Gay USMC Tim Smith-Your Billboard is Safe Here

NEWS/PRIDE/PREJUDICE

It’s a distasteful matter that has no business being on a billboard! That’s what many religious fanatics will argue and for once I agree. If a U.S. Marine plastered “I love having oral sex with my wife and I protected your freedom!” I could understand the outrage and the motive of some to have it torn down, but the fact of the matter is that that same Marine being good in bed with his wife won’t get him discharged from patriotically serving his country. Nor would several factors such as being left-handed (once considered evil), a woman or being black bare the same results. Things that are considered by some to be undesirable and a choice won’t get you discharged either, like being Jewish, being an illegal immigrant who wants to serve his new homeland and earn his citizenship or not having voted for George Bush in the 2000/2004 elections.

Just being gay however will.

Though it hasn’t been that way for a long time, you used to not be able to serve your country if you were “a negro,” and even when you could, you were segregated from your fellow white soldiers. Oh, you could defend them, give your life to save them, but you wouldn’t be allowed to eat or sleep anywhere near them. This is one of the reasons that the actions of the heroic and much-decorated Tuskegee Airmen who saved hundreds of airmen’s lives took so long to become general knowledge. Some didn’t want it known those Negroes could be as brave (if not more so) as their fellow white soldiers.

Thankfully that’s changed, but when it did there was as much of an uproar over military desegregation as there is over the “Don’t ask-don’t tell” policy today.

The Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center in preparation for the National Coming Out Day on October 11th put up a series of billboards in Memphis Tennessee. On one of them was the image of ex-USMC Tim Smith (27) in full dress uniform emblazoned with the words “I’m gay and I protected your freedom.” Smith who is currently a student served his country between 2001-2005. The mere fact that Smith was brave enough to serve his country goes to the heart of his patriotism. The fact that he was brave enough to allow his image to be displayed so prominently and publicly putting himself in harm’s way of prejudice, hate and publicity goes to the heart of his courage.

Located at the bustling corner of Poplar and High St, the fact that the lit billboard was defaced and torn down by locals speaks volumes, especially since it was located on a busy downtown street and within blocks of the local police station. Instead of giving up, Smith (a University of Memphis student) proved his heart and commitment to the cause by stating, “As soon as the materials and prints come in, that billboard will go back up.” Memphis police are currently investigating the incident as vandalism and theft of property.

For those of you who claim that in these times displays such as these aren’t necessary and you shouldn’t have to put up with a bunch of drama queens trying to get attention, I would point out that as you read this there are thousands of gay translators and intelligence officers filling a valuable service to our country in the Middle East that are being unnecessarily yanked out of their positions for no other reason than their sexual orientation. There are right at this very moment closeted gay soldiers defending your sons and daughters’ lives with rifles, tanks, aircraft and courage, in danger of being dishonored and discharged if someone “found out.”

To them and to USMC Tim Smith, I will do my part to honor them by putting up that formerly battered billboard in a place where no one can deface it or tear it down… right here. Smith was drummed out of the military after a self-righteous minister decided it was his pastoral duty to press the point that the soldier wasn’t moral enough to serve his country and pushed the issue with the Marines until the four-year veteran was discharged.

There are those who claim that gays only number maybe one or two out of a hundred because you don’t see that many painted up and sequined fairy queens around town. The truth of the matter is that we’re closer to one-in-ten and that your next-door neighbor, best friend and/or local butcher, baker, and candlestick maker are gay, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at them, so they remain invisible and uncounted.

On October 11th, I urge all of America’s closeted gays to come out to just one friend, family member or co-worker. Now I'm sure a lot of you straight folks will smirk and come up with the snappy retort, “How much courage could that take in these times?” I’ll answer, could you summon the courage to tell your best friend that you are gay-even if you aren’t? If it just doesn’t matter in these modern and enlightened times and I’m blowing this up all out fo proportion, then you should get the same responding look from them as you would if you suddenly announced that you were left-handed… Right?

WARNING: Reproduction of the FIRST PARAGRAPH of this article is permitted as long as a link back to it is provided.
Reproduction of any part this article past the first paragraph is forbidden without the author's permission
©-2009 by Jet Gardner/Blogcritics.org

How Many Famous Athletes Are Gay? — Vol. II

GAY ATHLETES

Check table of contents link for Vol. I

The following quotes go to the heart of why gay athletes have trouble being honest with their teammates and why articles like this are necessary.

Garrison Hearst-San Francisco 49ers running back: “Aww, hell no! I don't want any faggots on my team. I know this might not be what people want to hear, but that's a punk. I don't want any faggots in this locker room."

Julian Tavarez-The Chicago Cubs pitcher after being booed by San Francisco fans said: “Why should I care about the fans? They're a bunch of assholes and faggots here.''

After NBA star center John Amaechi disclosed he was gay, NBA player Tim Hardaway said: "First of all I wouldn’t want him on my team. and second of all, if he was on my team I would really distance myself from him because I don’t think that’s right and I don’t think he should be in the locker room when we’re in the locker room. Something has to give, If you have 12 other ballplayers in your locker room that's upset and can't concentrate and always worried about him in the locker room or on the court or whatever, it's going to be hard for your teammates to win and accept him as a teammate."

Can you picture Hardaway as a helpless defenseless virgin while that-that beast Amaechi had his way with him right there in the locker room and in front of his fellow team members too “worried” to come to his rescue? Can you imagine network television having to put an extra thirty-second delay on a telecast just in case Amaechi decided in the middle of the game that Hardaway was just ohhhh-so attractive that he might lose control and play grab-ass with him instead of making that crucial three pointer?

In the spirit of “your damned if you do and damned if you don’t,” LeBron James expressed a problem with closeted gays on his team saying, "With teammates you have to be trustworthy, and if you're gay and you're not admitting that you are, then you are not trustworthy. So that's like the No. 1 thing as teammates — we all trust each other.... It's a trust factor, honestly. A big trust factor."

John Amaechi
Englishman John Amaechi didn’t even take up basketball until he was 17-years-old. It would be an understatement to say he’d entered the sport a little late in life, so people scoffing at him wanting to be an American basketball star would be considered reasonable. Of course if you’d ever met the 6-foot-ten, 270-pound athlete in person, it’d probably lessen the shock of his latter achievements.

Among his considerable list of accomplishments by the time he’d turned thirty, he’d crossed the Atlantic several times to become not only a famous European, but also a well-known American basketball star. The twice First Team Academic All-American for Penn State went on to become an undrafted NBA starter for the Cleveland Cavaliers in 1995-96. He also played in France and Italy. Amaechi is the only British player to be inducted into the U.S. Basketball Hall of Fame after incredible seasons in Cleveland, Orlando and Utah.

Among the four major American sports, John is only the sixth pro athlete to talk openly about being gay and the only one so far within the NBA. Averaging 6.2 points and 2.6 rebounds a game, Amaechi has proven that being a homosexual team player should be about as controversial as being left or right-handed.

Nowadays John is a British TV personality, helps run and fund the Amaechi Basketball Center in Manchester, and is a best-selling author for ESPN Books with his autobiography Man in the Middle.

