like certain wine,
doesn’t always travel
well. It’s hard to imag-
ine Stephen Colbert’s wise-ass
delivery cracking up audiences
in France, Japan, or Russia.
However, consistently defy-
ing easy categorization, David
Sedaris has become a mar -
vel in the world of publishing,
attracting adoring crowds on
his book tours, with his work,
including “Me Talk Pretty One
Day,” having sold more than
four million copies, in 22 lan-
guages, including Greek, Esto-
nian, and Bahasa.
He’s appeared at Carnegie
Hall, and on “Late Night with
David Letterman,” making him
perhaps the first best-selling
popular author who’s queer to
snag such high-profile com-
mercial broadcast TV time since
Truman Capote’s notorious
segments with Johnny Carson
decades ago. Time magazine
named Sedaris “Humorist of
the Year” in 2001, and he’s the
a recipient of the Thurber Prize
for American Humor.
A sort of gay Walter Mitty
ability to mine absurdist black
diamonds from the cracked
asphalt of everyday life. His
latest collection, “When You
Are Engulfed in Flames” won’t
disappoint fans of his last five.
As if to preempt a James Frey
fracas, the publisher includes
an author’s note sardoni-
cally stipulating, “The events
described in these stories are
realish. Certain characters
have fictitious names and
identifying characteristics.”
Sedaris’ fans will be familiar
with his references to his years
spent with his colorful fam-
ily in eastern North Carolina,
including his unconventional
sisters Gretchen, Lisa and
Amy. Intimations of mortality
hover over the new collection,
beginning with the striking
cover by book design star Chip
Kidd portraying a skeleton
with a smoking cigarette butt
clenched in its teeth. Through-
out the book’s last quarter,
Sedaris offers a deadpan Byz-
antine riff on the highs and
lows of nicotine addiction.
“When I first started traveling
as it had been in the eighties,
but most places allowed it…
As the nineties progressed, my
life grew increasingly difficult.
Airport bars and restaurants
became ‘clean-air zones,’ and
those few cities that continued
to allow smoking constructed
hideous tanks.
“The ones in Salt Lake City
were kept in good condition,
but those in St. Louis and
Atlanta were miniature, glass-
walled slums: ashtrays never
emptied, trash on the ground,
air ducts exposed and sagging
from the caramel-colored ceil-
ing. Then there were the peo-
ple. My old friend with the hole
in his throat was always there,
as was his wife, who had a suit-
case in one hand and an oxy-
gen tank in the other. Alongside
her were the servicemen from
Abu Ghraib, two prisoners
handcuffed to federal agents,
and the Joad family. It was a
live anti-smoking commercial,
and those passing by would
often stop and point, especially
if they were with children. ‘See
that lady with the tube taped
By David Sedaris
Little Brown and Company
$25.99, 336 pages.
to her nose? Is that what you
want to happen to you?’
“In one of those tanks, I sat
beside a woman whose two-
year-old-son was confined to a
wheel-chair. This drew the sort
of crowd that normally waves
torches, and I admired the way
the mother ignored it. After
hot-boxing three quarters of
her Salem, she tossed the butt
in the direction of the ashtray,
saying, ‘Damn, that was good’.”
Like the mime played by pig would pass away, and, after
Jean-Louis Barrault in “Chil- burying the body, I’d dig it back
dren of Paradise,” time and up, over and over, until all that
experience have darkened remained was a shoddy pelt…
Sedaris’ performance; and the As a young man, I saved up
shadow of middle age has left my dishwashing money and
its impression on the author, as bought a seventy-five-dollar
is evident in “Monster Mash,” copy of Medicolegal Investiga-
and there’s a subversive death’s tions of Death, a sort of bible for
head smile behind his medi- forensic pathologists.”
tations on mortality and deli- Recounting his visits to a
quescence: “Even as a child I medical examiner’s office, where
was fascinated by death, not in he witnessed numerous autop-
a spiritual sense, but in an aes-
thetic one. A hamster or guinea 䉴 BOOKS, continued on p.72

SEDARIS TALKS RED STATE FANS, BILL FRIST, ‘REALISH’ MEMOIRS

David Sedaris recently spoke with Gay City the information you get there is not always reli-
News from his hotel room in Tulsa, Oklahoma; able, if not downright lies. Some guy on a media
one of the numerous stops on his current 30-city website reports that I always hit up on guys on
national book tour: my book tours. Like I have time! I can barely get
enough sleep!
MICHAEL EHRHARDT: How are things in The lack of sleep really gets to you after a
Tulsa, these days? while; I find myself getting giddy and doing weird
things at the book signings, like doodling pictures
DAVID SEDARIS: Oh, well, it gets pretty hec- of owls or a happy turtle under a cross with Jesus
tic; so, I sometimes have to be reminded where I Christ hanging on it. And when someone asked
am! I pretty much rely on my media escort to keep what it means, I explained that the turtle’s happy
me up to date on things. because there’s an abortion clinic in the neighbor-
hood! (There was a free walk-in clinic next door.)
ME: Must be pretty grueling. Do you find that Things get really way out when you’re tired!
you have as many fans in the red states as in the Then, once a young guy — young enough
blue ones? to be my son — gave me an envelope and said,
DS: Oh, yeah — sure! This particular tour “Don’t open it until I leave.” When I finally opened
was pretty much my idea. I wanted to go to places it, there were a few photos of him, half naked —
where you don’t necessarily associate with book posing with his shirt off.
readings, like Tulsa, Baton Rouge, and Omaha.
People seem to recognize me a lot more from ME: How does Hugh cope with your interna-
the times I was on NPR, which really has a wide tional celebrity? Does he ever travel with you on
reach. It’s really a lot of work, too, let me tell you! your tours?
In Omaha, for instance, I gave a 40-minute reading DS: He’s adjusted pretty well to things. He’s
and sat on my ass for eight to nine hours signing not on tours when we’re in the States. But he’ll be
books. I’ll be doing a Brazilian tour in Rio and San with me in Brazil and Australia. And then, I’d like to
Paolo in July. And then, I’m going to Australia and go back to Japan again.
New Zealand.
ME: You prefer to refer to Hugh as your boy-
ME: That’s some fan base! Do you ever attract friend, as opposed to lover, life-partner, or hus-
ANNE FISHBEIN

stalkers?
DS: Not really. I don’t think people think of me
that way. They know from my work all about my
long-term relationship with Hugh. However, as I’m
fairly new to the Internet, I recently discovered that
band.
DS: Yes. Everyone at readings knows about our
relationship. And “lover” sounds so…
David Sedaris denies an Internet posting that he always hits up on guys while on book tours — “Like I have time!
I can barely get enough sleep!” 䉴 SEDARIS, continued on p.74
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 63

g g

The Italians
got it right
and you can, too.
Live in Siena FREE
for six months!*

at Montclair

1- 2- & 3-bedroom residences in

1-,
the heart of Montclair, offered
from the mid $400,000s.
At last you can experience what the Italians have
always known – that home and way of life must
be inseparable. Purchase now at Siena and, for 6
months, you’ll live without mortgage, condominium
dues and real estate taxes. Savor every moment
in the pedestrian village of Montclair, where
open-air cafés, bistros and galleries are your
neighbors. The closest you can get to Italy while
still enjoying the luxury of a Siena residence.
To get this right, you need only get here soon.
Open Mon. – Fri. 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., Sat. & Sun. 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. The Siena is located at the intersection
of South Park and Church streets. Brokers welcome. Sales office is located on the 4th floor.
Call 888-SIENA-NJ or visit
a joint
venture
with
www.SienaAtMontclair.com
pinnaclecompanies.net
*Interest Only. Payments pay only the accrued interest on the loan each month and do not reduce the principal balance. When fully amortizing payments become due, monthly payments could increase substantially above the
initial Interest Only payment amount. Please read all product disclosures carefully for complete details of loan features. All loans are subject to credit approval and property appraisal, and a prepayment penalty may apply. If a
reduced documentation option is used to qualify for financing, this may result in higher costs and/or an increased interest rate. Terms and conditions of the offer subject to change without notice.
64
ménage
Asbury Park
a You
trois
+ the blu
510 Monroe Avenue
unleash your fantasies on your Rooftop Deck*
living at the blu gives you affordable luxury and
x a private balcony
x private parking
x fitness center
x designer kitchen
x walk to the beach
x walk to NYC trains
x a rooftop deck with sitting pool
and panoramic ocean views*
x walk to downtown restaurants,
shops, galleries & clubs
Immediate Occupancy
Samuel Boyd
Realtor Associate
cell: 732.890.6547 / 732.890.4479
off: 732.897.9200 x 113
- Appointments Available for your Convenience -
200 Main St.
Asbury Park,NJ
732.897.9200
www.conovernj.com/theblu
26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008
■ THEATER
‘Boys in the Band’ Hits 40
Mart Crowley and two living cast
members reunite for memorable evening
Laurence Luckinbill (the original Hank), playwright Mart Crowley, and Peter White (the original Alan) in the Transport
Group’s staged reading of “The Boys in the Band” on June 16.
BY ANDY HUMM
“G
o back 40 years,” said
Vi l l a g e Vo i c e t h e a t e r
critic Michael Feingold
from the stage of the Lucille Lortel
on Christopher Street. “Life was very
different, especially if you were gay
— a word a lot of people didn’t know
back then.”
Feingold was introducing a staged
reading by the Transport Group of
Mart Crowley’s seminal hit “The Boys
in the Band” on June 16. Judging
from the response of the audience
— mostly gay men of a certain age
(including me) who saw the original
production or the1970 movie with
the original cast — it is still a play
that is gayer than laughter if no lon-
Asbury Park ger younger than springtime.
And while some of the things that
this gathering of 30-something gay
“boys” say are still as cringe-induc-
ing as they are meant to be, there are
also lines that set the stage for the
era of liberation that followed: “If we
could just learn not to hate ourselves
so much,” the lead character Michael
says just before the curtain.
More than a year before the Stone-
wall Rebellion, “The Boys in the
Band” caused a sensation in terms of
the frankness with which gay subject
matter could be handled commer -
cially. While it was far from the first
gay-themed play in New York when
it opened Off-Broadway on April 14,
1968, its run of 1,000 performances
SALES CENTER and success as a movie make it one
of the most groundbreaking histori-
Wed. – Sun.
Noon – 5pm
cally.
The reading was apparently done
877.258.2775 after one rehearsal, but acting vet-
erans led by the incomparable David
Greenspan as birthday boy Harold
— with kudos to all! — made it seem
A Real Estate ready for a revival tomorrow. This
Development gathering of wit and venom makes
Company
“August: Osage County” look like
“Little Mary Sunshine.”
Feingold said that Crowley “didn’t
write a play about ‘the homosexual,’”
as playwrights had in productions
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
BRUCE GLIKAS/BROADWAY.COM
from “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” to “Tea
and Sympathy,” “he wrote a play
about a whole batch of them. What
a revelation! A play about human
beings!”
Six of the nine in the original cast
are dead, five of them from AIDS.
Reuben Greene who played Ber -
nard has disappeared, rumored to
have gone into a monastery. But on
hand to discuss their experiences
were Laurence Luckinbill (Hank),
Peter White (Alan McCarthy), and
playwright Crowley himself who said
he turned to writing this play after
some disastrous experiences in Hol-
lywood with unproduced screen-
plays — including one for his friend
Natalie Wood playing twins, one
of whom was lesbian. “Too many
dykeisms,” Darryl F. Zanuck is said
to have commented in killing the
project.
It’s a long and odd story, but Crow-
ley wrote the play at the home of his
actress friend Diana L ynn while
babysitting for her kids while she
was off on a world cruise. He didn’t
have any responsibilities but was
wanted there because her staff was
not fluent in English, and she felt
the need for a native speaker on the
premises in case of an emergency. So
Uncle Mart got the job and was able
to churn out “The Boys in the Band”
in five weeks.
That was easy. Getting it produced
was anything but.
The agent to whom he was referred
in New York “was distraught by the
manuscript,” Crowley said. “She
said, ’Do you think I could send this
out on our letterhead?’”
“And she was married to a gay
man,” said Luckinbill, who had a
Catholic University connection with
Crowley.
Luckinbill’s own agent at first told
him, “It will wreck your career! You’ll
be branded!” It did lead to him being
dropped from doing True cigarette
commercials (“No fags smoke our
䉴 BOYS IN THE BAND, continued on p.82
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 65
66/ Theater 26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008

Talking to the Dead

Mercedes Ruehl gets real in Edward Albee’s play about Louise Nevelson
BY CHRISTOPHER BYRNE EDWARD ALBEE’S OCCUPANT
The Peter Norton Space
555 W. 42nd St,

W
hat is truth, and is it either
absolute or even knowable?
This question resonates
through much of Edward Albee’s work
and is at the center of “Edward Albee’s
Occupant,” his newest play now at the
Signature Theatre. The play is ostensi-
bly a postmortem on the career of the
sculptor Louise Nevelson –– literally,
she is dead when she arrives for an
interview with a character billed only as
The Man. But that is about as accurate
as saying that “Who’s Afraid of Virginia
Woolf?” is about a marital spat or “The
Goat” is about bestiality.
The larger issues of this deceptively
Tue. at 7 p.m.; Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m.;
Sat., Sun. at 2 p.m. through Jul. 6
$20-$65; 212-244-7529
Cavett when he was fawning over
celebrities. Yet as Nevelson appears,
he is thwarted in promoting his own
knowledge of her by her admission
that she may have made up some of
the details of her biography, raising
the question of what’s true. While
certain elements of her story aren’t in
dispute, Nevelson emerges as some-
one who, like all of us, has created

simple play concern the intercon-
nectedness of art and artist, celeb-
rity, voyeuristic and shallow popular
media, and the trade-offs one makes
to survive. Good thing, too, because
were it only a chronicle of Nevelson’s
life and career, it would be “The Boy
from Oz,” without the flashy numbers
–– in other words a charming but ulti-
mately pointless biography of some-
one on the brink of obscurity.
The Man begins the interview in an
aggressively chipper style. Think Dick
herself out of what she’s been given.
That is something she acknowledges
when she says, “All of a sudden I had
become me.”
The tension, though not very great,
comes when The Man tries to contain
Nevelson and ultimately cannot. The
dynamic between them becomes a
wry commentary on how media does
— and needs to — promote its own
interpretations of truth. Extrapolate
that as you will to any situation pri-
vate or public you can think of. It’s
Mercedes Ruehl and Larry Bryggman in the Signature Theatre production of “Edward Albee’s Occupant.”
a fascinating argument, but it wears
thin rather fast, and The Man, clev-
erly, calls an intermission at a point
when Nevelson’s complexities and
contradictions pile on in ever greater
amounts.
The second act allows Nevelson to talk
more about her work, and how she her-
CAROL ROSEGG
self is part of that work. She describes
how she came to create assemblages out
of wood, and how she felt the need to “be
pretty” when she went into the world,
and the affectation of two pairs of sable
eyelashes as part of her gestalt. She is,
䉴 THEATER, continued on p.85

Jefferson Market Inc.

