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NEWSPAPER
MAY 28 - JUNE 10, 2009
VOL. EIGHT, ISS. 11
S E R V I N G G A Y, L E S B I A N , B I A N D T R A N S G E N D E R E D N E W Y O R K • W W W . G A Y C I T Y N E W S . C O M

■ LEGAL ■ LEGAL

Slim on California
LGBT Cases, Supreme Court
Sotomayor Wins Upholds Prop 8
Gay Praise BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD

T
BY DUNCAN OSBORNE he California Supreme Court, on
May 26, ruled that Proposition

T
hough she has a slim record on 8, the measure approved by vot-
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans- ers there on November 4 to amend that
gender issues, federal Judge state’s constitution to provide that only
Sonia Sotomayor is winning support marriages between a man and woman
from some gay groups to be the next would be “valid or recognized in Califor-
associate justice on the US Supreme nia,” was not subject to challenge as an
Court. improper constitutional “revision,” and
“We applaud President Obama for so was properly enacted through an ini-
choosing Judge Sonia Sotomayor to tiative amendment. Only one member of
become our nation’s next US Supreme the court, Justice Carlos Moreno, dis-
Court Justice,” said Joe Solmonese, sented from this conclusion.
president of the Human Rights Cam- However, the court unanimously ruled

PATRICK HEDLUND
paign, in a May 26 press statement.
“The US Supreme Court decides cases
PROP 8 P. 14
that intimately affect the lives of all

COURT P. 4 THOUSANDS GATHERED AT UNION SQUARE MAY 26 TO PROTEST THE PROP 8 RULING In this issue:
New Yorkers Respond ■ EDITORIAL

The trouble with California

With Their Feet —————————————————
■ 10

loud applause and cheering at a May

BY DUNCAN OSBORNE ■ ARTICULATING THE I
26 rally held at Union Square. “The time

R
esponding to a decision by Cali- has come to pass marriage equality in Abdellah Taïa explores
fornia’s Supreme Court that the Senate.”
upheld a state constitutional The rally and march was one of more Moroccan erotics
amendment that banned gay marriage than 100 held across the country on ■ 20
there, thousands took to the streets in the day that California’s highest court —————————————————
Manhattan to object to that ruling and held in a 6-1 ruling that Proposition 8, ■ FIRST LADIES
demand that New York’s State Senate an initiative approved by voters in that
pass a same-sex marriage bill this year. state last year, was constitutional. That Five choreographic
“I have a message for our friends in same court ruled in May of last year that
giants at 651 Arts
NEWFEST the State Senate,” said Scott Stringer,
the Manhattan borough president, to
a 2000 law passed by California voters
■ 23
18 PROTESTS P. 12

RAMROD IS BACK
AND EVERYDAY IS A PARTY
&2)$!93!,,$2).+3s"%%2
3!452$!9,)6%$*s35.$!9(/4'/'/$!.#%23

185 Christopher Street, New York, NY

© GAY CITY NEWS 2009 • COMMUNITY MEDIA, LLC, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 28 MAY - 10 JUN 2009

2/ Human Rights
Moscow Pride Claims PR Win
Violent suppression of gathering fails to dampen activist triumph
BY DOUG IRELAND thugs who were staging a of Moscovites and guests
counter-demonstration, to the capital.”

F
or the fourth year in and did so with no serious Novosti also reported
a row, an attempt injury to anyone.” that “the Russian Ortho-
to have a Moscow The Pride March had dox Church and various
Gay Pride March was vio- been banned by Moscow’s far-right groups vowed to
lently broken up by police homophobic authoritarian halt any attempts to hold
on Saturday, May 16, and Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who a march in support of gay
40 LGBT activists were has called such marches rights in Russia.”
arrested. Still, Pride orga- “Satanic” and recently A police plan to sabo-
nizers claimed a propagan- dubbed gays “weapons of tage the Pride March by
da victory.”Our goal was to mass destruction.” Luzh- staging a preventive arrest
have the maximum vis- kov’s press spokesman, of lead organizer Alexeyev
ibility with the minimum Serge Tsoi, told Russia’s was foiled when the coura-
damage to activists,” Nico- Novosti press agency just geous young lawyer slept
lai Alexeyv, the 33-year- prior to the Pride March, in different locations every
old lawyer who has been “The Moscow gover n- night for the week preced-
the lead organizer of these ment is declaring that ing the event and con- Protesters arrested as Moscow’s OMON riot police sweep through the garden demonstration site.
Moscow Pride events since there never has been and tinually changed the cell
their inception, told Gay never will be a gay parade phones he was using. godarsk, Minsk, Ryazan, the ground, and later said in jail overnight in what the
City News by telephone in Moscow,” adding that Similarly, Alexeyev and and Sochi.” Among them he’d been handled with Pride organizer described
from Moscow. “By careful such events are “aimed the other Pride organizers were a handful of older vet- “unnecessary violence, my as “simply dreadful condi-
planning, we cheated the at destroying not only the had originally announced erans of the underground arm was twisted behind tions. We were very cold, as
police, obtained a huge moral foundations of our the location of the dem- Russian gay rights move- my back and my wrist was the jail cell’s window was
amount of publicity for country but deliberately onstration as Moscow’s ment of the 1980s, includ- twisted until it hurt.” broken, and we were not
LGBT rights in Russia, provoking disorder threat- Novopushkinsky Skver ing a member of Russia’s At the 2006 Moscow given blankets. Nor could
avoided the homophobic ening the lives and security (New Pushkin Square), but Academy of Sciences and Pride, Tatchell was violent- we sleep, because there
changed the actual loca- a nuclear physicist. Billed ly attacked and beaten on were only hard benches to
tion at the last minute to this year as “Slavic Pride,” his head by homophobic sit on. Then, the police put
Located
in Chelsea! Vorobyovy Gory, a scenic the demonstrators includ- thugs acting in collusion a number of very drunk
garden near Moscow State ed a contingent of 15 LGBT with the police; he still is homeless people into our
University that is a popu- activists from the neigh- suffering the after-effects already-cramped cells,
lar site for wedding photo- boring ex-Soviet republic of that beating, including who urinated in our water
graphs. of Belarus. bouts of vision problems bottle and made the deten-
To further mislead the The demonstration and short-term memory tion even more unbear-
police, Alexeyev told Gay was conducted in waves. loss — which made Tatch- able.”
City News, “I stayed sepa- First, the Belarus con- ell’s willingness to risk Alexeyev related that he
rate from the main group tingent arrived chanting another beating in Moscow was interrogated for nine
and arrived in a limou- “Homophobia is a dis- all the more courageous. straight hours without a
($380 value)
sine with others disguised grace! “ After half of them Tatchell was arrested and letup. “There was no vio-
as a wedding party, and were arrested and dragged detained, but released lence used, but instead
(1 hr/10 shades) $300 WHITENING showed up with a comrade away by the police, anoth- after a British Embassy an enormous amount of
Insurance And 0% Financing
trans activist from Belar- er contingent unfurled a official showed up at the psychological pressure,”
GENERAL DENTISTRY & us who was in a wedding 25-foot banner reading police station. he said. “The police used
ORAL SURGERY dress. When the many “Gay Equality, No Com- Also arrested was an every homophobic insult
248 W. 23RD ST. (Btwn.7TH & 8TH AVE)
www.allaccessdental.net / 212-242-3241 journalists and TV crews promise!” American gay activist, imaginable, saying that we
we’d alerted spotted me Dozens of the dreaded, Andy Thayer of Chicago’s were pedophiles, zoophiles,
and crowded around me, thuggish OMON riot police Gay Liberation Network. child molesters, and using
One hen, a gaggle of roosters – who’s clucking now? this diverted the attention who had appeared on the Alexeyev told this every single vicious slang
Laugh until you stop with Manhattan’s Top Funny Men! of the police, and allowed scene chased the LGBT reporter that “police beat epithet for gay in the Rus-
our buses carrying the contingents through the the demonstrators unnec- sian language.”
Rockin’ The C**K main body of demonstra-
tors to disembark and
gardens, dragging some of
the demonstrators unnec-
essarily and used dispro-
portionate violence. Fortu-
In addition, Alexeyev
told Gay City News, “My
hosted by Miss Jane Aquilina unfurl their banners.” essarily through prickly nately, this time there were lawyer was not allowed
Featuring Doug Adler, Michael Brill, Wes Cannon, Alexeyev was thrown to the hedges, and violently no serious injuries.” to see me when he came
Nick Cobb, Jeffrey Johns, Danny Leary, Brad Loekle, ground by five burly police arrested half of them, At the police station, to the police station, and
Mark McCombs,Tom Ragu, Jason Verlaine officers, then he and his including two Westerners Alexeyv said, he and the they illegally confiscated
Thursday, June 11th at 9:15 PM (doors at 8:45 PM) “bride” were carried into a who’d come to Moscow in activists from Belarus my cell phone. They tried
police van. solidarity with the Russian were detained seperately to get me to name the
There were a total of activists. from the other demonstra- names of my collaborators,
some 80 demonstrators, Britain’s best-known tors, most of whom were and they downloaded and
Alexeyev said, “including gay activist, Peter Tatch- released the same day after copied every name and
343 West 46th Street (btwn 8th & 9th AV) some from cities all over ell, head of the militant paying a fine, while Alex- address in my cell phone’s
$10.00 + 2 drink min. Russia, like Yekaterinburg, gay rights agit-prop group eyev and the half-dozen
Reservations: 212-757-0788 (after 4PM) / www.donttellmama.com Rostov, Krasnodarsk, Vol- OutRage!, was thrown to Belarus activists were kept 䉴 MOSCOW, continued on p.34
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
■ OBITUARY
Rodger McFarlane Dies
AIDS, gay community builder was 54
BY PAUL SCHINDLER
R
odger McFarlane
— whose orga-
nization-build-
ing roles at groups from
Gay Men’s Health Crisis
(GMHC) in the early 1980s
to the Gill Foundation in
the new century put him
at the center of AIDS and
gay philanthropic and
political activity for more
than 25 years — has died
at age 54.
Dr. Howard Grossman,
a leading AIDS physi-
cian in New York during
the epidemic’s first two
decades, recalled McFar-
lane’s gifts as a caregiver
— indeed, in 1998, he
wrote “The Complete Bed-
side Companion: No Non-
sense Advice on Caring for
the Seriously Ill” — and
said, “As a practitioner,
my work would have been
almost impossible without
what he set up at GMHC.”
Grossman said what dis-
tinguished McFarlane
from the many other com-
mitted AIDS activists from
the period was that “he
was a truth-teller.”
Despite McFarlane’s
work in making sure
that tens of thousands of
New Yorkers living with
or dying from AIDS had
access to services, care,
and social support, he
died alone, on May 15, the
victim of a self-inflicted
gunshot wound, in a park
outside the spa town of
Truth or Consequences,
New Mexico, where he
had been living for the
past several months after
his departure as executive
director of Gill late last
year.
According to a state-
ment released by fam-
ily members and friends,
McFarlane, whose body
was found by a biker, left
a note explaining he was
unwilling to allow what
one friend termed “excru-
ciating” back pain and a
worsening heart condition
to lead to “total debilita-
tion.” The statement from
Rodger McFarlane, in 2007, with GMHC’s chief executive officer, Dr. Marjorie Hill.
family and friends read,
“Already disabled in his
own mind, he could no
longer work out or do all
the outdoor activities he
so loved. He was also now
faced with the realization
that he could literally not
travel, making employ-
ment increasingly diffi-
cult.”
The New Mexico State
Police concluded that the
cause of death “was a self
inflicted gunshot wound
to the head.” A call to
the New Mexico Office of
the Medical Investigator
(placed after the police
conclusion was released
on May 22) to determine if
its investigation had been
completed was not imme-
diately returned.
McFarlane, bor n on
February 25, 1955, trav-
eled far from his youth
on a farm in Theodore,
Alabama. He never gradu-
ated from college, joined
the Navy in 1974, where
he saw service on a nucle-
ar submarine, and moved
28 MAY – 10 JUN 2009 3
GAY CHRISTOPHER STREET
RAMROD IS BACK
also among the co-found-
ers of GMHC and went
on to sound the call that
resulted in ACT UP, the
AIDS Coalition to Unleash
WEDNESDAY
Power, in an email mes-
sage, said of McFarlane,
“He was the best fucking
KARAOKE
friend anyone could ever
have.” He also wrote, “He
became the most bril-
NIGHT
liant of strategists... He
made GMHC, he made
B’way Cares, he made the
with
Gill Foundation. These Paige Turner
are magnificent achieve-
ments.” at 9PM
McFarlane in 1982
became the volunteer
head of GMHC and served
as its first paid execu-
tive director from 1983-
85. From 1989 through
1994, he was the found-
ing executive director of
Broadway Cares/ Equity
Fights AIDS, the theater Happy Hour - 12 - 9 pm Daily
industry group that has 185 Christopher Street 212-242-9113
DONNA F. ACETO
raised millions to sup-
port HIV/AIDS service
organizations. McFarlane
served as executive direc- Bringing hot
tor of the Gill Foundation,
to New York by the late the philanthropic orga-
back to
1970s, working as a respi- nization founded by gay christopher st.
ratory therapist. Randy Denver software entrepre-
Shilts, in his history of the neur Tim Gill, from 2004 Sunday and Monday
early AIDS epidemic, “And through late 2008. He Karaoke starting at 8pm
with your hostess
the Band Played On,” was also instrumental in Miss Victoria Chase
described McFarlane, launching Gill Action, the
prior to 1981, as a young political lobbying affili- HAPPY HOUR
man enjoying New York’s ate of the Foundation. At
NOON – 9 P.M.
vibrant gay scene who did his death, McFarlane was
not feel discrimination president emeritus of Bai-
due to his homosexuality ley House, an organiza- 76 Christopher St. / 212-633-1986
and could not understand tion dating to the 1980s
the radicalism of political that provides supportive www.bootsandsaddlenyc.com
activists around him. housing to homeless New
“It wasn’t just me,” he Yorkers living with HIV.
told Gay City News in a McFarlane’s job
2007 interview. “There description as GMHC’s
was a whole generation executive director reads a
of us who were politicized lot more formal than the
by AIDS. People laying chaos of the time entailed.
in the emergency room “One-hundred twen-
and dying untreated was ty-five scared people.
the reason. I kept say- And fucked-up people,”
ing to Larry Kramer early he recalled of the first
on, ‘Some of these people night that he opened the OPEN EVERY DAY AT 2 PM
have been working in civil GMHC hotline out of his
rights for hundreds of own apartment. “I mean Thursdays Bear Night
years’... None of us were they were sitting in shit in Well Drinks $3.50, Bud & Bud light bottles $3,
involved in that. We were Mount Sinai and NYU. We $1 off all other bottled beer, Jager $3.50, Schnapps $2.
at the party.” had a patient set on fire.
Kramer, the playwright 114 Christopher St.
and screenwriter who was 䉴 MCFARLANE, continued on p.32 Btw Bleecker & Hudson St. / 212-741-9641
 28 MAY - 10 JUN 2009

4/ Legal
䉴 COURT, from p.1 sexual orientation. nation to “ask pertinent and
What the priest’s case might comprehensive questions to
Americans. We are confident pr edict is that Sotomayor best assess Judge Sotomayor’s
that Judge Sotomayor has a would not interpret current ability to be a fair and impar-
demonstrated understanding federal statutes as banning tial justice on the US Supreme
and commitment to protecting discrimination based on sex- Court.”
the liberty and equality of all ual orientation. Such a posi- The 54-year-old Sotomayor
Americans.” tion would be in line with mul- was first appointed to the fed-
A search in a legal data- tiple decisions from the federal eral bench by President George
base on Sotomayor’s name courts, including a 2000 deci- H.W. Bush in 1992. Previously,
and terms such as gay, sexual sion from a three-judge panel she worked as a corporate liti-
orientation, or homosexual of the second circuit that did gator and an assistant district
turned up four cases since she not include Sotomayor. attorney under Robert Morgen-
was appointed in 1998 to the Despite the scant gay record, thau, the Manhattan district
US Court of Appeals for the the National Lesbian, Gay, attorney.
Second Circuit. In each case, Bisexual and T ransgender An analysis by CNN showed
Sotomayor was one of three Bar Association, an affiliate of that some major opinions sup-
judges hearing an appeal. the American Bar Association, ported or authored by Soto-
Thr ee wer e immigration approved of the nomination. mayor were reversed by the
cases in which gay men sought “We are pleased and encour- US Supreme Court, though

to enter the US saying they
feared persecution if they were
returned to their native coun-
tries. In two cases, the panels
upheld earlier rulings by immi-
gration judges and the Board of
Immigration Appeals that denied
the men entry into the US. The
third case was sent back to the
board to be reconsidered.
Those three rulings dealt as
much with the technicalities
of how the earlier decisions
were made as with any facts
weighed in those cases, and
they shed little light on how
Sotomayor might rule in other
gay cases.
Judge Sonia Sotomayor has seen few LGBT rights cases, but has won warm praise from gay
advocacy groups.
The fourth case dealt with
a straight Roman Catholic
priest who sued archdiocesan
officials in Newark, New York
City, and Albany, as well as a
religious order, charging that
the alleged sexual abuse he
suffered at the hands of some
of the defendants was, in part,
discrimination based on sexual
orientation. The case was dis-
WHITEHOUSE.GOV
aged by this excellent choice,”
said D’Arcy Kemnitz, the asso-
ciation’s executive director, in
a statement. “As LGBT Ameri-
cans, we are excited to have
more diversity on the bench,
and as attorneys we are grati-
missed by a lower federal judge, fied to have one of the bright-
who also sanctioned the priest’s est legal minds of our time on
attorney. the Court.”
The appeal challenged both Lambda Legal, the nation’s
the dismissal and the penalty leading gay rights law firm,
levied against the attorney. The was more cautious. In a state-
panel Sotomayor sat on upheld ment, the group welcomed the
the lower court and noted that nomination of “a woman of
the federal statute cited by the color, the first Latina, and the
priest and his lawyer does not third woman,” but also urged
bar discrimination based on senators weighing her nomi-
some on the left might support
at least one of those reversals
— in a case where she ruled
against freelance writers who
sued the New York Times for
copyright infringement.
The reversals could mean
that Sotomayor is willing to
be bold and is unconcerned
with having the nation’s high-
est court overrule her, that she
is intellectually not up to the
job as some right-wingers are
already charging, or that the
current high court has become
so conservative that any opin-
ion arriving from anywhere left
of center will be shot down.

NEWS BRIEFS By PAUL SCHINDLER

California Looks
to 2010
In the wake of the loss on the
constitutional challenge to Propo-
sition 8 at the State Supreme
Court on May 26, Equality Cali-
fornia, the LGBT rights lobby
there, is urging marriage equal-
ity advocates to press for a new
ballot question overturning last
November’s vote in the 2010 fall
election. In a written release
from Geoff Kors and Marc Solo-
mon, top officials at EQCA, the
group said, “We listened very
carefully to the thousands of you
who responded to our member-
ship survey. You provided pas-
sionate arguments for both 2010
and 2012, as well as detailed
comments about why you prefer
one election to another.”
Evaluating the 2010 option,
the group listed momentum,
likely Democratic gubernatorial
candidates in that election who
all support marriage equality,
the likely lack of other LGBT bal-
lot questions nationwide at that
time, and the fact that the 2012
election will offer competing
demands of fundraising from the
first post-redistricting state leg-
islative contest and the expected
reelection campaign of President
Barack Obama. Factors in favor
of waiting, however, are that
2012 gives advocates two more
years to organize, the likelihood
of an improved economy making
fundraising easier, and the shift
in demographics toward younger
voters who are far more favor-
able to marriage equality than
their parents and grandparents.
“In the end, a 2010 election
will likely be very close,” the
release stated. “From our van-
tage point, the deciding factors to
return to the ballot in 2010 rather
than 2012 include the energy and
momentum and the political land-
scape in California.”
A release from the Courage
Campaign, a grassroots group
that emerged in the wake of Prop
8’s passage and claims 700,000
members, also endorsed the 2010
timeframe.
LGBT Americans
Pour Into
Streets after
Prop 8 Ruling
As thousands of gay New York-
ers marched from the West Village
to Union Square Park to protest
the California Supreme Court’s
affirmation of Proposition 8, over-
turning marriage equality in that
state, and to demand State Senate
action in Albany on a gay marriage
bill here, they were joined by LGBT
folks in 116 other cities. So reports
DayofDecision.com, a website set
up by California marriage equality
plaintiff Robin Tyler to coordinate a
nationwide response.
In San Francisco, hundreds
blocked Market Street as dem-
onstrators converged on City Hall
the evening of May 26. Earlier in
the day, more than 100 protest-
ers blocking Van Ness Avenue
adjacent to the San Francisco
State Supreme Court building
were arrested. The San Francisco
Chronicle reported that Mayor
Gavin Newsom, a leader in the
marriage equality fight since 2004
when he briefly allowed marriage
licenses to be issued in that city,
prior to court intervention, issued
a statement urging everyone in the
state to “please talk to a lesbian or
gay family member, neighbor or co-
worker and ask them why equality
in the eyes of the law is important
to every Californian.”
Governor Arnold Schwarzeneg-
ger, a Republican who has twice
vetoed marriage equality legisla-
tion approved by the Democratic-
controlled Legislature, said he was
certain that “one day either the
people or courts will recognize gay
marriage.”
T h e L o s A n g e l e s Ti m e s
reported that a crowd of up to
2,000 marched up Island Avenue
in Hollywood, descending on the
intersection of Hollywood Bou-
levard and Highland Avenue. As
the crowd used chalk to inscribe
their sentiments on the sidewalk,
one protester scrawled, “H8 is
not love.” The San Diego Union-
Tribune pegged the crowd in that
city at 3,500, including a woman
in a wheelchair and many couples
pushing baby strollers. The pro-
testers, chanting, “Hey hey, ho ho,
homophobia’s got to go,” marched
from Balboa Park to the Hall of
Justice downtown.
The Chicago Tribune reported
that more than 1,000 demonstra-
tors marched in the rain along
Halsted Street in Boystown, wav-
ing rainbow flags and signs read-
ing, “We Demand Equality.” LGBT
advocates are racing against time
to win approval from the Legisla-
ture in Springfield for a civil union
law that this week won com-
mittee approval in the House of
Representatives. The Legislature
adjourns its spring session on Sun-
day. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
reported that more than 100 turned
out. “We have to make sure that
whatever happened in California,
as horrible as it is, stays in Califor-
nia,” Lisa Stone of Legal Voice told
a cheering crowd. Opponents of
Washington State’s domestic part-
nership law, which is essentially a
civil union measure, are working to
gather enough petition signatures
by June 25 to put a question on the
ballot overturning the statute.
Bush v. Gore
Foes Unite on
Marriage
Ted Olson, President George
W. Bush’s first solicitor general,
and David Boies, his opponent on
the famous Bush v. Gore Supreme
Court case that handed the presi-
dency to Olson’s boss, have joined
forces to take the Prop 8 ruling by
the California Supreme Court to the
US Supreme Court. In a suit filed
on May 22, on behalf of Kristin
Perry and Sandra Stier of Berkeley,
and Paul Katami and Jeffrey Zarril-
lo of Burbank, the two attorneys
stated “the separate-but-unequal
institution of domestic partner-
ship” violates the equal protection
䉴 BRIEFS, continued on p.7
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 28 MAY – 10 JUN 2009 5