In a way LeBron had a valid point a few paragraphs back, if you’re a team you should be able to trust each other with anything. A good example of how this actually helps a squad comes in the form of…

Brian Sims
After Sims left Bloomsburg University he became an unusual legend, as much for his athletic accomplishments, as for the fact that unless you knew him personally you’d never believe he was gay. If any stereotype fit him it’d be a college jock. Conversation leaned toward the coming game, the opponents strengths and weaknesses, which cheerleader might get lucky next, what professors he would like to sack in the parking lot, and where and when he wanted to turn pro. Sims was known for a lot of things, not the least of which was that he could bench press 225 pounds not 10, not 20 but nearly 40 times. He was captain of their Division II football team playing defensive tackle, and at a hulking 6 feet tall and 260 pounds, he wasn’t exactly what you’d call your clichéd “faggot” by a long shot.

Brian began feeling his attraction to other men back in junior high, but with two Army colonels for parents, it went without saying that he suppressed it as much as possible. Once he entered college and was out on his own, he gradually not only faced his sexual preferences, but also accepted them.

As Bloomsburg University began realizing that they could very likely clinch the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Championship, one of Sims’ ex-clandestine boyfriends decided on his revenge for being dumped… he convincingly informed quarterback Eric Miller that Bloomsburg’s team captain and all-conference defensive tackle was a homosexual. Miller kept the news to himself about his good friend, but whispers in the locker-room became rumors in the halls as more and more students were told.

As Brian’s roommates will verify, it wasn’t exactly easy confirming that the handsome first-team jock was gay. Especially with the steady stream of girls wandering in and out of his room at all hours of the day and night. After all, being gay isn’t whom you have sex with, but whom your hormones react to and whom you fall in love with. After all many closeted husbands with children and famous athletes of all kinds hide behind relationships with women—most ending in disastrous results.

As a very successful and long season progressed, the team knew that the last thing they needed was for one of their most crucial and key players to get sidelined worrying about how they felt about him, so they confronted him, told him they knew, supported him, and made sure he was confident that they were behind him 100 percent. No one avoided him in the locker room or shower, in fact if anything it brought them solidly together as a team, supporting each other as a fighting unit with one true interest and love… football.

As the championship match drew nearer, it even became a point of team pride and humor. Over-confident opponents who’d heard the rumors came and then left the field of battle knowing that they’d have to face their home fans after suffering a galling defeat at the hands of a team with a queer for a starting player who somehow was also a star all-conference tackle and its captain!

As fate would have it and despite Sims chalking up three sacks in the final game, Delta State took the national championship racking up a score of 63-34.

Brian Sims is now a successful lawyer connected with the Philadelphia Bar Association and works with the Pennsylvania legislation in matters of discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Billy Bean
Baseball’s Billy Bean of the Tigers, Dodgers and Padres tied the record of four hits in his first time out as a major league player. The southpaw outfielder had a .226 batting average at 487 times at bat. As with Glenn Burke before him, Billy didn’t dare acknowledge his homosexuality. His coming out September 6, 1999 after he retired from eight years as a pro, landed him on the front page of the Sports section of the New York Times and as a guest on 20/20.

He enjoys life nowadays as an author of Going The Other Way, consultant and an openly gay TV personality. Billy has also spearheaded an effort to downplay “ex-gay” ministers who believe that forcing young boys to play sports will cure them of their homosexuality.

Rudy Galindo
Ice-skating has known and been proud of Rudy Galindo since his first championship in 1982. The mention of his name and sport however usually sends rednecks all over the country laughing, “That ain’t no real-man sport! Hell, my wife wears less sequins and makeup that them fags do!” To them I’m sure Rudy would challenge them to match his phenomenal physical strength, perseverance and athletic prowess to fly like he does, and then to land safely without killing themselves. Nor could they equal his dedication to the sport by stubbornly being back on the ice after a double hip replacement in 2003 mere weeks after the surgery and competing professionally the following April.

Galindo’s whirlwind career solidified itself when he took the U.S. National Novice Men’s Championship in 1982. He went on to partner with Kristi Yamaguchi to win several U.S. National Pairs Championships. He has also won or placed in several World Junior Men’s and Men’s Championships, and was a fixture on the Champions on Ice tour until it folded in 2007. All this despite being diagnosed a decade earlier as HIV+ in 1996.

Chris Dickerson
"To be a truly great champion you must be so dedicated that the sport becomes woven into the warp and woof of your life"
Chris was inducted into the IFBB Hall of Fame in 2000. Since his career began in 1965, he’s been Junior Mr. USA (Most Muscular,) Mr. New York State and Mr. California. In 1970 he became the first African-American AAU Mr. America. He has also been Mr. Universe, Mr. World, and just to make sure everyone was impressed with his 30-year career, at the age of 43 he became the oldest Mr. Olympia in 1982. He earned the 2008 Ben Weider Lifetime Achievement Award and his method of posing in competition is considered second to none as witnessed by this video.

On top of all that, he’s a respected opera singer.

Matthew Mitcham
Despite coming out publicly just before the Olympics, Australia’s openly homosexual golden boy Matthew Mitcham is living the life that gay American sports heroes can only dream of. Australia even issued a fifty-cent postage stamp in his honor the day after his Olympic triumph. Johnson and Johnson covered the expenses so that his lover Lachlan Fletcher could attend the games as a spectator. His being gay is such a non-issue in his home country; their media was shocked at some of the legal precautions he had to take while competing in other countries (particularly the middle east.) At one point he was asked to forgo his appearance on the Gay Pride float in Australia’s Mardi gras parade in order to appear on the local morning show’s instead!

Mitcham fever hit its peak during the Beijing Olympic Games’ 10m-platform event. There, Matthew knocked down what was then considered the undefeatable Chinese diving team and in the process earned the highest scoring dive in Olympic history with a perfectly executed 112.10-point back two and a half somersault with two and a half twists. Up until the last dive of the competition, China’s Zhou Luxin had a 30 point lead, but Matthew smashed it spectacularly beating his impressive 533.15 score with his own 537.95… all at the age of 20. A few months later he won the 2008 Diving Grand Prix, and was voted Australia Sportsman of the year for 2008 by his peers and fellow countrymen.

Because of the treatment that they get in their own countries, of the 11,028 athletes to compete in the Beijing Olympics, only eleven were out and proud gays. The odds are that that left approximately 1091 just as deserving gay athletes out in their cold closets.

Mark Tewksbury
"When you compete, you need to focus on your strength, but when you're in the closet, what you focus on is fear and vulnerability."

"The fear of rejection is the ultimate overriding factor that makes it really difficult to make yourself stand out in any way, and certainly in a way that might not be seen so positively by your teammates."

Amongst other things, Mark is known for doing something not many other athletes can do… break his own World Records. In fact at the Canadian Winter Nationals in Winnipeg he did it twice in two days… and without a high-tech body suit. By the time Tewksbury retired in 1992 he owned the 100m short-course backstroke and had earned six World Records in the event plus one short-course world record in the 200m backstroke. Aside from medaling for Canada in the 1988 Seoul and 1992 Barcelona Olympics, Mark also achieved good showings in the Pan Pacific Games from 1987 thru 1991.