Greenwich Village’s Full Service Market Since 1929

Prime Aged Beef, Fresh Sea food, Gourmet Cheeses, Groceries,

Fancy Fruits and Vegetables, Fresh Baked Bread & Pastries,
Fresh Produce, Gourmet Coffees,
Deli Prepared Foods, Catering Bell & Evans Poultry

Serving the Gay Community is something we’re very proud of.

So one & all we salute gay pride month!
We Truly Appreciate Your Business!
Delivery Service Available between (212) 533-3377
96th St. & Battery Park (east & west) 450 Sixth Avenue
Mon.-Sat. 7:30 AM-9 PM, (between 10th & 11th Sts.)
Sun. 8AM-8PM 6)3!s-ASTER#ARDs!MERICAN%XPRESSs$EBIT
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 67

@e_d
J^[
Jh[leh
Fhe`[Yj
\eh
ekh
.j^
WddkWb
Ikcc[h
=WbW

mmm$J^[Jh[lehFhe`[Yj$eh]

:_h[Yj
\hec
Jemd
>Wbb"
Jedo
7mWhZ#m_dd_d]

WYjh[ii
WdZ
h[YehZ_d]
Whj_ij" Ej^[h
Y[b[Xh_jo
\h_[dZi
iY^[Zkb[Z
je
Wff[Wh0


IWdZhW
8[hd^WhZ
=_Z[ed
=b_Ya
9^[o[dd[
@WYaied
>[Wj^[h
CWjWhWppe
7ZWce
Hk]]_[he
?Z_dW
C[dp[b"

je
f[h\ehc
d[m
ied]i
\hec
^[h
WdZ
ceh[
je
X[
WddekdY[Z$$$
bWj[ij
^_j
WbXkc"
?
IjWdZ$
68
■ IN THE NOH
America’s Gaysian Sweetheart 7 NIGHTS
Mirthful Mapa, Astaire’s tune, marriage-happy California
BY DAVID NOH
W
ayland Flowers AND
Madame with a dash
you can get REAL
Mexican food.
You know Alec Mapa from
his hilarious “Ugly Betty” char-
acter, Suzuki St. Pierre, which
he’s described as a combina-
tion of Wayland Flowers and
Madame with a dash of Bruce
Lee. He’s also been on “Des-
perate Housewives,” and called
Eva Longoria the “biggest fag
hag in the universe, there are
always seven gay men orbiting
around her. She has more gay
men working on her face than
George Michael in a public toi-
let.” Longoria’s ability to eat
whatever she wants fascinates
him and he once asked her
on the set, “Did you just eat
a whole bowl of Fruit Loops?”
She said, “Yes, and stop watch-
ing what I eat. It’s creepy!”
I’ve followed Mapa’s career
since his first real job and
Broadway debut at age 24 in
“M. Butterfly,” and told him
that, off the record, I preferred
him to B.D. Wong. “Oh, you
can keep that on the record!”
he laughed, before describ-
ing the show he’s bringing
to Joe’s Pub on June 28-29
(212-967-7555 or http://www.
joespub.com). It’s entitled “No
Fats, Fems, or Asians,” which
he got from reading gay per-
sonal ads.
“I just think it’s indicative
of where we are as a commu-
nity and feel we could be nicer
to each other,” he said. “We
all know what it’s like to be
excluded or invalidated for who
we are or what we look like
and I don’t think we need to
do that to one another. We can
express preferences in ways
that don’t dehumanize entire
groups of people. We all know
what it’s like to be beaten up,
so why do it to each other?
“I came up in New York in
the ’80s and all my mentors
were extraordinarily kind gay
men who taught me how to
behave –– the dressers, stage
managers, actors, bartenders,
cabaret people. They all came
from heinous circumstances
when everybody was dying
and they all behaved with
exceptional kindness to each
other and we need to hang on
to that. That was their legacy
to me now they’re all gone.
“So much of my act is
subversive and very sexual.
Especially with gay Asians,
there’s the implication that
only a certain kind of person
7 DAYS
Alec Mapa talks about what he learns from his gay fans and how queer representations are
making headway in popular media.
is fuck-able. I’m not fat, but
on behalf of feminine Asian
men out there, I must say I’m
getting plenty of dick, so…
I’ve been an activist for years:
more than half of my gigs are
benefits. The amfAR people
said, ‘You’re just American’s
Gaysian Sweetheart!’ And you
know what? I am!”
Mapa grew up in San Fran-
cisco Filipino and Catholic
and, insofar as being gay went,
said, “My family, although con-
servative, has been extremely
supportive, I was very lucky.
But we drive each other nuts
–– you know Asian families
–– and as I get older I real-
ize when you first come out,
you’re pretty militant and for-
get that they have to have their
own process, as well.
“My mother accepted it
immediately, my father gra-
dually. He had some reality
checks when my mother was
in the hospital and all the
ICU nurses were big flaming
queens. You realize when
you’re in a delicate condition,
you want people to be gentle
with you and you want a big
flaming queen in your corner.
He said, ‘I can’t say anything
bad about gay people anymo-
re, after how they treated your
Mom.’ I was like, ‘Right, and all
these years it didn’t matter that
26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008
were real Palestinian and Israe-
li actors on set and for a lot of
them it was they first time they
had come in contact in a work
situation. They were all having
fun, but the minute they go
back to Israel, they all have to
go through the cavity search.”
After “M. Butterfly,” Mapa
said, “I crashed and burned for
almost two years in LA. I had
a death in the family, ran out
of money, and my boyfriend
dumped me. It was a real ‘VH1
Behind the Music’ crack-up
–– I never left my house –– so
I had to start all over again,
doing stand-up and started
getting sitcoms.”
Marc Cherry wrote the “Des-
perate Housewives” part for
him, after their aborted gay
2001 sitcom “Some of My Best
Friends,” and, after killing
at the 2007 GLAAD Awards,
“Ugly Betty” came calling.
Mapa particularly loves the
character of gay kid Justin
(Mark Indelicato): “He sends
COURTESY: JOE’S PUB a very important message. We
worship at the altar of mascu-
linity in this country so much
that when you deviate from
that you’re punished severely,
so for a character on a mains-
tream sitcom to be champio-
I was your son. Hello?!’ He likes ned and celebrated for being
me now because I’m making himself is a huge win for us.
money and that’s all that mat- “That’s part of my personal
ters to an Asian parent. Wow, message: Be yourself. On the
you’re Korean? I haven’t met many gay cruises I’ve perfor-
a lot of Korean gay people who med, I meet so many people
are out to their parents.” from the middle of the country
Mapa came to New York who don’t have our lives on the
“because I was such a stoner coasts. It sounds corny, but
that if I’d stayed in San Fran- they always come up to me
cisco, nothing would ever hap- and say, ‘Thank you for being
pen to me. I saw the movie yourself and out –– it really
‘Fame,’ which seared my head makes a huge difference.’”
like a branding iron –– to go to Mapa is happily married to
New York, wear leg warmers, actor Jason Hebert: “Together
and be deliciously tragic, six years, married for two,
which is exactly what I am. I but now we have to get mar-
went to NYU with Molly Shan- ried again for the legal certifi-
non and Adam Sandler, but we cate. I’m not having another
were never cast in plays –– all wedding though. We’re remo-
too weird for the main stage, deling the house, and when
so we concentrated on doing that’s done we’ll have a cock-
our own thing. That’s life –– tail party to celebrate that and
you can either get upset or be our vows. Jason came with
proactive and so I did stand-up me on the seven RSVP cruises
at The Duplex and Don’t Tell I did last year. We’re that weird
Mama and my gay audiences married couple who only have
were the first to tell me, ‘Don’t sex with each other.”
change a thing: it’s honest.’” Mapa loves his RSVP audi-
Mapa described Sandler as ences: “Gays at midnight –– the
“really simple. He loves working only way to keep their atten-
and is kind of shy, actually, tion is by making your act as
and is very loyal. I’m in ‘You dirty as possible, keep them off
Don’t Mess with the Zohan,’ the sex deck. They’ve been the
playing a hairdresser –– what best learning experiences. I’m
a stretch. It’s raunchy and silly really an actor, not a stand-up,
and addresses serious shit in a but they’ve taught me to work
comical way. It was very emo-
tional for me because there 䉴 IN THE NOH, continued on p.71
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
䉴 JUNE 28, from p.55
of American Art, 945 Madison Ave.
at 75th St., Wed.-Thu., Sat.-Sun, 11
a.m.-6 p.m.; Fri., 1-9 p.m. through Sep.
7. Admission is $15; $10 for students &
seniors; pay what you wish Fri., 6-9 p.m.
212-570-3633.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
HOBBIES
Start Your Engines
The Lambda Car Club, America’s
biggest gay and lesbian car club, hosts
the Empire Auto Showcase featuring
more than 25 antique cars in the city
park across the street from the United
Nations. Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, E.
47th St. btwn. First & Second Aves.,
9 a.m.-6 p.m. Free. For more information,
call 212-472-2118.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
NIGHTLIFE
Women On
the Waterfront
Heritage of Pride hosts its fifth annu-
al women’s dance Rapture on the River.
Dance to the music of DJ Susan Levine
and watch the coming twilight over the
Hudson River. Pier 54, 13th St at the
West Side Highway, 6-11 p.m. Tick-
ets are $20 at boxofficetickets.com or
800-494-TIXS, or, in limited numbers, $25
at the door.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
Get Your
Ya-Yas Out
Rock and electronic music power-
houses Richard Morel and Bob Mould
headline a pumped evening of indie rock,
electro, and house before a packed and
frisky crowd of alternative music-loving
boys (girls welcome!), burly beer-drinkin’
men, leather daddies, and chunky hunks.
Highline Ballroom, 431 W. 16th St.,
11 p.m. to 4 a.m. Admission is $20. For
more information, visit http://www.
blowoff.us or call 212-414-5994.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
The ‘Old’
Meatpacking
District
Daniel Nardicio brings you back to
an earlier, more innocent, but decidedly
wilder time in one of on-location sites
for the notorious leather world shocker
“Cruising.” The space will be trans-
formed into an atmosphere where any-
thing goes, clothing is optional, and who
knows what might be lurking in the cor-
ners. HRH Princess Diandra appears late
in the night as Grace Jones, and eight
sex-starved ’70s muscle studs danc-
ing au naturel. Get on the dance floor
yourself for the dirty disco stylings of DJ
Sammy Jo and a special surprise guest
DJ. “Cruising: A Night at the Trucks”
takes place at the Woodshop, 24 Ninth
Ave. at 14th St., fifth fl., doors open at
10 p.m. and close at 8 a.m. Tickets are
$20 at http://www.Dlist.com or $30 at
the door.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
䉴 JUNE 28, continued on p.82
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 69

www.TryAmericanSpirit.com or call 1-800-872-6460 ext. 76300

Offer for two $10 Gift Certificates good toward any Natural American Spirit products of greater value. Offer restricted to U.S. smokers 21 years of age or older.
Limit one offer per person per 12 month period. Offer void in MA and where prohibited. Other restrictions may apply. Offer expires 12/31/08.

Natural American Spirit®

is a registered trademark of
Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co.
© SFNTC 2
70 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

celebrate nyc pride week at mcburney

We’ve got your Summer Pass to Summer Fun! Come In. Be Cool.
The YMCA is the coolest place to be this summer with
cool classes, cool pools, cool cardio and cool people!

Let us help you build healthy spirit, mind and body this
summer with our Summer Membership Special!

Just $200 for an adult, or $275 for the whole family!

Ask about getting connected with Y Personal Fitness!

This offer is valid on new memberships at YMCA of Greater New York locations only. The offer runs
from May 23, 2008, to June 30, 2008. “Summer Memberships” are valid from date of registration
through September 1, 2008; Family Membership includes 1 or 2 adults with children under 18 years of
age all living in the same household; must be paid in full at time of registration; cannot be combined
with any other offer; and are non-transferable. Valid photo ID is required. Some exceptions may apply.

The YMCA serves 175,000 NYC kids

and our Strong Kids Campaign ensures no one is turned away.

SOME KIDS JUST CAN’T

WAIT FOR YMCA CAMP.
Kids everywhere are starting to dream up their wish list for summer. And there’s no
better place for them to fulfill it than at YMCA Summer Camp. It’s the perfect place to
meet new friends, build core values, learn new skills and of course, have fun. So this
year introduce your kids to YMCA Summer Camp. It’s already on their minds.