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streets are the cleanest they have been in more than
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6 28 MAY – 10 JUN 2009 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

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“Breathtaking …
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Written and Directed by David Shiner

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28 MAY - 10 JUN 2009

Legal /7
14 DAYS 24-Year Injustice Overturned
14 NIGHTS Gay man did not have fair trial in child abuse case appeals court finds Supreme Judicial Court, retry failed to object to all kinds of dren deprived Baran of a public
BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD

THU.MAY.28 the case — now nearly 25 years objectionable testimony and trial as constitutionally guaran-

F
ifteen months after oral
BOOKS arguments, the Appeals
Honoring the Court of Massachusetts
Greats has finally affirmed a lower court
The Lambda Literary Foundation and ruling that a gay man did not
CLAGS, CUNY’s Center for Lesbian and receive a fair trial in 1985 on
Gay Studies, present the 21st annual charges he raped and abused
Lambda Literary Awards, recognizing pre-schoolers in his care. The
excellence in LGBT writing. One highlight decision upheld a ruling by now-
of the evening will be special recogni- retired Superior Court Judge
tion to Leslie Feinberg, Andrew Hol- Francis R. Fecteau in the case
laran, Felice Picano, and Edmund White. of Bernard Baran, a 19-year-old
CLAGS/ CUNY, Fifth Ave. at 34th St., employee of a day care center at
cocktails at 6 p.m.; awards at 7; the time of his conviction.
afterparty at 9:30. Tickets are $75; $95 Baran was apparently the vic-
after May 15 at lambdaliterary.org. tim of a homophobic plot, incom-
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ petent legal representation, pros-
ecutorial misconduct, and judi-
FILM cial malpractice all at once. Fec-
This Was Your teau premised his ruling solely
Father’s Arizona on incompetent representation,
“Lonesome Cowboys”(1967–68), but the appellate panel suggest-
directed by Andy Warhol with cinema- ed that prosecutorial miscon-
tography by Paul Morrissey, is a Western duct was implicit in the Superior
comedy/drama shot on location in Arizona, Court’s finding on that point. It
about a small town with a transvestite also noted that Baran had not
sheriff, a rich lady rancher named Ramona received a public trial, when the
Alvarez, her male nurse who expertly danc- trial court unilaterally decided to
es the twist, and five lonesome cowboys close the courtroom to the public
who fixate on their hair, practice ballet on and press during the objection-
a hitching post, engage in amorous activi- able testimony by the child wit-
ties, and discuss the loneliness that makes nesses.
them “love themselves more than any- The unanimous three-judge
one else.” Joe Dallesandro and Viva star. panel upheld Fecteau’s deci-
Museum of Modern Art, 11 W. 53rd St., sion to reverse the original ver-
through May 29, 1:30 p.m. Admission is dict and set Baran free on bail,
$10; $8 for seniors; $6 for students. though with onerous monitoring
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ conditions. The Berkshire Coun-
ty prosecutor will have to decide
whether to seek an appeal to the
old — or drop the matter.
Justice Barbara Lenk’s opin-
ion for the appellate panel points
up an unfortunate miscarriage
of justice Baran apparently suf-
fered. One family, unhappy that
a gay man was involved in their
child’s care, seems to have fab-
ricated charges against him and
then enlisted other families in
their crusade. Suggestive ques-
tioning of the pre-schoolers, ages
three and four, documented on
interview tapes carefully edited to
omit exculpatory material, were
presented to both the grand jury
and the trial jury. The unedited
versions were never provided to
Baran’s counsel.
The appeals panel also found
the trial was tainted by improper
testimony as well as improper
argument by the prosecutor —
now a judge, probably compli-
cating Baran’s efforts at vindica-
tion. The result was an hysteri-
cal stampede to convict Baran
on several counts of child rape
and sexual abuse and punish
him with multiple life sentences.
He spent more than 20 years in
prison, enduring mistreatment
by his fellow inmates, before
Fecteau’s ruling finally led to his
release in 2006.
Baran’s original counsel, now
dead, had little criminal expe-
rience and was hired out of the
phone book by Baran’s mother,
a woman of limited means. He
argument, failed to demand pre-
trial access to the unedited wit-
ness tapes, and prejudicially
introduced the subject of Baran’s
homosexuality into the trial. (He
was accused of assaulting both
boys and girls, so his orientation
was irrelevant to the charges.)
He also failed to engage experts
to counter the testimony of pros-
ecution witnesses regarding the
reliability of three- and four-
year-olds in offering testimony.
Fecteau concluded that the
defense lawyer’s failings went
beyond poor strategic moves
to utter incompetence. The
Appeals Court agreed. “Defense
counsel’s apparent failure to
engage in any meaningful prep-
aration for what was indisput-
ably a complex, high-stakes
trial represented a more or less
complete abandonment of his
professional obligations to the
defendant,” Judge Lenk wrote.
The Appeals Court pointed out
numerous ways in which the
prosecutor had overstepped the
bounds of appropriate evidence
and argument, but did not come
to a definitive conclusion on this,
since that would require further
hearings. Baran’s incompetent
representation provided ample
cause to overturn his convic-
tion. The court also noted that
the unexplained decision by the
trial court to exclude the public
during the testimony of the chil-
teed, reason alone for invalidat-
ing the verdict.
This case is an example of the
hysterical prosecutions of day
care and nursery employees that
swept the country during the
1980s, when gay people were
being demonized as child molest-
ers and worse by public officials.
During this time, for example,
that the New Hampshire Legis-
lature sought to enact a ban on
gay people working in day care
centers — a prohibition that the
State Supreme Court deemed
unconstitutional in an advisory
opinion, while at the same time
pre-clearing a bill that barred
gays from adopting children, a
measure since repealed. Juries
were prompted by fake experts
to believe extraordinary tales
of satanic rites described by
heavily coached pre-schoolers,
resulting draconian prison sen-
tences for seemingly innocent
individuals.
The amazing thing is that
current-day prosecutors remain
invested in defending those
convictions, despite all evidence
they were wrongfully obtained.
This is the case in Berkshire
County, where the prosecutor
insisted on appealing Fecteau’s
extraordinarily detailed opinion,
needlessly subjecting Baran to
years of unnecessary uncertainty
about freedom already too-long
denied.

PEFORMANCE
FRI.MAY.29
All the People You
Love
Comedian/ monologist Greg Walloch,
who has a thing for skaters, surfers, cow-
boys, and celebrity chefs, hosts an eve-
ning of stories, music, and fun from Sirius
XM Satellite Radio host Frank DeCaro,
actor Ann Carr, and the musical duo Jim
Andralis & Larry Krone. Dixon Place,
161 Chrystie St., btwn. Delancey &
Rivington Sts., 10 p.m. Admission is
$15.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ Leading LGBT rights groups
Boogie Down
Dance
In a festival running through Jun. 3,
the Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance pres-
䉴 MAY 29, continued on p.12
䉴 BRIEFS, from p.4
and due process clauses of the
Fourteenth Amendment, making
gay and lesbian couples “sec-
ond-class citizens.” “We believe
this is the kind of matter where
Americans must come together
and recognize the rights of all cit-
izens,” Olson told the Associated
Press.” This is about the rights of
individuals to be treated equally
and not be stigmatized.”
are not amused. In a joint
statement issued on May 27,
nine organizations — includ-
ing Lambda Legal, Freedom to
Marry, the Gay & Lesbian Advo-
cates & Defenders, the National
Center for Lesbian Rights, and
the American Civil Liberties
Union — warned that ill-timed
lawsuits could set the fight for
marriage back. In a new publi-
cation, “Why the United States
Supreme Court is not the next
step on marriage in California,”
the groups aim to “discourage
people from bringing lawsuits
based on the federal Constitu-
tion because it is unlikely the
U.S. Supreme Court would rule
that same-sex couples can
not be barred from marriage.”
Last May, when the California
Supreme Court ruled in favor of
marriage equality, the groups
issued “Make Change, Not
Lawsuits,” which also argued
that the time was not yet right
for a challenge on the federal
question about marriage equal-
ity. The new publication is avail-
able at aclu.org.
Update On
Gotham
Marriage Bonus
Updating a report first issued
in 2007, city Comptroller Wil-
liam C. Thompson, Jr., this
week released an analysis
showing that the state economy
can expect a $210 million boost
in the first three years after
marriage equality is enacted
here. The comptroller, a Demo-
crat who is running for mayor,
looks not only at spending on
weddings by same-sex New
York couples, but also the city’s
status as a “prime destination”
for out-of-state couples getting
married. Just under $150 mil-
lion of the $210 million would
accrue to the city’s economy. If
the current recession were to
persist over the three-year time
horizon of the study, the ben-
efits to New York would decline
to $178 million for the state,
and $120 million for the city, the
report found.
Thompson conceded that
employers would bear higher
spousal benefits costs of $69
million for the state and $37
million for the city, but even
accounting for that expense, the
net economic benefits would be
$141 million for the state and
$112 million for the city. Some
married gay or lesbian spouses
would lose their Medicaid
eligibility, saving the state an
additional $110 million over
three years, Thompson’s report
estimated.
In New
Hampshire, Try,
Try Again
John Lynch, the Democratic
governor of New Hampshire,
was not quite ready to sign off on
the marriage equality bill passed
by the Legislature, but on May
14 stated that he would do so
if certain changes — aimed at
broadening the rights of religious
groups or individuals employed
by religious groups to refuse to
䉴 BRIEFS, continued on p.15

8/ Health
Dissents on Frieden
Some AIDS advocates fault Obama’s CDC pick
BY DUNCAN OSBORNE
M
ore than three months before
the Obama administration
announced that New York
City’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas
R. Frieden, would head the federal Cen-
ters for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), Housing Works announced that
it opposed Frieden for that job.
“Frieden has simultaneously employed
an authoritarian, my-way-or-the-high-
way approach and an unabashed secre-
tiveness undignified of a public servant,”
the AIDS group wrote in a statement.
“He has excluded AIDS groups wherever
possible from having input into life-and-
death AIDS funding, testing, and care
policymaking decisions.” Public health
is often paternal and can be “authori-
tarian.” Frieden’s seven-year tenure has
certainly looked like both at times. His
results have won him praise from other
AIDS groups and health professionals.
Frieden’s efforts to ban smoking in
bars, restaurants, and other workplac-
es, and the distribution of free nico-
tine patch kits have cut smoking in the
city to record lows. To target obesity,
he banned trans fats from city restau-
rants and required those businesses to
post the calorie counts of their products
where customers could see them.
That aggressive style was evident
when Frieden ran the city health depart-
ment’s tuberculosis program from 1992
to 1996, where he championed, among
a number of measures, quarantine for
patients who would not take their medi-
cation. Between 1993 and 2001, the city
locked up and treated 395 individuals
who had drug-resistant tuberculosis,
with one man being detained for nearly
two years. As recently as 2007, the city
quarantined two men and one woman
with the bug.
Frieden is an advocate of condom dis-
tribution — the city gives away millions
each year — and distributing unused
syringes to drug users, a practice that
has dramatically cut new HIV infections
among drug injectors.
Using an HIV test that identifies new
HIV infections, the city tested 3,464
28 MAY - 10 JUN 2009
HIV-positive blood samples collected at
city clinics between June 1, 2000 and
December 31, 2004. The study results
were released in 2007. Among all men,
the new infection rate went from 0.72
percent in the second half of 2000 to
0.44 percent in second half of 2004.
During that time, the rate among het-
erosexuals went from 0.29 to 0.08, the
rate among women went from 0.32 per-
cent to 0.06, and the rate among drug
injectors went from 2.54 percent to 1.04
percent. Those declines were statistically
significant.
While those declines cannot be attrib-
uted entirely to Frieden policies, they
certainly made a contribution. But, he
has consistently failed in reducing new
HIV infections among gay and bisexual
men.
That same study found that the new
infection rate among gay and bisexual
men went from 3.79 percent in the sec-
ond half of 2000 to 2.84 percent in sec-
ond half of 2004. That decline was not Dr. Thomas Frieden, the new CDC chief, battled with some
leading AIDS advocates while health commissioner in
䉴 FRIEDEN, continued on p.30 New York City.
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
Health Chief:

1$
Close Bathhouses
Dr. Thomas Farley, new Bloomberg pick,
sees public sex as transmission bomb
BY DUNCAN OSBORNE
W
riting in a 2002 issue of Wash-
ington Monthly magazine, New
York City’s incoming health
commissioner argued that bathhouses
where gay men meet for sex should be
closed to prevent the further spread of HIV
and sexually transmitted diseases.
Speaking at a May 18 press conference
held to introduce him to the city’s media,
Dr. Thomas A. Farley gave no indication
that he had changed his position on bath-
house closure when asked if that would be
health department policy when he takes
over on June 8.
“We have a real problem with HIV and
AIDS in New York and in the US as a
whole,” Farley said when asked if closure
would be his policy. “We have high rates
of transmission in men who have sex with
men and rising rates in young men who
have sex with men. There’s a lot we need to
do to address this problem. I look forward
to working with the department... and the
entire community that cares about HIV in
this city.”
Starting in 2007, Farley spent a year
acting as an advisor to the city’s health
department. In that role, he authored a
memo that described four options for deal-
ing with city sex clubs and bathhouses,
including trying to close “all commercial
sex venues.”
The other options were to continue the
current scheme of enforcing a 1985 state
health code that bans oral, anal, and
vaginal sex, with or without a condom,
in businesses, a scheme inconsistently
enforced, aggressively increase the code
enforcement, or regulate sex businesses
by changing the code and allowing them
to operate “under strict safe-sex rules” and
other requirements.
Gay and AIDS groups have generally
favored regulation, though some commu-
nity voices support closing these business-
es. The memo caused a brief outcry and, in
early 2008, the health department said it
had no plans to close any sex businesses.
In 2008, Gay City News spoke with
some leading experts who said that bath-
house regulation, by itself, will not imme-
diately reduce new HIV infections, but that
such regulation makes men available for
HIV testing and prevention messages.
Farley also expressed the view that
“health officials” should “either close the
baths or regulate them tightly to enforce
condom use” in a 2005 letter to the editor
in the New York Times.
Perhaps reflecting the degree to which
28 MAY – 10 JUN 2009 9
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Over A Decade of Experience
Litigating Employment and Civil Rights
Cases for our Community
GAY CITY NEWS
Dr. Thomas Farley at City Hall on May 18 after his appoint- 2007 - 2009 Deputy Commissioner,
ment was announced by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
New York State Devision of Human Rights
a public discussion of gay men’s sex lives
and the regulation of sex businesses is no 2006 Honoree: New York City Council -
longer of interest to many gay men, even
as many of them continue to patronize
“Contributions and Service to New York City”
such businesses, no AIDS or gay groups
responded to emails seeking comment 2003 Honoree: Common Cause
on Farley’s appointment and his views on
bathhouse closure. “Holding Power Accountable”
The exception was William K. Dobbs, a
gay civil libertarian, who has been a con-
Ethical New Yorker of the Year Award
sistent defender of gay men’s sexual free-
dom.
“Farley’s 2002 article is frightening for
its anti-sex and anti-gay sentiment and
Former Aide to Mayor David N Dinkins
policies it voices,” Dobbs said. “The last and Public Advocate Mark Green
thing we need in New York City is another
official whose public health policies will be
colored by an aversion to gay culture and
sexual civil liberties.”
It may also be that AIDS groups are
more focused on forestalling cuts in the city
EMPLOYMENT LAW / CIVIL RIGHTS
budget for services for people with AIDS — ',6&5,0,1$7,21‡6(;8$/+$5$660(17
and feel that battling over sex clubs and 3$571(56+,3$*5((0(176',63,7(6‡&,9,//,7,*$7,21
the city’s three remaining bathhouses is
not a fight they want. They may yet get a 0$75,021,$/&8672'<‡0(',&$/0$/35$&7,&(
fight from Farley.
Like Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the outgo-
3(5621$/,1-85<
ing commissioner, Farley backs assess-
ing the cost effectiveness of HIV interven-
tions. In 2004, he published a study that
described a method for estimating how
Thomas D. Shanahan, P.C.
many HIV infections a particular inter-
vention prevented and at what cost. Far-
ley’s formula allows government agencies
551 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2010
to steer funds to interventions that are
deemed the most cost effective.
“I share with Commissioner Frieden a
New York, NY 10176
focus on what are the leading causes of
death in New York City, a focus on
data and scientific evidence behind tel (212) 867-1100 WWW.SHANAHANLAW.COM
fax (212) 972-1787 TOM@SHANAHANLAW.COM
䉴 FARLEY, continued on p.30
 28 JAN - 10 JUN 2009

10/ Editorial
■ LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
PUBLISHER & CO-FOUNDER
JOHN W. SUTTER
JWSutter@communitymediallc.com
The Trouble With California
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER & CO-FOUNDER BY PAUL SCHINDLER
TROY MASTERS

N
troy@gaycitynews.com
obody was particularly measure — was the basic plan of narrow and limited exception to turn an emotionally charged bal-
surprised by the rul- California government changed? the promise of full equality strikes lot contest.
EDITOR IN-CHIEF & CO-FOUNDER
PAUL SCHINDLER
ing out of the Califor - Here, George stumbled badly. at the core of, and thus funda- In any event, the only recourse
editor@gaycitynews.com nia Supreme Court this week, As court rulings in Connecti- mentally alters, the guarantee now seems to be a return to the
ASSOCIATE EDITOR upholding the constitutional cut and Iowa, legislative debate of equal treatment… Granting a ballot box; the quixotic notion
Duncan Osborne validity of Proposition 8 while at in Vermont, and a public com- disfavored minority only some of of an appeal to the US Supreme
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS the same time finding that the mission in New Jersey have all the rights enjoyed by the majority Court seems useless, perhaps
Christopher Byrne (Theater), Susie Day, 18,000 or so marriages by same- demonstrated, there is a sub- is fundamentally different from even dangerous given its current
Doug Ireland (International), Brian McCormick sex couples there between June stantive difference between civil recognizing, as a constitutional composition. Advocates in Cali-
(Dance), Dean P. Wrzeszcz
and Election Day remain in force. unions, or similar schemes such imperative, that they must be fornia will argue about whether
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Betsy Andrews, Seth J. Bookey,
At the oral arguments earlier this as California’s domestic partner- granted all of those rights.” 2010 or 2012 makes the most
Anthony M.Brown, Kelly Jean Cogswell, year, the court seemed unim- ships, and marriage equality. In Chief Justice George and the sense — and they will, in the
Dean Daderko, Tate Dougherty, Andres Duque, pressed by either the argument fact, last May, George reached two colleagues who had joined him process, undoubtedly revisit the
Michael Ehrhardt, Steve Erickson, Nick Feitel,
Jim Fouratt, Joe Fyfe, Deborah Garwood, that Prop 8 was a “revision” and precisely the same conclusion, and Moreno in last year’s marriage post-mortems about what went
Erasmo Guerra, Emily Harney, Andrey Henkin, not merely an “amendment” to writing that denying the status equality ruling clearly lost the wrong last year — but they will
Frank Holiday, Andy Humm, James Jorden, Brendan the State Constitution, and so of marriage to same-sex couples courage of their convictions, and need a lot of financial support
Keane, David Kennerley, Gary M. Kramer, Arthur S.
Leonard, Rachael Liberman, could not be enacted in the man- poses “a serious risk of denying it’s hard to know precisely why. from LGBT Americans every-
Michael T. Luongo, Lawrence D. Mass, ner it was, or Attorney General the official family relationship of Perhaps the line of attack Attorney where to get the job done.
Winnie McCroy, Eileen McDermott,
Gregory Montreuil, Ioannis Mookas, Carrie Moyer,
Jerry Brown’s assertion that the same-sex couples the equal dig- General Brown had made — ques- That should remind us just
Stephen Mueller, Christopher Murray, amendment impermissibly took nity and respect that is a core ele- tioning the right of voters to define how much the implacable oppo-
David Noh, Wayne Northcross, Lori Ortiz, away “inalienable rights” guaran- ment of the constitutional right a group of citizens who are singled sition of the right is costing our
Pauline Park, Sheila Pepe, John Reed,
Nathan Riley, Andrew Robinson, Gerard Robinson, teed in the Constitution. to marry.” But this week, deny- out as ineligible for core consti- community. Prop 8 stands as
Chris Schmidt, Sarah D. Schulman, But Chief Justice Ronald ing same-sex couples the right to tutional protections — ought to testimony to the fact that those
Jason Victor Serinus, Linda Shapiro, George, who wrote the majority marry merely “carve[d] a narrow have been given greater scrutiny who would deny our rights and
David Shengold, Gus Solomons Jr., David Spiher,
Drew B. Straub, Stefen Styrsky, Jerry Tallmer, opinions in both last year’s equal- exception” out of the privacy, due by all of the advocates on our side. our humanity are not playing.
Stefanos Tsigrimanis, Kathleen Warnock, ity victory and this week’s defeat, process, and equal protection Maybe the fact that Brown and The battle in Albany this coming
Benjamin Weinthal, Lee Ann Westover,
James Withers, Kai Wright, Susan Yung
protested too much. In evaluating principles the court relied on last the rest of those on the side of month is not some vanity contest
the revision versus amendment year. That wasn’t a change in the marriage equality pursued sepa- about Iowa getting there ahead of
ART DIRECTOR
Mark Hasselberger
question, he posed a quantita- basic plan of government, in the rate lines of challenge to Prop 8’s the great Empire State. It’s about
tive test — how many constitu- chief justice’s view. validity fatally weakened the force our lives, our families, our happi-
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Jamie Paakkonen tional provisions were changed?; The lone, brave dissenter, Jus- of our arguments. Or, it might be ness, and our security. Call your
only 14 words in the definition tice Carlos Moreno, cut through that the Supreme Court simply state senator; find out how at
SENIOR VP OF ADVERTISING/MARKETING
FRANCESCO REGINI of marriage — and a qualitative this nonsense, writing, “Even a did not have the stomach to over- broadwayimpact.com.
francesco@gaycitynews.com

ADVERTISING MANAGERS
■ UNDERSTANDING AIDS
COLIN GREGORY
colin@gaycitynews.com
ALLISON GREAKER
Early Treatment and the Definition of HIV Illness
allison@gaycitynews.com BY CHARLES KING
JASON SHERWOOD