Mark has earned several Canadian Athlete of the Year awards; including the prestigious Lou March Trophy, the Lionel Conacher Award, and the Norton H. Crow Award. He has also been inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame, the Olympic Hall of Fame; he was named Canada’s Male Athlete of the Year and is in the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

In 1996, Mark became an integral part of the International Olympic Committee that selected the site of the 2004 Summer Olympics, but became embroiled in a conflict over the treatment of Olympic Athletes and perceived corruption in the organization. In 1998 Mark disclosed his homosexuality and several months later resigned his position at the IOC, deciding instead to concentrate on his role of bringing the celebrated Gay Games/Out Games to Montreal; an event that he hosted in 2006.

Though his coming out did little to damage his athletic reputation, it cost him a very lucrative job as a motivational speaker because he was suddenly “too gay” despite his talent in the field that landed him the position in the first place. CBC Sports apparently didn’t agree and hired him as a play-by-play announcer and commentator at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Today Mark is involved with his own motivational speaking, has recently published his autobiography entitled Inside Out: Straight Talk from a Gay Jock, is involved in Canadian politics and sits on the boards of several important Gay organizations like the Gay and Lesbian Athletics Foundation.


With so many asking me to do a sequel to my 2006 article How Many Famous Athletes are Gay, I began pondering why I’d written the original article in the first place. I believe that I was trying to get the general public to consider people like American pro football’s Esera Tuaolo, Dave Kopay, and Australian Rules’ Ian Roberts, in order to illustrate that all gay men aren’t sex-crazed, little-boy-chasing, limp-wristed fairy queens. Nor are lesbians like tennis greats Billy Jean King or Martina Navratilova all chopped-haired “bulls” that ride motorcycles and become ranking officers in the military.

According to Navratilova, fighting such destructive negative stereotypes is important where gay high school athletes are concerned, especially when they’re forming their own self-images. Many teenaged gay athletes have committed and/or attempted suicide through the years because of the treatment they received at the hands of their own teammates and coaches. When pro basketball player John Amaechi came out, Martina is quoted as saying of him and gay sports figures in general, "It's hugely important for the kids so they don't feel alone in the world. We're role models. We're adults, and we know we're not alone but kids don't know that," she said, referring to small-town gay athletes feeling alone. "He will definitely help a lot of kids growing up to feel better about themselves."

Referring to John Amaechi’s coming out, ex-pro defensive lineman Esera Tuaolo spoke of his similar public experiences before and after the disclosure of his own homosexuality, "What John did is amazing. He does not know how many lives he's saved by speaking the truth. Living with all that stress and that depression, all you deal with as a closeted person, when you come out you really truly free yourself,'' he said. "When I came out, it felt like I was getting out of prison."

Most American gays take offense at the local media making a point of only filming the stereotypical over-painted and glittered drag queens and “dykes on bikes” during annual Gay Pride parades. Why? Because more often than not, and like it or not, American gays and lesbians look and act like your typical next door neighbor, the popular high school linebacker, your office mate or even your best friend.

WARNING: Reproduction of the FIRST PARAGRAPH of this article is permitted as long as a link back to it is provided.
Reproduction of any part this article past the first paragraph is forbidden without the author's permission
©-2009 by Jet Gardner/Blogcritics.org

Maine Goes Gay! Will California Be Last?

LEGISLATIVE NEWS

California may see a large percentage of its single, upwardly motivated, and mobile population head eastward, along with their bank accounts, tax dollars, and businesses for friendlier shores. When Iowa beat out the once gay-friendliest state of the nation in passing its gay marriage legislation, many thought that Proposition 8 was their “last straw” and predicted a mass-exodus. Though many are holding out, out of loyalty-just as many, if not more are getting ready to pack their bags. Gays and Lesbians have more of an advantage in terms of liquid available cash, and a tendency to spend it on vacations, businesses and causes that are gay-friendlier in places that are more gay-friendly.

Strangely enough, New England seems more and more recently to be filling the bill.

So far five states have okayed gays to legally marry, and Maine, Connecticut, Vermont and Massachusetts have joined Iowa in the Midwest. Vermont was so committed to the cause that they even overrode its governor’s veto! Once considered to be the most open and welcoming state in the union, California is poised to lose a great deal, especially with New Hampshire poised to become the sixth.

New England has a common culture with media outlets that share regions, so it’s logical that it would move as a group. Though Rhode Island seems to be the lone holdout, legislature is said to be pending, though it isn’t probable that it will make it to its governor’s desk this year.

Many East Coast leaders assert that the rest of the country has gradually figured out that after Massachusetts passed their law in 2004 allowing gays to marry, our sacred union hasn’t turned into Sodom and Gomorrah, nor has Western civilization fallen to the heathens.

As for Maine; Governor John Baldacci lost no time and signed the bill seemingly before the ink dried Wednesday, May 6, 2009. Maine’s Senate Majority Leader Phillip Bartlett asserts that the long overdue legislation won’t force religious institutions to recognize gay marriage, which has always been a ultra-right wing “bogeyman” thrown out to derail past efforts.

WARNING: Reproduction of the FIRST PARAGRAPH of this article is permitted as long as a link back to it is provided.
Reproduction of any part this article past the first paragraph is forbidden without the author's permission
©-2009 by Jet Gardner/Blogcritics.org

Heartless U. S. Rep. Calls Matthew Shepard Murder/Gay Bashing A “Hoax”

EDITORIAL/LEGISLATURE/GAY HERITAGE


According to court testimony, in the months leading up to October of 1998, Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney lived with a friend named Tom O’Connor. Tom intimated to McKinney’s girlfriend that he’d had sex occasionally with her boyfriend Aaron, and thought he was bisexual. Despite O’Connor’s later sworn statements in court to the contrary, McKinney denied having sex with him. After months of suffering taunts and denials, McKinney became anxious to prove his macho manhood and decided that a good old-fashioned “fag bashing” might just fill the bill.

The trouble was that O’Connor was too good of a mutual friend to be the intended target of his wrath.

McKinney and his attorney would later try to assert that his eventual victim had blatantly approached the two much bigger men for sex and that his client merely overreacted. They didn’t count on both McKinney and Henderson’s girlfriends later refusing to provide them with alibis, and then turning against them in court. According to subsequent testimony by both women, (Chastity Paisley and Kristen Price) the two men planned in advance to “play queer”, gain the trust of some homosexual, and then rob and beat him up. Their story was later confirmed when Henderson turned state’s evidence in order to avoid the death penalty.

On the night of October 6, 1998, McKinney and Henderson entered the Fireside Lounge in Laramie Wyoming, and picked a slightly built college student named Matthew Shepard as a likely candidate. After a few casual drinks and some flirting to gain his trust, they offered Shepard a ride home, which he accepted. Instead, before he realized what was happening, they drove him far out of town into ranch country, pulled a pistol on him and then robbed him of his shoes, keys and valuables.