ENROLL TODAY.
CHINATOWN YMCA MCBURNEY YMCA
46 camps. 22 locations. One YMCA. 273 Bowery 125 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10002 New York, NY 10011
(212) 912-2460 (212) 912-2300
ymcanyc.org/chinatown ymcanyc.org/mcburney
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
䉴 IN THE NOH, from p.68
quick. They’re often smarter than you,
so I’ve had to be on the top of my game.
My fan base is wonderfully diverse ––
everything from older to twinkies to cir-
cuit queens. So many comedians com-
plain about no gay following, thinking
they’ll only see Margaret [Cho] or Kathy
[Griffin] or drag queens, so ––knock
wood –– I’m lucky.”
Mapa’s advice for future gay crui-
sers: “Pack poppers and use hand
sanitizer every chance you get.” His
dream roles? “Peter Pan and Martha in
‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.’”
T
wo recent New York benefits
deserve mention. The Kaufman
Center’s Gala celebration (May
28, Mandarin Oriental) was delight-
fully hosted by Liz Callaway and fea-
tured performances by Philip Glass,
playing one of his signature surging
piano compositions, as well as by
some children from the Special Music
School, one of whom refreshingly
admitted to hating having to practice.
Boy can those Kaufman-ites party
–– when the bar closed, black-tied
guests merely grabbed bottles and
started pouring for themselves like
frat boys. Fun!
T
ommy Tune was honored
at the Fred & Adele Astaire
Awards (June 2, Manhattan
Center) and recalled meeting Fred,
backstage after “My One and Only,”
who eyed the younger star and said,
“You’re one tall sonuvabitch!” Sister
26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008
Tyrone Power, the first circuit queen, suntanning in Palm Springs in 1938, personifies the eternal gay ethos of this
desert resort.
Adele was fondly recalled by Fred’s
daughter Ava, and singer Charles
Cochran, once signed to Astaire’s
record label. Both elegant and rowdy,
she supposedly performed a hetero
deflowering of none other than Cecil
Beaton, and Cochran remembered
her once describing a champagne
cocktail served in a royal opera box,
“It tastes like mouse piss!”
Before her retirement to marry Brit
nobility in 1932, Adele was the big-
ger star, and her deliciously ineffable
charm was evoked by a performance
of Gershwin’s “I’d Rather Charles-
ton.” Liz Smith hosted and, passing
onstage the always-ebullient LeRoy
Reams, remarked, “Is this gay enough
for you?”
71
and have a delish meal and the best
margaritas ever at gay hangout Azul.
Los Angeles’ San Vicente Inn provi-
ded, as always, a fun, idyllic haven in the
center of West Hollywood. Santa Monica
Boulevard, not always an epicenter of
political activism, was gay wedding-cra-
zy, with effective window displays and
everybody jawing about upcoming mass
public nuptials and that adorable couple,
Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, together 55
years, whom (Saint) Gavin Newsom just
hitched up in San Francisco.
The Getty Museum was absolutely
spectacular, as much for its Richard
COURTESY: DAVID NOH
Meier architecture, sweeping city views,
and magical gardens as for its immense
holdings of art. Seeing a special August
Sander photo exhibit as well as a ten-
foot Rigaud portrait of Louis XIV, in
fluffy peruke and red-heeled Manolos
–– which seemed to further trumpet
I
just returned from marriage-happy the current local triumph of all things
California where, in Palm Springs, gay –– truly put the lie to any canard of
I stayed at the Cathedral City Boys LA being cultureless.
Club, a Utopian gay resort environ to Having lived and schooled there years
make anyone feel like Rock Hudson, ago, I once turned up my Manhattan
Tab Hunter, and their gay agent, Henry nose at its mere mention, but now, with
Willson, on a sneaky private getaway clueless tourists clogging our streets in
in their ’50s glory days. Beyond circuit search of Disney/ “Sex and the City”
parties, the town is deliciously rife with thrills, fascistic crackdowns on all gay
history, stemming back to the honored fun, the wrecking ball now threatening
Cahuilla Indians, whose Agua Caliente the Provincetown Playhouse f ’Chris-
hot springs formed the genesis of this sakes –– blast you, NYU –– and a bank
resort community, through the golden if not a Starbucks on every corner, give
Hollywood star stucco’ed-getaway years me a Left Coast getaway any day. And
and all the starkly effective desert mod- you can get real Mexican food there (not
ern architecture like Sinatra’s house. to mention, guiltily, Jack in the Box)!
Visit Latino Books y Mas, amazingly, the
town’s only bookshop, a mesmerizingly Contact David Noh at Inthenoh@aol.
eclectic center of the culture’s diversity, com.
Lectures by Phillip Levine
“Adding figures to Paintings”
July 8, 6:30 p.m.
“Attending Overseas
Workshops”
July 28th, 6:30 p.m.
Art Film Festival
July 15, 22, & 29, 7:30 p.m.
City Workers Exhibit
July 21— August 2
Annual Summer Exhibit
August 4 — 22
Black & White Exhibit
August 25—September 5
47 Fifth Ave @ 12th street, NYC
www.salmagundi.org
72
䉴 BOOKS, from p.62
sies, Sedaris writes, “I dressed in
a protective suit, complete with
a bonnet and a pair of Tyvek
booties. Citizens were gradually
disemboweled, one right after
another, and on the surfaced I’m
sure I seemed fine with it. Then
at night I’d return to my hotel,
double-lock the door, and stand
under the shower until all the
soap and shampoo were used
up. The people in the next room
must have wondered what was
going on. An hour of running
water, and then this blubbery
voice: ‘I do believe in spooks, I do
believe in spooks, I do, I do, I do,
I do.’”
Sedaris gradually learns the
inside-outs of the profession,
including the term “decomps,”
which refers to bodies that
weren’t found until days after
death: “We had such a case on
Halloween, an eighty-year-old
man who had tumbled from a
ladder while replacing a light
bulb. Four and a half days on
the floor of his un-air-condi-
tioned home, and when the
bag was unzipped the room
filled with what the attending
pathologist termed ‘the smell
of job security.’”
“By this point in my stay,
my list of don’ts covered three
pages and included such
reminders as: never fall asleep
in a dumpster, never under-
Trip
Want more? Get LGBT
travel listings, city files,
events, tour operators,
and more on our website
w w w. d a m r o n . c o m
estimate a bee, never drive a
convertible behind a flatbed
truck, never get old, never get
drunk near a train, and never,
under any circumstances, cut
off your air supply while mas-
turbating. This last one is a
nationwide epidemic, and it’s
surprising the number of men
who do it while dressed in
their wife’s clothing, most often
while she’s out of town. To any-
one with similar inclinations, a
word of warning: after you’re
discovered, the police will take
snapshots of your dead, cos-
tumed body, which will then
be slid into photo albums and
pored over by people like me,
who can’t take the stench of
an incoming decomp, so hole
themselves up in the records
room, moaning, ’Oh, my God.
Oh, my God,’ not sure if they’re
referring to your plum-colored
face or to the squash blossom
necklace you’ve chosen to go
with that blouse.”
In the piece titled, “Town
and Country,” Sedaris pon-
ders the rift which can often
exist between appearance and
reality, when he is intimidated
after being seated beside two
picture-perfect airline passen-
gers, who “looked like people
who had just attended a horse
show; a stately couple in their
late sixties, he in a cashmere
blazer and she in a grey tweed
jacket, a gem-encrusted sham-
Out!
Take America’s
favorite LGBT
travel guides
with you!
800/462-6654
Call today and ask about
Damron Travel Packs:
2 Damron guides for $30
3 Damron guides for $40
26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008
rock glittering against the rich
felt of her lapel.”
Feeling scruffy and low-rent
by comparison, he winces:
“The sport coat I had prided
myself on now looked clown-
ish, as did my shoes, and the
fistful of pine straw I refer to
as my hair.” However, reality
shifts, when he observes: “The
couple took their seats and,
just as I settled in beside them,
the man turned to the woman,
saying, “I don’t want to hear
this shit.’
“I assumed he was refer -
ring to the Gershwin number
the airline had adopted as its
theme song. ‘I can’t believe the
fucking crap they make you
listen to on planes nowadays.’
“The woman patted her sil-
ver hair and agreed. Saying
that whoever had programmed
the music was an asshole.
“‘A cocksucker’, the man
corrected her. ‘A goddamn
cocksucking asshole.’”
They weren’t loud people
and didn’t even sound all that
angry, really. This was just
the way they spoke, the ver-
bal equivalent of their every-
day china. Among company,
the wife might remark that
she felt a slight chill, but here
that translated to ‘I am fuck-
ing freezing.’… [H]ow had I so
misjudged these people? Why,
after all these years, do I still
believe that expensive cloth-
ing signifies anything more
than a disposable income, that
tweed and cashmere actually
bespeak refinement?...
It was as if they’d kidnapped
the grandparents from a Ralph
Lauren ad and forced them
into a David Mamet play — and
that, in part, is why the couple
so appealed to me; there was
something ridiculous and
unexpected about them.”
By this time in his career
and his life, Sedaris is in a
monogamous relationship,
and reflects on the joys and
potholes involved in long-term
cohabitation. In “Old Faithful,”
he considers the limitations of
love after his resourceful life
partner, Hugh, volunteers to
lance a festering boil located
just above his butt crack with
a sterilized needle; proving
that there are connubial inti-
macies well beyond the erotic
kind: “Worse than the boil was
the stuff that came out of it,
a horrible custard, streaked
with blood. What got me, and
got to him even worse, was the
stench, which was unbear -
able and unlike anything I had
come across before. It was, I
thought, what evil must smell
like. How could a person live
with something so rotten inside
of him? And so much of it! The
first tablespoon gushed out on
its own power, like something
from a geyser. Then Hugh used
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
his fingers and squeezed out
the rest. ‘How are you doing
back there?’ I asked, but he
was dry-heaving and couldn’t
answer.
“When my boil was empty,
he doused it with alcohol and
put a bandage on it… And this,
to me, was worth at least a
hundred and twenty nights of
Sodom. Back in bed I referred
to him as Sir Lance-a-Lot.
“‘Once is not a lot,’ he said.
“This was true, but Sir
Lance Occasionally lacks a
certain ring.
“‘Besides’, I said, ‘I know
you’ll do it again if I need you
to. We’re an aging monoga-
mous couple, and this is all
part of the bargain’
“The thought of this kept
Hugh awake that night, and
still does. We go to bed and he
stares toward the window as I
sleep soundly beside him, my
bandaged boil silently weeping
on to the sheets.”
Sedaris ultimately proves
that humor is capable of
crossing borders and ideolo-
gies, and, arguably, even dis-
arming those cranky religion-
based homophobes who hold
that marriage — the good and
also the very, very bad — can
exist only between a man and
a woman.
Michael Ehrhardt can be con-
tacted at Menyc3@aol.com.
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 73

䉴 BRIEFS, from p.25 tion and Labor Subcommittee on Women Still

Health, Employment, Labor and Chief Victims
Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Pensions. of Don’t Ask,
Democrat who is its chief spon- Don’t Tell
sor, concluded the votes were The Servicemembers Legal
not there for the original inclusive Defense Network released a
approach. new report that shows women Over a Century of Continuous
“The Human Rights Campaign
should not be human rights cow-
ards,” said out gay Supervisor
are even more disproportionately
thrown out of the military under
the policy that excludes open
COMMUNITY SERVICE
Tom Ammiano at a news con- gay and lesbian people than ever.
ference on June 24. He will be “Women make up 15 percent of
joined in boycotting the dinner
by other gay and lesbian elected
officials including Supervisor
the armed forces, so to find they
represent nearly 50 percent of
Army and Air Force discharges
ARTS
Bevan Dufty, Assemblyman Mark under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is A year round calendar of classes, concerts, recitals, and exhibits are offered at our Music School
Leno, and State Senator Carol shocking,” Aubrey Sarvis, the and Pottery. Please visit www.gharts.org or www.greenwichhousepottery.org for up-to-date listings
Migden, both of the city’s LGBT REA CAREY group’s executive director said in
political clubs, the San Francisco a release. of events & activities.
Labor Council, and Matt Foreman, Carey New Sarvis said the policy is “often Locations: Music School The Pottery
the former executive director of Head of NGLTF used as a weapon of vengeance
NGLTF, the Chronicle reported. Rea Carey, who has served against servicemembers.” Women 46 Barrow Street 16 Jones Street
Foreman told the newspaper as the deputy director of the in the military are frequently 212.242.4770 212.242.4106
this was “an emperor has no National Gay and Lesbian Task accused of being lesbian when
clothes moment” and added, “We Force for the last four years, has they won’t accept sexual come-
still don’t have one single federal been appointed the group’s new
law that protects gay people, let executive director, taking over
ons from men, and complaining
about the harassment triggers the CHEMICAL DEPENDENCY SERVICES
alone transgendered people.” from Matt Foreman, who left military’s authority to begin prying
Joe Solmonese, HRC’s presi- earlier this year to work for the into their personal lives. The outpatient Chemical Dependency Program provides diagnosis, treatment and medically
dent, who less than two months Haas Fund. Presumptive Democratic supervised drug-free counseling to substance abusers and families. Our Parole Treatment
before the House passed the Carey has a history of activ- presidential nominee Barack
revised bill promised transgender ism with such groups as ACT Obama supports repeal of the gay Program provides a range of services to people on parole. The Vocational Program provides voca-
groups unequivocally he would UP, and Lesbian Services at exclusion while the GOP’s John
never support an Employment the Whitman-Walker Clinic in McCain thinks the policy is work-
tional assessments, counseling, testing and vocational planning for clients who are interested in
Non-Discrimination Act that was Washington, DC, and was a co- ing just fine. making a change in their life in terms of career, education and training. An outpatient Methadone
not fully inclusive, said in a state- founder of Gay Men and Lesbi-
ment, “HRC’s position is that we ans Opposing Violence. She was Judi Verdino, Maintenance Treatment Program (MMTP) clinic dispenses methadone and offers individual and
could not oppose — and, in fact, the first executive director of the Youth, AIDS group counseling, medical treatment, referral, harm reduction and vocational counseling.
should support — legislation to National Youth Advocacy Coali- Service
provide crucial civil rights protec- tion for LGBT young people. She Provider, Dies Locations: Chemical Dependancy Services MMTP
tions that would be brought to has a master’s degree from the Judith Verdino, who took over 122 W. 27th St., 6th Fl. 50B Cooper Square
the House floor for a vote, even Kennedy School of Government the reigns of the Hetrick-Martin
though we did not and, certainly, at Harvard. Institute for LGBT youth in 1991 212.691.2900 212.677.3400
would not have chosen that At the Task Force, she created when executive director Damien
course.” He also said, “It’s time the Public Policy and Government Martin died of AIDS, died from
to set aside our differences and Affairs department as well as the complications of breast cancer on
fight for what we all want.”
More than 300 groups nation-
Movement Building department.
Mara Keisling, executive
June 20. She was 53.
Known not just for her dedica-
CHILDREN'S SERVICES
wide formed a coalition last year director of the National Center tion to her work but also her dry Our Preschool, provides day care ser vices in a safe haven for children of working families. The
named United ENDA calling for Transgender Equality, joined a wit, Verdino was, for the last 14
for the bill to be shelved if it did chorus of movement leaders sing- years, vice president for special
Barrow Street Nursery School is a half day, private program. Our Children's Safety Project helps
not protect gender identity and ing Carey’s praises in a release: initiatives and HIV programs at children who have been physically or sexually abused or have witnessed domestic violence.
expression. “Rea’s values are solid and her Public Health Solutions, formerly
Dufty told the Chronicle he commitment to ensuring that our the Medical and Health Research Location: 27 Barrow Street, 2nd, 3rd & 5th FloorSs212.242.4140
was skipping the HRC dinner whole community moves forward Association of New York City.
for the first time in 23 years and together — including people who In that post, she oversaw the
would “instead make dinner at are transgender, young, old, and
his home for people protesting people of color — is unwavering.
distribution of millions of dollars
in federal Ryan White and CDC ELDER CARE
outside the event.” Rea gets it.” funding in the city.
In the US House, a hearing on And now, despite asking at “Judi always cared about Our Senior Center provides breakfast and lunch daily, as well as a schedule of events and activities
transgender rights was scheduled first not to be considered for the for our members to enjoy. The Senior Health & Consultation Center provides a range of mental
for June 26 before the Educa- top spot, she’s got it. 䉴 BRIEFS, continued on p.76
health and medical services to the geriatric community.
Location: 27 Barrow Street, 3rd & 4th FloorSs212.242.4140

gay HIV & AIDS

city Our HIV Services & AIDS Mental Health Project provide a comprehensive range of services to
people who are HIV positive or living with AIDS including counseling, education, testing, mental
health treatment, harm reduction, TB testing, and comprehensive primary medical care.

news. Location: 122 West 27th Street HIV Services: 212.255.8980, 3rd Floor
AIDS Mental Health: 212.691.2900, 6th Floor