A
jsherwood@gaycitynews.com New England Journal increased rate of mortality over between housing status and HIV illness advances to the point that
JEREMY MARKS of Medicine article pub- folks who initiate treatment earli- treatment access, health, and risk they qualify for help and hope
jeremy@gaycitynews.com lished April 30 provides er, and those who wait until their behaviors, regardless of personal that their immune system can
JASON SPARKS the best evidence yet that start- T-cells fall below 350 face even characteristics and service use, recover, something it never fully
jsparks@gaycitynews.com ing treatment for people with HIV greater risk. and that housing assistance is accomplishes. Recommendations
Please call (212) 229-1890 for early improves health outcomes. Yet here in New York State, among the strongest predictors of regarding early treatment would
advertising rates and availability. While many have suspected the general standard of care, as health outcomes. Housing Works make this choice even more per-
ACCOUNTING this was the case, this is the first promulgated by the New York has strongly advocated making nicious.
DAVID JAFFE
david@gaycitynews.com study that looks at the difference State AIDS Institute, does not HIV/AIDS services, including The evidence is very clear.
NATIONAL DISPLAY ADVERTISING
in outcomes for people who initi- recommend universal offering housing assistance, available to Housing and services are as criti-
Rivendell Media / 212.242.6863 ate treatment when their T-cell of treatment until T-cells have all low-income people living with cal to care for people with HIV as
Web master count is above 500. This study fallen below 350. Not only that, HIV, something both New York medication. Not only that, but
Arturo Jimenez highlights the troubling fact that but the AIDS Institute definition City’s mayor and City Council housing and services are a cost-
Arturo@gaycitynews.com
Gay City News, The Newspaper Serving Gay and Lesbian NYC, is pub-
New York City and State continue of “HIV-related illness,” which speaker oppose. But it would be effective way to prevent transmis-
lishedby Community Media, LLC. Send all inquiries to: Gay City News, to cling to an antiquated defini- defines access to HIV housing criminal for the AIDS Institute to sion. The AIDS Institute must act
145 Sixth Ave., First Fl., NYC 10013 Phone: 646.452.2500 Written
permission of the publisher must be obtained before any of the contents tion of HIV-related illness and an assistance statewide and almost change its treatment guidelines now to change both the treatment
of this paper, in part or whole, can be reproduced or redistributed. All
contents (c) 2009 Gay City News. approach to HIV that has tragic all HIV/AIDS services in New without changing the definition guidelines to mandate that people
consequences. York City, remains at a T -cell of HIV-related illness. Already, who are infected be universally
Gay City News is a registered trademark
of Community Media, LLC. The study found that people count below 200. The AIDS Insti- low income New Yorkers are put offered treatment on a voluntary
John W. Sutter, President
Fax: 646.452.2501; who begin antiretroviral AIDS tute announced in recent weeks in the position of having to make basis and to change the definition
E-mail: JWSutter@communitymediallc.com treatments before their CD4 cells that it is reviewing the treatment the horrible choice between ini- of “HIV illness” to HIV infection.
go below 500 have significantly guidelines in light of this study, tiating treatment that can dra-
Subscriptions:
26 issues, $90.00 better health outcomes. In fact, but said nothing about the defini- matically prolong their lives but Charles King is the chief execu-
(c)2009 Gay City News. the critical finding is that people tion of HIV-related illness. preclude them from receiving tive officer of Housing Works, an
All rights reserved. who wait until their T-cell count Research also shows a strong equally life-saving housing and AIDS services group in New York
falls below 500 have a 94 percent and consistent relationship services, or wait until their HIV City.
28 MAY - 10 JUN 2009
■ WINNING MARRIAGE EQUALITY
T
wice in the last two
weeks, I visited Albany
to advocate that the New
York State Senate pass Gov-
ernor David Paterson’s bill to
legalize same-sex civil marriage.
In a series of private meetings,
I told each senator how impor-
tant this vote is to me and my
family, and to countless other
couples across New York State.
I asked each of them to do the
right thing and vote in favor of
this legislation.
These conversations are
among the most personal that
I have ever had with legisla-
tors. I speak to them as a fel-
low legislator, as a lesbian, and
as a person in a serious, com-
mitted relationship who wants
and deserves the same rights
they have with their spouses.
Each senator that I’ve met with
has asked me honest and open
questions, and the dialogue
can be revealing. I am touched
by how seriously each legisla-
■ A DYKE ABROAD
A
nother Memorial Day,
another moment of
national pageantry
broadcast on PBS. There were
tear -jerking songs by fully-
fleshed Hollywood and Broad-
way types, and a flag-waving
crowd intercut with lengthy dis-
plays of abbreviated limbs that
apparently caused less pain
than a haircut. In the hospital
videos, the damaged soldiers all
wore brave smiles. Their girl-
friends and wives absolutely
beamed. What joy, what honor
holding some gimp’s hand as
he learns to make do with plas-
tic legs!
Then there was the guy on
the front row of the Lincoln
Memorial show. He was flanked
by a mother and wife. They got
him where they wanted him,
propped up in his chair, his
mouth hanging open. Every
now and then they took a hanky
and dabbed proudly at the
gaping maw — which we saw
because the camera zoomed
in at the apex of each patriotic
song, hoping there would be
one proud tear to go with the
An Albany Engagement
tor has taken this issue, both
Democrat and Republican
alike.
The reality is that we are far
more alike than we may have
thought. Regardless of our
sexual orientation, we want
the best for our families. My
partner and I wake up every
day and worry about the same
things they worry about. We
spend some of our weekends
visiting our families, including
last week when we had a bar-
becue and more than 20 of our
relatives attended. Every fami-
ly deserves the legal rights and
protections that only marriage
can bestow. My partner and I
are no exception.
I do not walk into any of
my meetings alone. With me,
I bring the work of LGBT leg-
islators Tom Duane, Danny
O’Donnell, Deborah Glick, Mat-
thew Titone, and Micah Kell-
ner, as well as Governor Pat-
erson and his staff, who are all
Memorial Day, 2009
drool, like the Native American
in the pollution commercial.
Thank God they got nothing.
If the guy has any gray mat-
ter left, I imagine him dream-
ing only of getting back to bed.
Even nightmares are better.
There weren’t any girls with
shiny stumps, at least while I
watched. I suspect it wasn’t so
much because it’s unseemly
to suggest the vulnerability
of women to anything except
rape, but the fact if the editors
followed the same script, you’d
have to show their menfolk in
some kind of supporting, ten-
der role. And who wants to see
the travesty of guys holding the
hands of their wounded wives,
when they should be getting
blown up themselves?
I won’t talk at all about miss-
ing queers and how heterosex-
ual the whole thing was.
Let me move on to the other
ghosts at Macbeth’s feast, the
missing shots of the roadside
bombs and flying shrapnel that
make an obscenely direct con-
nection between the fatherland
and flesh. While Memorial Day
BY CHRISTINE C. QUINN
Speaker Christine Quinn addressing the Prop 8 protest rally in Union Square Park on May 26.
working tirelessly every day on
this issue. I carry with me the
efforts of thousands of advo-
cates and fighters for equality.
Countless people have shown
up to rallies, voiced their sup-
port, and answered calls to
action. I am both heartened and
BY KELLY JEAN COGSWELL
is supposed to honor Ameri-
cans who have served in war, in
the visual language of national
pageantry, there seemed to be
some less menacing reason a
leg suddenly ended at a knee,
an arm at an elbow.
Eschewing violence and hate
and the idiocy of human war, the
combination of patriotic sym-
bols and new pink scars began
to implicate flag-waving itself
as the sudden cause of miss-
ing limbs. Perhaps we should
all stay away from car dealer-
ships. Forget bankruptcies at
Chrysler. It’s the faded banners
and spontaneous amputations
that should worry us.
No, Memorial Day isn’t really
the moment to remember sol-
diers enduring the ugliness of
war, but to purge sacrifice of
pain and grief, and separate
patriotism from dissent. Let’s
rally around the flag, celebrate
unity, even in the grave, or be
censored for disrespect.
Obama, at least, plays that
game less brazenly than Bush.
He implies, rather than shouts,
that in a time of war, in a time of
Perspective /11
tinue to advocate, to write our
legislators, to make our phone
calls, and to do all that we can
to demand equal rights. This is
not a time to give up, but a time
to redouble our efforts. Millions
are ready for a change, and
are ready for it now. Our state
has long been a moving force
in fights for equal rights, and
this crucial bill keeps us at the
forefront of this movement. It
is on all of our shoulders now,
to show the rest of the country
that this movement is a right
DONNA F. ACETO
and just movement. I continue
to believe that after continued
discussions and the work we
will do in the weeks to come, we
will make marriage equality a
humbled by the work everyone reality in this legislative session.
has done and the hope we all
have. Christine C. Quinn is the
California’s recent Supreme speaker of the New York City
Court decision should not deter Council, where she represents
us in any way from our ongo- the Third District, which includes
ing efforts to ensure civil rights Chelsea, Hells Kitchen, the Flat-
for all people. We must con- iron, and Murray Hill.
economic crisis, we should just nize those physically complete
sit down, shut up, and support soldiers who can only display
the commander-in-chief as he their interior damage with guns
is forced to break campaign placed in their mouths or to
promises. Only reluctantly does their girlfriends’ heads?
he preserve military trials for Yeah, I’d like to see them. And
those poor schmucks stuck in maybe the messy dead before
Guantanamo. Only with great they’re lined up under white
regret does he bolster spying stones at Arlington. My only
programs targeting civilians, request is that we do it without
and delay civil rights for queers. getting out the bleach. It’s time
Perhaps it’s only ironic to me we honor loss and sacrifice in
that he sends out soldiers to die its raw and native state.
in the name of a democracy he When I first came to New
willingly erodes. Or that most York I’d hand over my voluntary
of us would rather honor our quarter or two and wander the
kids who are maimed and killed Met. I’d skip the famous paint-
than lift a finger at home to save ings for the medieval art wing
the soul of our country. featuring wooden and ivory
If we refuse to be up in arms, Christs. They weren’t gilded like
shouldn’t we at least demand lilies, just wracked with stylized
our media lift the curtain on this pain. After all those centuries,
freak show and pass around they’d be missing a limb some-
the whiskey instead of the times, too, on top of everything.
schmalz? Shouldn’t we expose Poignant, I thought. I felt like it
the real consequences of war, added something true.
the bitter losers recalcitrant in First, you get the brutal pain
their anti-heroic stances, who of sacrifice, then the careless
turn to drink and drugs, and wounding of time.
refuse their physical therapy,
who replace missing body parts Check out Kelly Sans Culotte at
with rage? Shouldn’t we recog- http://kellyatlarge.blogspot.com.
12
䉴 PROTESTS, from p.1
that banned gay marriage was
unconstitutional. Between that
ruling and the November 4 vote
that reversed it, roughly 18,000
gay and lesbian couples mar-
ried in California. In a perplexing
portion of the recent ruling, the
Supreme Court ruled that those
marriages were still valid.
While the crushing Proposition
8 vote led to recriminations and
charges that national gay groups
and initiative opponents in that
state had blown what should
have been a win for the gay and
lesbian community, the May 26
ruling was expected though still
disappointing.
“The decision by the Cali-
fornia Supreme Court today
is heartbreaking,” said Cathy
Marino-Thomas, board presi-
dent of Marriage Equality New
York, one of the groups that
organized the march and rally.
“What happened to equal pro-
tection under the law?”
Since the Proposition 8 vote,
three states — Iowa, Vermont,
and Maine — have approved
same-sex marriages, either
through legislation or by court
ruling, and New Hampshire is
on the verge of adopting a mar-
riage equality law as well.
In New York, the State Assem-
bly passed a gay marriage bill on
May 12 by a vote of 89-52, and
activists have been pressing the
Democratic-controlled Senate to
approve the law. As of May 26,
no vote was scheduled in the
Senate, and that body adjourns
in 24 days. The bill was intro-
Diaz Organizes Versus Gay Marriage
State senator, Pentecostal minister leads thousands in opposition
BY DUNCAN OSBORNE
I
n an event that generously
mixed politics and religion,
thousands of opponents of
marriage equality for same-sex
couples rallied outside of the
New York City offices of Gover-
nor David Paterson on May 17
and called on the State Senate
and God to stop the advance of
same-sex marriage in New York.
“The day will come when the
hand of God shall use these
people to take him out, out,
out,” said the Revered Miguel
Rivera, president of the National
Coalition of Latino Ministers,
referring to Paterson’s political
future.
On April 17, Paterson, a
duced by Governor David Pater-
son on April 17, so his approval
is a lock.
Speaking at the rally, City
Council Speaker Christine
Quinn, an out lesbian who rep-
resents Chelsea, called on the
crowd to aggressively lobby
their state senators. “Make it so
the State Senate can do nothing
else for the next 24 days,” she
told the crowd.
The rally followed a march
from Christopher Park in the
West Village, a small park on
Christopher Street near the
Stonewall Inn, where riots that
came in the wake of a June
1969 police raid have come to be
seen as the launch of the mod-
ern gay rights movement.
The crowd, which grew
steadily larger along the route,
went down Washington Street,
headed up Sixth Avenue, and
then went east on 14th Street to
Union Square.
Gilbert Baker, the artist who
popularized the use of the Rain-
bow Flag in the lesbian and gay
community, made nine ban-
ners with varying messages for
the march, and he continually
altered which banner led the
march.
While the chants and signs
clearly tied the ruling and the
Proposition 8 vote to anti-gay
bigotry, there were also indica-
tions that some in the commu-
nity are growing impatient with
President Barack Obama.
One of Baker’s banners fea-
tured two images of Obama fac-
ing in opposite directions and
the signature slogan from his
Democrat, introduced a same-
sex marriage bill in the Legis-
lature, and then gave the bill a
full-throated endorsement in an
April 28 speech at an event held
in Albany by the Empire State
Pride Agenda (ESPA), the state-
wide gay lobbying group.
On May 12, the State Assem-
bly passed Paterson’s bill by an
89-52 vote, and the bill’s future
now lies in the Senate, where
the vote count remains uncer-
tain, though both sides express
confidence that they will prevail.
The gathering of marriage
equality opponents began just
four hours prior to a pro-gay
rally near Times Square that
䉴 OPPOSITION, continued on p.34
28 MAY – 10 JUN 2009
One banner suggests that the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution could trump Proposition
8; another suggests impatience with the Obama administration.
presidential campaign “Yes we
can” connected with “No you
can’t.”
Two men in the crowd held
signs that read, “Yes we can.*”
Below that, a footnote read, “But
not if you’re gay.”
Corey Johnson, another
march organizer, broadened
that complaint to include the
Posters in Spanish and English held aloft at Sunday’s rally against gay marriage in Midtown
Manhattan.
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
14 DAYS
14 NIGHTS
䉴 MAY 29, from p.7
ents “The Boogie Down Dance Series at
BAAD!” Professional dance companies
GAY CITY NEWS
from the Bronx, led by resident company
Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre, are joined
by Brooklyn and Queens choreographers,
Dance Theater Workshop’s choreogra-
pher in residence Maria Colaco, John
Jasperse holding an open rehearsal,
Desmond Richardson, 1994 founder of
Complexions, leading a master class,
Archie Burnett, and Future Ninja. BAAD,
841 Barretto St., btwn. Garrison &
Lafayette Aves., Hunts Point in the
South Bronx (Hunts Point Ave. on
the #6 train). Admission is $20 at bronx-
academyofartsanddance.org. For a com-
plete schedule through Jun. 3, visit the
BAAD website.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
NIGHLIFE
GAY CITY NEWS
Egan’s Exit
DJ Josh Sparber is back at Splash
with this week’s installment of Trash, a
sexy night out for the alternafags. This
week’s theme is Holy Trash, with four
go-go altar boy studs, a visit by Cardinal
Democratic-controlled US House Egan himself, and “jesus juice” $2 drinks
and Senate. He urged the crowd from 10-11. The dancers wash off their
to join an October 10 march sin in the showers at 2 a.m. 50 W. 17th
on Washington to seek a “fully St. Admission is $15; $10 with an invite.
inclusive civil rights bill” by the ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
end of the year.
“We want that from this Demo-
cratic Congress, this Democratic
president, and we want it before COMMUNITY
SAT.MAY.30
this year is out,” Johnson said. When Love Is Gone
Identity House holds an afternoon
workshop for the lesbian widow on how
to deal with the loss of intimacy. With the
help of visualizations to create safety, the
group will try to come to terms with the
loss of physical and emotional intimacy,
exploring ways to deal with the feel-
ings of loneliness, emptiness, and the
lack of affection and sexual fulfillment.
LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th
St., 2-5 p.m. For complete information,
contact the workshop facilitator Lori at
LAH3961@juno.com.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
THEATER
The Magic of UPS
The TOSOS Robert Chesley/Jane
Chambers Playwright Project hosts a
staged reading of a new play by Kathleen
Warnock, recipient of the 2006 Robert
Chesley Award for Emerging Gay Play-
wrights. Mark Finley directs “Outlook,”
GAY CITY NEWS
about Susan, a corporate trainer, trying to
figure out her new Outlook (the software,
of course). She has to teach a course on
䉴 MAY 30, continued on p.20
28 MAY - 10 JUN 2009

Politics /13
Thousands Press State Senate
Guv, mayor headline marriage equality rally same day as opponents turn out
BY PAUL SCHINDLER including Cynthia Nixon, David speaker’s podium. leader, was not there. Smith also
Hyde Pierce, and Cheyenne Jack- According to Anthony Hayes, skipped an April 17 Manhat-

F
our hours after a largely son, all out gay performers— and the Northeast regional field orga- tan press conference at which
Latino crowd led by anti- top New York political figures, nizer for the Washington-based the governor, flanked by several
gay Bronx Democratic including Paterson, Independent Human Rights Campaign (HRC), dozen top Democratic leaders
State Senator Ruben Diaz gath- Mayor Michael Bloomberg, seek- “the event was 100-percent in the state, introduced his gay
ered outside the governor’s office ing reelection in November on focused on giving New Yorkers marriage measure.

ANDRES DUQUE/ BLABBEANDO.BLOGSPOT.COM

on Third Avenue in Midtown, a
crowd of marriage equality sup-
porters rallied on Sixth Avenue a
block east of Times Square.
The 5 p.m. rally on May 17
followed by four days the State
Assembly’s passage, by an 89-52
margin, of Democratic Governor
David Paterson’s marriage equal-
ity bill. Advocates are pressing to
garner the 32 votes needed to
move the measure through the
62-member State Senate before
it adjourns at the end of June.
With the Democrats holding only
32 votes and Diaz an implacable
foe, Senate Majority Leader Mal-
colm Smith will need to attract
at least some Republican votes
as well as walk back a couple
the Republican line, out lesbian
City Council Speaker Christine
Quinn, a Chelsea Democrat, and
Chelsea State Senator Thomas
Duane and Upper West Side
Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell,
two out gay Democrats who are
the marriage bill’s lead sponsors.
Other speakers included Rory
Hours after anti-gay protesters rallied, mar- O’Malley of Broadway Impact,
riage equality supporters turned out near Cathy Marino-Thomas and Ron
Times Square. Zacchi of Marriage Equality New
York, and Alan Van Capelle, the
of Democrats who have voiced executive director of the Empire
opposition. State Pride Agenda, New York’s
The marriage equality rally, LGBT lobby group.
organized by Broadway Impact, As was the case with the Diaz
a theater industry group devot- rally, pro-marriage equality dem-
ed to advancing the issue, drew onstrators filled several blocks of
leading lights from the stage — penned-in areas adjacent to the
one simple, easy way to contact
their senator. We wanted to make
it easier than voting for ‘Ameri-
can Idol.’” Those in attendance
were directed to visit broadway-
impact.com, which provides
straightforward access to identi-
fying a voter’s state senator and
contacting them.
Hayes explained that in put-
ting together the event, the pri-
mary political outreach was
made to the governor, the mayor,
Quinn, Duane, and O’Donnell.
Specific calls were not made
to other state senators. Duane
was joined by his colleagues Liz
Krueger and Eric Schneiderman,
two Manhattan Democrats, but
Smith, the Senate’s majority
At that time and on several
other recent occasions, Paterson
urged the Senate to schedule a
vote on marriage equality prior to
its June adjournment, whether
or not it was clear that the votes
for passage were there. Smith, in
contrast, has repeatedly said he
would allow floor consideration
only when the votes are there,
which he has said they are not.
However, on May 12, when the
Assembly moved the bill, the
majority leader issued his most
upbeat statement to date on the
issue, saying, “The momentum
is shifting — marriage equality
will be a reality in New York.”
䉴 SENATE, continued on p.30