Not satisfied with that humiliation, McKinney then used a rope to tie him to a ranch fence. The two friends proceeded to torture, taunt, and severely beat him; being careful not to kill their prey in order to prolong his ordeal. When they later returned to their girlfriends, they bragged of repeatedly forcing Shepard to beg for his life, and intimated how they planned to rob their victim’s apartment now that they knew where he lived.

When they were subsequently arrested, the bloody gun, along with Shepard’s wallet and shoes were found still in McKinney’s truck. The off-handed discarding of his wallet proved that robbery was not the main motive for the attack.

Late in the afternoon of the day after the beating a man discovered the 21-year-old college student still tied to the fence, barely alive, but in a coma. He was so badly beaten that he was at first mistaken for a scarecrow with a red painted face. He later said the only part of Shepard's head not covered with blood was where tears had apparently washed tracks down his cheeks.

His skull was fractured from the back of his head to his right ear. He was so badly beaten that he suffered brain stem damage, which meant his brain could no longer regulate his body temperature and heart rate. As the night’s temperature fell to near freezing, Matthew probably slowly suffered the cold in agony until mercifully lapsing into a coma. Because of the blood loss from dozens of deep cuts to his scalp and face, the doctors at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins determined there was nothing they could do to save him. Though he remained on life support, he never woke from his coma and died days later on October 12, 1998.

His story inspired candlelight vigils all over the world and made national headlines.



Fast-forward ahead in time to 2009.

Inspired by Shepard’s story and many like it over the years, hate-crime legislation bearing his name has been introduced in the U.S. Congress.

Republican Representative Virginia Foxx of North Carolina argued that Shepard was killed accidentally as part of a robbery, not because he was gay: "The bill was named for him, the hate-crimes bill was named for him, but it's really a hoax that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills."

In a later attempt to clarify her statement by blaming it on faulty information from right-wing websites, she tried to appeal to outraged colleagues by stating, “Referencing these media accounts may have been a mistake, but if so, it was a mistake based on what I believed were reliable accounts.” She went on to try to back peddle by saying, “Mr. Shepard's death was nothing less than a tragedy, and those responsible for his death certainly deserved the punishment they received.”

In my opinion Rep. Fox deserves to be removed from office. It is incomprehensible that an elected official could stand on the hallowed floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and verbally spew what are essentially prejudiced and ignorant statements based on slanted and inaccurate accounts. It goes to prove the assertion that just because you agree with something doesn’t make it fact. In this case, thankfully, it came back to “bite her on the ass,” and she deserves nothing less than the same treatment from her constituents; who I’d dare say are more than a little embarrassed that she seems to have clumsily confirmed a few unfounded and unwanted southern stereotypes.

WARNING: Reproduction of the FIRST PARAGRAPH of this article is permitted as long as a link back to it is provided.
Reproduction of any part this article past the first paragraph is forbidden without the author's permission
©-2009 by Jet Gardner/Blogcritics.org

Jim Carrey Gay Liplocks with Ewan Mcgregor in Next Movie!

MOVIE/DVD REVIEW

I Love You Phillip Morris." starring Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor (Star Wars.) The movie based on crime reporter STEVE McVICKER's (Houston Chronicle) book, I Love You Phillip Morris: A True Story of Life, Love, & Prison Breaks, which followed Russell's adventures through the imfamous Texas justice system.
Russell's many bizzare escapes (usually on Friday the 13th) included using a perloined walkie talkie as a prop to get through jail security, using a green pen and a bucket of water to fabricate phony surgical scrubs and forging his own death certificate after faking a terminal case of AIDS!

An ironic twist to all this is that with the time added to his sentences because of his jail breaks, he'll never get to actually see the movie based on his life story! (Texas doesn't consider this kind of movie suitable to show to its prisoners... surprise surprise) If what I've heard of how this story was drastically altered in order to bring it "Carrey style" to the silver screen; it's probably just as well.

CAUTION: Don't be fooled by the photo!

UPDATE January 2008...
Over the last few months, I've more or less left this topic alone, hoping that the rumors as to why this movie took so long to be released were false, and while it seems be finding distributors in Europe, America has turned its back on it... and for truly good reason.

I personally found it disappointing that Carrey chickened out and the feature has been re-edited and parts reshot as not a comedy, but more... a lame comedy... a making lots of/too many funny faces, stereotypes, and swishing around insultingly comedy... in fact a typical "over the top baffoon" comedy of Carrey's. Whether this was because the star was worried about his sexuality being questioned, or that he figured that turning it into a typical "Carrey film" might increase ticket sales is anyone's guess.

In other words it was transformed into a "dumber than dumberer" comedy. As of this writing, the movie recently has gotten high praise at the Sundance Film Festival, but for some reason it's still struggling to get a distributor west of the Atlantic.

The movie begins with Jim on his death bed, telling his life's story. What follows after that are lame jokes and lots and lots and lots of reassurances (probably to himself) that Jim Carrey's not really gay, basically by playing it so completely over the top that no one would believe it. Carrey is over-portrayed as a good cop, a good Christian organ player at his church-his eyes dazed and glazed with the love of Jesus (not a good sign in a gay flick.) He's also a good father, and a GREAT husband, with numerous scenes of him sticking his tongue down his wife's throat, along with him banging her loudly and enthusiastically.

It's a dead give away when he announces to his wife that he's gay, and he uses his stock comedy face afterward in one of the dumbest "Carrey clown" looks he can possibly muster for the camera.

Another typical shot is of his childish antics while waiting for an elevator with the police just down the hall.

Once you get past all of that, you'll see glimpses of what this flick probably started out as... no stupid jokes, and no baffoon's funny faces.. in other words a true love story based on actual occurances.

Ewan McGregor's sexy and innocent performance is the only saving grace, but not worth the insult the rest of the movie delivers.

Shoved aside and promised as "DVD extras" at Sundance, are an extended gay kissing scene, and a near x-rated but tender gay sex scene that didn't make it to the final edit, (another one that will shock Ace Ventura fans involves him graphically pounding a muscle hunk doggie-style). that were played with passion and realism. These all promise an enjoyable hour and a half or so ...until Carrey ruins it by intentionally ending each scene that survived the cutting room floor with a stupid and/or misplaced laugh/giggle/titter for his (assumed) adoring audience.

Unfortunately because of that, it'll probably wind up as a direct to DVD release in the U.S., and a typical, yet hopefully forgettable "fag joke" (and a lame one at that,) where he ridiculously asserts that car accidents and attempted suicides can turn you into an overly stereotypical homosexual if you're not careful... the kind where you absolutely must have the latest fashions (not) and gym memberships and if you can't afford them, you steal the money to buy them.

--By far, the most insulting line is the wife asking if the "gay thing" goes hand in hand with stealing?, which could cause gay audience members to walk out of the theater in numbers too great to ignore and demand their money back--

Another reason for gays to walk out is that all the web-buzz about those sex scenes is just that... buzz. As I mentioned before they've all been edited to within seconds of their lives-if that.(groan) Oh they're being seen right now all over Europe, but will never reach America's Puritanical screens.