For more information please visit

com www.greenwichhouse.org
74
䉴 SEDARIS, from p.62
ME: Purple? Illicit? Like a Jackie Collins novel?
DS: Yeah; and “partner” just sounds like you’re in business
together. “Boyfriend” is nicer — less in your face. But, it surprises
me how young gay guys have an easier time with relationships than
when I was their age. Hugh knows this 23-year-old guy who lives
with two boyfriends in the same house. When I asked him if they all
share the same bed, he answered that one of his boyfriends sleeps
in his own bed, because he has a back brace. The whole story
sounded just so offbeat and domestic.
ME: Would you and Hugh ever consider marriage if it became a
real option?
DS: Well, the mayor of Beverly Hills volunteered to marry us.
But, apart from the practical advantages, it’s something I’d have to
think about rushing into. I mean, in my lifetime, I must have gone to
about 40 or 50 weddings, and they’re pretty grueling affairs. I don’t
need to march down the aisle in a church ceremony, or a catered
affair.
ME: Does living a lot of time abroad result in culture shock when
you return to the States?
DS: Well, I live both in Paris and London, and people don’t seem
so down and out there. Here in Tulsa, for example, every intersec-
tion looks like a casting call for a hobo. Groups of Christian youth
approach you for money, too. You have to constantly walk around
with this emotional lead coat, so you don’t appear to be inhumane
or racist. You don’t see as many people panhandling in Europe.
ME: Have you experienced anti-American sentiments while liv-
ing abroad?
DS: Not in Paris. I found the British tended to be more anti-
American. The French are pretty much looking forward to Bush leav-
ing, and are hoping that Obama gets in.
ME: Are you much into politics these days?
DS: Oh, yes. I voted in an absentee ballot in the New York pri-
mary for Obama. I think Hillary is smart and good at details, but she
isn’t as good a communicator as Obama is. John Kerry came across
P AWS IN
SO H O •C H E L S E A
s'ROOMING
s$AY#ARE
s!DOPTIONS
s"OARDING7HILEYOURE
26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008
the same way as Hilary that last time around.
ME: In your new book, your author’s note specifies that the
events described are “realish.” Publishers have certainly gotten
pretty antsy since “A Million Little Pieces.”
Don’t you feel that readers expect humorists to embroider their
experiences for maximum effect, as opposed to full-fledged mem-
oirists?
DS: Yes. That author’s note was my idea. I think things have got-
ten really out of hand since the James Frey incident. I mean writing
about events in your awful childhood and presenting it as an auto-
biography, and just making them up, is showing contempt for your
readers. Which is something I would never do.
ME: Your stories are like jazz riffs on humorous themes and inci-
dents in your life. Do you feel that humorists, like yourself, are held
to a higher standard than our politicians today?
DS: Yes, I do. They can make things up, skew facts, willingly
mislead the public, and cause a lot of people to die.
ME: The New York Times book critic, Michiko Kakutani was
not all that amused with some of your new stuff.. She found your
story about the medical examiner’s office had a “distinctly dis-
tasteful — even down-right creepy — aroma.” Your French coun-
try neighbor, the convicted child-molester, seems to have irked
her. She seems to have found the story about your boil gross. Do
you feel that tastefulness and political correctness and humor are
incompatible?
DS: Well, Kakutani had issues with my last book; she thought
my piece on the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam was “cringe-wor-
thy,” because I wrote that I was surprised at how nice and bright it
was; that it was really prime real estate; right off the canal, and all.
I thought it would make a really great triplex; it was all about…
ME: Location, location, location…
DS: I certainly wasn’t making fun of the Holocaust. I’d never do
that. And the French child molester was a pathetic character, who
was brain-damaged. He was a sad case.
ME: Freud thought that humor happens when the conscious
mind, or the super ego, lets in forbidden and taboo thoughts which
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
society suppresses; the superego allows the ego to generate humor,
and relieves emotional energy and anxiety. Kakutani must have a
very constipated super-ego. Obviously, you’re more in touch with
your pleasure-seeking id.
DS: I guess so. Well, I never read my reviews anyway. I don’t
think that’s a good idea. I always figure that if I can get those sto-
ries published in The New Yorker, I must be doing something right.
ME: How did the Esquire assignment for the story “Monster
Mash” come into being?
DS: Well, Esquire asked me if I wanted to do a piece, and I said
I’d like to do one on a city morgue, which always fascinated me.
Actually, the piece was originally a lot stronger, and I ended up
toning it down. Sometimes you don’t realize how strong a piece is
until you read them to a live audience. I guess unless you’ve lost
someone in a terrible accident, you don’t know exactly how hearing
those things can effect someone As it ended up, the medical exam-
iner’s office was grateful for the publicity, since the workers had an
axe to grind about getting more funding.
ME: You wrote about giving the baccalaureate address at Princ-
eton, and a “well-known politician” who you both despise and
loathe complimented you, and with whom you begrudgingly shook
hands. Who was it?
DS: It was Bill Frist. It was a really awkward situation. But, I
rationalized it by saying to myself that it wasn’t a political situation.
Another time, when I appeared on “David Letterman,” he introduced
me to John McCain; who seemed to have a good sense of humor.
ME: Now that you’ve quit smoking, are there any other vices
you have to work on or take up as a replacement?
DS: Putting on weight, I guess.
ME: What do you read for pleasure these days?
DS: I’m just reading Michael Chabon’s “The Yiddish Policemen’s
Union,” which I’m enjoying a lot. I like reading Susan Sheehan, too.
On June 22, “When You Are Engulfed In Flames” was #1 on the
New Times Best Seller List.
— Michael Ehrhardt
AWAYYOURPETSWILLPLAY
40 EIGHT AVENUE

Best of New York, 2007

Magazine

3OHO #HELSEA
GREENWICHSTBET 7ESTTH3T
SPRINGCANAL
PAWS PAWS
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 75

0HOTOGRAPHYLESLIEVANSTELTENCOM
76 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

䉴 BRIEFS, from p.73
making sure the process worked
for people,” said Barbara Turk
of the Community Resource
Exchange.
Back in 1998 in a letter to the
New York Times, Verdino took on
Cardinal John O’Connor’s opposi-
tion to a city domestic partners
bill. “As a lesbian who has been
in a committed relationship for
17 years,” she wrote, “I believe
that the cardinal is sadly out of
date in his definition of family.
What makes a family is love and
commitment. My partner and I,
like thousands of other gay and
straight unmarried couples, easily
qualify as a family. If you still have
doubts that we’re a family, just
ask our seven-year-old daughter.”
Verdino is survived by her
wife, Imani Romney-Rosa, with
whom she had a commitment
ceremony last year, and daughter,
Genna Verdino-Ellis, as well as a
brother, Christopher, and sister,
Joanne.
Love Dies
Kermit Love, who created
the costume for Big Bird on TV’s
“Sesame Street” along with such
characters as Oscar the Grouch
and Cookie Monster, died June
21. He was 91. The New York
Times noted that he was survived
by Christopher Lyall, his partner
of 50 years.
Love was also famous as
KERMIT LOVE
the costume designer for ballets
choreographed by George Bal-
anchine, Agnes de Mille, Robert
Joffrey, Jerome Robbins, and
Twyla Tharp, the newspaper said.
He started as a puppet designer
with the Works Progress Admin-
istration, or WPA, in 1935 and
worked as a designer for Orson
Welles’ Mercury Theater.
The white-bearded Love
played Willy the Hot Dog Man on
“Sesame Street.”
Arizona
Anti-Gay
Amendment
Stalled
Arizona, whose voters were
the only ones ever to reject a
state constitutional amendment
banning same-sex marriage
and domestic partnership put
before them — despite support
for it from their senator, John
McCain — may not have to vote
on another such amendment this
year. A stripped-down version
that does not address domestic
partnerships — so as to cool
the ire of older voters who live
together but don’t want to muck
with their wills — was rejected
by a State Senate panel 14-1.
The panel also voted, however, to
bring it up again at an unspecified
future date.
Florida and California have
certified ballot measures against
same-sex marriage for the fall,
though California’s is the subject
of a lawsuit (see page 4).
CHARLIE CRIST
The New York
Coy Times
In Deborah Solomon’s “Ques-
tions For” column in the Times
Sunday Magazine, Florida Gov-
ernor Charlie Crist was asked a
question that started, “Your per-
sonal life is not that of a typical
Republican…” But instead of
getting into the press-reported
rumors of his being gay, Solomon
asked why he was “not a prop-
erty owner” and why he “can’t
find one woman in all of Florida”
to marry, after a marriage nearly
30 years ago ended in less than
12 months.
Christ answered the latter,
“Stay tuned.”
PAULO SZOT
Some
Enchanted
Paulo Out
Paulo Szot, who won the
Best Actor in a Musical Tony
Award for his portrayal of Emile
de Beque in the hit revival of
“South Pacific,” is an out gay
man. The Brazilian opera singer’s
publicist was contacted by Brian
Juergens of AfterElton.com and
when asked if Szot is gay, the
flack said, “You’re welcome to
say as much.” Nice to have him
in the club.
Gaybashers
Arrested in
Flagstaff after
Pride
Four men in their mid-20s were
arrested for assaulting two people
for being gay after the Pride in the
Pines festival in Flagstaff, Arizona
in the wee hours of June 23 outside
a restaurant. One of the survivors
of the attack, Michael Brown, was
found unconscious and bleeding.
The victims had been waiting for a
cab with volunteers from Equality
Arizona.
The Arizona Republic reported
the alleged perps face charges of
aggravated assault, assault, and
disorderly conduct and may be
subject to the hate crimes statute.
BARACK OBAMA
Obama Pride
Democratic presidential nomi-
nee Barack Obama issued a state-
ment for LGBT Pride Month, saying
he is proud to “join with our les-
bian, gay, bisexual, and transgen-
dered brothers and sisters in cel-
ebrating the accomplishments, the
lives, and the families of all LGBT
people.” Such a bouquet is not
expected from the McCain camp.
Obama supports virtually all
LGBT rights short of marriage.
McCain has voted against virtu-
ally every gay rights initiative,
though he did vote against the
federal marriage amendment,
but only because he felt it wasn’t
needed at this time.
Britain to
Gay Asylum
Seekers: Go
Home and Be
‘Discreet’
British Home Secretary Jacqui
Smith said gay asylum seekers
from places like Iran — which has
the death penalty for homosexu-
ality — should not be automati-
cally accepted in the UK, writing
to a Liberal Democrat member
of the House of Lords that there
wasn’t a “real risk” of “adverse
action” against LGBT folks in Iran
if they were “discreet,” the Inde-
pendent reported.
Ben Summerskill, head of
Stonewall, told the newspa-
per, “You only have to listen to
people who were terrorized by
the Metropolitan Police in the
1950s and 1960s to know that
telling gay people to be dis-
creet is quixotic.”

New Dance Group

The nonprofit arts center supporting individual artistic growth since 1932

Dance
Fitness
Theatre Arts

Ongoing classes
Personal attention
All ability levels welcome
Find YOUR class at
www.ndg.org

305 West 38th Street

(at Eighth Ave)
New York, NY 10018
212.904.1990
Cathryn Lynne Photography
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 77
78 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

THOUSANDS TURN OUT FOR FOLSOM STREET EAST

Downpours of rain occasionally alternated
with bright, even blazing sunshine, but that didn’t
keep away the thousands from Sunday’s Folsom
Street East celebration of leather, rubber, S/M,
and kink on the strip of West 28th Street from
Tenth to Eleventh Avenue.
What proved new this year were an emcee
and a closing musical act who both were nation-
ally known — porn impresario Chi Chi LaRue
manned the stage throughout the show spanning
hours and rocker Bob Mould came out at about
5:30 for a long and well-received musical set.
One of LaRue’s treats for the audience was an

GAY CITY NEWS

elaborate performance of perhaps-simulated sex
among a group of muscled leather dudes carefully
obscured, in deference to New York City law, by a
shower curtain held up at both ends of the stage. Chi Chi LaRue puts on an elaborate shower show; Bob Mould rocks out in the late afternoon; and the Eagle provides a well-quenched nest.
The roughhousing behind the curtain certainly
was convincing, even entrancing — and through-
out the 20-minute piece, as it were, a giant dildo
molded in the shape of the Empire State Building
was periodically raised and lowered behind the
curtain. At the end of it all, the Empire dildo was
tossed into the crowd as a souvenir.
At the other end of the block, hundreds gath-
ered in the makeshift beer garden set up in front
of the Eagle to help quench the thirsts they had
from a party-hearty afternoon.
Proceeds from the event benefited the New
York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project,
the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, the
LGBT Community Center, and the Gay Male S/M
Activists.— Paul Schindler

dON’T
If you’re the target of words like these, take offense. Call AVP’s
24-hour bilingual Hotline to report the incident. It only takes a
few minutes to document the time, place and circumstances of a
threat or harassment. All calls are strictly confidential. You can

jUST
even remain anonymous. And by reporting incidents, you’re helping
make our community safer and helping yourself feel a little better.

AVP is the nation's oldest and largest crime-victim services

agency, assisting thousands of lesbian, gay, transgender and

tAKE iT. bisexual victims of bias crimes, hate violence, domestic violence,
pick-up crime, rape, sexual assault, HIV-related
violence and police misconduct within
all five boroughs of the city. Now in our
20th year of service, we're here for you.

FAGGOT! MARIMACHO! DYKE! HOMO! MARICON!

tAKE
oFFENSE.
CALL AVP at 212-714-1141

This ad paid for in part by the New York City Council, Christine C. Quinn, Speaker
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 79
 80/ Theater 26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008

Marriage Musings
To “I do” or not to “I do?” –– that is but one of the questions
BY DAVID KENNERLEY A PERFECT COUPLE
DR2 Theatre
103 E. 15th St.

T
hose freshly hitched
same-sex couples in
California sure seem
like a blissful bunch. Many
had dreamed of this moment
for years, while others, caught
up in the euphoria of mak-
ing history, made a mad dash
to the altar. But recent data
tracking Massachusetts same-
sex unions show that many
marriages have shattered, just
like their hetero counterparts.
The November ballot initia-
tive to nullify the whole she-
bang notwithstanding, what
are the chances these couples
will stay united ’til death?
Perhaps they should have
seen “A Perfect Couple,” a lean,
provocative look at finding and
keeping love by Brooke Ber-
man, who wrote last season’s
acclaimed “Hunting and Gath-
Through Jul. 12
Mon.-Sat. at 8 p.m.
Through Jul. 12
$25-$35; 212-239-6200
or http://wetweb.org
And boy, does Berman raise
a tangle of questions.
After being in a rocky rela-
tionship with Amy for 15
years, Isaac (a scruffy James
Waterston) declares that “It’s a
good time” for them to get mar-
ried. He’d recently inherited
their house in upstate New
York from his beloved step-
mother, and the headstrong,
bossy Amy (Dana Eskelson)
has a baby clock that’s ticking
real loud. But is the time really
right?
Visiting from “the city” for
the weekend is confir med
bachelorette Emma (Annie

ering.” While the decidedly
imperfect couple at the core of
the marriage quandary is het-
erosexual, the questions raised
are universal, indeed.
RICHARD MITCHELL
McNamara), looking like some
Williamsburg librarian with
her smart dark-rimmed glass-
䉴 PERFECT, continued on p.95 Dana Eskelson and Annie McNamara in Brooke Berman’s “A Perfect Couple,” at DR2 Theatre through July 12.