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14 28 MAY – 10 JUN 2009
䉴 PROP 8, from p.1
that those couples — roughly 18,000, by
most estimates — who married in reli-
ance on its May 15, 2008, marriage deci-
sion, between mid-June and November
4, had “vested rights” in their marital
status that could not be retroactively
invalidated without raising serious due
WALK ON THE WILD SIDE process concerns. Therefore, those mar-
riages remain valid in every respect.
A benefit for Callen-Lorde Community Health Center Chief Justice Ronald George wrote
for the majority of the court, producing
a decision signed by five judges of the
seven-member bench. Justice Kathryn
Join us for the most anticipated Mickle Werdegar wrote a separate opin-
family-friendly event of New York City’s ion, agreeing with the court’s conclu-
sion that Prop 8 was validly enacted,
LGBT Pride season! but differing from the majority on what
the appropriate test is for determining
whether a proposed amendment is a
revision.
MONDAY Under the California Constitution’s
amendment process, a proposal to
JUNE 15TH, 2009 “amend” the Constitution by initiative
can be placed on the ballot through peti-
6:00 – 9:00 PM tions if they are signed by at least eight
percent of the total number of voters
in the most recent gubernatorial con-
at the test. However, a proposal to “revise” the
Constitution may only get to the ballot
JOHN TARTAGLIA CENTRAL through one of two procedures — either
by a supermajority vote of the Legisla-
Star of Broadway’s
Shrek The Musical and
PARK ZOO ture or in a state constitutional conven-
tion. Anything placed on the ballot, either
The Disney Channel’s “Johnny 5th Avenue & East 64th Street an initiative amendment or a revision,
Ramped entrance at East 60th Street requires only a majority of those voting
and the Sprites”
to be enacted.
Proposition 8 was certified for the
FOR MORE Please visit, www.callen-lorde.org ballot shortly after the State Supreme
Court’s marriage equality decision last
INFORMATION OR TO or call Ryan Ramirez, Development May 15. In that ruling, the court found
PURCHASE TICKETS... Associate at 212.271.7268 that same-sex couples are entitled to
marry. Because the right to marry is
fundamental and sexual orientation is
a “suspect classification,” for which the
state must provide a compelling rationale
for any disparate treatment, the burden
on the state was to provide a compel-
Spend an ling reason for excluding same-sex cou-
ples from civil marriage. The state did
enchanting not meet its burden, in the eyes of the
evening court’s majority. The court rejected the
state’s argument that providing domestic
in the zoo partnership for same-sex couples, car-
to support rying almost all the rights of marriage,
the health was sufficient to meet the constitutional
standard.
and wellness The proponents of Proposition 8 peti-
of our tioned the court to delay implementing
its marriage ruling until the election,
communities
but the court turned them down. On the
other hand, Prop 8 opponents sought
to throw the measure off the ballot as
a revision rather than an amendment,
but the court dismissed their petition as
well. After Prop 8 passed with about 52
percent of the vote, several lawsuits were
filed challenging it. Although the court
refused to block Prop 8’s implementation
pending a decision, it did agree to expe-
356 West 18th St U New York, NY 10011
dite its consideration of the challenge,
212-271-7200 U www.callen-lorde.org
and heard arguments in March.
Chief Justice George’s opinion,
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
although spanning 135 pages and exten-
sively discussing the initiative amend-
ment process, essentially boils down
to the conclusion that to be a revision,
a proposition must either significantly
affect a large number of constitutional
provisions or cause a substantial change
in the basic plan of California govern-
ment. George found that Prop 8 affected
only a handful of constitutional provi-
sions, adding a 14-word definition of
marriage to the Constitution, so the
measure would not be deemed a “revi-
sion” under the “quantitative test.” As to
the “qualitative” standard, he found that
Prop 8 did not substantially affect the
basic plan of California government.
George reached this conclusion after
asserting, as he had suggested in ques-
tioning during the oral argument, that
Prop 8 had little effect on the provision
of substantive legal rights to same-sex
couples in California, where the Legisla-
ture had previously provided for domes-
tic partnerships that carry almost all of
the rights, benefits, and responsibilities
of marriage under state law. While the
marriage equality ruling last May made
much of the significance of withholding
the term “marriage,” the new ruling min-
imized its significance.
George essentially interpreted Prop 8
as doing no more than eliminating some
terminology. He asserted that the initia-
tive left intact the balance of last year’s
decision, including the court’s holding
that same-sex couples are entitled to all
the rights and benefits of marriage. The
earlier-enacted Domestic Partnership
Law, which survives Prop 8, is not a mat-
ter of “legislative grace” but, in the wake
of last May’s ruling, a matter “of state
constitutional right.” However, in Prop
8’s aftermath, the substantive right to
marry that the court identified last year
should be re-characterized as the right
to have legal recognition for a couple’s
relationship, carrying all the rights and
benefits associated with marriage, but
without using that term. All that Prop 8
did, George concluded, was “carve a nar-
row exception” out of the privacy, due
process, and equal protection principles
the court relied on last year. That excep-
tion did not have a substantial enough
impact to constitute a change to the
basic plan of government, in his view.
Citing past rulings upholding amend-
ments on the death penalty and local
government taxing authority, George
asserted, “Quantitatively, Proposition
8 unquestionably has much less of an
effect on the preexisting state constitu-
tional scheme than virtually any of the
previous constitutional changes that our
past decisions have found to constitute
amendments rather than revisions.”
George found Attorney General Jerry
Brown’s separate challenge to Prop 8
as an improper attempt to modify an
“inalienable right” as “flawed” and based
on long-discredited 19th-century natu-
䉴 PROP 8, continued on p.15
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 28 MAY – 10 JUN 2009 15

䉴 PROP 8, from p.14
ral law theories. The chief justice found
no support for the contention that rights
identified in the State Constitution as
“inalienable” were somehow insulated
from the initiative amendment process,
pointing out several past occasions on
which the court upheld amendments
modifying rights derived from the same
portion of the Constitution.
Justice Werdegar disagreed with
George’s conclusion that the court’s prior
cases on the amendment/ revision issue
had clearly established that the only
qualitative measure was a proposition’s
impact on the structure of government.
She pointed to past decisions suggesting
that a significant impact on a fundamental
right could also be deemed a revision. She
agreed, however, with George’s contention
that Prop 8 did not have that sort of fun-
damental impact on the rights of same-sex
couples to gain legal recognition.
Justice Moreno, seizing on the same
prior cases Werdegar cited, found that
the court’s ruling had significantly
undermined the guarantee of equal
treatment by the government, and thus
was actually a revision of the state’s
equal protection clause. “I conclude that
requiring discrimination against a minor-
ity group on the basis of a suspect classi-
fication strikes at the core of the promise
of equality that underlies our California
Constitution and thus ‘represents such
a drastic and far-reaching change in the
nature and operation of our governmen- last year, the court was unanimous on its past decision and the state of the
tal structure that it must be considered in concluding that Prop 8 could not law when they married could be retroac-
a “revision” of the state Constitutional be read to retroactively invalidate the tively stripped of that status. According
rather than a mere “amendment” there- 18,000 marriages of same-sex couples to George, once a marriage takes place
of,’” Moreno wrote. He went on to argue performed prior to the passage of Prop the participants acquire “vested rights,”
that the ruling was not just a defeat for 8. Amendments under consideration and such rights cannot be taken away
same-sex couples, but for all minority are presumed to be prospective, George without due process of law, which would
groups who rely on the court to protect argued, and the Prop 8 proponents’ argu- not be satisfied by an election campaign
their right to equal treatment under the ment that they had made clear in their and an initiative vote.
law. election campaign that the measure was The court took no position about
Moreno also challenged head-on the intended to deny recognition to same-sex whether the state would have to con-
argument that Prop 8 was a “narrow” marriages “wherever and whenever” they tinue to recognize marriages performed
or “limited” exception to the Constitu- were performed did not adequately com- elsewhere during that window period of
tion’s equal protection argument. “The municate to voters that they were being June 16-November 5, 2008, stating in a
passionate public debate over whether asked to invalidate existing marriages. footnote that none of the petitions pre-
same-sex couples should be allowed to More significantly, the court was trou- sented to the court had raised the ques-
marry, even in a state that offers largely bled by the idea that couples who relied tion.
equivalent substantive rights through
the alternative of domestic partnership,
belies such a description,” he wrote.
Tellingly Moreno added, “But even
a narrow and limited exception to the
promise of full equality strikes at the
core of, and thus fundamentally alters,
the guarantee of equal treatment…
Promising equal treatment to some is
fundamentally different from promising
equal treatment to all. Promising treat-
ment that is almost equal is fundamen-
tally different from ensuring truly equal
treatment. Granting a disfavored minor-
ity only some of the rights enjoyed by the
majority is fundamentally different from
recognizing, as a constitutional impera-
tive, that they must be granted all of
those rights.”
Surprisingly, in light of the 5-4 vote

䉴 BRIEFS, from p.7 of Columbia’s elected representa-

participate in any marriages or
marriage celebrations they wish
— were made. Legislative lead-
ers, the bill’s sponsors, and the
New Hampshire Freedom to Marry
Coalition all signaled immedi-
ately that they could live with the
changes, and action by the Senate
and House were expected the fol-
lowing week.
Not so fast. In a heartbreak-
ingly close vote on May 20, the
House rejected the amended bill
by a 188-186 margin. That, how-
ever, did not settle the matter. A
motion to postpone indefinitely
consideration of the measure was
defeated by a 202-173 vote — a
margin greater than what the mar-
riage bill originally won by — and
a signal, in the eyes of the Human
Rights Campaign and Freedom to
Marry, that the House was serious
about working out a solution.
A legislative conference com-
mittee, including members of the
House and Senate, are now at
work at reviewing the amended
language in an effort to satisfy
both their colleagues and the gov-
ernor. HRC voiced optimism that
the bill could yet be enacted in the
next several weeks.
Congressmen
Aims to Fuss
With DC
Recognition
Two members of the US House
of Representatives, Republican
Jim Jordan of Ohio and Democrat
Dan Boren of Oklahoma, have
introduced a so-called DC Defense
of Marriage Act to overturn action
by the Washington City Council on
May 5 extending the city’s recogni-
tion to legal marriages by same-
sex couples in other jurisdictions.
According to the Washington
Blade, Jordan said, “The family is
truly the foundational institution of
our nation, and marriage is its cor-
nerstone. This is a fight we cannot
shy away from, and it is a fight we
have to win.” The measure reads,
“In the District of Columbia, for all
legal purposes, ‘marriage’ means
the union of one man and one
woman.”
In line with Washington’s Home
Rule Charter, Congress has 30 days
to intervene in any actions by the
City Council. At the time the rec-
ognition law was enacted, House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi released
a statement saying, “Congress
should not interfere with the inter-
nal decisions made by the District
tives — just as the Congress did
not intervene in the State of New
York’s recognition of valid marriage
contracts in other jurisdictions.”
David Catania, an out gay Inde-
pendent on the Council, vowed
when the recognition bill passed to
press for a marriage equality stat-
ute next.
Fed Employees’
Partnership Bill
Introduced
In a bipartisan gesture on LGBT
rights, out lesbian Representa-
tive Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin
Democrat, has been joined by
Florida Republican Representa-
tive Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Senator
Joe Lieberman, an Independent
Democrat from Connecticut, and
Maine Republican Susan Collins
in introducing the Domestic Part-
nership Benefits and Obligations
Act. In a May 20 release from
the Human Rights Campaign, its
president, Joe Solmonese, stat-
ed, “This legislation would allow
the federal government to keep
pace with other top employers. It
is not only a matter of equal pay
for equal work, but also the best
䉴 BRIEFS, continued on p.29
16 28 MAY – 10 JUN 2009 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
28 MAY - 10 JUN 2009

Crime /17
When a Client’s Not Perfect
Columbia law students take up the case of a gay man’s killer denied parole
BY DUNCAN OSBORNE Stanley Weinstock when he died, either
by way of a will or by an insurance pol-

A
t first blush, Bruce Wilborn is not
the ideal client for a lawyer. The
46-year-old gay man has been
incarcerated in Massachusetts since
1985, after being given a life sentence
with the possibility of parole.
Wilborn and his partner in 1983, Rob-
ert Gonzalez, conspired to kill Stanley
Weinstock, a 54-year-old gay man, to
collect the proceeds from his will that
named Wilborn as the beneficiary.
This was not an impulsive murder.
Wilborn and Gonzalez, who were 20 and
24 in 1985, made a pact to kill Weinstock
on October 11, 1983. They put a great
deal of thought into a plan that they
hoped would hide their involvement, and
they executed that plan 11 days later.
“It was a predetermined act of both of
these people that [Weinstock] should die
for their love and for money,” said Mat-
thew J. Ryan, Jr., the district attorney
who handled the 1985 trial, in a pub-
lished report from that year. “Either or
both of them expected to benefit from
icy.”
What drew the attention of a leading
gay rights lawyer and a group of law stu-
dents at Columbia University was how
Wilborn was treated when he applied for
parole in 2006. Three parole board mem-
bers made comments and asked ques-
tions that suggested that Wilborn was
denied parole because he was gay, he
charged in a later lawsuit.
“The judge did suggest that the kind
of behavior the parole board engaged in
would constitute discrimination had it
gone to trial,” said Keren Zwick, one of
six law students who worked on the case
with a private attorney, and Suzanne
B. Goldberg, director of the university’s
Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic.
At a second look, Wilborn might be
the perfect client. He had one disciplin-
ary infraction during his prison time,
and that was in 1991. He published two
books while incarcerated and is working
Columbia Law students Mollie Kornreich, Abram Seaman, and Keren Zwick have taken up Bruce Wilborn’s case out of
䉴 MURDERER, continued on p.30 their belief he was denied parole in the killing of a gay man because he, too, is gay.

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Metropolitan Community Church of New York

Homeless
Youth
ServicesSocial Spiritual
Service
A church of lesbian,
and Sylvia Rivera

Home
gay, bisexual
Food Pantry and transgender
people. Open to all.

Advocating
Marriage Equality and
Transgender Rights

The Reverend Pat Bumgardner, Pastor

Weekly Sunday Services: 9 am (Traditional), 11 am (Celebration)
3 pm (Mandarin) and 7 pm (Praise & Worship)
11 am features ASL interpreter (1st, 2nd and 3rd Sunday of each month)
446 West 36th St. bet. 9th & 10th Ave. NY, NY 10018
212-629-7440 website: www.mccny.org email: info@mccny.org
18 28 MAY – 10 JUN 2009
■ FILM
Celluloid Kicks Off Pride
Talk to In Chelsea this year, NewFest offers features, shorts, docs & erotics
a banker BY GARY M. KRAMER
T
his year’s NewFest,
who
the New York LGBT
Film Festival, which
runs June 4-11 in Chel-
sea, offers a diverse pro-
understands gram of shorts, features,
and documentaries. Gay
City News spoke to two of
your the filmmakers, and pre-
viewed another four of the
notable titles unspooling.
needs.
T
odd Verow’s “The
Boy with the Sun
in His Eyes,”
which has its world pre-
miere at NewFest (Jun.
9, 10:00 p.m., SVA 2),
marks in some ways a
80 Eighth Ave. radical new direction for
at 14th St. the filmmaker, who burst
on the scene two decades
101 West 14th St. ago as an enfant terrible.
This compelling and erot-
at Sixth Ave.
ic film is an entertaining
globe-hopping thriller, yet
800 Sixth Ave.
shares the impassioned
at 27th St. self-discovery that marks
the best of his previous
354 Sixth Ave. work.
at Washington Pl. John (Tim Swain, from
Verow’s “Between Some-
769 Broadway thing and Nothing”) meets
at 9th St. Solange (Mahogany Reyn-
olds) at the funeral of
their mutual friend Kevin
207 Varick St. (Josh Ubaldi), who com-
at Houston St. mitted suicide. Their con-
versation about knowing
885 Eighth Ave. someone well carries the
at 53rd St. subtext of John’s know-
ing very little about him-
self. Solange hires him
as a personal assistant
for a European TV pro-
Ask about a Plus account, gram she’s hoping to
with a world of benefits host. Wanting direction in
designed to help you his life, John follows this
live in financial balance. possibly untrustworthy
woman to Paris, Milan,
Call 1 866 837-2340 or visit and Berlin. There, he has
us.hsbc.com/balance today. a series of affairs with
handsome but possibly
untrustworthy guys.
The situation is not
as it seems, but it would
spoil the story to say just
how. Verow shoots the
low-budget film on DV,
which gives it intimacy.
There are many close-ups
of the characters — espe-
Deposit products offered by HSBC Bank USA, N.A.
Member FDIC. ©2009 HSBC Bank USA, N.A. cially during the numer-
ous sex scenes.
Valentin Plessy with Tim Swain (John) in Todd Verow’s “The Boy with the Sun in His Eyes.”
NEWFEST
SVA Theater
333 W. 23rd St.
Jun. 4-11
Schedule, tickets at
Newfest.org
Verow imbues the film
with a distinctive atmo-
sphere by deliberately
not making it a Euro-
pean travelogue. There
are a few street scenes,
but most of the action
takes place in the night-
clubs, restaurants, and
bedrooms where John
and Solange spend most
of their time. This spare
style suits the film. Unlike
his prior “mood” pieces,
this plot-driven drama
nicely builds its narrative
tension.
Verow establishes a dif-
ferent tone here, but con-
tinues to explore issues of
identity, love, and betray-
al, and these t h e m e s
resonate. “The Boy with
the Sun in His Eyes” may
not be as provocative as
Verow’s previous work,
but perhaps that’s what
makes it so exciting. He
challenges viewers to
change — just like his
characters.
Verow sat down with
Gay City News to discuss
what was new about work-
ing on a film that didn’t
have the autobiographi-
cal qualities of “Anony-
mous,” “Vacationland,”
and “Between Something
and Nothing,” all intensely
personal works.
“I wanted to take a
break from my own
stuff,” he explained.
“This film is based on a
novel by James Derek
Dwyer and real things
that happened to him.
It’s not autobiographical,
but I was very familiar”
with the story.
Verow’s perspective
as a detached observ-
er helped inform his
approach to the film,
his first literary adapta-
tion since “Frisk,” back
in 1995. He described
John as “a spectator in
his own life. He is not
really involved in all this
crazy stuff that is hap-
pening around him.”
This quality appealed to
Verow because, he said,
“So many times in life
these days, people don’t
get involved. We watch
things, but we don’t get
absorbed in them.”
The passion that char-
acterizes the numer -
ous sex scenes is also a
departure for the film-
maker. “It was a con-
scious decision,” Verow
said. “I had done so much
explicit sex in other mov-
ies, for this one the chal-
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
lenge was to make the sex
as erotic and sensual and
sexy as possible without
showing anything. What I
wanted to capture in the
sex scenes was the inten-
sity of a one-night stand
and how it’s physical, but
at the same time fleeting.”
“The Boy with the
Sun in His Eyes” suc-
ceeds in this respect, and
in other ways as well.
Verow eschews the tra-
ditional genre film, mix-
ing elements of comedy,
romance, action-thriller,
and drama in one satisfy-
ing package.
Despite the ways “The
Boy with the Sun in His
Eyes” dif fers from his
other work, the filmmak-
er sees it as another of
his coming of age films.
“A lot of people don’t
come of age until much
later in life,” Verow said.
“John’s doing everything
he’s supposed to do,” yet
he is drawn to the way his
friend who committed sui-
cide approached things.
“I would hope that people
at some point would say,
‘Why am I here? What’s
going on? What’s the
purpose of my life, and if
there is no purpose, what
am I going to do?’” Verow
concluded.
䉴 NEWFEST, continued on p.19
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 28 MAY – 10 JUN 2009 19

䉴 NEWFEST, from p.18

“A
Place to Live”
(Jun. 8, 4:00
p.m., SVA 2)
is a warm, inspiring, and
at times heartbreaking
portrait of seven LGBT
seniors in Los Ange-
The
les. The subjects of this
affecting documentary
are hoping to live at the
Math
newly constructed Tri-
angle Square — the first
affordable housing com-
munity for queer elders
of
in America. D i re c t o r

New York
Carolyn Coal deftly
introduces the prospec-
tive tenants by illumi-
nating their fascinating

backstories.
Reaching adulthood
in the 1950s, these men
and women confronted
confor mity — several
discuss getting married,
and quickly divorcing —
before establishing lives
of independence. Each
senior talks about strug-
gling with shame, loneli-
ness, and being closet-
ed; what unites them is
their search for a place
to belong in a society
that never embraced
them. While every story
is poignant and funny,
some, such as that of
Margo, an activist who
describes living pay-
check to paycheck, are
especially touching. The
despair conveyed here
makes clear why T ri-
angle Square represents
a beacon of hope for a
“To deposit her in a tacky,
ramshackle trailer park on
LA’s outskirts was difficult.”
good life in her golden
years.
“A Place to Live” chron-
icles the emotional roll-
ercoaster the seniors go
through as they make
their tenancy applica-
tions, sweat out a lottery
to get in, and eventu-
ally to move to Triangle
Square. Coal provides
wonder ful, emotional
moments, such as a
speech Margo gives to a
crowd at the building’s
grand opening. But there
Guillermo Villegas (Ryo) with Jorge Becerra (Kieri), and Villegas alone in the mythological second half of Julián Hernán-
dez’s “Raging Sun, Raging Sky.”
are also powerful coun-
terpoints, such as the
candidate who lost out on
a slot and instead pur -
chased a trailer home.
Celebrity senior
advocate Robert Gant
(“Queer as Folk”) offers
a congratulatory testi-
mony to the success of
T riangle Square, but
what truly resonates in
this film is the light Coal
shines on how we treat
and care for our LGBT
elders. For all the pain-
ful stories shared and
success achieved in “A
Place to Live,” there are
hundreds of thousands
more. It quickly becomes
clear that a safe place for
LGBT elders needs to be
established in every city
across the country.
In a recent phone
interview, Coal praised
the seven men and
women who opened
their lives up to her over
the 18-month period of
shooting the documenta-
ry. She recalled in partic-
ular the enthusiasm she
felt as they approached
the application process.
“There was a glee and a
hope when they shared
their dr eams of what
it would be like to live
there,” Coal recalled.
“We got many of them
in on a tour as it was
being constructed, and
seeing the awe on their
faces, and having them
decide how they would
decorate, it was so sweet
and charming.” With a
laugh, she added, “When
we showed them the cor-
ner apartment, they all
wanted that one.”
One of the purposes
of making the film, Coal
explained, was to tell a
story that gets too little
attention in the queer
community. “There is
a consensus that [the
living.
choices
LGBT community] is
fabulously wealthy,”
she said. “But we are a
whole variety of ethnici-
ties and backgrounds.
Those seniors who have
fought for our rights are
retiring on $700 a month
and can’t stay with their
partners” in retirement
judgments
homes.
The film underscores
that point by showing
how anyone can end up
scrambling for afford-
able housing. “A Place
to Live” offers success
stories, but also more
Talk to bankers who
dire ones that don’t end value your differences as
well. When Coal shot the much as your finances.
woman who moved into
a trailer park, she cried. Call 1 866 837-2340 or visit
“To deposit her in a us.hsbc.com/balance today.
tacky, ramshackle trail-
er park community on
the outskirts of LA was
difficult,” she said. “You
are there to observe and
collect information, and
to watch that was diffi-
cult. I couldn’t imagine
her there.”
But this story eventu-
Deposit products offered by HSBC Bank USA, N.A.
Member FDIC. ©2009 HSBC Bank USA, N.A.
䉴 NEWFEST, continued on p.25