Judge for yourself if I'm exagerating and click here to see the trailer for this complete waste of time, and take my advice if this doesn't discourage you? Either buy the book instead, or buy the DVD after it's been discounted... and use the fast forward button a lot.

WARNING: Reproduction of the FIRST PARAGRAPH of this article is permitted as long as a link back to it is provided.
Reproduction of any part this article past the first paragraph is forbidden without the author's permission
©-2009 by Jet Gardner/Blogcritics.org

How Many Famous Athletes Are Gay?

GAY ATHLETES

Check table of contents link for Vol. II!

How many current professional athletes are gay? An intriguing question, which for many reasons will probably never find reliable answers. Here's just a few good ones to consider. . .

From early on in high school sports, most athletic adolescent boys tend to seek out the weak in gym class to pick on, bully, and give verbal and physical abuse to. To them anyone who didn’t play sports were sissies and "fags" to be beaten up in school parking lots in front of their friends, so it was no wonder that openly gay pro athletes are rarely heard of, or from.


One of the heroes of Flight 93-September 11, 2001, was an out and proud athlete...

After learning of Mark Bingham's story (The gay rugby player that helped bring down Flight 93 before it hit the U. S. Capitol) I wondered what other sports pros out of the approximately 4,000 active in the U. S. had the guts to face the inevitable judgment and fan hatred by coming out. I was appalled to discover most had to wait till after their careers were over.


There’s no doubt in my mind that in all corners of professional and college athletics from boxing to football, the ranks are full of gays. You’ve just never heard of them. This also includes the ranks of coaches, owners or general managers.


The most plausible reason would be constant speculation of an opposing team’s sexuality as an insult among sports fans, some of which comb the web and enter discussion boards not only for information, but to start damaging rumors. A good example of this would be when sportswriter Skip Bayless publicly (and unfoundedly) speculated that Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman was gay.


More examples can be found in professional sports athletes like Dave Kopay and Esera Tuaolo (football), Martina Navratilova, and of course the great Billie Jean King (tennis). Unfortunately because of the overzealous Taliban-style "religious-right"'s influence imposed on the U.S. in recent history, American athletes such as Aikman have suffered unfounded fan judgment whether they actually were gay or not. The situation has become just as serious as when entertainers and politicians were accused of being communists in the 1950s McCarthy "witch hunts". Just the mere mention of the word "commie" back then was enough for regular folk such as Lucy Ball to lose their friends, and sometimes their jobs and homes.


The best illustration of why more don’t come out is shown by just looking at what one of the best athletes in history-Magic Johnson went through in 1991. He summoned the courage to announce that he had AIDS. Religious fanatics and hate mongers like Jerry Falwell loudly branded the virus as God's exclusive judgment on homosexuals. Suddenly Magic's fans didn’t care that he had a death-sentence disease. No, they were more obsessed with gasping repeatedly “Magic’s Gay?... a fag!?!” Which of course, he wasn’t.



A good example of how misguided hatred of gays in sports can affect the athletes themselves comes in the form of 6'6" 275-lb offensive lineman Ed Gallagher who played at the University of Pittsburgh from 1977-79. After years of fighting homosexual urges, in 1985 he gave in and slept with another athlete. The gut wrenching decision to finally admit to himself that he was gay was too much for him and two weeks later he tried and failed to take his own life by leaping off Valhalla's Kensico Dam on March 1, 1985.

The attempt left him a paraplegic. In an interview afterward, he said that he couldn’t resolve his inner conflicts of what he’d always been taught that a sports athlete was supposed to be versus his sexual urges, so rather than face his own self-loathing and the expected rejection and judgment of his fans, he decided to end his own life. He later went on to found “Alive to Thrive” to help others in his position. He died May, 4th 2005 of a heart condition.



Here is an honor roll of brave men and women who deserve respect for not only being honest with themselves and their fans about their sexuality, but whose lives were nearly destroyed because of that honesty.

Roy Simmons was an offensive guard between 1979 and 1983 for the New York Giants and Washington Redskins, who came out on The Donahue Show. He is one of only three NFL pros to acknowledge his homosexuality.


Back in 1975 David Kopay, a running back in the NFL between 1964 and 1972, came out of the closet three years after he retired. His 1977 autobiography The David Kopay Story became an instant best seller and flew off the shelves as sports fans got their first glimpse of a gay football star.

Kopay’s first lover was Washington Redskins all-star tight end Jerry Smith. From 1965-77 Smith caught 421 career passes and scored 60 touchdowns. He remained in the closet until he died in 1987, even after his affair was revealed in Kopay’s autobiography. Despite that revelation, he was still voted one of the greatest Redskins of all time in 2002.


In baseball, former A's/Dodgers outfielder Glenn Burke is credited with being one of the inventors of the “high five. ”

Glenn came out in a 1982 Sports Illustrated article — three years after he was released from his contract with the A’s. It was rumored that he was traded to the A’s because Dodgers management suspected he was gay. The hatred and depression of being forced to end his career at 26 led to drugs and he wound up a street person in the San Francisco Bay area, dying alone and broke in 1995.



Other needless past tragedies include:


Big Bill” Tilden, who was considered a tennis legend, an athlete on par with the likes of Tiger Woods today, and a much sought-after celebrity in the 1920s. In 1949 he was declared one of the most outstanding athletes of the first half-century by the National Sports Writers Association. He won seven U. S. clay court titles, seven U. S. Opens, three Wimbledons, six U. S. doubles championships and holds the Davis Cup record for eleven appearances in a challenge or final round.

Behind the scenes Tilden wasn’t careful enough with his “secret” and in his celebrity and fame thought he was secure with his fans’ support. He began intimating to his close friends that he was gay and soon after a behind the scenes conspiracy began to discredit him and ruin his reputation.

In 1953 he died dirt poor in a one-room walk-up apartment alone and forgotten.


In 1988 Justin Fashanu was a British star soccer player. Bigots began spreading rumors that he had an ongoing sexual affair with two British cabinet ministers in an attempt to ruin both their careers-not caring what it did to his. Justin's career and self-worth were so devastated that 10 years later they found him in an abandoned garage in East London; the 36-year-old master athlete hung himself after an obsessed fan in Maryland claimed he assaulted him. The charges later were proven false.


On the other hand there have actually been some semi-happy endings:




Esera Tuaolo, the huge veteran of the Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings, and Atlanta Falcons appeared on an October 2002 episode of HBO's Real Sports. Upon seeing this, San Francisco 49ers running back Garrison Hearst was quoted as publicly announcing “I don’t want any faggots on my team,” and later had to apologize for it.

Before making peace with the negative reactions Tuaolo had considered suicide after bouts of depression and intense loneliness. Fortunately with the help of some of his former teammates, a concerted effort of the gay and lesbian community to stand by him, and his lover, Esera now leads a happy life.



Does anyone not know the name Martina Navratilova the tennis great who came out as a lesbian in the New York Daily News in 1982?



Billie Jean King has been a household name for decades, and rightfully so.