Take A Stand

MANATUS
SALUTES GAY PRIDE HAND IN HAND!
24 HOURS A DAY 7 DAYS A WEEK

FESTIVE FOODATHON!
340 Bleecker St., New York City
(212) 989-7042/7470
www.manatusnyc.com
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 81
82 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008
Get a plan…
In ManMate Founder Grant
䉴 BOYS IN THE BAND, from p.64
fags,” he was told they said).
Wheaton’s new book: The 7-day
Dating and Relationship Plan
for Gay Men: Practical Advice
And White lost a shaving
cream ad. “There was talk of
legal action,” White said, but
a law banning such discrimi-
from the Gay Matchmaker, he nation had not even been
shares his seven principles to help conceived at that point.
navigate today’s dating challenges W h i t e , f r e s h o u t Ya l e
and find relationship success. Drama School, was deeply
resistant to taking a role in it
Visit ManMate.com and purchase
at first. But he was working
your copy at a special discounted with the legendary Myrna
price! Loy at the time and he said
Make plans…
We want to introduce you to our
she told him after reading
the script, “Peter, if you want
to be an actor you’ve got to
take risks!”
members. Hundreds of single, “I didn’t expect to get the
successful, attractive and relation- part,” he said, “and when I
ship-oriented gay men. They want did get it I was terrified. Most
to meet you…either one-on-one of us lost our agents.”
or during a dinner party for 8 in a White said, “But when the
great restaurant in Manhattan! show began, our lives were
changed — I think for the
better.”
RELATIONSHIP Luckinbill recalled an older
disabled man coming up to him
SUCCESS! in a theater much later and
telling him that his portrayal of
Hank, the gay schoolteacher,
212-564-4025 - www.manmate.com “gave me the courage to tell my
parents that I was gay.”
They talked about a peep-
hole in the back of the set
gaycitynews.com from which they could watch
the reactions of everyone from
their parents to Groucho Mark
and Jackie Onassis from back-
stage.
“The Classic Paella Shines” -Gourmet Magazine, 2004
Saluting Gay Pride
with a Latin Flavor!
The men all paid tribute to
the indispensable contribu-
tions of director Bob Moore, a
Broadway veteran of musical
plays, famous for helming Neil
Simon’s work. While Crowley
insisted that the original cast
do the movie, the producers
insisted on a film director and
Moore got dumped to Crow-
ley’s eternal regret.
Crowley was asked if
the Alan character — who
intrudes on the gay party and
is thought to have come to
New York to tell his old friend
Michael that he, too, is gay
only have it revealed that he
had a bad spat with his wife
— is really gay in the play-
wright’s mind. “I don’t know,”
he said. “Make up whatever
you want to,” he said to White
who played the role, “just
don’t do it tonight.”
“I’m still thinking about it,”
said White. “It’s a difficult role.
If half think he’s gay and half
think he isn’t, that’s what you
want.”
Wherever you come out, it
was an evening to remember.
As Harold would say, “Friends,
thanks for the nifty party and
the super gift.”
A new edition of the play
with a foreword by Tony Kush-
ner has just been published by
Alyson Books.
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
7 DAYS
䉴
7 NIGHTS
JUNE 28, from p.68
RaUnch at
The Ranch
Big Apple Ranch, New York’s venue
for country-western dancing, hosts “Big
Apple RaUnch,” the annual Pride Dance
fundraiser for the Times Squares Square
Dance Club, the New York affiliate of
the International Association of Gay and
Lesbian Square Dance Clubs. The money
raised helps support rental on the spaces
where the club offers dance lessons Sep.
to May every year. Come in you finest,
funnest leather, fetish, raunchy wear —
not required! — and dance to some hot
cowboy music. 39 W. 19 St., fifth fl., 9
p.m.-1 a.m. Show up at 8 for free dance
lessons. Admission is $10. For more
information, visit http://www.bigappler-
anch.com.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
AT THE BEACH
A Possible
Dreamboat
The New York Times has called him
“the last leading man.” Lots of gay guys
would probably call him a major hunk with
some great singing chops. Brian Stokes
Mitchell won the Tony for “Kiss Me Kate”
and snagged nominations for “Man of La
䉴 JUNE 28, continued on p.85
“★★★” - N.Y.Times
823 Greenwich St.
at Horatio
Open Tues.-Sun.
Closed Mondays
Lunch & Dinner
929-8210
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 83
84 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008
Asia Argento is the mistress to Fu’ad Aît Aattou’s Ryno de Marigny.
■ FILM
Passions Simmer, Don’t Boil
Catherine Breillat’s subtlety undermines
her stinging message
BY GARY M. KRAMER
T
he provocative Catherine Breillat
once again depicts the battle of
the sexes in “The Last Mistress.”
While there may be no surprise who
will win, perhaps the most novel thing
about her latest film is that it is set in
19th century France.
This romantic drama features many
resplendent period costumes, which
the actors periodically shed so they
can copulate. The characters’ moral-
ity, honor, and dignity, however, are
also stripped bare. The question is:
Will audiences care? Despite the hand-
somely-mounted production, and an
attractive cast, there is very little heat
in this tale of overheated emotions.
The story, based on Jules Bar -
bey d’Aurevilly’s novel, tells of a Ryno
de Marigny (Fu’ad Aît Aattou) who
is engaged to Hermangarde (Roxane
Mesquida), a woman of great nobil-
ity. However, his mistress, Vellini (Asia
Argento), a bewitching Spanish woman
of illegitimate birth, maintains a hold
on him. She believes that despite his
impending marriage, de Marigny will
“come back to her as always.”
To be certain that her granddaugh-
ter Hermangarde’s fiancé’s intentions
are noble, and that he is not the liber-
tine his reputation suggests, the Mar-
quise de Flers (Claude Sarraute) listens
as de Marigny recounts his rocky ten-
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
IFC FILMS
THE LAST MISTRESS
Directed by Catherine Breillat
Released by IFC Films
Open Jun. 27
IFC Center, Lincoln Plaza Cinemas
year relationship with his mistress. His
story describes meeting Vellini, and her
initial dislike for de Marigny. It is only
after a duel of honor that she express-
es any affection for him, evidenced in
Vellini licking de Marigny’s blood after
he is wounded. This scene prompts
one of the many couplings de Marigny
and Vellini have over the course of the
film, and curiously, it is not the only
time she participates in such unusual
behavior.
Alas, the sex in “The Last Mistress”
is one of the film’s drawbacks, not one
of its highlights, and not because it is
sometimes bloody. Breillat, who is a
master of eroticism, provides very little
to get aroused by here. One reason may
be that the slightly built Aattou, with
his bee-stung lips and his milky skin,
is actually prettier than his co-star
Argento. Furthermore, Argento’s heav-
ing bosoms— frequently on display —
operate like this was a crass Harlequin
romance, not a classy arthouse film.
The actress is also miscast. She is
䉴 MISTRESS, continued on p.85
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 85

7 DAYS 䉴 MISTRESS, from p.84

meant to be magnetic, but she

as dynamic as his co-star —
and that is in his favor — this
may be deliberate. Unlike his
ing actors, its morality remains
intriguing. Breillat shrewdly
addresses the manners and
acters are telegraphed in such
a way that everyone gets what
they deserve, but their satis-

䉴
7 NIGHTS
JUNE 28, from p.82
Mancha” “Ragtime,” and August Wilson’s
“King Hedley II.” Tonight he will appear
courtesy of the Fire Island Pines Arts
Project at the Brandon Fradd Theatre,
Whyte Hall in the Pines, 9 p.m. Tickets
are $150-$250 at http://www.fipap.org.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ wailing. It’s unintentionally
comes across as downright
resistible. Despite an excellent
coquettish moment where she
leaves de Marigny one night in
a rapture of unsatisfied ardor,
most of Argento’s performance
is overplayed and overwrought.
Perhaps her most awful acting
comes when tragedy strikes
the couple, and Vellini lets
loose with some hysterical
amusing that she does some
Argento, Aattou’s performance
is largely internal, and he is
able to project his fervor as well
as his conflict about each rela-
tionship as the scene requires.
He does well with the extensive
dialogue during the best part of
the film — the extended flash-
back sequence in which de
Marigny delights the Marquise
de Flers with his storytelling.
Sarraute, as the Marquise, is
terrific in these scenes. She is
mores of the era, albeit not
subtly. An early line of dialogue
implores that women should
“never let a man rule [them].”
The differences between how
Hermangarde and Vellini strug-
gle to keep de Marigny’s love
alive amply demonstrate this
adage and provide the film with
its stinging social message.
The story is set up beauti-
fully, but it is disappointing
that the second half of “The
faction or punishment is not
particularly gratifying.
The lack of dramatic tension,
and the subdued emotions
also keep “The Last Mistress”
from fully succeeding. Breillat’s
approach is mostly detached,
and while it works when elderly
members of society are gossip-
ing about the central romance,
the more intimate scenes ––
such as those in the bedroom
— are too impersonal to be truly

PRIDE
SUN.JUN.29
Take the Fifth
Heritage of Pride sponsors the 39th
annual New York City LGBT Pride Day
March, beginning at 52nd St. & Fifth
Ave. at noon and proceeding down
Fifth to an endpoint at Christopher
& Greenwich Sts. in the West Village.
The first march was an un-permitted
civil rights demonstration in 1970 to
commemorate the one-year anniversary
of the Stonewall Riots. Over the years,
it has grown into a mammoth, colorful
celebration and parade. This year’s grand
marshals are the LGBT Community Cen-
ter, celebrating 25 years in 2008; Gilbert
Baker, who created the Rainbow Flag
30 years ago; PFLAG-Parents, Families
and Friends of Lesbians and Gays; and
performance artists, and actress Candis
䉴 JUNE 28, continued on p.87
of this bellowing while naked
atop her lover, allowing her
massive breasts to shake.
If Fu’ad Aît Aattou is not
䉴 THEATER, from p.66
in the words of Albin from “La
Cage Aux Folles,” “her own
special creation.” There are
some unmistakable echoes of
Terrence McNally’s “Master
Class” through this section,
as Nevelson holds forth, and it
bogs down a bit, but it remains
intriguing if not wholly involv-
ing.
Mercedes Ruehl gives a
wonderfully controlled perfor-
mance as Nevelson. She is very
matter of fact about the reality
she has created. Even when
faced with questions about her
completely seduced by him,
and viewers will be too.
Despite the disparate perfor-
mances among the film’s lead-
truthfulness from The Man,
she exudes great comfort with
the life she has created, neither
shying away from the more dif-
ficult parts nor making too big
a deal about the successes. Her
command of the stage is com-
plete, and with Jane Green-
wood’s marvelously eccentric
costumes, she is a presence
that can’t be avoided — not
that one would want to.
Larry Bryggman manages
to strike a balance between
knowledge and fatuousness,
qualities not unfamiliar in the
celebrity journalism world.
While his charm may cloy,
Last Mistress” fails to main-
tain the interest generated in
the beginning. By the film’s
midpoint, the fates of the char-
we want him to ask the ques-
tions, because we’re so darn
curious. We want to know or,
more accurately, we want the
illusion of knowing, and that in
itself is a kind of participatory
art.
The evening is wonderfully
directed by Pam MacKinnon,
who helmed Albee’s “Peter and
Jerry” last season. MacKinnon
manages to keep the feeling
natural and fluid. There is a
relaxation about this produc-
tion that is part of its charm
and makes it feel more like a
conversation than a recital of
information –– no mean feat
effective. Sure, just desserts are
best served cold, but for much
of “The Last Mistress” the fiery
passions are missing.
since not much happens in the
course of this play.
In the end, Albee makes it
clear that the only thing we
can be absolutely sure of about
Nevelson is the work — the
sculpture — because it exists;
we can see it, touch it, have our
own interpretations about it.
Everything else, well, we make
it up as best we can as we go
along. Famous or not, that’s
an inherently and uniquely
human trait. Nevelson, like all
of us, created the life she can
— or could — live with. That
is vastly more important than
any other concept of truth.

ENJOYUNEQUALEDLUXURYLIVINGINTHEHEARTOFASTORIA!ǧ7KLVYLEUDQW
PDWXUHQHLJKERUKRRGKDVDOZD\VEHHQSRSXODUIRULWVOLYHO\QLJKWOLIHIDEXORXVSDUNVHFOHFWLF
FDI«VDQGUHVWDXUDQWV,QGRRUOLYLQJIXOȊOOVHYHU\RZQHUVǠZLVKOLVWIURPWKHȊQHVWTXDOLW\
ȊQLVKHVWRPHWLFXORXVO\GHVLJQHGVSDFLRXVOD\RXWV2QHEHGURRPDSDUWPHQWVZLWKEDOFRQLHV
DQG0DQKDWWDQVN\OLQHYLHZVVWDUWLQJLQWKHǠV$GGLWLRQDOO\IHDWXULQJJ\PURRIGHFN
LQGRRUSDUNLQJH[WUDVWRUDJHDQG\HDUWD[DEDWHPHQWPLQXWHVWR0LGWRZQRQWKH1 
:WUDLQV)ORRUSODQVDUHDYDLODEOHRQRXUZHEVLWHZZZ+HDUW2I$VWRULDFRP

DIMITRIOSSKRETAS
ǧGVNUHWDV#HOOLPDQFRP
© 2008. An independently owned and operated member of the Prudential Real Estate Affiliates, Inc. is a service mark of Prudential Insurance Company of America. Equal Housing Opportunity.
86/ Film 26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008

A Prodigy of Will
Upscale doc reveals personal side of blacklisted Hollywood scribe
BY IOANNIS MOOKAS nothing less. TRUMBO
A man of capacious abilities and Directed by Peter Askin
“Share and share alike — that’s towering will, Trumbo suffered little Samuel Goldwyn Films
democracy!” angst reconciling collectivist values Opens Jun. 27
Lincoln Plaza Cinemas;
— Ginger Rogers, in “Tender Com- and communist leanings –– he joined
Landmark Sunshine Cinema
rade” (1943), written by Dalton the Party’s Hollywood chapter in 1943,
Trumbo. after years in its orbit — with the pro-
found satisfaction perhaps only Great stories were bought by the Saturday