20/ Books
Articulating the I
Abdellah Taïa, in his first novel, explores the erotic in his Moroccan tradition
BY MICHAEL T. LUONGO
“S
alvation Army” is the
first novel by Abdel-
lah Taïa, acknowl-
edged as modern Morocco’s
first openly gay autobiograph-
ical writer. Now a resident of
Paris, he is also the author of
the non-fiction books “Mon
Maroc” and “Le Rouge du
Tarbouche,” as well as other
works. Bor n in 1973, he is
relatively unknown to Ameri-
cans, but had a part in Parvez
Sharma’s 2007 film “Jihad for
Love,” about gays and Islam.
“Salvation Army” feels like
a memoir, focusing on a gay
Moroccan struggling with
sexuality, family, and find-
ing himself as a writer. The
novel was recently translated
from French into English by
Frank Stock and published
by Semiotexte, with an intro-
duction by Edmund White. It
is strongly erotic, particularly
in its discussion of Moroccan
family life, likely challenging
preconceptions of an Ameri-
can audience. Taïa discusses
his book and life with Gay City
News.
MICHAEL T. LUONGO: Is
“Salvation Army” a novel or a
memoir? What is true, what is
not?
A B D E L L A H TA Ï A : “ S a l -
vation Army” is definitely a
novel, not a memoir. Yes, all
my books are autobiographi-
cal, but they are also trans-
formed fragments of my life in
Morocco and France where I
have been living since 1998. It
is very important for me that
readers know that the “I” in
my books is me. I come from a
society where I didn’t exist as
an individual, where I couldn’t
speak out, not only about
my homosexuality but about
everything related to my iden-
tity and my intimate self.
MTL: When I read this
book, in the beginning, when
you are young and writing on
Morocco and the life you want-
ed to escape, there is a strong
sense of longing. This part of
the book also seems to read
the best, as if it were worked
Abdellah Taïa, acknowledged as modern Morocco’s first openly gay autobiographical writer, has
published his first novel.
SALVATION ARMY
By Abdellah Taïa
Semiotexte (semiotexte.com)
$14.95; 160 pages
on over a long period of time
and polished more than other
parts.
AT : “Salva t i o n A r m y ” i s
only 160 pages long, but it
took me more than three
years to write. Actually I
wrote the second part, where
I speak about the vacation
in Tangiers and my love for
my older brother, Abdelkébir,
in New York in 2004 when I
was teaching at Bard College.
This section is only about 30
pages long, but I worked on it
for more than eight months…
I think all creation has its
basis in childhood. Some call
it the ‘maladie de l’enfance.”
And indeed it is a malady
from which we cannot really
recover. This notion is pres-
ent in all my books and influ-
ences my style and the way I
see the world.
MTL: There is a constant
sense of the erotic in the first
part of the book — from the
way you talk about your par-
ents making love within ear -
shot of the children, the way
you dream of sex with your
br other and feel as if you
betrayed him by having sex
with another man. They are
exceptionally honest, if not
shocking, passages. What
does your family think of this?
AT: I definitely love my par-
ents, but I cannot allow them
to inter fere in my writing
because they would censor
everything. To write means
to be totally free. Although
my books are based on my
personal experiences, the
stories I write are mine, nar -
rated from my own point of
view. I know there is a certain
sexual atmosphere in “Sal-
vation Ar my” which might
shock some readers, particu-
larly references to incest. For
my family, my books don’t
mean anything. They already
think I am crazy. And I don’t
expect them to appreciate
what I write. In Morocco, we
don’t speak about things that
matter for the individual. I
am aware of the fact that the
silence I lived in made me a
writer. I was in love with my
big brother; he influenced my
artistic choices and even now
my sexual fantasies.
MTL: What did the Michel
Foucault character represent
for you? Hope? An example? A
dream?
AT: The man who worked for
the “Salvation Army” in Gene-
va in the third part of the book
looked exactly like French
philosopher Michel Foucault.
I have always been fascinated
by Foucault. Not only intel-
lectually but also physically.
When I was 19 years old, I had
this fantasy of being his stu-
䉴 SALVATION ARMY, continued on p.21
28 MAY - 10 JUN 2009
14 DAYS
14 NIGHTS
䉴 MAY 30, from p.12
it the following day, and salvation arrives
in the form of Brown (the UPS delivery
person), who brings Susan the training
materials and a mysterious gift. There’s
no such thing as a magic wand...or is
there? The cast includes Meghan Cary,
Donnetta Lavinia Grays, Irene Long-
shore, and Danielle Quisenberry. ART/
NY, the 3rd fl. Mitchell Room, 520
Eighth Ave., btwn. 37th & 36th Sts.,
7:30 p.m. Free.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
FAMILY
SUN.MAY.31
A Generation of
Service
Center Kids, the LGBT Community
Center’s program to help create, nurture,
and advocate for LGBT families, is cel-
ebrating its 20th anniversary with a ben-
efit brunch. 208 W. 13th St., room 301,
noon-3 p.m. A mimosa cocktail recep-
tion begins at noon, with food served at
1 p.m. Children of all ages welcome, and
child care for those under 8 is available
on a limited basis. Family tickets begin
at $100, with opportunities for support
at higher levels. For more information,
call Center Kids at 212-620-7310, email
tboggis@gaycenter.org or centerkids@
gaycenter.org, or visit gaycenter.org/
families.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
NIGHTLIFE
Jocks &
Jockstraps
The Truck Stop party is back with
music by Gustavo and lots of hotties.
Penthouse at the Park, Tenth Ave. at
17th St., 6 p.m. Admission is $5 before
8, $7 after that. For more information,
visit truckstopparty.com
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
COMEDY
MON.JUN.1
Raw Talent
Billy Eichner, the creator and star of
the critically acclaimed comedy hit “Cre-
ation Nation,” steps up to fill the gay
slot as a comic with the raw realness of
Richard Pryor or Chris Rock with “Billy
Eichner: Gay, White And Terrified!,” his
first solo show. Eichner unleashes his
comic fury on closeted stars, hypocritical
䉴 JUN 1, continued on p.22
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
䉴 SALVATION ARMY, from p.20
dent and perhaps more, his slave. My
first name, Abdellah, means the “slave
of God” in Arabic. Michel Foucault is
a kind of god to me.
MTL: This book is your br eak-
through for the U.S. market. You are
already well known in France and
Morocco. What do want Americans to
know about you?
AT: In the ’60s and the ’70s, many
Moroccan political leaders and intel-
lectual figures were killed or impris-
oned by Hassan II, king of Morocco
from 1961 to 1999. These people had
a dream for Morocco, a big dream.
This dream was killed and replaced by
fear. I was born in 1973 in Rabat into
a poor family inhabited by this fear. I
feel today as if I have to destroy this
fear, the political one, the religious
one, and the familial one. We cannot
continue like this in Morocco.
More than 50 percent of the Moroc-
can population is under the age of
25. I feel it is my responsibility to be
an example of freedom. That is why,
although I am totally aware of the reli-
gious and familial condemnation of it,
it is very important to me to speak out
about my homosexuality, my individ-
uality. It is a signal that something is
happening today in Morocco. The gov-
ernment won’t admit it, but it exists.
28 MAY – 10 JUN 2009
I am not the only one who wants to
light the torch to revive the Moroccan
dream. The Islamist parties’ ideas are
gaining ground daily in Morocco and
in the Arab world. We have to destroy
this new fear that they are trying to
instill in us. I think my books, aside
from their literary aspects, are also
very political. Something big can
come from Morocco.
“I was in love with my big brother;
he influenced my artistic choices and
even now my sexual fantasies.”
MTL: What is it like to be known as
the first openly gay Moroccan?
AT: It was never my intention to be
the first openly gay Moroccan. For years I
thought I was the only real gay person in
my country. I talked openly in the media
about my homosexuality because it was
already a given in my books. And I can-
not bear the kind of hypocrisy I had to
endure in Morocco. As the great French
writer André Gide said, it was “une
necessité intérieure” to reveal myself to
the world as I am, without a mask.
MTL: You live in Paris, which has
a large population from the Maghreb,
or French North Africa. What hold
does Paris have for gays from the
Maghreb?
AT: I don’t know much about gays
from the Maghreb living in Paris.
But I can talk about what Paris gives
me. The possibility to be myself and
achieve something without being
hindered by the fact that I am poor or
coming from a modest background.
In Paris, I forget that I am poor and
I have all kinds of liberating experi-
ences. To become a writer is one of
them. To become a happy gay man is
something I want to achieve in Paris.
MTL: You talk a lot in the book of
feeling objectified, at times as almost
a prostitute or a toy for Western men.
What stereotypes do Westerners have
of gays from the Maghreb you want to
break down?
,'/%+/.%=@CD■NNN%GKFNE=@CD=<JK%FI>
21
AT: I felt this danger immediately
upon arrival in Europe. For some
people I was a sexual object. Not
an object of desire, a sexual object.
For me there is a dif ference. I can
understand that a French or Ger -
man man is attracted by a Moroccan
or a Tunisian boy. There is no harm
in this. I, for instance, am attract-
ed by Turkish or British men. The
problem is when we, the people from
the Maghreb or Arab world, are seen
only as sexual objects by Western-
ers. When this becomes a system, a
continuation of colonization denying
any psychological depth to people
like me.
MTL: What do you see as the future
of gay rights in Morocco?
AT: One of the people I like the
most in Morocco is Samir Bergachi, a
22-year -old man who recently creat-
ed a gay rights group called Kif-kif. He
does a great deal in trying to change
the Moroccan mentality. I support
him, and I defend him and his cour -
age in the Moroccan media. It’s the
least I can do. At the same time I know
that homosexuality is still illegal and
can incur a three-year prison sen-
tence. It means that we must continue
the struggle, not only as gay men but
as Moroccan individuals. And again I
think that literature can be a strong
weapon in that fight.
Sponsors: The Phoenix, Provincetown Banner,
HBO, Bacardi, Crown & Anchor, Art House,
Mass. Cultural Council, Visitors Service Bureau

22/ Theater
Girls Gone Wild
Strong women face game-changers in “9 to 5,” “Mary Stuart”
BY CHRISTOPHER BYRNE
M
ary, Queen of Scots,
and Elizabeth I
engaged in a power
struggle that lasted years, end-
ing only when Elizabeth ordered
Mary’s beheading. That was the
way things were handled back
then –– only one of them could
survive.
Schiller’s 1800 play, a fic-
tionalized account of the battle
royal between the two queens,
is a timeless tale of government
intrigue, skullduggery, and
gamesmanship. In Peter Oswald’s
gripping new translation from the
German, tensions run high. This
is no small feat given that a large
portion of the first act is devoted
to exposition about the politi-
cal factions on both sides of the
battle. We see the warm and pas-
sionate Mary juxtaposed against
the colder and more strategic
Elizabeth. Mary has been impris-
oned on suspicion of plotting to
assassinate Elizabeth, regain the
throne of England, and restore
Catholicism. Elizabeth proves the
masterful tactician, achieving her
ends while escaping direct culpa-
bility.
The scenes shift from one
woman to the other, as their sup-
porters, honest and otherwise,
scramble around them. The
structure accentuates the differ-
ences between the two, building
inexorably to the scene when the
two meet –– a fiction concocted
by Schiller, but no less galvaniz-
ing for its inaccuracy.
The scene, which opens with
Mary reveling in a torrential rain
that is pure theatrical magic,
is titanic in the truest sense, as
both are struggling for their very
lives. The drive and excitement
director Phyllida Lloyd brings to
the piece come fully to a head in
this scene. Watching Janet McT-
eer as Mary and Harriet Walter
as Elizabeth is easily one of the
high points of the season –– two
accomplished actresses in total
control of their craft going at
their parts hammer and tongs,
dominating the stage and at the
same time evoking sympathy.
It’s not just a classical catfight;
one truly feels for these women
and what is at stake for each.
Still, the production is not
Harriet Walter as Elizabeth and Janet McTeer as Mary, Queen of Scots, in “Mary Stuart.”
MARY STUART
Broadhurst Theatre
235 W. 44th St.
Tue. at 7 p.m.; Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m.;
Wed., Sat. at 2 p.m.; Sun. at 3 p.m.
$64.00-$116.50; telecharge
Or 212-239-6200
9 TO 5
Marquis Theatre
1535 Broadway at W. 45th St.
Tue. at 7 p.m.; Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m.;
Wed., Sat. at 2 p.m.; Sun. at 3 p.m.
$66.50-$126.50; ticketmaster.com
Or 212-307-4100
perfect. Imported from London’s
Donmar Warehouse, the show
looks as though many design
choices were dictated by bud-
gets and expediency rather than
a coherent vision. The women,
including the wonderful Maria
Tucci as Mary’s waiting woman,
are all dressed in period clothes,
while the men are in contempo-
rary suits. One supposes this is
to make a comment on the gray
sameness of bureaucracy and
politics through the ages, but it
feels labored.
Anthony Ward did the set as
well as the costumes, and it’s
mostly a bland, dark wall that
might as well have been a bare
stage. Hugh Vanstone’s lighting
makes dramatic — and often
highly theatrical — impact, pro-
viding the only real visual inter-
est outside the rainstorm.
Beyond the two queens, the
rest of the cast is workmanlike,
though admittedly not overly
blessed in the script. John Ben-
jamin Hickey is best of the men
as Leicester, who has been a
lover to both queens. Yet all is
forgiven with the performances
of McTeer and Walter, and, after
all, what queen can resist two
queens having at one another?
P
ower games are also at
the center of the new
musical “9 to 5,” a stag-
ing of the 1980 film that pitted
a trio of career gals against their
sexist boss. With a book by Patri-
cia Resnick, adapted from her
screenplay, the story of Violet, a
JOAN MARCUS
hard-nosed single mom trying
to rise into management, Judy,
a woman whose husband aban-
doned her, forcing her to try to
make a living on her own for the
first time, and Doralee, a sexy
blond with a steel trap brain and
a golden heart, is as fresh and
funny as it was three decades
ago.
This is classic screwball come-
dy about the insanity that ensues
when the three women kidnap
boss Franklin Hart after they
think they’ve poisoned him. Sure,
it’s ridiculous; it’s also endearing
fun from beginning to end.
The fast-moving piece, direct-
ed with flair and precision by Joe
Montello, goes at lighting speed.
Andy Blankenbuehler’s inspired
choreography is witty, effective,
and appropriate for the period,
as are William Ivey Long’s cos-
tumes.
Dolly Parton’s music and lyr-
ics are outstanding. Aided by
orchestrators Bruce Cough-
䉴 GIRLS GONE WILD, continued on p.23
28 MAY - 10 JUN 2009
14 DAYS
14 NIGHTS
䉴 JUN 1, from p.20
black presidents, and the state of Face-
book in a post-racial America. Directed
by Benjamin Salka, with production
design by Richard Dibella. Joe’s Pub at
the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St.,
below Cooper Sq. Jun. 1, 8 & 12, 7:30
p.m. Tickets are $20 at joespub.com. For
table reservations, with a two-drink or
$12 food minimum, call 212-539-8778.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
BOOKS
On Stage, Off Stage
Frank Anthony Polito reads from his
brand new novel, “Drama Queers,” at
Barnes & Noble, 2289 Broadway at
82nd St., 7 p.m. On Jun. 5, he holds a
book launch party at 1984 @ The Pyra-
mid Club, 101 Avenue A, btwn. Sixth
& Seventh Sts., 10 p.m.-4 a.m.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
BOOKS
TUE.JUN.2
They Were the
Originals
On two successive nights, pioneering
gay and lesbian authors will get together
for not-to-miss panels to discuss the
bold new literary world that emerged
in Stonewall’s wake. On Jun. 2, Martin
Duberman (“Stonewall”), David Bergman
(editor of “Gay American Autobiography”),
Jaime Manrique (“Eminent Maricones”),
and author and pioneer gay publisher
Felice Picano (“Art and Sex in Greenwich
Village”) look back on the 40th anniversary
of the riots that in many ways started or at
least jet-propelled it all. On Jun. 3, Kate
Millett (“Sexual Politics”), Honor Moore
(“The Bishop’s Daughter,” “Poems From
the Women’s Movement”), and post-punk
poet performer and author Eileen Myles
(“Cool For You”) discuss what effect Stone-
wall had on lesbians and all women fight-
ing for their rights. Barnes and Noble
Bookstore, 2289 Broadway at 82nd
St., 7 p.m., both evenings.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
MUSIC
WED.JUN.3
Please Heed the
Call
Uptown Express, under the direction
of James Followell for 16 years, ever
since this dynamic pop group was born
䉴 JUN 3, continued on p.26
28 MAY - 10 JUN 2009

Dance /23
First Ladies
Honoring living legacies; dream lovers’ dilemma
BY BRIAN MCCORMICK FLY: FIVE FIRST LADIES OF DANCE
Kumble Theater for the
Performing Arts

A
s part of 651 Arts’ 20th
anniversary season, they
have gathered together
five of the greatest choreogra-
phers — who just happen to be
black women — for a program
that seems destined to mark the
beginning of a new American
century, and the golden age of
Obama.
“FLY: Five First Ladies of
Dance” features performances
by some of the most influential
Long Island University’s
Brooklyn Campus
Flatbush Ave. at Dekalb Ave.
May 30 at 8 p.m.; May 31 at 3 p.m.
$30; $25 for students & seniors
kumbletheater.tix.com or
718-488-1624
MARIE BRASSARD
“Jimmy”
PS122
150 First Ave. at E. Ninth St.
Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 7 p.m.

contemporary dancer/choreog-
raphers — Germaine Acogny,
Carmen de Lavallade, Dianne
McIntyre, Bebe Miller, and
Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. As danc-
ANTOINE TEMPÉ
Through Jun. 14
Jun. 12-13 at 10 p.m.
$20; $15 for students & seniors;
$10 for PS122 members; ps122.org
Germaine Acogny is one of five dancer/ cho-

ers, company–founders, and
inspiration to countless others,
these groundbreaking artists
are first ladies in every sense
of the word. They have helped
shape the language and trajec-
tory of contemporary dance, in
the US and abroad, as they have
continued to raise the artistic
bar and inspire the contempo-
rary dance world with vital work
and fresh ideas.
Michelle ought to be there,
with her Mom and the girls; I
got hope.
hairdresser, comes alive in the
dream of an American general.
A barber, Mitchell, falls madly
in love with Jimmy, and as they
are about to kiss for the first
time, the general dies, leav-
ing the two in limbo, in a state
of pure pleasure. After staying
suspended for 50 years, Jimmy
starts to come alive again, but
to his despair, he is now trapped
in the dreams of a Montréal
actress.
Playwright, director, and per-
former Brassard has created
innovative imagistic theater and
SIMON GUILBAULT
reographers to appear this weekend at LIU’s
Kumble Theater.
rative. She studied at the Con-
servatoire d’Art Dramatique de Marie Brassard’s performs her solo piece, “Jimmy,” about love, desire, and the creative process,
Quebec, then joined Theatre at PS122 through June 14.
Repere, an experimental collec-
tive. For more than a decade, tor of PS122, said that present- actress,” Brassard confessed in
she collaborated with the multi- ing “Jimmy” was a recurring an interview. “I wanted to study
media theater playwright/direc- dream of his. “The fact that dance in Asia.” But her work is
tor Robert Lepage, touring the Marie has only appeared in New not limited to any one particular
world. York City in LePage’s work will discipline, and her employment
“Jimmy,” Brassard’s first solo finally be remedied. It is a dark of other devices is as interest-
play, premiered in June 2001 and dangerous virtuosic work of ing as the content. The solo tour
at the Festival de Theatre des theater. It has toured the world de force experiments with voice,
Ameriques. It toured all over a dozen times and is perhaps imagery, and movement creat-

I
n Marie Brassard’s solo
performance about love,
desire, and the creative
process, Jimmy, a homosexual
film for Canadian and interna- Europe, presented in the origi- the greatest of the solo works ing a hypnotic, surreal world.
tional audiences, using mime, nal French, as well as English made by this extraordinary, sin- “Theater has always been multi-
dance, music, and lighting as and German. gular artist.” media,” asserted Brassard. “We
ways of dislocating linear nar- Vallejo Gantner, artistic direc- “I never thought I would be an have to make theater evolve.”

䉴 GIRLS GONE WILD, from p.22
lin, Stephen Oremus, and Alex
Lacamoire, Parton turned her
pop/country style into a great-
sounding Broadway score, with-
out losing any of her signature
harmonies and chord progres-
sions. Of course the title song
is familiar to everyone, and her
newer hit, “Backwoods Barbie,”
sounds great, but songs like “Let
Love Grow” and “Get Out and
Stay Out” are likely to become
Broadway classics.
The real reason, though, to
run out and see this show are
the exceptional performances of
the four lead characters. Allison
singer, she certainly puts over
a song. Megan Hilty, in spec-
tacular voice, channels Parton
as Doralee, yet stamps the part
with an individuality that cap-
tures the character’s full range
convincingly. Stephanie J. Block,
as Judy, finally has the role that
will make her a star for years to
come. She has the kind of voice
one dreams of hearing on Broad-
way, and a magnificent range,
vocally and as an actress. These
three women, though very differ-
ent, make a great team in facing
boss Franklin Hart, the reliably
excellent Mark Kudisch, whose
fantastic baritone and comic flair
make him a worthy adversary.
JOAN MARCUS

Janney commands the stage as I admit I didn’t have high

Violet, giving one of the stron- hopes for this show when it was
gest performances in a musical first announced. Sometimes it’s
this year. If she’s not a traditional nice to be wrong. Megan Hilty as Doralee, Allison Janney as Violet, and Stephanie J. Block as Judy in “9 to 5.”
 28 MAY - 10 JUN 2009

24/ Gallery
Manifest Destiny
When America headed west, where did it arrive?
BY GREGORY MONTREUIL INTO THE SUNSET: PHOTOGRAPHY’S
IMAGE OF THE AMERICAN WEST

“I
nto the Sunset: Pho-
tography’s Image of
the American West,” an
exhibit at the Museum of Mod-
ern Art running through June
8, reveals much about the
American psyche and incor -
porates an astonishing range
of photographs. The trajectory
portrayed is sweeping, despite
a relative brief 140-year span,
and swings from idealization to
disillusion. The juxtaposition
of these wide-ranging images
provides clues about the role
of photography in Americans’
fascination with the West.
Timothy O’Sullivan’s “Des-
ert Sand Hills near Sink of
Carson, Nevada” (1867), which
shows a lonely wagon pulled
Museum of Modern Art
11 W. 53rd St.
Wed., Thu., Sat.-Mon.,
10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Fri., 10 a.m.-8 p.m.;
Jun. 8 until 8 p.m.
Through Jun. 8
$20; $16 for seniors; $12 for students
moma.org
lure of resources and riches.
Pristine images of a plentiful
Eden give way to Daruis Kin-
sey’s ” Felling a Fir Tree, 51
Feet in Circumference” (1906).
As organized transport made
it possible to extract resources
and move people, the West’s
transfor mation inevitably
advanced.
Many of the photos show

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK

by four horses traversing the the hardscrabble nature of
desert, conveys the courage of the West, pitting man against
early pioneers in braving such overwhelming nature. Stacy
vast, challenging terrain. One Studio’s image of “Buffalo Bill,

People who inhabit Western photos Cindy Sherman’s “Untitled Film Still #43” (1979) gelatin silver print, 7 9/16 x 9 7/16 in., offers a contemporary and self-conscious interpretation of
embody a common theme that the myth of the West.

this is a land of survivors.
hundred years later, Irving
Penn, in “Hell’s Angels, San
Francisco,” (1967) portrays
another sort of pioneer who
has conquered the roads.
Andrew J. Russell’s pho-
tograph “Construction Train
Bear River” (1868) points to
the entrepreneurial spirit of
the intrepid pioneers and the
Pawnee Bill and the entire
W i l d We s t S h o w a n d F a r
East troupe, in front of tents”
( 1 9 0 9 ) s p r e a d t h e We s t ’ s
allure by bringing its myth on
the road to those who couldn’t
be there.
People who inhabit Western
photos — including outlaws,
miners, native peoples, reli-
gious sects, and adventurers
— embody a common theme
that this is a land of survivors.
Graciela Iturbide’s “Cholas I,
White Fence, East Los Ange-
les” (1986) portrays a group
of four Hispanic women with
one child and no lack of tough
attitude.
Other sections of the exhi-
bition focus on unbridled
development — cars, endless
highways, housing develop-
ments, and parking lots by
m a s t e r s E d w a r d We s t o n ,
Edward Ruscha, and William
Garnett. One wonders if para-
dise is lost. But there are also
contemporary dreamers, mis-
fits, and Hollywood starlets
and wannabes. Cindy Sher -
man’s “Untitled Film Still #43”
(1979) and Richard Prince’s
“Untitled (Cowboy)” (2003)
explore the myth of the West
with self conscious intent.
When we turn our view
westward, all is not majestic.
The lure of the West remains
constant, yet it is hard to
imagine how quickly it has
developed with seemingly
little thought of planning for
the larger good. The triumph
of white civilization coupled
with photography’s role in the
quick and astonishing trans-
formation of the West created
more questions than answers.