The unmatched and incredible Billie won twenty Wimbledon titles, helped create and start the Women’s Tennis Association, was named the Associated Press’s Woman Athlete of the year in 1967 and 1973, was named "Sports Illustrated’s 1972 “Sportsperson of the Year,” and Time Magazine’s Woman of the Year for 1976. In front of 30,472 cheering fans packing the Houston Astrodome and 50 million TV viewers, she beat tennis hustler and former champion Bobby Riggs in what was billed as the ultimate tennis “Battle of the Sexes.”

She was forced out into the Gay Rights forum when her ex-lover sued her for “Galimony,” which fortunately didn’t seem to hurt her career at all.




According to an April 12, 2005 Sports Illustrated poll, sports fans are far more accepting of lesbians in sports than gay men. Overall though, in the same poll 86 percent of Americans think that openly gay male athletes should be able to play in team sports. However, the poll went on to say that 68 percent of respondents think it hurts an athlete’s career to be openly gay.



Thankfully and apparently, outside the borders of the United States, the religious bible beaters have a lot less influence. With rare exceptions these days, most overseas gay men have found acceptance in the world of sports.

Voted fourth in “Total Sport’s” 10 Toughest Men Of Sport list, popular Australian gay rugby star/turned actor Ian Roberts came out in 1995 while still currently at the top of his macho game. He’d played front rower in 85 games for South Sydney, over 100 in Manly, and at the age of 23 was the highest paid rugby league player in the world.

The other players on the North Queensland Cowboys shrugged his sexual revelation off as no big deal and his fans followed suit. In a 1996 interview Roberts is quoted as saying :

"I take offense at the old locker room argument which assumes a man cannot, in any circumstances, control his urges. Any self-respecting human being can respect the rights and ways of another human being. The idea, then, that gays can convert, or want, heterosexual guys, is ludicrous. We want to play the game, not the field."

Despite expectations of a drop in his popularity, Roberts held/has several well-paid endorsement contracts. He even posed nude in a gay magazine, with no ill effects to his career, becoming a sex symbol “down under” for both men and women, and has gone on to a successful acting career after retiring from sports.



Greg Louganis is arguably one of the best male divers of all time, winning four gold medals between the 1984 and 1988 Olympics. His career ended after famously hitting his head on a diving board at the 88 Olympics, forcing him to reveal he had AIDS out of concern for the other athletes. His autobiography "Breaking the Surface" and subsequent movie have made him a legend and a sought after celebrity.



In 1968 army physician Dr. Tom Waddell came in sixth at the Olympic decathlon. He and his lover Charles Deaton were thrust into the spotlight in 1976 by being the first gay partner/lovers to appear in the “Couples” section of People magazine. Tom went on to form plans for the “Gay Olympic Games” stirring up controversy and lawsuits because of the use of the word “Olympics” in the title. Renamed the “Gay Games,” they first took place in San Francisco in 1982 and since then has grown to feature officially recognized athletic events and record holders, and it boasts participation of thousands of gay and straight registered athletes every four years.

Laughably many straight athletes entered thinking they’d have an easy time of it, only to be proven wrong, then later joined because of the challenge.



A gold medallist in the 800-meter freestyle relay at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, Bruce Hayes came out of the closet at the 1994 Gay Games winning seven gold medals there and setting several recognized master’s swimming records.

Body building legend Bob Paris from Indiana won the 1983 Mr. America and Mr. Universe bodybuilding titles. He went on to marry his long-time lover Rod Jackson changing their names to Jackson-Paris and appeared on the

Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss it after coming out of the closet in the July 1989 issue of Ironman magazine. He went on to write several books including his autobiography "Gorilla Suit: My Adventures in Body Building" in 1997.



24-year-old Dutch swimming sensation Johan Kenkhuis, a silver metal winner in the Athens Summer Olympics in the four-man 100-meter freestyle relay, came out in 2004 by mentioning to the press that his boyfriend of four years would be watching him compete.


In all nine other athletes came out of the closet during the games in support. For him it wasn’t a big deal, nor was it in his homeland where gays have been treated equally for decades.

It’s refreshing to see that in other parts of the world the only thing that matters is how you do your job, perform your task, or excel in your sport. If only that were the case in the sports world here in the up-tight United States, but sadly it's not.

SEE TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR VOL. ii OF THIS ARTICLE!

If you liked this article, or would like to leave suggestions or names for a follow up piece, I'd love to hear from you...

WARNING: Reproduction of the FIRST PARAGRAPH of this article is permitted as long as a link back to it is provided.
Reproduction of any part this article past the first paragraph is forbidden without the author's permission
©-2006 by Jet Gardner/Blogcritics.org

Gathering Gay Backlash Storm Could Threaten CA’s Economy and Culture

EDITORIAL

The election of Barack Obama had an unanticipated side effect in California last Tuesday. Black voters turned out in droves and showed overwhelming support for Obama. While in the voting booth, they also displayed their opinions concerning a ban on gay marriage. While the White and Hispanic vote were fairly divided evenly regarding the state constitutional ban, the huge block of Black voters that turned out, heavily supported it by an estimated 70-75 percent. The irony in that is that the gays that also turned out in droves to support Obama were figuratively “kicked in the balls,” by the very people they’d voted support for, for decades in one Afro-American civil rights initiative after another.

As a gathering storm of resentment builds between blacks and gays over this perceived betrayal, so could trouble in California on several fronts. Gays in general have no children or spouses to support, which means a huge block of hundreds of millions of their disposable and mostly professional income is pumped into California’s economy every year in terms of purchases of homes, cars and personal and business income taxes.

Because the state is famously (or infamously as the case may be) known as gay-friendly, it is also known as the number one gay tourist destination, pumping even more millions of tourist dollars into the state’s economy annually. As gay community leaders gather to plan their next move, many are considering leaving California for the East coast, or even Canada where gay civil rights and marriage are legal and considered “matter of fact.”

There is also the matter of the Mormon Church pumping support for the anti-gay ban in the form of in excess of $20 million, both from the church itself and its out of state members. The resulting recent large protest marches in front of several of the LDS California headquarters have turned into near riots.

As a growing racial resentment builds between gays and their black former-allies, the only losers in this conflict may be the State of California and its powerful Democratic Party, in terms of political contributions, lost tourist revenues and income taxes. More and more gay professionals are talking about punishing their former safe haven by moving their culture and their businesses away to more friendly locations.

That could spell disaster for California economically and politically, to the point of it no longer being a forgone conclusion that the state would automatically fall into the Democrat’s column during national and presidential elections.

WARNING: Reproduction of the FIRST PARAGRAPH of this article is permitted as long as a link back to it is provided.
Reproduction of any part this article past the first paragraph is forbidden without the author's permission
©-2008 by Jet Gardner/Blogcritics.org

What Would I-a Gay Man-Have To Be Paraniod About?

Walk a mile in my shoes before you laugh/scoff at the title of this piece and brand me paranoid. I'm sure there are stereotypes that apply to you that aren't true.

Mexicans are lazy and stupid enough to work for nothing. Arabs are invading this country and refusing to learn our ways or even speak our language. Irish are all drinkers. Blonds are easy pickings for sex and aren't all that intelligent.