T
hen as now, fear stalked and
rampaged. Then as now, beliefs
were suspect, and many deemed
guilty by association. Constitutional
tenets and the rule of law, as today,
were mocked and trampled.
For more than a dozen years after
the US emerged regnant from World
War II, it was, in Hollywood screen-
writer Dalton Trumbo’s phrase, “the
time of the toad.”
Yes, “T rumbo,” a documentary
adaptation of the 2003 stage play by
Trumbo’s son Christopher, is assur-
edly timely –– the toad still seethes
poison. And befitting its subject’s
Beverly Hills penchants, the film is a
luxe affair, boasting starry interpret-
ers and a technical sheen that smells
like money. As the highest-paid scribe
in the dream factory before his defam-
ing at the McCarthyite inquisition,
Trumbo himself would have expected
Depression survivors could plumb
from the savory fruits of what Lizabeth
Cohen has called America’s postwar
“consumer’s republic.”
Born in 1905 to a quiet shoe store
clerk and a no-nonsense sheriff’s
daughter, and reared on Colorado’s
arid Western Slope, James Dalton
Trumbo moved with his Christian
Scientist family to Los Angeles two
decades later and remained there in
poverty after his father’s premature
death from anemia. Left with his resil-
ient mother and two sisters, Trumbo
toiled nights at the Davis Perfection
Bakery for eight trying years while
attending USC day classes and nur-
turing his voice as a fledgling writer.
Having dabbled in bootlegging –– the
Depression bred ingenuity –– Trumbo
landed a gig through a friend’s graces
as a reader in the Warner Bros. story
department. After two of his own short
Evening Post, he vaulted up the War-
ners ladder, becoming a full-fledged
screenwriter at $100 a week. His
ambitions were still chiefly literary;
as he wrote to his first agent, “I want
the movies to subsidize me for a while,
until I establish myself as a legitimate
writer.”
In no time, he was agitating for the
Screen Writers Guild, and getting
himself canned in the process. Over a
decade before the House Committee on
Un-American Activities (HUAC) inau-
gurated the anti-communist blacklist
of infamy, Trumbo was told in 1936 by
his new boss Harry Cohn at Colum-
bia, “You’re blacklisted,” for refusing
to endorse the grossly skewed, studio-
backed Screen Playwrights accord.
But both before and during McCa-
rthy’s blacklist, Trumbo — the life-
long model of industry — wrote his
way over, around, and through the
hurdles, a staunchless fount of story

SAMUEL GOLDWYN FILMS

ideas, treatments, scripts, rewrites,
doctoring, polishes for which demand
rarely lacked.
It’s the professional and private
dimensions of Trumbo that Peter
Askin, smoothly transferring to film
the work he directed onstage, brings
into a deliberate balance against
Trumbo’s iconic persona as one of
the Hollywood Ten, the first round of
movie people barred from their trade,
imprisoned, shunned, and forced
underground –– heralds of thousands
to follow. The film’s intimate pedigree
as Christopher’s portrait of his singu-
lar father, however, proves to be a con-
straint as well as a boon.
Few others, to be sure, could as
expertly have burrowed through
Trumbo’s papers to reconstruct from
the writer’s own words the armature
of his life, sampling from and some-
times combining his truckloads of let-
ters. These supply the texts performed
as monologues by a cast including
Donald Sutherland, David Strathairn,
Liam Neeson, Brian Dennehy, Nathan
Lane, Joan Allen, Josh Lucas, and
Michael Douglas, each taking turns
in plain shirtsleeves against a matte
Joan Allen is among those who sit for monologues con-
veying Dalton Trumbo’s written words culled from an
enormous trove of his letters.
black backdrop, emoting straight to
camera.
The uneven star parade –– Paul
Giamatti seems to be stifling a smirk;
Lane looks bleary and visibly scans a
teleprompter –– tends to be upstaged
by encounters with Jean Rouverol
Butler, the still-peppery widow of
T rumbo’s close friend and fellow
blacklistee Hugo Butler; Kirk Doug-
las, who sponsored Trumbo’s break-
ing of the blacklist in 1960 with screen
credit for Kubrick’s “Spartacus”; and
Christopher’s sister Mitzi (Melissa),
here granting her first interview about
life with dad.
But the film’s lode of filial reverence
manifests, in part, through certain
questionable emphases. As Robert
䉴 TRUMBO, continued on p.87
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 87

7 DAYS Koehler rightly noted in Vari-

ety, “Trumbo” tacitly assumes
that the writer’s work set the
(1939) to penning scintillat-
ing adaptations like Joseph
H. Lewis’ “Gun Crazy” (1949)

䉴
7 NIGHTS
JUNE 28, from p.85
Cayne. At 2 p.m., a moment of silence
will be observed to remember those lost
to AIDS, violence, and neglect. To watch
the step off, gather in the low 50s or high
40s; the crowds are largest below 14th
St. and especially on Christopher St.; and
the most relaxed viewing is available
between 42nd and 23rd Sts. Of course,
feel free to jump in with your favorite
group or on your own. For more informa-
tion, visit http://www.nycpride.org.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ the many rungs of studio-line
A Lavender Street
Fair
Pridefest, Heritage of Pride’s annual
LGBT festival, is back after a one-year
hiatus, and in a new, more open space
on Hudson St. Local residents and fami-
lies, community leaders, and area busi-
ness owners come together to celebrate
in the street. Hudson St. btwn. Abing-
don Sq. & W. 14th St., 11 a.m.-7 p.m.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ Ernest Lehman’s “North by
Don’t Fall in the
River!
Heritage of Pride hosts the annual
Dance on the Pier, a response to the
time when LGBT people could not dance
䉴 JUNE 28, continued on p.89
standard for screenwriting
art in his day. Such a claim
conflates artistic caliber with
professional clout –– Trumbo
commanded top dollar to the
end, and before the blacklist
uniquely exempted himself
from the studios’ usual “mor-
als clause” –– and ignores
T rumbo’s own sangfroid
toward his screen work, as
distinct from his literary fic-
tion.
Aside from the fact that he
never expected his writing to
reach the screen inviolate up
production, even those scripts
realized closest to Trumbo’s
original conception –– Edward
Dmytryk’s “Tender Comrade,”
or Irving Rapper’s “The Brave
One” (1956) — endure more
as shrewd liberal entertain-
ments than as exalted screen-
writing on a par with, say,
Samson Raphaelson’s “The
Shop Around the Corner” or
Northwest.”
Inflation is in any case
redundant to an accurate
appraisal of Trumbo’s achieve-
ments. They’re fine indeed,
from injecting startling radical
content into pictures like John
Farrow’s “Five Came Back”
to, perhaps most crucially,
the poised mettle with which
he faced the HUAC subpoena,
the depraved hearings, the
sentencing to federal prison
for contempt of Congress.
Hollywood Ten inductee
Ring Lardner, Jr. later recalled
Trumbo’s instrumental role in
devising a valiant, principled
defense strategy for the group
aimed at foiling HUAC’s tres-
pass upon the filmmakers’
First Amendment guarantees
rather than hiding behind
Fifth Amendment safeguards
against self-incrimination,
as soon became the norm for
“unfriendly” witnesses loath to
confirm or deny whether they
were then, or ever had been, a
Communist Party member.
The second film artist to
take the stand before HUAC
once the nightmare began that
October 1947, Trumbo fol-
lowed the splenetic, unnerving
John Howard Larson by coolly
reversing the angle of attack,
interrogating the Committee’s
right to question his inalien-
able American freedoms of
belief, of expression, of asso-
ciation. “Very many questions
can be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’,”
he attested, “only by a moron
Donald Sutherland also reads from Trumbo’s letters onscreen. or a slave.”

$)3*45*/&
#"3"/4,* ."3,
3:-"/$& #3"%-&:
8)*5'03%

MARIO (*/"
(&34)0/ ,"5)3:/
)")/ ."3:
.D$03."$,

LOPEZ
steps up
to the line!

Catch Mario
Now – Sept. 7

Telecharge.com or
(212) 239-6200
(800) 432-7250

Groups:
(800) 276-2392
1)0504
#:
+0"/
."3$64

Gerald Schoenfeld
Theatre
236 West 45th Street
5&-&$)"3(&$0.
PS



-0/("$3&
5)&"53&

8&45
5)
45

…
#0&*/(0/#30"%8":$0.
88/ Film
Looney Tunes
David Munro forces us to experience life as unending cartoon
BY NICHOLAS FEITEL
A
h, the cartoons of youth. As
much as we are shaped by the
“nurturing love” and “guiding
influence” of our parents, the “care
and wisdom” of our teachers and the
“dubious values” of whatever adult
entertainment we were exposed to at
the time, really it is the cartoons that
remain most salient in our memories.
Whether those cartoons are the
relatively harmless antics of a car -
toon mouse in a steamboat, or the
generally more foul-mouthed, socio-
politically relevant antics of a show
like “South Park,” we internalize
cartoons because we enjoy them.
They become the ultimate escapism
because of their distinct unreality,
often reflecting our secret desires.
After all, what child wouldn’t want
to let loose on a steamboat down the
River Delta, or call their teacher a
word unmentionable in most pub-
lications? Such is the world of car -
toon fantasy, which are two excellent
words to describe David Munro’s new
feature “Full Grown Men.” Another
two words are “willfully bizarre.”
Matt McGrath as cartoon-stuck Alby with Judah Friedlander’s Elias, on their road trip to “remember the magic.”
Another two words are “arrested
development,” but I think those are
already taken.
The film is a cartoon fantasy –– in
as much as a live action film can be
26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008
FULL GROWN MEN
Directed by David Munro
Emerging Pictures
Cinema Village
kid, but has never held down a real
job, preferring an obsessive hobby
with his action figures. As the film
opens, we see a montage of his draw-
ings, more cartoons encapsulat-
ing, in crudely-rendered images, his
world and his life thus far to the one
downer moment –– his current life.
Resigned to the need to jumpstart
his very being, he does what any
grown man, sports athlete, small
child, or anyone who fancies himself
a small child would do –– he goes to
Diggityland. Did you assume that’s
EMERGING PICTURES
a typo –– well the filmmakers, I sup-
pose, want to avoid legal complica-
tions. Alby leans on his one-time best
friend Elias (Judah Friedlander), a
special-ed teacher, and they head off
in an awkward-mobile on a road trip
–– regarding the real world with all of through Florida to “remember the
its troublesome rules and the story it magic.”
is trying to tell. Alby (Matt McGrath) Along the way they meet a cast of
has just entered the early stages of
middle age, complete with wife and 䉴 LOONEY, continued on p.89
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
7 DAYS
䉴
7 NIGHTS
JUNE 28, from p.87
openly and proudly together. It’s a protest
set to music, a celebration set to the
Hudson River horizon, and a reminder of
how far the community has come. Joe
Gauthreaux and Tracy Young provide
the music and Guy Smith the dusk light-
ing. Pier 54, 13th St. at the West Side
Highway, 4-10:30 p.m. Fireworks over
the Hudson cap off the evening. Admis-
sion is $55 through Jun. 28; $75 on Jun.
29, on which tickets are only available at
Universal Gear. Before Jun. 29, tickets
available at http://www.boxofficetickets.
com, 800-494-TIXS, Universal Gear, 140
Eighth Ave. at 17th St.;, Village Apoth-
ecary, 346 Bleecker St. at W. Tenth St., or
Wear Me Out, 353 W. 47th St.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ the cameo after cameo –– Joie
CELEBRATION
Outdoor Glamour
Stiletto @ The Garden of Ono hosts
an afternoon women’s party that prom-
ises to sizzle. An enticing raffle will gen-
erate proceeds for the Ali Forney Center,
a non-profit that provides housing and
services to LGBT homeless youth. Gar-
den of Ono at the Hotel Gansevoort,
18 Ninth Ave. btwn. Gansevoort &
13th Sts., 11 a.m.-6 p.m.
䉴 JUNE 28, continued on p.92
R E S T I V O
R I S T
Have
a festive
and safe
month of pride!
209 7TH AVE. (AT 22ND STREET)
NY, NY 10011 (212)366-4133
26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 89
䉴 LOONEY, from p.88
zany characters, other “real-
life” cartoons, like a disgrun-
tled former military mascot
(Alan Cumming), a hor ny
mermaid (Deborah Harry),
and Miss Living Cartoon
herself, the estimable Amy
Sedaris. But the actual details
of Alby and Elias’ journey to
Diggityland are obscured in
the grand delusion of their
journey. The film zigs and
zags going nowhere, content
rather to sit with Alby playing
with his action figures, des-
perately trying and trying.
Tone is a hard thing to dis-
cuss, in this film or any other,
but here it is stranger still.
Upon first examination of “Full
Grown Men,” I thought it was
probably just awful. The qual-
ity of the story, the plot holes,
Lee? Really? It seemed too
strange to me, it seemed…
childish.
Yet some of the film’s faults
become its strengths when
appreciated through the lens
of the main character.
Munro has created a film
the reflects Alby’s essential
EMERGING PICTURES
truth about the world –– that
life should be a kids’ car -
toon for a 35-year old man
䉴 LOONEY, continued on p.95 Alan Cumming as the disgruntled military mascot hitchhiker Alby and Elias saddle themselves with.
O R A N T E
90 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

GAY CITY CLASSIFIEDS

DEADLINE WEDNESDAY 5:00PM MAIL 145 SIXTH AVENUE NEW YORK, NY 10013 TEL 646-452-2485 FAX 212.229.2790

APARTMENT RENTALS REAL ESTATE EMPLOYMENT ELECTRICAL SERVICES

FRANCE, COTE D’AZUR, NICE,

24 HOUR
GRASSE. Lovely townhouse, medie-
val village Gorges du Loup, breath-

EMERGENCY
taking views, 2bdrm, 2 bath
$1100/wk. 941-363-0925.
www.greatfrenchrentals (click on

SERVICE
Riviera Romance) Rainbow Staffing/Diversity Services Group
is a boutique staffing and consulting group
APARTMENT WANTED seeking a seasoned personal executive as-
sistant for a mid-town Manhattan real estate ALTMAN RESIDENTIAL & COMMERCIAL
executive. Candidate must be extremely ELECTRIC
customer service & detailed oriented with
a meticulous focus on administrative tasks.
OVER 50 YEARS FREE
A self motivated team player with superior IN THE BUSINESS ESTIMATES
communication & organizational skills. 1-800-287-7774 LICENSED ELECTRICAL
This position will require the management 212-924-0400 CONTRACTORS
of the day to day needs of three residences TRACK LIGHTING
283 West 11th St. VIOLATIONS REMOVED
EMPLOYMENT (New York, Long Island, Florida) scheduling New York, NY CO-OP REMODELING
vendors & trades, experience coordinating 10014
formal & informal styles of entertainment,
maintaining household inventory, valet and ADULT
wardrobe, calendar, and travel itineraries
and arrangements. In addition, candidate
must possess expert level in MS Word, Excel
TONY
Full Body Massage & Much More
and Outlook. Polished and professional ap-
by HOT TOP GUY
pearance is an absolute must.
Please submit resumes to Hunk, Masculine & Handsome.
APT. WANTED sstrother@diversity-services.com 33 yo., 6’1” tall, 190 lbs.
Male, media professional that Times Square Location - 24/7
is respectful, fun, non-smoker, MONEY CENTERS
laid-back, clean and neat, no IN $200 / OUT $300
Retail Financial Service Centers with
pets. Great personal and credit 13 locations seeks FT/PT Tellers for all 212-221-6696
references available. Looking shifts. Fax resume to 212-633-2702
for possible long term share or or call 212-242-0320
own studio.