470 West 23d. St at 10th Ave., New York, NY 10011

212-206-9065 / info@ilbordellony.com

Our Executive Chef Ayesha J. Nurdjaja will bring your palate on a culinary excursion
through the Mediterranean coastline in a way you have never experienced before.
Brunch - $10 Brunch options include a mimosa or ginger Bloody Mary
Lunch - Small plates, various flatbreads, pastas, and many vegetarian options avaliable.
Dinner - Unforgetable dishes such as lamb tagine, whole grilled red snapper, and much more.
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WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 28 MAY – 10 JUN 2009 25

Tom Bott (Jonno), Alice Payne (Nessa), Wayne Virgo (Cal),and Marc Laurent (Olivier) in Simon Pearce’s “Shank.”

䉴 NEWFEST, from p.19 Ryo lying naked in a cave are indelible —

ally had a happy ending. “She did end up
at Triangle Square eight months later,”
Coal said.
but viewers may grow tired of trying to
make sense of it all. The actors are strik-
ingly beautiful, and Hernández insists on
challenging viewers, but he alternately
turns them on and bore them. Neverthe-

M
exican writer/director Julián less, his status as the foremost experi-
Hernández’s gripping roman- mental erotic filmmaker is undeniable.
tic drama, “Raging Sun, Rag-

ing Sky” (Jun. 11, 3:00 p.m., SVA 2),
contains a minimum of dialogue and a
maximum of nudity. Running a stagger-
ing 191 minutes and filmed predominant-
ly in luminous black and white, the film
artfully depicts a love triangle centered
on Ryo (Guillermo Villegas), who adores
Kieri (Jorge Becerra) but is desired by Tari
(Javier Oliván). This ambitious, experi-
mental film has many hypnotic and erotic
moments; an interrupted bathroom tryst
may leave viewers breathless, and several
scenes of furtive couplings in and around
a movie theater (where the filmmaker’s
erotic short “Bramadero” unspools) are
extremely passionate.
“Raging Sun, Raging Sky,” however,
eschews character development and
identification, especially in its last hour,
where the story shifts to color and a
mythological narrative unfolds. This
section of the film is no less beautiful
—images of Kieri unburying himself and
“T
raining Rules” (Jun. 7, 3:00
p.m., SVA 2) is an inspiration-
al documentary that address-
es the issue of homophobia in women’s
sports, in particular, the regimen of Penn
State women’s basketball coach Rene
Portland: “No drinking, no drugs, no les-
bians.” For player Jennifer Harris, it was
time to call coach Portland on her dis-
crimination. Out filmmaker Dee Mos-
bacher interviews players from the past
30 years whose passion for the game
ended with Portland dismissing them
on the basis of their sexual orientation.
They discuss the fear, pain, psychological
abuse, and shame they experienced as
members of Portland’s team –– and how
complaining would have likely ended any
chances of playing for the WNBA. Port-
land declined to be interviewed for the
film, but the testimonies of the women
䉴 NEWFEST, continued on p.27

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281 W 12th St @ 4th St. NYC 212-243-9041

26/ Theater
Daddy Dearest
A prodigal father returns from Korea to mend familial fences
BY DAVID KENNERLEY
W
hen it comes to mile-
stone birthdays,
Americans love to
celebrate rites of passages for
the young — Sweet 16, High
School Grad 18, Alcohol Legal
21. The Jews have their bar/
bat mitzvah. Latinas have their
quinciñera. But in Korea, the
most revered birthday is hwan-
gap, the 60th birthday, which
marks the completion of the
Asian zodiac cycle and rebirth
after a long life well-lived. And
it is around this auspicious
event that playwright Lloyd
Suh has chosen to construct
“American Hwangap,” a sav-
agely savvy comedy about the
clash between generations, and
American and Korean cultures.
That this hwangap is set
in a grubby suburb of West
Texas and not Korea is just
the beginning. Patriarch Min
Suk Chun has retur ned to
the US after abandoning his
family 15 years earlier, to find
them fractured and flounder-
ing. His eldest son, David,
now a high-flying, hands-free
phoning investment banker
(the play takes place in 2008,
just before the market tum-
ble) has become a hardened
shell with the soul of a robot.
Chun’s twice-divorced daugh-
ter, Esther (Michi Barall), is a
serial graduate student who
seems one prescription away
from a nervous breakdown.
And Ralph (a boyish Peter
Kim), his jobless 29-year-old
son, lives in his mother’s base-
ment playing video games, writ-
ing poetry, and sipping boxes
of grape Juicy Juice. Lacking
a father figure, it appears his
social development arrested
about the time Chun skipped
out on them.
Only his wife, Mary (Mia
Katigbak), is able to keep it
together, having carved out a
career in real estate. Until her
cad of a husband arrives, that
is.
Rather than showering the
honoree with presents, fam-
ily members offer up wine and
personal tributes. “I hope you
stick around this time,” Ralph
says. Esther, on the other
James Saito as Min Suk Chun and Peter Kim as his son, Ralph Chun, in Lloyd Suh’s “American Hwangap.”
AMERICAN HWANGAP
The Wild Project
195 E. Third St. at Ave. B
Tue.-Sat. at 8 p.m.;
Sat. at 3 p.m.; Sun. at 4 p.m.
Through Jun. 7
$25; theatermania.com
Or 212-352-3101
hand, confesses she’d always
longed for a second chance
with her father, but now that
he’s back, she’s not so sure.
When Chun tries to make
amends, he is squarely met
with resistance and suspicion.
His excuse for leaving was that
his company replaced him
with a younger worker with
newer skills. “Planned obso-
lescence,” he calls it. When he
returned to Korea, however, he
was viewed as too American-
ized and shunned.
Can this family be recon-
ciled? It would seem easier
to reunite North and South
Korea.
Under the snappy direction
of Trip Cullman, Suh’s char-
acterizations are intimately
vivid, and the dialogue crack-
les. The excellent James Saito,
who won an Obie Award for
his role in “Durango” a couple
of years ago, renders the hap-
less, deadbeat dad worthy of
his children’s buried love.
Another standout is Hoon Lee
as the snide, stony David, who
refuses to travel from New York.
When he intones, “I’d most pre-
fer not to drop everything and
just rush down for some sup-
plication congratulation situa-
tion,” it is at once chilling and
amusing. He calls his younger
brother “champ” and “buddy”
with all the affection normally
reserved for a shoeshine boy.
His bottled-up rage verges on
bursting at any moment.
What’s especially astound-
ing is how Cullman manages
to balance the comic and dark-
er elements, never permitting
one to stumble over the other.
The tone shifts naturally and
seamlessly — no easy feat.
In less confident hands, the
goofy yet touching scene where
Ralph and his father go fishing
together in a tiny boat, awk-
wardly sharing confidences,
MATT ZUGALE
would surely sink.
One of the most in-demand
directors Off-Broadway, Cull-
man first made a splash with
Jonathan Tolins’ “Last Sunday
in June” back in 2003. Since
then, the openly gay director
has garnered raves for Adam
Bock’s “Drunken City,” Ter -
rence McNally’s “Some Men,”
Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s
“Dark Matters,” and Burt V.
Royal’s “Dog Sees God.”
The music, by Fitz Patton, is
an irresistibly uncanny mix of
Asian and American Southern
guitar twang.
Besides being about divides,
traditions, and second chanc-
es, at its very heart, “Ameri-
can Hwangap” is about home.
When you consider the com-
mon adages about the subject
— home is where the heart is;
you can never go home again;
there’s no place like home —
an inherent disparity is clear.
This poignantly bold work
effortlessly finds the space to
accommodate these conflicting
notions, with plenty of room to
spare.
28 MAY - 10 JUN 2009
14 DAYS
14 NIGHTS
䉴 JUN 3, from p.22
out of the New York City Gay Men’s Cho-
rus, ushers in an era of hope with “Brand
New Day,” a soup to nuts tour of great
pop music — from the 2008 Jason Mraz
hit “I’m Yours” to the 1938 “Sing For
Your Supper.” In between, they will lift
you up with music from the Temptations,
Erasure, Dusty Springfield, the Crew
Cuts, Madonna, the Beatles, and much
more. Karen Mason is the special guest
star. Metropolitan Room, 34 W. 22nd
St., 7:30 p.m. Admission is $15, with a
two-drink minimum. For reservations,
call 212-206-0440.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
¡Bienvenido, New
York!
Across town, Uptown Express’
sister organization, the New York City
Gay Men’s Chorus goes Latin, with a
celebration of the rich classical, folk,
pop, and dance traditions of Spain
and South America — including salsa
from Cuba, samba and bossa nova
from Brazil, tango from Argentina,
merengue from the Dominican Repub-
lic, a folk mass featuring Venezu-
elan musicians, and a Latino-flavored
global pop-dance set including songs
by Gloria Estefan and Shakira. FIT’s
Haft Auditorium, Seventh Ave. at
27th St. Jun. 3-4, 8 p.m. For ticket
information, visit nycgmc.org or call
212-344-1777.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
COMEDY
Queerly Funny
It’s June and hilarious gay and gay-
ish comics are bustin’ out all over at
Homo Comicus. Bob Montgomery (from
the OutLaugh and NYC Underground
Comedy Festivals) hosts an evening
that features including Judy Gold (from
HBO, Comedy Central, and “Mommy
Queerest”), Jackie Hoffman (from
Broadway’s “Hairspray” and “Xanadu”
and the films “Kissing Jessica Stein”
and John Waters’ “A Dirty Shame”),
Frank DeCaro (from “The Frank DeCaro
Show” on SiriusXM Radio, TV Land’s
“I’ve Got a Secret,” and “The Daily
Show with Jon Stewart”) and Jim
David (from “Comedy Central Presents
Jim David” and Logo’s “Wisecrack”).
Gotham Comedy Club, 208 W. 23rd
St., 8:30 p.m. Admission is $15, with
a two-drink minimum. Reservations at
212-367-9000.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
䉴 14 DAYS, continued on p.28
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 28 MAY – 10 JUN 2009 27
■ IN THE NOH

At Horton’s Foote
Mrs. Wilkinson and the boys of “Billy,” mystery mucus, Egyptian gay director
BY DAVID NOH produced show. when “The Producers” came over, people
When I mentioned this, she said, “I’m could not wait to see it… and loved it!”

T
he New Dramatists’ lunch (May
19) at the Marriott Marquis paid
touching tribute to the late Horton
Foote (1916-2009). Present at the event
were his children, Hallie, Daisy and
Walter, who, when their father died last
March, were the first to call New Drama-
tists to tell them they wanted the show to
go on, regardless. Foote led a long, exem-
plary life, both in and out of the theater,
and I will always treasure the memory of
meeting this courtly Southern gent dur-
ing the Off-Broadway run of “Dividing
the Estate.” He sat at the back of the the-
ater for every performance, admitting it
was out of “sheer egomania.”
This event, as always, was packed
with past and present Tony nominees. As
much as I adored Karen Olivo in “West
Side Story,” Haydn Gwynne deserves to
win Featured Musical Actress for “Billy
going to go and cry now… I started the
show in London in the very early stages,
so I know where the bodies are buried.
I hadn’t done a musical since ‘City of
Angels’ in 1993. We got the most fabu-
lous reviews and ran for eight months,
but it never attracted the right audience.
If we’d first played at the National The-
atre and then transferred into the West
End it would have been better. Audiences
needed to know that it was very much a
sophisticated, thinking piece. That audi-
ence does exist in London, but you have
to tell them that that’s what the show is,
because you don’t want to attract the
wrong audience who’ll think, ‘This is too
heavy.’
“In London, we look to Broadway as
the birthplace of musicals. ‘Billy Elliot’’s
success is something we don’t take for
granted, because for us to bring this
Gwynne’s character, Mrs. Wilkinson,
is an update of those terrific old ballet
mistresses with the pounding canes that
Maria Ouspenskaya and Judith Ander-
son once played in film, but she said,
“Maybe because I’m not a dancer and I
haven’t gone through all that, I start-
ed more with my imagined view of that
woman and how she fits into the story,
and the way everybody is leading a sort
of disappointed life.”
The three “Billy Elliot” boys up for a
single Tony were properly be-suited and
awestruck, their responses filled with
“Amazing!,” which Marian Seldes had
just informed me was the new “awe-
some.” Latin-looking David Alvarez was
especially cagey when I asked him what
was his background was. “Ballet.” “No, I
meant ethnically – Hispanic?” “I’m Cana-
dian.” O-kay. It kind of reminded me of

Elliot.” She created the role from the
ground up and is in the Marian Seldes ––
whom she was talking to –– tradition of
great character actresses, bringing real
heart and truth to this sometimes over-
show here is like an American company
bringing Shakespeare to Stratford-on-
Avon. Broadway is where this particu-
lar art form was born and thrives, and
we hold that in reverence. For instance,
JAMES ZIELINSKI
when Brad Wong became B.D. Wong in
“M. Butterfly,” some producer’s idea of
throwing off the scent in that prehistoric
David Bologna, who steals the show and brings down the
䉴 IN THE NOH, continued on p.28 house at “Billy Elliot” every night, as Michael.

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䉴
NEWFEST, from p.25
Circle Line Downtown Water Taxi Beach who played for her are telling and often
heartbreaking. “Training Rules” is a fine
and very moving documentary.
“T
Statue of Liberty Express he Art of Being Straight”
See the real New York during this one-hour
guided cruise. (Jun. 10, 10:30 p.m., SVA 1;
Sunset Cruise also opens at the Quad, Jun.
The breath-taking NYC skyline at sunset on this 5) is a well-meaning comedy of manners
90-minute cruise.
written, directed by, and starring Jesse
Hop-on/Hop-off 1-day Pass Rosen, which plays with the fluidity of
Your all-access pass to New York’s
hottest sights and neighborhoods. sexuality. A pair of LA 20-something
Audubon EcoTour friends, Jon (Rosen) and Maddy (Rachel
Uncover NYC’s secret wildlife. Castillo, channeling Zooey Deschanel),
90 minutes.
both find themselves questioning their
same-sex attractions. Jon is seduced
by Paul (Johnny Ray), an executive in
the ad agency where he works. Maddy
is a lesbian who finds herself smitten
with her male neighbor. Although each
handles awkward situations in trying to
come to terms with their true emotions,
“The Art of Being Straight” treats these
issues too superficially to be effective.
Jon’s sexual confusion is never palpa-
ble, even at his moments of greatest con-
flict. Maddy never seems engaged enough
with her girlfriend to generate empathy.
The use of double entendres throughout
the film and the repeated queer epithets
that Jon’s friends –– intended to under-
score the sexual identity tensions at
issue — are obvious, and not funny. The
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the film, they are skin deep.
W
hen teenage gang member
Cal (Wayne Virgo) hooks up
with Scott (Garry Summers)
online, and asks his new fuck-buddy to
film their drug-fueled tryst in the woods,
director Simon Pearce’s “Shank”
(Jun. 6, 10 p.m., SVA 1) shows itself
to be pretty daring. Cal next head-butts
Scott post-coitus, and later masturbates
to the film they made, making it pretty
clear this naughty and compelling Brit-
ish drama has a complex view of sexu-
ality. Alas, “Shank” fails to deliver on its
initial promise.
This story about Cal, afraid to
acknowledge his homosexuality, is
amateurishly acted and poorly direct-
ed, and full of contrived plotting. The
main plot has Cal rescuing Olivier
(Marc Laurent) from being gay-bashed
by his friends Jonno (magnetic Tom
Bott) and Nessa (Alice Payne). Ostra-
cized by his pals, Cal visits Olivier
and begins an intense relationship
with him, complete with tender, erot-
ic lovemaking. (To the film’s credit,
the actors are not shy when it comes
to nudity). It is only a matter of time
before Jonno and Nessa discover Cal
is queer and confront him. Unfortu-
nately, this “big dramatic moment,”
which involves male rape and teary
confessions, is clumsily presented.
Pearce wants “Shank” to be a socially
important film, but it ends up instead
sadly irrelevant.
28
䉴 IN THE NOH, from p.27
time when gender-fucking was
theatrically groundbreaking and
not a given.
Far more expressive was
the delightful, non-nominated
David Bologna, who plays Bil-
ly’s engaging cross-dressing
friend, Michael. When we were
gay little boys, who didn’t love
to sneak into Mommy’s closet
–– I remember being so proud
when I created a bustle out of
her bathrobe, and wish I’d seen
someone like Michael onstage
back then. Bologna said, “It’s
a really fun role to play. I see
Michael as a crazy, eccentric
guy who isn’t into your typical
sports, but he’s okay, express-
es himself, and loves it. I never
dressed up myself. I wasn’t
a jock either, but when I was
younger I did like to sing and
dance.
“A lot of kids were at the
‘Billy’ auditions, but for my
callback, there were only twelve
of us. It was neat because they
tried to make it feel as light-
weight as possible and not
like an audition –– to not put
that stress on us –– which was
really good, as we weren’t ner-
vous or stressed out. Being in
the show is an incredible feel-
ing, especially at the end when
I tell the audience to give me
more applause. You have them
in the palm of your hand and
you can do anything. I think
that was the part of the origi-
nal choreography from Lon-
don. I’m from Austin, Texas,
but born in New Orleans. I
think when I moved up here I
just lost my drawl, but we got
A scene from by Youssef Chahine’s “Alexandria, Again and Forever” (1989), at the BAM Rose Cinema on June 7 at 2, 4:30, 6:50, and 9:15 p.m.
Haydn Gwynne with David Alvarez in “Billy Elliot.”
that Southern hospitality. I
had never studied any formal
ballet or tap, was actually an
Irish dancer, and that really
helped with my tap.”
John Glover from “Waiting
for Godot” cleared up a press-
ing mystery for me, especially
in these Swine Flu-scared
days. What was that mucus-
y substance that kept drool-
ing out of his nose and mouth
whenever he was onstage?
“Mucus! I just push it out
every night. Some nights I get
28 MAY – 10 JUN 2009
strictly off-the-record opinion
about this current production.
L ynn Cohen, familiar to
many as Magda, Cynthia Nix-
on’s nanny on “Sex and the
City,” is the always fun, unoffi-
cial hostess of the press room,
and told me, “I just finished
‘Chasing Manet’ with Jane
Alexander and am going to do
a film next week with Chris
O’Donnell –– he better be cute!
As for me being in the next ‘Sex
and the City’ movie, from your
mouth to God’s ears… I loved
doing the role. It’s the best
because they’re all like a reper-
tory company and Cynthia is
a great actress. I based Magda
on my grandmother from the
Ukraine. You pull up every-
thing from the past.”
I
ran into Martin Pakledinaz,
Tony-nominated for cos-
tume design for “Blithe Spir-
it,” and he told me, “Dressing
DAVID SCHINEMANN
Angela Lansbury –– how intimi-
dating was that at first? She’s
such a style icon from ‘Mame,’
‘Manchurian Candidate,’ and
‘Murder, She Wrote,’ in those
simple suits which are really
more than others. It’s all from not that simple to execute. She
the text. Estragon talks about couldn’t have been easier. She
how Pozzo slathers. Someone asked me, ‘What did you think
equated me with that horse in of how Anthony Powell dressed
‘Gone with the Wind’ Scarlett me in ‘Death on the Nile’? And
beats to death. Drool is drool.” I said, ‘Wow, you want to go
The divinity Chita Rivera, the that high, huh?’ So we went
sexiest woman in the room, is for it and, regarding her Mrs.
still lovin’ the gay cruises she Lovett/ ‘Sweeney Todd” braid
gets booked on, was fascinated buns over the ears, that was
to hear about my spotting Carol her idea. I, too, mentioned the
Lawrence and Grover Dale tak- similarity to ‘Sweeney,’ but she
ing the subway to the “West said, ‘No one will remember
Side Story’ opening night party, that!’ She brought in a picture
and gave me her honest but of her nanny who wore her
hair that way, and that always
stayed with her.”
Rupert Everett was very par-
ticular about his costumes and
fit, and remarked that he had
never had so many costume
meetings on any project. He
specified no smoking jacket,
as that would look “too gay.”
Pakledinaz dr essed Jayne
Atkinson’s ghostly Ruth in a
similar tailored suit to what
she wore in life: “They usually
bring her back in an evening
gown, which doesn’t make
much sense,” while Christine
Ebersole discovered the after-
life effect of her ethereal chif-
fon sleeves in tech rehearsal.
“She just started playing with
TYPECAST RELEASING
her sleeves over her hands and
said, ‘Look at this!’ Those are
the moments when a designer
goes, ‘Thank you, God!’”
䉴 IN THE NOH, continued on p.29
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
14 DAYS
14 NIGHTS
䉴 14 DAYS, from p.26
YOUTH
THU.JUN.4
30 Years of
Outreach
Author Eric Marcus, author of
“Making Gay History,” leads a panel
discussion on the founding 30 years
ago of the Hetrick-Martin Institute, the
country’s oldest and largest organiza-
tion focusing on at risk lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgendered, and ques-
tioning youth. Originally named, “The
Institute for the Protection of Lesbian
and Gay Youth,” the organization was
the first in the nation to introduce the
concept of services and programs to
acknowledge and address the needs of
LGBTQ young people. The conversation
includes founding and current members
of the staff — Thomas Krever, Hetrick-
Martin’s executive director, Joyce
Hunter, from the HIV Center for Clinical
& Behavioral Studies at Columbia Uni-
versity, a founding staff member, and
the co-founder of Harvey Milk School,
and Ann Northrop, formerly with the
education department of Hetrick-Mar-
tin and a co-host (with Gay City News’
Andy Humm) of “Gay USA.” Harvey
Milk School, 2 Astor Pl., in Cooper
Sq., 10 a.m.-noon. Make sure to RSVP
to peter.t.foley@gmail.com.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
PERFORMANCE
She Went Through
Herbert & J. Edgar
Hoover
“J. Edgar Klezmer: Songs from My
Grandmother’s FBI Files” — a musical
documentary theater piece based on
declassified documents, set on Manhat-
tan’s Upper West Side, that examines
the life and Cold War time capsule of Dr.
Adele Sicular, grandmother of Metropoli-
tan Klezmer & Isle of Klezbos drummer/
bandleader Eve Sicular — premiered
to a sold-out house at Dixon Place last
year. Combining myriad archival finds,
oral history, and family gossip, this piece
uses theater, multi-media projections,
and original music and lyrics to investi-
gate the dealings of government agents
and Eve’s pianist/psychiatrist/activist
grandma. From klezmer to Kodaly to jazz,
baroque to boogie woogie to gospel,
from Hazel Scott’s canceled TV show to
derelict theories of homosexuality, the
exploration of the surveillance files leads
in even more directions than the Depart-
ment of Justice could have foreseen.
䉴 JUN 4, continued on p.29
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 28 MAY – 10 JUN 2009 29