I've lived my whole life with influential groups in my community and in this country convincing my friends, neighbors and employers of lies about "my kind"...

A. I kidnap little boys from playgrounds, and Innocent husbands from gym locker rooms, and then sodomize them into becoming fags so I can propagate my species.

B. That I only have one thing on my mind at all times-sex.

C. That god gave all faggots AIDS and that if you talk to me, shake hands or accidentally touch me, you'll get it.

D. That any heterosexual that proclaims to be my friend will instantly be branded a faggot too by his peers and ostracized for being perverted by me.

E. That I know all about fashion and love to dress up... in dresses and make up.

F. That I mince around, swish, and speak with a lisp.

G. That it's alright to fire me from a job I held for 10 years because you found out I was a homosexual.

And finally...
That I CHOSE to live this way...

How many of you guessed that none of the above are correct?

Think seriously about why none of you would go out and tell five of your closest friends you are gay (even though you're not) and see what happens to you, how your friends suddenly seem unsure of you-then you'll see the hell I live every minute of every day of my life and why I fear fundamentalist Christianity influencing politics.



WARNING: Reproduction of the FIRST PARAGRAPH of this article is permitted as long as a link back to it is provided.
Reproduction of any part this article past the first paragraph is forbidden without the author's permission
©-2006 by Jet Gardner/Blogcritics.org

J.K. Rowling Declares Dumbledore Gay! What's the Fuss?

ENTERTAINMENT NEWS

Every major news organization from The New York Times to Time Magazine is going to press this week with the news that J.K. Rowling has declared Hogwarts’ Head Master and Wizard Dumbledore was gay!.

Poor Jerry Falwell must be turning over in his grave, as his fellow archconservatives and bible beaters scramble to get the Harry Potter series of books banned from public libraries. Falwell had a fit over Teletubie’s “Tinky Winky”; can you imagine if he’d lived to see this?

I anticipate (and expect) the hyperventilation from the religious right, but there’s also the far left to deal with in this situation. I expect they’ll be protesting that Rowling should’ve outed the Master while he was still alive, and within the pages of her books instead of as an afterthought. The absence of that important part of his life from the Potter series makes poor Albus appear to be ashamed of that integral part of his character.

I, on the other hand, think it was classier for her to do it at Carnegie Hall, and in the company of fans. After all, it’s the fan’s reaction to the news that’s more important than the shallow screams from people who don’t even know, nor have even read the books.

In Harry Potter’s world it was about as necessary to announce your favorite color, left or right handedness, preference of car or favorite book, as it was to announce your sexual preference… which is as it should be. Rowling hadn’t made the announcement to raise an issue; she was merely answering a fan’s question as to whether Dumbledore, a believer in the prevailing power of love, had ever fallen in love himself.

Her answer was both simple and eloquent: "I always thought of Dumbledore as gay." She then went on to explain that Dumbledore had once fallen in love with Gellert Grindelwald, and had suffered when his intended became a powerful dark wizard.

Much to her delight, the audience applauded wildly at the announcement.

As a writer myself, I know that it’s necessary sometimes to let your audience get to know and love a character before you begin exposing everything about him. It’s better to let them think that a character is a trusted friend and ally then to come right out and expose them as a double agent for the “other side” in the first few paragraphs.

In conclusion, I’m glad she did it this way. Had she outed him in her books, they’d never have been as successful and beloved as they are now. It’s about time that people in general learn that homosexuals aren’t all pedophiles who chase little children to “recruit” them into their ranks.

Most of us have to announce it to people, or they’d never know…

As is the case for good Dumbledore.

WARNING: Reproduction of the FIRST PARAGRAPH of this article is permitted as long as a link back to it is provided.
Reproduction of any part this article past the first paragraph is forbidden without the author's permission
©-2007 by Jet Gardner/Blogcritics.org

First Evangelists, then GOP Congressmen, And Now Doogie Howser Is Gay! Is NOTHING Sacred?

GAY CELEBRITY NEWS

I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but it’s just possible that the struggling gay rights movement has the scandalous Republican Party to thank for a really great year! First there was the groundbreaking, tender and moving Brokeback Mountain winning average folk's hearts and major film awards hand over fist along with and including films such as Capote.

Then the U.S. political scene was rocked by the Mark Foley page scandal, putting congressmen and their staffs in danger of being outed left and right (both literally, politically and figuratively). Add to that, the likes of ‘N Sync’s Lance Bass, Amazing Racer and hunk Reichen Lehmkuhl, and then Grey’s Anatomy’s T.R. Knight all coming out of the closet as gay, to name only a few of the more popular and notable entertainment celebrities.

Now word is trickling down that Neil “Doogie Howser” Patrick Harris (33) has denied a two-day-old denial by his publicist Craig Schneider mistakenly released to the news media stating that Harris is not gay.

If you think you're confused by that last sentence, about now Jerry Falwell and Fred Phelps must feel like victims in a gay version of The Night of the Living Dead. All those actors were to be expected, but then there was famous and Bush-friendly, not to mention prominent evangelist Rev. Ted Haggard being snagged in a homosexual sex and drug scandal.

Harris’ self-declared “long-time sweetheart” and fellow actor David Burtka were recently rumored in the entertainment press to not only be gay, but a committed couple as well. Whispers didn’t really start up until Canada.com reported that Neil got his lover a choice role in his current CBS comedy How I Met Your Mother.

Born June 15, 1973, Harris, one of this year’s People Magazine’s Hottest Bachelors, started his acting career in fourth grade. He tagged along with his older brother in Ruidoso, New Mexico to an elementary school audition as a munchkin in a kid’s version of The Wizard of Oz. Instead, he got snagged to play Toto because he was the smallest one who tried out for the part.

From there he landed the role of David Hart in Clara’s Heart in 1988. In 1989 he was cast in the title lead as teen medical prodigy Doogie Howser M.D. from 1989 to 1992. From there he took on several stage and TV roles designed to lose his loveable boy doctor persona. These included a killer on Law and Order, as well as a troubled gang member in Howard Stern’s Son of a Beach. He also took parts in stage productions of Amadeus, Rent, and Cabaret, and in the recent movie parody of himself in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.

Harris has stated that in these times, he has no problems with people knowing he’s gay, and is very happy with his lover David.

WARNING: Reproduction of the FIRST PARAGRAPH of this article is permitted as long as a link back to it is provided.
Reproduction of any part this article past the first paragraph is forbidden without the author's permission
©-2006 by Jet Gardner/Blogcritics.org

How Many Famous Athletes Are Gay?

Please follow the shortcut in the table of contents above to go to the main article... Thanks

A Straight Friend's Guide to Gay Pride

PERSONAL EXPERIENCES

A friend and fellow Blogcritics writer Andy Marsh asked some honest and intelligent questions of me in my article "How Many Current Professional Athletes Are Gay?" (of which volumes 1&2 can be found in the table of contents above) and I felt honored that he’d asked, because a lot of my straight friends have probably wondered the same things, so I’ve converted it into a sort of conversation.