Would like to stay within close MOVING AND STORAGE

proximity to Soho.
IDEAL MOVING & STORAGE, INC.
Please call/e-mail details to The only gay owned & operated
631-748-8345 mover in New York. Ideal is the
or community favorite local mover.
mykono55@yahoo.com We are fully licensed & insured,
leading the industry with a 96%
referral rate. Reliable, dependable
& personalized service. Open 24/7.
(212) 777-5507 or 718-728-5318.
GayCityNews.com www.idealmoving.com See our display
ad under Moving & Storage.

LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION
MOVING AND STORAGE

LEARN
FRENCH
with a native
French speaker
Masters
and D.E.A.
Paris University La Sorbonne
•Basic French Grammar
•Pronunciation/Phonetics
•Conversation
•One on One or Small Group Classes
•French Culture and Civilization
BODYWORK
HOT BODYWORK Swedish, Deep Tis-
sue, sensual nude bodywork. Done by
(212)332-0023 Brazilian masseur. (917) 435-4418.
www.rentboy.com/fzaneti

GayCityNews.com
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 91

䉴 ALBANY, from p.7 that “there is a little bit of a Kremlin

area, told a newspaper there that Pat-
erson had offered him the job of run-
ning the New York Power Authority.
Some newspapers said the offer, which
would remove a Democrat from the
Senate, was a concession to Bruno in
order to win his support on a property
tax cap.
Paterson quickly and strongly
denied the account, and by Monday
Aubertine said he must have misun-
derstood conversations with the gover-
nor’s top staff.
atmosphere to Albany where nobody
wants to come forward and say exact-
ly what was said and what may have
been misunderstood.”
Paterson has earned the enmity of
at least five legislative Republicans
over his recent order that all state
agencies promptly develop regulations
for according out-of-state marriages by
gay and lesbian couples full recogni-
tion. A group of lawmakers, including
Serphin R. Maltese of western Queens
and Martin Golden from Bay Ridge,
have filed suit in Bronx Supreme Court

“There is a little bit of a Kremlin atmosphere

to Albany where nobody wants to come
forward and say exactly what was said.”

When stories of a Paterson-Bru- challenging the governor’s move.

no détente surfaced in the New York
Times last month, several Democrats
in the Senate or affiliated with their
campaign effort as well as Van Capelle
batted back the supposition. This week
Duane reiterated his view that the gov-
ernor remains committed to a Demo-
cratic majority in the chamber he once
served as minority leader.
Accepting Aubertine’s recent state-
ment saying he had misunderstood,
Duane said that behind closed doors
his caucus was “reassured that Darrel
wants to stay with us and that the gov-
ernor is committed to winning us the
majority.” Duane also noted, however,
On June 22, gay political activists
gathered on the steps of City Hall to
denounce Golden, in an action called
by Brooklyn’s Lambda Independent
Democrats.
We have learned to expect this kind
of intolerance from Marty Golden,”
said Terrance Knox, LID’s co-presi-
dent. “This is the same guy who had
a problem with bus shelter posters for
television’s ‘The L Word,’” Knox said.
LID was joined by members of the
Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club,
the Stonewall Democrats, and the Out
People of Color Political Action Com-
mittee.

O P E N H O U S E E V E RY S U N D AY 1 2 – 3 P M
SOMETHING’S HAPPENING
IN ASBURY

DISTINCTIVE CONDOMINIUMS
PRE-CONSTRUCTION PRICING – LIMITED TIME ONLY
n High Ceilings and Large Windows n Toto and Kohler Fixtures in Bathrooms
n Large Walk-In Closets in Master Bedrooms n Deep Soaking Tubs and Glass Shower Enclosures
n Open Kitchen with High-End Appliances n Premium Washer and Dryer
n Stone Countertops n Central A/C

CALL SAMUEL BOYD 732-897-9200 x113 OFFICE 732-890-4479 CELL

Exclusive Agent, John C. Conover Agency More fine living from the
200 Main St., Asbury Park, NJ people at MLB Inc.
www.conovernj.com/mercury
www.themercuryasburypark.com www.mlbinconline.com

This does not constitute either an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase to any person in any State where prohibited by law. All depictions and illustrations are computer generated artist’s renderings.
92/ Books
Stranger in a Strange Land
Laurie Marks offers up queer books for queer times
BY KELLY JEAN COGSWELL
Q
ueers are a peculiar
minority. We come
from nowhere, and
are raised by heterosexuals
like eggs left in the wrong nest.
We’re exiles in a foreign cul-
ture, anthropologists from day
one observing mating habits
and pairings that have nothing
to do with us. In short, we’re
the original aliens.
It’s not surprising that fan-
tasy and science fiction have
a strong appeal. Growing up I
read and re-read the “Narnia
Chronicles” and anything by
Madeleine L’Engle. I accepted
the Bible without question.
Why not winged prophets
announcing the birth of babies
or the end of the world? Why
not burning bushes, tongues
of fire, and outcast healers
when I knew the world I lived
in was not what it seemed?
There was a skinny, light-
footed guy in college that
took it even farther. He only
wore green and claimed to be
descended from Tolkien’s fair-
ies. He didn’t have an easy
time of it. Even from me. I
sneered with the others behind
his back. Now, I’m glad he had
a cushion, an escape hatch
until he figured out who he
really was. He came out after
college like I did.
That’s the essence of the
genre. There are plenty of boys
with swords and bulging mus-
cles and wands fighting troglo-
dytes on Mars and engaging in
kinky cross-species sex. But,
since the transformative ’60s
it’s also a place where writers
like Samuel R. Delany, Joanna
Russ, and Nicola Griffith have
been able to explore notions
of identity, ask “What if?” and
station themselves just far
enough away in time or space
to get a good look at the earth.
One writer who does that
particularly well is Laurie J.
Marks. Her “Elemental Logic”
series is a kind of social-
change fantasy that has more
relevance in the post-9/11 era
than most op-eds. How do you
fight an enemy without becom-
ing them? What happens when
you give up on revenge?
She began writing as a kid
in California. In a recent inter-
view, Marks told me her first
book was a fantasy novel about
these two girls who have wings.
“They were the good guys
in the struggle of good versus
evil,” she said. “It didn’t really
have much of a plot, but I was
Laurie J. Marks’ “Elemental Logic” series is a kind of social change fantasy that has more relevance in the post-9/11 era than most op-eds.
12, what do you want?”
Marks was still flying in her
first published book, “Delan
the Mislaid” (1989), though
she started being more scien-
tific about it.
“I actually researched how
difficult it would be to fly when
you’re a full-sized human being.
And that’s how I ended up with
these rather strange looking
creatures with gigantic chests,
little skinny legs and big giant
wings kind of like bat wings.
And even with those modifica-
tions I still had to assume it’s a
pretty light gravity and make it
so they couldn’t really fly, most-
ly they could just glide.”
What appealed to me, when
I borrowed the book from my
then girlfriend, was the main
character, Delan. She was
a misfit among the Walkers,
with misshapen lumps on her
back, and a head for heights.
She was considered female,
but hid the truth that she was
nothing at all.
Before long we discovered
Delan wasn’t even the same
race as the people that raised
her. She grew wings during
adolescence and turned out
not to have no sex, but all of
them. Delan was a hermaph-
rodite, eventually finding oth-
ers of its kind, the Aeyries, and
when they were embroiled in
an inter-species war, Delan
became a hero.
Since I was just coming out
myself, the theme of self-dis-
covery and finding people like
me really hit home. The irony
is, Marks hadn’t figured out
yet who she was. It was her
own characters that broke the
news, she says.
She was working on “Dancing
Jack” (1993), a book in which
two women reunited after being
separated because of some stu-
pid fight, and they wouldn’t
26 JUN - 2 JUL 2008
7 DAYS
䉴
7 NIGHTS
JUNE 29, from p.89
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
NIGHTLIFE
Spunky Time
After the parade, join the crew at
Babeland, the premiere adult sex toy
shop, for its Queer Flirt Party, a singles
event that’s a great place to mix, mingle,
and make out with your favorite new
crush. Free drinks and snacks will be
provided, and no admission fee. Babe-
land SoHo, 43 Mercer St. just north
of Grand St., 8-11 p.m.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
Last Dance
The Saint at Large presents Cham-
pions, a benefit event that Heritage of
Pride has designated the official after-
party of the Dance on the Pier. Black
Party star DJs Stephan Grondin and Jon-
COURTESY: LAURIE J. MARKS
athan Peters join the legendary Junior
Vasquez in providing the music. Ross
Berger and Darren Kawa do the lighting.
Pacha NYC, 618 W. 46th St., 10 p.m.
until Monday afternoon. Tickets are
$60 at http://www.saintatlarge.com ,
Nasty Pig, 265A W. 19th St.; Screaming
Mimi’s, 382 Lafayette St. at W. Fourth St.
, Village Apothecary: 346 Bleecker St. at
West Tenth St. and Wear Me Out: 353
W. 47th St.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
BENEFIT
MON.JUN.30
Kids At Risk
The Trevor Project, established in
1998 to provide a national, 24-hour,
7-day a week toll-free crisis and suicide
prevention helpline for gay and question-
ing youth hosts its annual awards dinner.
This year’s honorees include actor Alan
let her go on with the plot until Cumming, the-n.com, TV for teens, and
they had sex. She wrote the love the Colin Higgins Foundation, which has
scene imagining she’d delete it. provided critical philanthropic help to
Instead, the scene stayed, and the Trevor Project. Alec Mapa, America’s
she came out as lesbian. Gaysian Sweetheart and a star of “Ugly
I noticed it didn’t change Betty” and “Desperate Housewives,”
anything in her writing, though emcees the evening, which includes an
it explained a lot. Gender - appearance by Broadway stars Cheyenne
bending and queer characters Jackson (“Xanadu”) and Idina Menzel
were always a constant. Marks (“Wicked”), singing from her new album
would write about a farmer for “I Stand,” Sandra Bernhard, Heather
a couple of pages and when Matarazzo, and Rosie Perez. Mandarin
you had a good picture of a guy Oriental, 80 Columbus Circle, 6:30
in overalls tramping around reception, 7:30 dinner. Tickets begin at
in the mud, then she’d slip in $250 at http://www.trevorproject.org.
a “she” or “her.” Marks also ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
divorced gender from sex. Any-
body could sleep with anybody. BENEFIT
Equipment didn’t matter. Making Us A Song
She’s always tinkered with Scott Nevin’s “Curtain Call” caps
families, too, even if she ended off Pride Weekend with an appearance
up marrying her girlfriend and by Alysha Umphress, who was a cast
living in Massachusetts in a member of the recent William Finn revue
kind of nuclear family if you “Make Me a Song.” Splash Bar, 50
count the pets as kids. W. 17th St., 11:30 p.m. Show up early
䉴 MARKS, continued on p.93 䉴 JUNE 30, continued on p.93
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 93

7 DAYS 䉴 MARKS, from p.92

“It seemed to me that if you’re

the black sci-fi writer Octa-
via Butler who went from fea-
turing multiple genders and
threats. Gradually, as the Shaf-
tali reshape themselves into
resistance fighters, the open-
Not because humans are inca-
pable of making compromises
for the good of the whole, like

䉴
7 NIGHTS
JUNE 30, from p.92
breaking loose of assumed
gender roles, that the shape of
the family has to be change-
able also,” she explained. “It’s
not that there are no nuclear
and catch all the video lunacy of “Musi- families in my world, just that
cal Mondays.” Admission is free until they’re considered to be quite
10 p.m.; $5 afterward. You must be 21, abnormal. You do, in the cities
regardless of where you managed to especially, get families where
sneak into over Pride Weekend. they can manage to be fairly
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ small because it doesn’t take as
much labor to generate a living.
gene-splicing extraterrestrials
in “Lilith’s Brood” to a contem-
plation of religion in the dys-
topian novels “Parable of the
Sower” and “Parable of the Tal-
ents,” Marks has moved from
a reliance on the extravagant
tools of fantasy like flying that
offered easy solutions to prob-
lems, to a much more subtle
form of magic, and a more
complex human landscape.
ness and generosity of their cul-
ture is also being destroyed.
Complicated questions arise.
What future can be imagined
except mutual slaughter?
What role should we allow fear
to play in our lives? Zanja lost
everything when her tribe was
slaughtered. Should she pur-
sue revenge and become as
ruthless as her enemies?
In the aftermath of 9/11 and
giving up on revenge, or the
satisfaction of being proved
right, but because no humans
have a culture that supports it.
That’s the advantage to writing
fantasy. She can work to make
it realistic in the context of her
books. And that lets her com-
ment on our reality.
“I think it does in some
way operate as a criticism
of how quick we are to slip

PERFORMANCE
WED.JUL.2
Quintuple
No-Bypass
Greg Walloch is a writer and perform-
ing artist, who’s appeared everywhere
from Sydney’s Mardi Gras to “The How-
ard Stern Show” to Kurt Anderson’s “Stu-
dio 360” on Public Radio International.
Joey Hood is a freelance entertainment
writer whose writing has appeared in
American Songwriter, Bitch! Magazine:
Feminist Response to Pop Culture, Nerve.
com, Paste Online, and Ya’ll. Allison
Castillo is a stand up comic who has
appeared on Comedy Central’s “Premium
Blend” and whose one-woman/ two-
back-up-dancer “Who Do You Think You
Are?” was featured at the HBO US Com-
edy Arts Festival in Aspen. Jeff Cubeta a
pianist who’s worked with Allison Cas-
tillo, Pepper Mills, Robert German, Phat
䉴 JULY 2, continued on p.94
So say, if people are in busi-
ness, then they wouldn’t need
to have a huge family.”
Marks believes that normal-
izing gender -blind roles for
women and queers along with
alternative families is “a sort of
a Utopian approach, bringing
forward the contrast between
the world as it is and the world
as it should be. That’s some-
thing that you can really only
do in fantasy or science fiction.”
For a reader like me, it’s
a pleasure, an affirmation.
Though not everyone is equally
happy about it. The few critical
reviews at online booksellers
didn’t see how the characters
would reproduce: “The world
would be left empty. There are
no real families.”
The biggest change since
Marks first began writing is
her move toward realism. Like
For instance, in her 1992
book “The Watcher’s Mask,” an
embattled tribe saves itself from
the dominant culture by getting
the tyrant to wear a magical
charm. In “Fire Logic” (2002),
the first of the “Elemental
Logic” series, she lets them be
slaughtered, partly because it’s
more realistic, but also because
the elders of the tribe refuse to
let Zanja, a witch with fire logic
(enhanced intuition), introduce
fear into their culture, even
though there’s a war going on
outside their mountains.
In contrast, their neigh-
bors, the other inhabitants of
Shaftal, who were conquered
in one horrible attack that will
feel oddly familiar to New York-
ers, are letting themselves be
changed by the colonizers who
brutally kill guerrillas, and
anyone they perceive as future
our War on Terror, it’s consid-
erations like this that reso-
nate with me, along with the
great queer characters, even
though Marks had actually
been working on “Fire Logic”
years before September 11.
Having an intersection with
current events actually ended
up working against her when
a British publisher turned it
down on the grounds that it
wasn’t “believable.”
“What they meant was that
they were still so much in this
us-versus-them mindset that
they didn’t think people would
accept the possibility that there
could be peace without a victory,
if that makes sense,” Marks said.
“That there actually are ways to
end a conflict without one per-
son being beaten into a pulp.”
Marks herself isn’t convinced
it’s possible in the real world.
into this way of seeing the
world in which there’s us
and them, and enemies and
friends, and how hard it is for
us to base our relationships
on what we hold in common
rather than what we hold in
difference,” she said. “I know
I sound like an idealist. I am
one. Sort of.”
That’s good enough for me. As
Wikipedia says, there are rea-
sons why “members of science
fiction fandom (including For-
rest J Ackerman) were involved
in the foundation of early groups
such as the Daughters of Bili-
tis.” We don’t always need prom-
ises, just people to imagine the
future, and a little hope.
“Fire Logic” (2002) was fol-
lowed by “Earth Logic” (2004),
and “Water Logic” (2007).
There’s no date yet for the
appearance of “Air Logic.”