䉴 BRIEFS, from p.15 telling ABC’s George Stephano- on moving forward on Capitol Hill, guage barring the use of federal Godbeer’s “Sexual Revolution

14 DAYS way to ensure that the govern-

ment has access to the top tal-
poulos, “I don’t know” if the Don’t
Ask, Don’t Tell policy is going to
be overturned. Jones’ statement
Gibbs said, “I don’t know what’s
been introduced in Congress.
On May 27, when asked for
dollars for this purpose. A flip-flop?
Not so, said Jeff Crowley, direc-
tor of the White House Office of
in Early America,” published by
Johns Hopkins University Press.
Godbeer had written, “Settlers in

14 NIGHTS
䉴 JUN 4, from p.29
Jewish Community Center in Man-
hattan, 334 Amsterdam Ave. at 76th
St., 8 p.m. Tickets are $20, $15 for JCC
members at 646-505-5708 or http://met-
ropolitanklezmer.com/JEK.html
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
ent on the same basis as the
nation’s leading corporations.”
The HRC release noted that 57
percent of Fortune 500 compa-
nies offer the same benefits.
The measure is strongly
supported by GLOBE, the Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender
Employees of the Federal Gov-
ernment.
✯ On May 22, the Advocate
reported that it had received
a leaked draft of a letter from
forced press secretary Robert
Gibbs to reiterate the President
Barack Obama’s campaign prom-
ise on that score, while noting
that it would require “more than
the snapping of one’s fingers.”
The discharge of National Guard
Lieutenant Dan Choi, an Iraq War
veteran who majored in Arabic
language at West Point, might
have some in the administration
wishing that Obama could just
snap his fingers.
the president’s reaction to the
California court ruling on Prop
8, Gibbs said, “I have not talked
to the President about it. I think
the issues involved are ones that
you know where the President
stands.”
So all this means…?
And, What
About Needle
Exchange
Studies have long demonstrat-
National AIDS Policy. “The presi-
dent is looking forward to working
with Congress and the American
people to build support for this
change, and his administration is
committed to moving forward to
address the federal ban on syringe
exchange programs as a part of
a national HIV/AIDS strategy,”
Crowley said in an email to the
magazine.
So all this means…?
the seventeenth-century Chesa-
peake often paired off to form
all-male households, living and
working together.... it would be
truly remarkable if all the male-
only partnerships lacked a sex-
ual ingredient... It seems rea-
sonable to assume that much
of the sex that took place... was
sodomitical.”
Now, however, Godbeer’s
new book, “The Overflowing of
Friendship: Love Between Men

LA NOCHE
FRI.JUN.5
Mateando Con…
Mateando va a tirar la casa por la ven-
tana en esta nueva fiesta de “Mateando
Con…” Esta vez será Mateando con La
Comunidad LGBT, para comenzar a lo
grande el mes del Orgullo LGBT, haremos
la fiesta mas grande de los viernes con
un show especial, artistas invitados y la
conducción de la estrella de Telemundo,
Fabiola “Golden Blonde.” Todos los que
lleven nuestros tickets tendrán estos
beneficios toda la noche: Entrada gratu-
ita (llegar antes de la 1 a.m.); oferta de
tragos toda la noche (cerveza Bud Light
lime a $4 y Absolute Vodka flavored —
Pera, Durazno y Vainilla — a $5); show
especial y go-go dancers (show erotico
para varones, presentacion de Miss Riis
Park, Fabiola y elenco, entre muchos
otros), toda la calidez de Mateando. Club
Atlantis, 76-19 Roosevelt Ave. at 77th
St., Jackson Heights. Mateando.Con@
gmail.com.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
Secretary of State Hillary Clin-
ton detailing her intention to
allow the domestic partners of
Foreign Service personnel to
be considered as family mem-
bers for purposes of benefits,
including overseas living allow-
ances. Her jurisdiction over the
full range of domestic partner
benefits, however, is unclear.
More
Mishegoss
at the White
House
In the last issue, we reported
on the growing impatience at the
Servicemembers Legal Defense
Network, an advocacy group for
LGBT soldiers, in the wake of
White House national security
advisor General James Jones, Jr.,
䉴 IN THE NOH, from p.28
Air America’s Ana Marie Cox
pressed Gibbs on that point at a
May 21 press briefing, asking why
Obama could not move to end
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell through exec-
utive order, as President Harry Tru-
man did in ending racial segrega-
tion in the military. Perhaps recall-
ing the trouble former President
Bill Clinton encountered when he
moved aggressively upon taking
office on the issue of military ser-
vice by out gay personnel, Gibbs
responded, “The reason Congress
is involved is the only durable and
lasting way with which to over-
turn the policy is to do it by law.”
He also noted that the Pentagon
had corrected an earlier statement
that no discussions about chang-
ing the policy were taking place.
But then, asked about the status
refused the usage of Streisand’s
private loo), while some woman
ed in definitive fashion the success
of needle exchange programs in
curbing HIV transmission among
injection drug users. A study of
new infection rates in New York
City during the early years of this
century showed dramatic gains
in slowing transmission in that
population — in marked contrast
to among gay and bisexual men.
President George W. Bush opposed
federal funding of such programs,
and President Bill Clinton wimped
out when his drug czar, General
Barry McCaffrey, threatened to
resign over the issue. What about
President Barack Obama, who
pledged that he would moving
on funding this health measure.
Time magazine is reporting that
“buried on page 795” of the presi-
dent’s budget is the same old lan-
often really rough but it’s the
ballsy quality about them which
Kramer
Takes On the
Colonists
Screenwriter, playwright, and
longtime AIDS and gay activist
Larry Kramer has been a staunch
defender — against the fire of
many mainline historians — of
C.A. Tripp’s “The Intimate World
of Abraham Lincoln,” a biography
that explores homosexual rela-
tionships in the life of the 16th
president. Two years ago, when
the nation marked the 400th anni-
versary of the founding of Jame-
stown, Kramer also tried to ele-
vate the issue of same-sex desire
and practice in the early Virginia
colony. At that time, in letters to
US News and World Report and
The New Yorker, Kramer quoted
favorably from historian Richard
was very good, the only one I’ve
ever seen by A.O. Scott, their
and the Creation of the American
Republic,” presents, in Kramer’s
view, “a heartbreaking refutation
of the possibility he’d put forward
in his earlier work.” In a piece
published on the Huffington Post,
Kramer wrote, “Godbeer is hell-
bent on convincing us that two
men in colonial America could
have exceedingly obsessive and
passionate relationships (he calls
them, variously, “sentimental,”
“loving,” “romantic”) replete
with non-stop effusive corre-
spondence that rivals anything
in Barbara Cartland, and spend
many a night in bed together talk-
ing their hearts out, without the
issue of sex arising in any way.”
Or as Kramer slyly added, “You
know, a sort of ‘I Love You, Man’
for colonial America.”

FILM
Radical Pioneer
Anthology Film Archives and the
Goethe-Institut New York present a ret-
rospective weekend of the irrepressible,
J
ulie Halston, with her
devastating, desert-dry
delivery, had everyone
–– as they say on Long Island
–– hysterical laughing, at her
show at Birdland (May 19), with
her accounts of growing up in
screams, “It’s Liza! I can’t pee!”
and, later, Richard Simmons,
writhing in agony on the floor
in a red sequined jumpsuit,
shrieking “Barbra won’t see me!
Why?!”
compels. That’s the one adjec-
tive that really describes him to
me. His films are not hard-core,
but it’s obvious what’s going on.
There’s not much real nudity,
but there are gay romances and
affairs which are physical. How
first string critic.
“He was a magnificent, for-
midable figure of Arab cinema
for more than half a century,
bursting with energy and force,
and very political towards the
end, very anti-Israel in terms

unstoppable, and invaluable Rosa von
Praunheim. The series is a generous,
though necessarily selective, line-up of
some of the numerous films he has made
over the past four decades. A pioneer
of gay cinema, and a peerlessly prolific
and fearless filmmaker, von Praunheim’s
work is sexually and politically provoca-
tive, cinematically innovative, and all-
around unforgettable. Focusing on the
films von Praunheim made in New York
while immersed in the city’s 1970s and
’80s counter-cultural milieu as well as on
some of his under-screened recent work,
the series will culminate in a not-to-be-
missed live presentation in which Rosa
will take us on a personal tour of his life
and work. The schedule ranges from his
1970 “It’s Not The Homosexual Who Is
Perverse, But The Situation In Which
He Lives” (“Nicht Der Homosexuelle Ist
Pervers, Sondern Die Situation, In Der
䉴 JUN 5, continued on p.30
Comack, where she mistook her
father’s testicle during an Eas-
ter Egg hunt. (“I don’t remem-
ber dye-ing a pink one?”) Being
Italian, she was once reduced to
childhood tears when class teas-
ing forced her to ask her mother
if they were Mafia: “Would we
live in a shithole like this if we
were?” (Take that you broads
from “The Real Housewives of
New Jersey” –– and how much
of a guilty pleasure is that hor-
ror show?)
Halston had the gayest night
in the history of the world when
she went as Liza Minnelli’s
guest to the “first Barbra Stre-
isand Farewell Tour” at Madi-
son Square. Imagine massed
hordes of people davening at
the sight of Liza, and then hav-
ing to stand guard in the pub-
lic ladies room for her (she was
B
AM Rose Cinemas is
presenting a retrospec-
tive of Egyptian film-
maker Youssef Chahine (1926-
2008). Series curator Elliott
Stein, who will be speaking
on June 3, told me, “He was a
leading director in Arab cinema,
making movies about Israelis
who fuck Palestinians, Mus-
lims who fall in love with Eng-
lish colonials they’re supposed
to kill. In his autobiographical
trilogy, ‘Alexandria… Why?’ he
depicts himself as being bisex-
ual, and there’s also his cri-
tique of Muslim fundamental-
ism in several films. These are
very ballsy things to do in mov-
ies financed by the Egyptian
government –– just to go out in
the world and survive assassi-
nation after doing all that.
“As a filmmaker, his films are
far could he go? But he went
as far as he could. He played
a depraved sex maniac in his
breakthrough film, ‘Cairo Sta-
tion,’ a candy vendor who goes
around killing girls out of sexual
frustration, and he’s very good.
“Twenty years ago, I got an
invitation from Georgetown
University to talk about his
films with him during a week-
end retrospective. I spent a lot
of time with him, had drinks,
went to the Egyptian cultural
attaché where he was stay-
ing. He generally traveled with
handsome young men. Walter
Reade had a retrospective on
him ten years ago, and already
he was a little shaky but he was
okay, and we had coffee and
caught up. He died last year.
The New York Times obits for
film are usually terrible, but his
of their foreign policy toward
Palestinians. But he had a lot
of Israeli friends, and his films
were shown in Israel, as well as
gay film festivals everywhere,
extraordinary for someone from
Arab cinema. He was an out-
spoken critic of Egyptian Presi-
dent Mubarak, as well as Amer-
ican foreign policy. When asked
in an online interview wheth-
er he thought Egypt would
become more free and liberal in
the near future, his reply was,
‘No, neither in the near nor in
the faraway future.’”
(30 Lafayette Ave. at Ashland
Pl., May 29-Jun. 7, www.bam.
org.)
Contact David Noh at Inthe-
noh@aol.com and check out his
new blog at http://nohway.
wordpress.com/.
30
䉴 FRIEDEN, from p.8
statistically significant. Using
the same test identifying recent
infections, the city estimated
that in 2006, 4,800 New York-
ers were newly infected with HIV,
and 2,372, or 50 percent, were
gay and bisexual men.
In a 2007 interview with Gay
City News, Frieden said there
were limits to what he could
achieve when addressing gay
men and HIV. “I think there are
real problems that I can’t be very
effective addressing,” he said,
and named the “number of part-
ners,” “the amount of unsafe
sex,” and “the importance of
somebody to behave responsi-
䉴 FARLEY, from p.9
decision-making, and evaluat-
ing programs that work,” Far-
ley said at the press confer -
ence.
When Gay City News briefly
interviewed Farley about this
method in 2008, when he was
a Frieden advisor, he had not
䉴 SENATE, from p.13
At least some political leaders
who wished to speak, including
city Comptroller William Thomp-
son, who is seeking the Demo-
cratic mayoral nomination to run
against Bloomberg, were turned
down. Hayes explained that given
a two-hour police permit, the
organizers were concerned about
fitting in all the performers and
speakers, and declined requests
from a number of elected officials,
“who all wanted to speak.”
Asked whether Smith’s pres-
ence at the rally would have been
helpful, ESPA’s Van Capelle said,
䉴 MURDERER, from p.17
on a third. His family in Illinois
will aid him if he is released.
And then he was wronged by
the parole board, his student
lawyers assert.
“At the baseline level, there
was no rational basis for their
negative consideration of his
sexual orientation,” said Mollie
Kornreich, one of the students.
The students did what good
lawyers do when they represent
clients who have committed hei-
nous and violent crimes — they
fought back.
“Even if you believe your client
is guilty, you represent him zeal-
ously,” said Abram Seaman, who
bly” as issues that only the com-
munity could address. “But, you
know, I haven’t been hearing
that from the gay community,”
he said. “I haven’t been hear-
ing it. And if I say it, it will be at
best counter-productive. It really
needs to come from within the
community.”
Frieden also fought some AIDS
groups, Housing Works in par-
ticular, over the efforts he chose
to fund with city dollars. The
commissioner asserted that his
choices were driven by data that
demonstrated the effectiveness
of the programs and institutions
he favored.
While Frieden will have a lim-
ited ability to influence state and
yet made an analysis of the
interventions being used in
New York City, but documents
obtained last year under New
York’s open records law sug-
gest that interventions such
as widespread condom distri-
bution and mass media cam-
paigns would be preferred over
others such as group counsel-
“Anyone who was there felt the
sense of solidarity that existed.
I wish that crowd had had the
opportunity to hear Senator
Smith’s support for and commit-
ment to marriage equality, which
he has stated on many occa-
sions.”
Van Capelle suggested that
the gap between the governor’s
call for a vote and Smith’s posi-
tion that passage should be
assured prior to bringing it to the
floor might evaporate in prac-
tice. “I think there is an ability
to have 32 named votes still,” he
told Gay City News. “There will
be some people who will not be
is gay and one of the students.
When Wilborn was denied
parole in 2006, he appealed.
That appeal was denied in 2007.
He sued in federal court that
year, initially representing him-
self, and then was aided by the
Columbia students.
While sexual orientation is not
a protected class in federal anti-
discrimination laws, that does
not mean that government enti-
ties are free to discriminate on
that basis at will. Wilborn’s advo-
cates asserted that his equal pro-
tection and due process rights
under the US Constitution were
violated when the board denied
him parole because he was gay.
“It’s not unprotected, it just
28 MAY – 10 JUN 2009
local policies at CDC, the agency
directly funds HIV prevention
programs and got $745 million
for that effort in the president’s
proposed 2010 federal budget.
A number of New York City AIDS
groups rely on that cash.
As Housing Works noted, Frie-
den is not shy about making
policy by directing tax dollars to
institutions that support and will
implement his preferred policies.
Frieden’s biggest fight came in
2006, when he proposed chang-
ing state law to end the require-
ment for written consent for
HIV testing. He also advanced
a proposal that would allow the
health department to contact
people with AIDS if commonly-
ing and partner notification.
AIDS groups may be forced to
defend their city-funded pro-
grams under this analysis.
Farley headed the Depart-
ment of Community Health
Sciences and the Prevention
Research Center at Tulane
University for the past nine
years. He has also been a
able to make up their minds until
they have to vote. The landscape
is still significantly larger than
we thought it would be at this
stage. There are more gettables
out there than are being talked
about.”
A number of Democratic col-
leagues of Diaz’s have said that
they also oppose Paterson’s bill,
but, aside from the Bronx sena-
tor, who is a Pentecostal minis-
ter and has been at odds with
the LGBT community dating all
the way back to the time the Gay
Games were held in New York in
1994, Van Capelle said, “I don’t
think we should stop talking
gets less protection,” Kornreich
said.
Wilborn and the Columbia
students won. In 2008, the state
settled without admitting to any
wrongdoing and agreed to give
Wilborn another parole hearing
on May 28. Normally, an inmate
such as Wilborn gets a hear-
ing every five years, so this lat-
est hearing will come more than
two years early. The students
are helping Wilborn prepare for
the hearing and they fully believe
that he deserves to be paroled.
“The function of a parole sys-
tem is to recognize that people
can rehabilitate themselves,”
Seaman said. Zwick added, “Our
personal feeling is that he isn’t
used tests showed a patient had
an increasing viral load or a fall-
ing T cell count, two indicators of
ill health in a person with AIDS.
While Frieden had support from
some in the public health and
gay community, he also faced
fierce opposition and the propos-
als failed.
In his 2007 interview with
Gay City News, Frieden said his
relationships with some AIDS
groups were strained. “They are
not always terrible,” he said. “I
think some of the groups engage
in what has been called the poli-
tics of opposition, so whatever
we propose they are going to be
opposed to because we proposed
it. That really is unhelpful.”
consultant to the city health
department since he spent a
year, starting in 2007, as a
Frieden senior advisor.
Prior to joining Tulane, Far-
ley was the medical officer at
the Louisiana Office of Public
Health, and he also worked at
the federal Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
to any Democrat, regardless of
whether they’ve stated their posi-
tion. Anyone who identifies five
or six people holding this up is
misreading the political terrain.”
Quinn has made two trips to
Albany in recent weeks to person-
ally lobby senators.
The Pride Agenda — like Duane
and Paterson — has always made
clear that it is lobbying Republi-
can senators as well. According
to Daily News political reporter
Liz Benjamin, Duane, on May
14, stated that a Republican col-
league of his is ready to publicly
announce his support for mar-
riage equality.
likely to re-offend.”
While the settlement is not a
legal precedent for other courts,
it can be cited by attorneys or
inmates who find themselves in
a similar situation. “It’s not bind-
ing, of course, but it is persua-
sive,” Zwick said.
Judges can sometimes be
reluctant to be the first to rule
favorably for a gay or lesbian per-
son, Wilborn’s advocates argue.
His case, in their view, solves
that problem and it is one more
step forward for the queer com-
munity.
“Cases like this are exciting
because they establish incre-
mentally this is not okay, this is
not okay,” Kornreich said.
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
14 DAYS
14 NIGHTS
䉴 JUN 5, from p.29
Er Lebt”) on Jun. 4 at 7:30 p.m. to the
controversial 2005 documentary “Men,
Heroes & Gay Nazis” (“Männer, Helden,
Schwule Nazis”) on Jun. 7 at 9:30 p.m.
On Jun. 6 at 7:30 p.m., von Praunheim
appears live in “I’m a Tomato,” present-
ing a selection of film clips from his rep-
ertoire of 70 films, and talking dirty to the
audience. Anthology, 32 Second Ave.
at Second St., Jun. 4-7. For complete
details on the retrospective, visit anthol-
ogyfilmarchives.org/schedule/programs.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
AT THE BEACH
Smiling through the
Apocalypse
The Dow is a disgrace, homes are in
foreclosure, and you may soon be out of
job — what better way to spend a sum-
mer evening laughing your blues away.
Pines resident Jim David, Cory Kahaney
(“Last Comic Standing,” “The J.A.P.
Show”), and Jackie Hoffman (Broad-
way’s “Xanadu”) bring an evening of
comic relief to our troubled times. Bran-
don Fradd Theatre, Whyte Hall, Fire
Island Pines, 9 p.m. Tickets available at
fipap.org or in the Pines Harbor.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
JAZZ
SAT.JUN. 6
Puddin’ Heads
Rome Neal, a jazz vocalist who’s per-
formed at Town Hall, the Metropolitan
Room, and Joe’s Pub, presents another
“All in the Puddin’ Concert,” with special
guest Onaje Allan Gumbs, a composer,
arranger, and NAACP Image Award
nominee, on piano, Paul Beaudry on
bass, and Greg Buford on drums. Nuy-
orican Poets Café, 236 E. Third St.,
btwn. Aves. B & C, 9 p.m. Admission is
$15. For reservations, call 212-465-3167
or email romekyn@earthlink.net. At 10
p.m., an open mic — for jammin’ musi-
cians only — follows. $10. Complimen-
tary banana puddin’ is served.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
DATING
Make Me a Match
Marilyn Galfin, creator of NYC Lav-
ender Lounge Events, has come up with
a winning, pumped up social event for
gay men. “Make Me a Match” is a dat-
ing game filled with non-intimidating
fun and laughter. Galfin offers a unique,
crazy combo of speed-dating, ice-breaker
conversations, and humor, along with a
䉴 JUN 6, continued on p.32
Don’t miss the TD Bank Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival
J U LY 3 0 - A U G U S T 2
www.acfoodandwine.com
32
Remembering Rodger
A fellow soldier in the war on AIDS looks at McFarlane’s life
BY ERIC SAWYER
L
ast week, I got the unex-
pected news that my
friend, the legendary
AIDS activist Rodger McFarlane,
had taken his own life. I was in
shock and deeply saddened.
Roger was a terrific friend,
not only to me as an individual
and countless others around
the world, but a terrific friend to
the LGBT and HIV communities
as well. Rodger was a co-found-
er of ACT UP New York. He was
a mentor to countless activists
and employees at numerous
AIDS organizations and a criti-
cal supporter, both intellectu-
ally and financially, of advocacy
for gay and lesbian and HIV
causes. Rodger was a hero!
Rodger was critical to the
development of many of the
largest and most ef fective
organizations that would lead
the fight against AIDS. He
started the first AIDS hot line
on his own home phone; he
was the first executive direc-
tor of Gay Men’s Health Crisis
and Broadway Cares/Equity
Fights AIDS. Rodger was also
the president of Bailey House
and later the executive director
of the Gill Foundation.
An accomplished athlete,
Rodger had no physical fear
and his quick mind made him
a brilliant strategic activist; he
could construct a plan to recti-
fy any problem and was able to
䉴 MCFARLANE, from p.3
This stuff was surreal. We had
people literally beaten up with
bats and thrown out of their
apartments. You can’t make this
shit up.”
Despite his lifelong friend-
ship with Kramer, the two most
decidedly had their ups and
downs, particularly after Kram-
er broke with GMHC (eventually
moving toward the direct action
approach of ACT UP), dismissing
the group as a bunch of “Flor-
ence Nightingales.” McFarlane
remembered thinking, perhaps
even saying, “Don’t call me Flor-
ence Nightingale, bitch. And you
call me in the night when you’re
sick. You know who you’re going
to call and you call me whenever
one of your friends is sick.”
According to the press state-
find the clever media hook to
draw public attention to it. He
never reacted with anger and
haste. He preferred a planned
response, crafted with a cool
hand. He was insightful, never
flustered, and always had a
“we can lick this” approach to
Jessie and Rodger insisted that we
stay overnight in jail to keep the
TV cameras on the issue.
overcoming any challenge. “Tell
me what’s going on,” would be
followed by, “That outrageous!”
and then, “Here’s how we fix
this thing.” He would then ask,
“What do you think?” He was
always ready to hear sugges-
tions to refine his ideas.
When ACT UP and others
were fighting to close the HIV
detention camp housing Hai-
tian refugees at Guantanamo
Bay, I went to Rodger and
asked for help planning a high
profile press event and civil
disobedience action. Again it
was: “Tell me what’s going on
— that’s outrageous!” followed
by “Let’s kick their mother -
fucking asses!” and “Here’s
what we do...”
And here is what he did:
Rodger hired young ACT UP
member and fledging produc-
ment issued by McFarlane’s
family and friends — includ-
ing Kramer, Grossman, Tim
Sweeney, who succeeded him as
head of Gill, Patrick Guerriero,
who runs Gill Action, Tom Viola,
executive director of Broadway
Cares, and longtime lesbian
activist Urvashi Vaid, executive
director of the Arcus Foundation
— “Rodger had a reputation as a
hard-ass. That reputation didn’t
do him justice.” The statement
went on to review McFarlane’s
legacy as a caregiver.
But Sweeney also noted that
McFarlane could come on very
strong. “He was very smart and
very fast, and did not tolerate
fools,” he said, emphasizing his
predecessor’s irreverence and
fondness for colorful language
sprinkled with four-letter words.
Asked how McFarlane played
28 MAY – 10 JUN 2009
er David Binder (now a Tony
nominee for “33 Variations”) to
produce a rally and press con-
ference at Rockefeller Center,
near a key US immigration and
passport office. We managed to
get Dennis deLeon, then the
New York City commissioner
of Human Rights, Jessie Jack-
son, Susan Sarandon, direc-
tor Jonathan Demme, and
other high-profile AIDS com-
munity members involved in a
coalition-planning effort, and
before we knew it, 40 boldfaced
names had been arrested on
Fifth Avenue for blocking traf-
fic while demanding medical
parole for the sickest and the
closing of the camp. Jessie and
Rodger insisted that we all go
through the NYPD system and
stay overnight in jail to keep
the TV cameras on the issue.
Within a few hours, Mayor
David Dinkins was dispatched
to the jail, at President Bill
Clinton’s request, to talk Jessie
and the rest of us into a quick,
quiet release. Clinton did not
want negative attention about
what was becoming a growing
among the button-down big
money crowd, gay and straight,
that he courted at Gill, Sweeney
said, “I think people really enjoy
having characters in their life.
Rodger had a ribald sense of
humor. People often think you
gotta watch that, but many, it
turns out, welcome that. Rodger
forced essential arguments that
were engaging and worth hav-
ing.”
In 2007, McFarlane was with-
ering in his assessment of how
the administration of Mayor Ed
Koch failed the city’s gay men in
those years.
“It was not that they dropped
the ball,” he said. “It was more
aggressive than that. It’s not that
they didn’t get it. They didn’t
want to get it. We were in the
middle of an economic recovery
of New York. The ‘70s had been
public black eye to his fledg-
ling presidency. Jessie was
told that the Clinton adminis-
tration would look favorably on
our demands if we took desk
appearance tickets and left
jail quickly to turn the press
heat off. We were warned that
to stay in jail overnight would
lead to a less favorable admin-
istration response. Jessie said
that the mayor had asked him
personally as well, as a good
Democrat, to leave with him
right away.
We caucused and decided
that we were likely to get some
of our demands met if we left,
ultimately helping the HIV-
positive detainees in Guantan-
amo. We felt that while this war
was not over, the battle had
been won; we had Bill Clinton
dispatching David Dinkins
to respond to our actions. We
took the desk appearance tick-
ets and left the holding cells.
Shortly thereafter, all the preg-
nant women and people with a
full-blown AIDS diagnosis were
released from the Guantana-
mo HIV detention camp — the
same camp where US detainees
captured since 9/11 are being
held today.
Thank you Rodger, for all you
did. Rest peacefully our fearless
warrior!
Eric Sawyer is a veteran AIDS
activist and cofounder of Hous-
ing Works.
horrible here. And they had just
turned that corner... It was all
about commerce and tourism
and corporate headquarters
coming back... They dug their
heels in.”
Grossman acknowledged
that, in the early days of the
epidemic, “There were others
that yelled as much,” but said
McFarlane “managed to domi-
nate a room” — through his
combination of intelligence,
Southern charm, and a com-
manding six-foot-six, lean phy-
sique.
Grossman believes McFar-
lane’s direct, even domineering
style and his talents for offer-
ing support and care for others
“were of a piece.” Overwhelmed
at times by the enormity of the
䉴 MCFARLANE, continued on p.33
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
14 DAYS
14 NIGHTS
䉴 JUN 6, from p.30
secret, connection-proof ingredient, mak-
ing for a light, fun-filled evening. Interactive
games, inclusive conversations, and barrier
free connections are in the spotlight as the
evening moves at a fast and stimulating
pace. LGBT Community Center, 208 W.
13th St., 8-10 p.m. Tickets are $21 nycla-
venderlounge.com or $25 at the door. For
more information, call 212-989-8549 or
email nyclavenderlounge@aol.com.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
Gallery
Arts in Bushwick
Artist Andrew Cornell Robinson holds
an open house for his new works, offer-
ing friendly conversation, libation, and
good cheer as well. 117 Grattan St. at
Porter Ave., #309, Bushwick (L train to
Morgan St.). Jun. 6, noon – 7 p.m.; Jun.
7, noon – 5 p.m. Other artists at 117 Grat-
tan will also have open studios during the
weekend. For more information, visit art-
sinbushwick.org. For specific information
on Robinson, visit arcStudio.com.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
MUSIC
SUN.JUN.7
Global Sounds
The Peace of Heart Choir, a secular
choir that performs free-of-charge for
shelters, hospitals, treatment centers, and
nursing homes throughout New York, pres-
ents an a cappella repertoire from the fol-
lowing traditions — Arabic, Mandarin Chi-
nese, Spanish, Irish Gaelic, and American
and British folk and pop. This afternoon,
they present a concert, “Music to Life the
World’s Spirit,” with a bake sale and raffle.
Hunter College, North Building, Ida K.
Lang Recital Hall, Room 424, entrance
on E. 69th St., ¼ block east of Park
Ave., 2:30-4:30 p.m. Tickets are $19 at
peaceofheartchoir.org or $20 at the door.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
CABARET
MON.JUN.8
Tunes in the Buff
Scott Nevins’ “Curtain Call” goes nude
with the clothing-less cast of the long-
running Off Broadway hit “Naked Boys
Singing.” Guest host Emily McNamara
welcomes the sexy singers, who will be
performing live and in the buff — plus giv-
ing away tickets to the show. Splash, 50
W. 17th St., 11:30 p.m. Admission is free
until 10 p.m., $5 after that. You must be 21.
䉴䉴14 JUMP,
DAYS, continued on p.32
p.34
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
䉴 MCFARLANE, from p.32
crisis he faced as a physician, Grossman
said he would turn for support to McFar-
lane, who always offered him “a safe
place” to discuss his anxieties. Still, “he
never let me bullshit him,” he recalled.
In his most recent career endeavor,
Sweeney said, McFarlane “really helped
Gill sharpen its focus,” moving the orga-
nization largely toward an emphasis on
changing policies and laws at the state
level, and directing efforts to allow the
organization, through its Gill Action affili-
ate, to have a direct role in lobbying for
change.
“The aligning of politics and philan-
thropy was very important to LGBT
donors,” Sweeney said.
McFarlane’s passion, though, was in
“laying out strategy,” Sweeney explained.
“He was a very tough guy to work for and
he didn’t particularly like managing peo-
ple.” By late last year, he was ready for a
hand-off to a successor. “He felt that he
had made his contribution,” Sweeney said.
Sweeney identified another character-
istic of McFarlane related to his hobbies
as an avid outdoor enthusiast and com-
petitor in extreme sports, and his fre-
quent off-road jeep jaunts — his love of
periodic isolation.
“He was just a really complicated man,”
Sweeney said. “Brilliant and difficult and
accomplished. As you know, he would
suck the air out of the room in a meeting
and then he would disappear on his own
in the desert for several weeks.”
By the time he left Gill, McFarlane
had for roughly a year been living with
intense back pain that followed major
surgery. Sweeney said that McFarlane’s
height, in particular, made his frequent
air travel nearly unbearable. According
to Grossman, mitigating that pain would
have involved additional major surgery.
Meanwhile, McFarlane learned he had
significant heart problems that demand-
ed bypass surgery. Kramer said McFar-
lane “did not tell anyone about the heart
stuff.” Grossman, who was scheduled to
take an off-road jeep vacation with him
near Las Vegas in the next several weeks,
only learned about the heart problems
when McFarlane was in New York at the
beginning of the month to speak at a
Tribeca Film Festival panel held in con-
junction with the premiere of “Outrage,” a
film about closeted politicians.
McFarlane spent the past several
months in Truth or Consequences,
happy, according to Grossman, to have
found an artsy small town with a number
of ex-New Yorkers and accommodations
that cost him only $100 a week. If he was,
throughout this period, contemplating
suicide as a response to his health chal-
>Ê˜œÜ
lenges, it did not surprise Grossman that
he decided to go it alone. Recalling that
McFarlane’s brother David, who was also
gay, died of AIDS in 2002 refusing to take
medications that might have kept him
alive, Grossman said, “For them, being
a patient wasn’t something they wanted
28 MAY – 10 JUN 2009 33
to do.” He recalled that McFarlane had
“always talked about taking himself out if
he got sick.” Sweeney said, “I know that
he was petrified that he would have a
major heart episode and be paralyzed.”
Kramer and his lover David Webster
had dinner alone with McFarlane, at his
request, in New York the evening after the
Tribeca “Outrage” event. “Nowhere did he
indicate anything,” Kramer said of their
conversation on that occasion, though
he added that McFarlane had prepaid his
cremation prior to traveling to New York.
Still, Kramer seemed dubious about a
Denver Post report that McFarlane had
been steadily giving away possessions
from the time he left Gill, saying he did
not own much beyond paintings, cloth-
ing, “his beloved jeep,” and a gun and a
rifle. In fact, four years before, McFarlane
had gone through a bankruptcy occa-
sioned by roughly $300,000 owed to the
IRS and New York State in back taxes.
Sweeney, Kramer, and Grossman
all dismissed speculation that McFar-
lane was wrestling with depression or
any other mental health issue that con-
tributed to his decision to take his life.
Acknowledging that they were first and
foremost work colleagues, Sweeney said
he did what he could to keep tabs on
McFarlane’s health as his pain increased,
and never had the sense that he was
depressed.
Still, Sweeney seems at a loss to fully
understand McFarlane’s action. “I have
no small amount of anger about the trag- Gay,
edy of someone who in his life gave such
tender care-taking to those whose bod- Str8,
ies were deteriorating not allowing him- Bi,
self that same journey. I am frustrated Curious?
that he did not want a circle of people to
be around him. It makes me feel that in
some ways I never really knew this man.”
Grossman and Kramer, intimates
of McFarlane going back longer, were
more direct in rejecting depression as
an explanation of events. Kramer wrote
that McFarlane’s health problems were
“very definitely” intractable. “In his letter
to me, he said emphatically that he was
not depressed and that we should not feel
that there was something that we could
have done.” He added, “He refused to
become a patient or an invalid.”
According to Grossman, who had
helped McFarlane recover from his back
surgery 18 months ago, the suicide “was
a rationally-made decision.” Asked why
someone living with extreme pain and
presumably easy access to narcotic pain
relievers would choose to shoot himself,
he said McFarlane had become intoler-
ant of pills, unable to keep down even
anti-nausea medication. “His biggest fear
was waking up and finding that he had
become a patient,” Grossman said. /ÀÞʈÌÊÀiiÊUÊ
“I’m not mad at him,” Grossman con-
cluded. “I am just going to miss him.”
In addition to his many friends,
646-731-6658
McFarlane is survived by his brothers,
John and Robert, and a first cousin,
Lulu McFarlane Crawford. Plans for a
memorial service have not been finalized. 1800GayLive.com MC 7003 Ent only 18+ *Limited Free Trial Photography by Kevin E. McPherson
34
䉴 MOSCOW, from p.2
electronic address book. They
demanded where we got our
financing. They asked me for the
names of other prominent gays
in politics and show business. I
replied only that there were too
many to name!”
Alexeyev was eventually
released after more than 24
hours of sleepless detention, and
is scheduled to appear in court
on May 26 on a charge of “orga-
nizing an unlawful demonstra-
tion.” This is the fourth time the
young lawyer has been arrested
for holding a gay rights protest.
Although admitting in
response to a question from this
reporter that he was “extremely
exhausted” by the events of the
preceding weeks, he proclaimed
himself happy at the results of
this year’s Pride activities.
“We garnered a huge amount
of publicity, more than in any
previous years, which helped
bring the cause of Russian LGBT
people to the attention of more
and more of our fellow citizens,”
Alexeyev said. “The principal
goal of the police was to prevent
images of the Pride and of its
repression from being televised
in other countries, and while I’m
still catching up on all the news
reports we know that indeed our
protest was filed and broadcast
throughout the world, especially
in Europe.”
The Pride protest was timed to
coincide with the annual Euro-
vision song contest, which this
䉴 OPPOSITION, from p.12
featured the gover nor and
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a
registered Independent seeking
a third term on the Republican
line in November.
Like many speakers at the
nearly three-hour anti-gay
marriage rally, Rivera spoke in
Spanish and a translator gave a
lively rendering of the reverend’s
already spirited speech, punctu-
ating each “out” in Spanish with
another in English. The transla-
tor acted like a chorus for many
of the speakers, often making the
rally sound more like a revival
meeting than a political event.
Indeed, the rally opened and
closed with a prayer. Participants
arrived, some coming directly
from church, and left holding
their Bibles in the air. They lis-
tened to religious music prior
to the start of the speeches and
prayed or sang.
Rally organizers put the crowd
year was held in Moscow on the
day of the gay demonstration.
Eurovision is a major show busi-
ness event, televised throughout
Europe, and it attracts a large
gay following.
According to the British daily
the Guardian, Russian authori-
ties had spent an unprecedented
$37 million to host this year’s
Eurovision contest.
Alexeyev told the journalist
from the Guardian and other
reporters as he was being arrest-
ed, “The Russian government
is using this year’s Eurovision
in Moscow as a gala showpiece
to show the world how far the
country has improved since the
early 1990s. What we witnessed
this afternoon on the streets of
Moscow shows the world just
how little Russia has traveled in
respect of fundamental human
rights.”
The British Daily Telegraph
reported that advance ques-
tions about the threats of a
police crackdown on the Pride
March drew “an embarassed
silence” from the host of this
year’s Eurovision, openly gay
television personality Graham
Norton — whose show “The
Graham Norton Effect” appears
on the US gay television net-
work Logo — and from Andrew
Lloyd Weber, who composed the
UK entry song, “It’s My Time,”
for Britain’s Eurovision contes-
tant, singer Jade Ewen. Both
show business figures professed
ignorance about the tough line
taken by the Moscow authori-
at 20,000 or 30,000, though
such estimates seemed high.
Those in attendance were held in
block-long pens that took up two
or three lanes of traffic on the
west side of Third Avenue, with
the pens stretching from 40th
Street south to 35th Street.
The rally stage was at 40th
Street, but the sound system
only reached to 39th Street, so
much of what transpired on the
stage could not be heard in the
lower blocks. People in those
pens gathered in circles, held
hands and prayed, sang songs,
and chanted “Jesus, Jesus,
Jesus” to the traffic passing by.
The Reverend Ruben Diaz, a
rally organizer, Democratic state
senator representing part of the
Bronx, and ardent gay marriage
foe, adopted a standard right-
wing posture, that of the crusad-
er attacked for holding a virtuous
position.
“They accuse us of homopho-
bia,” Diaz said. “They accuse us
28 MAY – 10 JUN 2009
ties against the gay rally.
“I feel really bad, but I don’t
know very much about this,” the
Guardian quoted Norton as say-
ing just before the Pride March.
Lloyd Webber also said he knew
little about it, saying only that
it was “probably a matter of
security” or “might have been
banned to avoid traffic conges-
tion,” the Telegraph reported.
Alexeyev told Gay City News
that this year, Russian media
coverage of the Pride events
was “not only much more wide-
spread, in that every newspa-
per carried an account of the
events,” but that “the coverage
was more neutral and positive
and less homophobic” than in
previous years, and that’s a big
change. This shows the posi-
tive effect our militant public
agitation is having in fighting
homophobia.”
The Moscow march was only
part of the events organized by
Alexeyev and his comrades in
connection with the Interna-
tional Day Against Homophobia,
celebrated in over 50 countries
in commemoration of the day
in 1993 when the World Health
Organization removed homo-
sexuality from its list of mental
disorders.
“We also had a conference in
the days before the Pride which
drew some 80 people and was
held at a location about 70 kilo-
meters outside of Moscow, and
there was also the attempted
marriage of two lesbians we’d
organized on May 12,” Alexeyev
of being radicals... They accuse
us of many things because they
want to close the mouth of the
church.”
Diaz credited Radio Vision
Cristiana, a New Jersey-based
AM radio station that broadcasts
religious programming, with
turning out the crowd that was
well into the thousands. Ear-
lier speakers noted that 3,000
churches from the tri-state area
were represented at the event.
“They sounded the trumpet
and here we are,” Diaz said. “The
sleeping giant has awakened and
nothing can make him go back
to sleep.”
Many of the signs in the crowd,
some of which spelled marriage
with one r, bore the Radio Vision
Cristiana label.
Diaz, a Pentecostal minister, is
affiliated with the New York His-
panic Clergy Organization, a co-
organizer of the event, and vol-
unteers in white windbreakers
bearing the organization’s name
told this reporter.
On that day, the two lesbians,
Irina Fedetova, 32, and Irina
Sjipitiko, 30, showed up at the
Tverskoi Moscow branch of the
State Marriage Registry Office
in matching tuxedos to register
their marriage, but were sent
packing by the chief registrar,
Svetlana Potamoshneva, who
told them that the Family Civil
Code states only that marriage
requires the consent of “a man
and a woman.” In any case,
said the registrar, the official
form only had sections for “he”
and “she.” Alexeyev, who had
accompanied the two lesbians,
then persuaded the registrar to
consider a request to register
the marriage written on a blank
piece of paper.
Later, Alexeyev and the lesbi-
an couple posed for photographs
and answered questions before a
swarm of journalists in front of
the registry office, and the event
was widely publicized through-
out Russia.
Alexeyev has four lawsuits
pending before the European
Court of Human Rights in Stras-
bourg to overturn bans on Mos-
cow Pride and other gay dem-
onstrations on the grounds of
freedom of assembly, one case
before the United Nations Com-
mittee on Human Rights, and
seven more cases are still in the
Russian courts, he told Gay City
News.
Doug Ireland can be reached
through his blog, DIRELAND, at
http://direland.typepad.com/.
handled crowd control.
As much as the rally was reli-
gious, it also featured explicit
political content.
One early speaker asked Pat-
erson, “Why haven’t you paid
attention to those constituents,
Democrats, who voted for you?
Today, you have slapped them in
the face.”
Later, a Jewish speaker called
Sheldon Silver, the Assembly
speaker and an Orthodox Jew,
“an embarrassment as a Jew,”
and said of gay marriage sup-
porters, “We will run prima-
ries against each and every one
of you. We will run you out of
office.”
Tony Perkins, president of
the Family Research Council,
a national right-wing lobbying
group, said to the crowd, “The
politicians are unleashing chaos
on our children, on our families,
and on our nation by redefining
marriage... One thing stands in
the way of this chaos — you.”
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
14 DAYS
14 NIGHTS
䉴 14 DAYS, from p.34
DANCE
TUE.JUN.9
Ambiguous
Movement
C. Eule Dance presents “Summer on the
Pier,” featuring the premier of Stuck, created
in collaboration with lesbian singer/song-
writer and company dancer Michelle Vargo.
The piece delves into individuals’ challenges
and insecurities including miscommunica-
tion, sexual identity, loneliness, and feelings
of belonging. Pier 66 Maritime, 26th St.
at 12th Ave. on the Hudson River. Jun. 9
& 14, 8:30 p.m.; Jun. 14, 3 p.m. Free, but a
donation of $15 is suggested.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
BOOKS
Uncovering the
Uncovered
The Leslie/Lohman Gallery hosts
a book signing by Reed Massengill, a
photographer and writer whose work
includes “Self-Exposure: The Male Nude
Self-Portrait” and “The Male Ideal: Lon of
New York and the Masculine Physique.”
His new book is “Uncovered,” which
restores a lost chapter to the history of the
male nude photograph — more than 100
erotic classics produced and kept under-
ground in the pre-Stonewall era due to
fear of police confiscation, harassment,
and worse. The volume features the work
of ten photographers. 26 Wooster St.,
btwn. Grand & Canal Sts., 7-9 p.m. For
reservations, email RSVP@rizzoliusa.com.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
FILM
THU.JUN.11
Focus on Justice
The Human Rights Watch International
Film Festival, in a series co-hosted with the
Film Society of Lincoln Center, celebrates
20 years with a program of 32 films from 17
countries. Prestigious returning filmmak-
ers include Costa-Gavras (“Z”), who will
make his third visit with a Jun. 11 ben-
efit screening of his latest drama, “Eden Is
West,” a bittersweet tale about an illegal
immigrant in Europe. Gabriela and Sally
Gutierrez Dewar’s “Tapologo” looks at a
group of HIV-positive former sex workers in
South Africa now caregivers to others liv-
ing with HIV (Jun. 23, 6:30 p.m.; Jun. 24,
9 p.m.). Walter Reade Theater, 165 W.
65th St., upper level, btwn. Broadway
& Amsterdam Ave. Jun. 11-25. Admis-
sion is $11 per screening; $8 for seniors, $7
for students and Film Society members. For
complete details, visit filmlinc.com.
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
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