Andy: Is it really necessary to have a Gay Games? The way I read the article, it sounds like these athletes want or wanted acceptance...does calling yourself out with things like the gay games really make you feel included or excepted? Are there hetero games or hetero pride days?

Jet: Having lived through the turbulent '60s and '70s the short answer is yes; back then it was; Nowadays maybe not, but back then definitely. As an example, way before your time there was an era when blacks had their own sports teams (The Negro Leagues) because they were segregated and weren’t permitted to play with whites. A sense of intolerance towards blacks back then even extended to having separate whites-only drinking fountains. That same intolerance began brewing toward gays in the 70s and 80s as people like Anita Bryant and Jerry Falwell’s “Moral Majority” began their unchecked hate mongering and their spreading misinformation about AIDS began doing a lot of damage. In short they succeeded in super gluing the words Gay and AIDS together, leading people to believe their lie that all gays had and spread AIDS.

They were so successful that back then even Gay publications were calling it “The Gay Cancer”. Tragically they actually had people believing that you could get AIDS just by swimming in the same chlorinated pool or breathing the same air. The best example was in the 1988 Olympics when Greg Louganis’ head hit the diving board, causing a scare because he’d bled in the pool. Suddenly professional and amateur sports began banning gays from competing because people were led to believe out of ignorance that it was just as easily and/or mysteriously contracted as cancer.

We knew better, but we couldn’t convince the general population of that, so we started holding our own games to insure that great athletes had a place to show their stuff and be recognized without the over exaggerated stigma involved with HIV positive athletes competing.

Andy: It just seems to me that wearing a big sign that says what you are — no matter what it is — is just asking for trouble. Think about it. Even here at Blogcritics, there are people that give some people shit for never serving in the military and those same people give other people shit that DID serve. So it seems to me that any label you put on yourself is just asking some other group to fuck with you, but that's just me. Does calling yourself out with gay pride day and stuff like that really make you feel included or accepted?

Jet: Let me answer that in four parts.

1. There was an era in my life when I’d make good close friends with people, we’d socialize, have fun, play sports, see movies etc. Then they’d find out I was gay, and suddenly want nothing more to do with me, for only that reason. So I started wearing that sign you mentioned so that they’d know up front who I was and if they couldn’t handle it, it was better to find out then rather than be hurt and spurned later by someone you’d grown close to as a friend(s). In days gone by it might have been “My god I didn’t know you were Jewish!” or “Is your father really black?” and a day later you’d stop hearing from them.

2. By the late 70s televangelists, the born-agains and the religious right had seized on an opportunity that had been handed to them on a golden platter making us pariahs of society. They had people actually believing that AIDS was God’s punishment to homosexuals, and that just being gay was “contagious”. The U.S. is one of the few countries in the world where the general population thinks AIDS is a gay disease. Ronald Reagan refused to stop the disinformation by simply ignoring the AIDS crisis for a long time, doing damage by his complacency. Unwittingly it fooled straight people for years into thinking they could have unprotected sex because they weren’t gay, so they couldn’t possibly get it.

Back then, exclusive use of the word homoSEXual was used, to emphasize their assertions to the frightened population that we are all sexual creatures first and humans second, meaning that the very moment we saw another male; especially a young, tender, impressionable and innocent one, we’d lose all control of our sexual urges. They took advantage of people not understanding back then how someone can grow up gay naturally, so they convinced people that somehow homosexuals were recruited into it by some pervert at childhood to perpetuate the species. How else does one become gay: certainly not naturally? It must be a choice-like anyone would choose to be spurned and hated!

3. The Gay Pride parades are actually a celebration of an important anniversary in our culture (our very own Fourth of July you might say). It’s the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. There was a real time Andy, when it was actually illegal just to walk into a gay bar. In New York it was a nightly occurrence for cops to go in to gay taverns like the Stonewall Inn and arrest and/or beat up half the clientele just to harass them. It became fun sport for bored policemen.

On Friday evening, June 27, 1969 the cops figured a bunch of drag queen fairies and pansies wouldn't fight back, and started brutally using night sticks during an arrest raid, and those mincing little fags in their dresses, leather or tight jeans decided enough was enough and fought back-resulting in one HELL of a riot that is talked about to this day. It signaled the beginning of the Gay Rights movement, so we celebrate the anniversary in June every year.

It’s the religious right that’d have you believe that our parades are just an attempt to get in your faces and scream “we’re here and we’re queer!” Actually we’re just celebrating like the Irish do on St. Patrick’s Day. I’m appalled every year at how news reports only show the glitter queens prancing in their rainbow wigs, high-heels and falsies, or the Dykes on Bikes, and ignore the hundreds or thousands of ordinary people marching along side them, perpetuating the myth that the vast majority of us aren’t “normal”, and don’t lead “normal” lives, in “normal” ways.

The parades are a way to show people just how much of an invisible population we are, and the only effective way to do that is in sheer undeniable numbers. Here in Columbus tens of thousands of people turn out every year, just to say "Hey; there are more of us than you might think there are!" and in New York and San Francisco they number in the hundreds of thousands. Then the next day we all seem to mysteriously disappear back into thin air; which frightens some people. As long as we’re all lisping flamboyant queens wearing pink chiffon, they know who we are and where we are. You fear what you don’t understand Andy-you fear what you don’t understand.

4. As for Gays coming out in the military, well another short history lesson. Andy. As you know, a long time ago homosexuals were considered sick and disgusting, but back during the Cold War gays made a lot of meaningful contributions in the military especially in the ranks of military intelligence and scientific and nuclear research, but paranoia set in because it was assumed that if you were gay you were susceptible to being blackmailed by an enemy spy into giving out secret information. Russia was infamous for photographically trapping diplomats with young gay hustlers in Moscow to get information.

We're more like everyone else than you might think Andy, and most of us are just as patriotic. I personally fly a giant flag off my balcony on holidays. We would openly make contributions by serving openly in the military if we could, but simpleminded people won't let us, so thousands of gav servicemen contribute their talents and lives for your rights and the rights of hatemongers like Phelps and Falwell and no one acknowledges it publicly.

Are you aware that one huge problem in Iraq right now is a lack of translators and medical people? The army just dismissed dozens for no other reason than that they were gay! Ignorance-pure ignorance-as if there really is a terror of some poor soldier being turned into a terrified helpless virgin unable to fight off the advances of some fag while he his way with him. There are people who think that gays look at the army as a huge “hunk” grocery store, where we can pick and choose, when the reality is we’re just as anxious to serve our country as anyone else.

Andy: One more thing. I seriously doubt you were appalled to find out that pro athletes stay in the closet until their careers are over, unless you've been in a real closet with the doors locked for the last, what, 50 some years?

Jet: I’m not surprised that Pro athletes stay in the closet until their careers are over—I’m appalled that they have to, especially when in other countries it isn’t necessary.

I hope I’ve answered a few questions. Happy gay pride week!

WARNING: Reproduction of the FIRST PARAGRAPH of this article is permitted as long as a link back to it is provided.
Reproduction of any part this article past the first paragraph is forbidden without the author's permission
©-2009 by Jet Gardner/Blogcritics.org