Networking?

SUPPORT GAY PRIDE!

Just Sold and Closed

175 West 13th Street, 18D

Smart, Sophisticated, Elegant Studio with Terrace
West Village and Hudson River Views

201 West 17th Street, 9D

Romantic Nights
Two Bedroom, 2 Bath with Terrace
Empire State Building View

254 West 10th Street, 2A

Bring Your Imagination
Large studio space converted from Commercial
Use to Residential with Shared Terrace
City Rooftop Views

To my gay friends and clients... your business

See you at... and your friendship is very much appreciated.
Thank You.

TEKSERVE
New York’s Shop for All Things Mac
Diane M. Wildowsky
Vice President
t: 212.381.2342
dwildowsky@halstead.com

Open Mon–Fri 9am to 8pm,

Sat 10am to 6pm, Sun noon to 6pm 212.929.3645
119 West 23rd St between 6th and 7th Avenue tekserve.com How Real Estate Gets Real
94 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

䉴 LGBT CENTER, from p.36

identifying a gay or lesbian

organizational affiliation.
“People would refuse to talk to
me,” she recalled. “When we had
to do an exercise that involved
everyone holding hands, two
women would not take my
hand. I don’t know if they
thought I had AIDS or what.”
The experiences were her “Gay
Like Me” moments, reinforcing
for her “how important it was to
create sanctuary space.”
An advantage of her being
straight, Warren explained, is in
her ability to “model behavior for
other straight allies of the com-
munity.” Still, in looking back
two decades, her “biggest regret
is that I haven’t done enough
to get more straight allies
involved. I still find it hard to
engage straight allies to the level
of engagement that the queer
movement needs to achieve our
social justice needs.”
Her goal of engaging those
outside the community has
naturally led Warren to expand
the scope of her responsibilities;
she is now director of organiza-
tional development, planning,
and research — a portfolio that
takes her to City Hall, Albany,
and Washington as a leading
public policy advocate for the
community.
In that work, she has come
to admire not only the efforts
of openly gay political leaders,
including State Senator Tom
Duane and Assemblywoman
Deborah Glick, but also the
sort of leadership that Gover-
nor David Paterson showed
last month in moving the state
“I guess he didn’t think I was gay,”
she recalled, with a laugh,
“and here I’m so dykey.”
toward full recognition of legal
gay marriage from outside New
York.
“What the governor did was
extraordinary and he talks
about it in terms of his gay
uncles,” she said. “It shows
why personal relationships are
so important.”
Enthusiastic as well about
Barack Obama’s presidential
bid, Warren said that the com-
munity nationwide is prepped
to realize the same sorts of
advances it has enjoyed recent-
ly in Albany in Washington as
well.
“I could see real social jus-
tice and full equality within five
years,” she said. “Then we need
to work on access and parity in
results.”
F
or Lou Avanzato, the past
25 years she’s devoted to
the Center have been “a
labor of love.” When the city still
owned the 13th Street property,
she explained, it decided it was
best to find a gay building super-
intendent to work amongst the
LGBT organizations already
renting space there. Alerted to
the opening by the Metropolitan
Community Church where she
already worked, Avanzato got
the job — but not before a comi-
cal scene played out with a city
official.
Headed for an interview
at a municipal of fice, she
decided to dress up in a nice
blouse and slacks. When
the man doing the hiring
came out of his of fice, he
said, “Where’s the gay job
applicant,” but when Avan-
zato raised her hand, he kept
insisting, “No, I’m looking for
the gay applicant.”
“I guess he didn’t think I was
gay,” she recalled, with a laugh,
“and here I’m so dykey.”
Avanzato said she was “proba-
bly the first employee of the Cen-
ter,” but now admits she bluffed
her way through her original
interview. When asked if she had
ever been a building superin-
tendent, she said, “Oh, yeah.” In
fact, she had covered for her own
apartment building super for a
weekend exactly once. For the
next 15 years, Avanzato shoveled
coal into the Center’s antiquated
furnace, a job she said burns
most men out in three to five
years. Asked how she endured
so long, she replied, “I’m Canadi-
an. When you’re Canadian, you
shovel coal.”
Avanzato, who is 67, has lived
in Woodside, Queens for the past
38 years but says that her time
in New York is drawing to an end.
In 1994, she and her girlfriend
had a holy union ceremony and
registered their partnership with
the city as soon as that became a
reality in New York.
“I definitely knew we would
stay together,” Avanzato said.
“We adore each other.”
Her partner is younger than
she is and when she finishes up
a nursing program next year, the
couple plans to move to Florida.
“I’m missing this place
already,” Avanzato said, men-
tioning a recent knee injury
that had her out of work for
four months. “I obviously don’t
move on from things easily.”
7 DAYS
䉴
7 NIGHTS
JULY 2, from p.93
Man Dee, and The New Pussycats. John
Fleck’s work received national attention
in 1990, when he was one of the “NEA
4,” labeled by right-wing politicians as
too dirty to be funded by the National
Endowment for the Arts. “All the People
You Love” is presented at the Cutting
Room, 19 W. 24th St., 8 p.m. Admission
is $10 at the door.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
Cabaret artist Bill McKinley presents
“Does a Bear Sing in the Woods,” a willy
nilly silly ole bear paying homage to hirsute
men and the folks who love them. Bears
are, indeed, the new black, McKinley says.
Christopher Marlowe is musical director.
Metropolitan Room, 34 W. 22nd St.,
Jul. 2, 9 & 16, 9:45 p.m. Cover charge is
$20 with a two-drink minimum. Jul. 2 per-
formance is a benefit for Metrobears New
York, the city’s premiere bear club, home
to cubs, otters, and others as well, and the
New York City Gay Men’s Chorus.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
NIGHTLIFE
Erotic Games of
Chance
Will Clark promises giveaways, cheap
drinks, and cheap men at his weekly
䉴 JULY 2, continued on p.95

en May 22 — Oc t You are in a designated Landmark WELCOME TO

cia l ly Op
The
O f f i 13 of the City of New York on the
National Register of Historic

Summer fun at the Wat erTaxi Beach

Buildings of the U.S. Department
of the Interior.

The James Brown House is one of

the very few Federal houses left Ear
Inn
By day, full of fun in the sun. By night, in the City. It is in largely original
Beach fun grows up with hot house condition of two and a half stories
music and DJ events for the 21+ crowd. with dormers, double splayed key-
Check out watertaxibeach.com stone lintels, and a gambrel roof.
for full event listings, Beach hours, The construction is all wood post
fees and more details.
in the James Brown House of 1817
and beams set with pegs, with a
326 SPRING STREET • (212) 226-9060
Summer ‘08 Highlights: watertaxibeach.com facade of Flemish bond brick. The
restaurant doors and window are A LANDMARK FOR FINE FOOD AND GROG
Turntables On The Hudson: $10, Fridays May 16 to October 10, 4pm open, 8pm music late 19th century. The panel to the
DJ Victor Franco: Free, Saturdays May 3 to October 11, 2pm – 8pm right of the main door is a night
DJ Victor Franco: Free, Saturdays May 3 to June 21, 8pm –1am shudder cover to the original shop
The Beach Party: $5, Local and International DJs, Saturdays June 28 to Aug 30, window, an 18th century style fea-
(after Warm Up) 8pm– 3am
ture unique to this windows and
Turntables On The Hudson 10th Anniversary Festival: $10, Fri, May 23, 8pm & Sun, May 25, 3pm
fireplaces in the bar area.
DJ Insomniak: Free, Thursday May 22 to September 25, World Music Latin DJ
Beach. Here. Now. $20 to $40, Sundays May 4 to June 29 & Sept 7 to October 5 The noted architectural critic Ada
Major Local and International DJs: 1pm –10pm
Louise Huxtable writing of Federal
houses in her book Classic New
2nd Annual NYC Food Film Festival & Food (www.nycfoodfilmfestival.com): Free, June 14, 16, 18,
York, notes, “Their value is… a
(June 20, $10 at 10pm) Food at 7pm, Films at Dusk until 10:30pm, DJs after Films
Save Our Salmon (SOS): June 7, 25 ft Salmon Sculpture (kid friendly),
Wild Salmon Education and Food Specials, Noon– 9pm
sudden sense of intimacy scale…
evocative of another century and
Ear Up!
way of life. Unique historic rooms in the
Contact us for group events at watertaxibeach@gmail.com James Brown House / Ear Inn
Water Taxi Beach hosts corporate events, picnics and outings. Email for details. The Ear Inn hopes you enjoy available for meetings, events,
New York Water Taxi offers its 74 and 149 passenger boats for charter to Water Taxi Beach its historicity and home cookin’.
and other metro destinations. Contact Marie Clanny at 212 742 1969 ext 217.
projects, exhibitions
Please tell us if
you see any ghosts.
info: www.earup.org or
You must be 21 or older with valid ID to enter Water Taxi Beach (US Lic., Can. Lic. or Passport; Section 65-b.2(b)-ABC Law)
call 914-263-6716
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 95

7 DAYS 䉴 PERFECT, from p.80

es and ponytailed auburn

man’s world, age does not
always equal wisdom.
“A Perfect Couple” asks: Is
across-the-board, though
Eskelson, who has the big-
gest challenge uncovering the
several minutes to just a few
seconds, is introduced by a
cryptic title projected onto the

䉴
7 NIGHTS
JULY 2, from p.94
fundraising event Porno Bingo (beneficia-
ries listed at http://www.willclarkworld.
com). Crawl out of the gutter or untangle
from the bedsheets of Pride Weekend to
experience a new round of debauch. 9th
Ave. Bistro, 693 Ninth Ave. btwn.
47th & 48th St., 9-11 p.m.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ wide-eyed neighbor Josh (Elan
AT THE BEACH
Salt Lake Blues
Writer/ performer Steven Fales
brings his one-man show, Confessions of
a Mormon Boy,” first seen in New York
to critical praise from Gay City News’
David Kennerley at the 2004 Interna-
tional Fringe Festival, to Fire Island for
a two-week run. The piece is a compel-
ling, humorous, and inspiring true story
that takes audiences through his life as a
young gay Mormon boy in Utah, excom-
munication from the Mormon Church,
divorce, male prostitution, drug abuse,
and his struggle to reclaim himself and
his — this newspaper firmly believes —
better than “Donny Osmond smile.” Jack
hair. She’s been Amy’s, and
by extension, Issac’s, dear
friend for years, but a newly
discovered diary entry reveals
being married really better
than being single? In a real
relationship, are you supposed
to make each other sick? How
fragility beneath the bitchi-
ness, is the most compelling.
The cherished relationship
between Amy and Emma is
house. Given that virtually the
entire play occurs in the same
place (the yard), in the same
time (the present), the head-
that something deeper may be can you tell if you’ve found adroitly portrayed no surprise ers were more distracting than
going on. The trio is thrown “the one” or if you are just set- given that “A Perfect Couple” illuminating.
for a loop. tling? Can we really trust our is produced by the Women’s The overarching question,
Emma, it must be noted, is loved ones? And what the hell Expressive Theater (WET), the “Will Isaac and Amy make it to
a photographer specializing in is happiness, anyway? resident company at the DR2 the altar?” is, in fact answered.
both garbage and weddings. Not all of these dilemmas Theatre. But as I see it, the playwright
Go figure. are new, and, to her credit, The no-nonsense set by makes the wrong choice, tak-
To complicate matters, the the playwright refuses to offer Neil Patel –– who must be the ing the logical way out.
pat solutions. The characters busiest designer in the biz –– And who knows — if “A Per-
Moss-Bachrach), who just are so profoundly drawn, even features a wooden backdrop, fect Couple” were set in Cali-
graduated with a psychology appealing during tantrums, painted cobalt blue, in the out- fornia or Massachusetts, per-
degree from Bard, threatens and the language so sharp, line of a house, contrasted by haps the two women, who had
to make it a love quadrangle. that we find ourselves thor- a yellow wooden dining table the deepest bond between any
By play’s end, he proves to be oughly seduced by the drama. and an exceedingly realistic of the characters, might have
more astute than the bum- Directed by Maria Mileaf, tree. considered giving marriage a
bling 40-year -olds. In Ber - the performances are solid Each scene, ranging from go.
䉴 LOONEY, from p.89 Rock,” and the cameos, like Cumming’s,
speak for themselves.
–– and from the start that comes across But Munro has made a film not as
as wrong-headed as it ends up proving. reliant on performance as on situation
Others would give us our message at the and environment. If cartoons are the
end, settling us in for an easy narrative, things that shape our early lives with
Munro and his co-writer Xandra Castle- their escapism, then they are also the
ton instead put us in Alby’s seat, which things we have to distance ourselves
is a bold move, since his world is a pro- from as we begin to take responsibil-

Hofsis directs. The Island Repertory
Theatre Company, Tides Playhouse,
Ocean Walk, Cherry Grove, Jul 2-5,
8-12, 8 p.m.; Jul 6, 13, 7 p.m. Tickets
are $30 at 631-597-9439; information at
http://www.IslandRep.org.
foundly uncomfortable one.
It would be easy to settle for the fact
that the acting is fine indeed in “Full
Grown Men.” Friedlander, the co-star, is
an accomplished indy actor and come-
dian with a good gig on the sitcom “30
EMERGING PICTURES
ity. Both Alby and Munro still live in
that world of cartoonishness, a place of
serious play, caricatured emotions, and
music rolling through the credits.
That’s all folks. Deborah Harry is a horny mermaid also encountered along
the road.

afraid
so o
m f
’
I

lo
him but

s
ing him
of

bu
d

i t
a I’
so afr m

AVP can help you break the cycle

of an abusive same-sex relationship.
Call us 24/7 at 212-714-1141. All
services are free and confidential.
Building a Safer Community for Lesbian, Gay, Transgender & Bisexual People
This ad paid for in part by the New York City Council, Christine C. Quinn, Speaker
www.avp.org
96 26 JUN – 2 JUL 2008 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM