I used to do roundups of LGBT stories every once in a while, and Pandagon hasn’t had an open thread out there in a while. Share links to blogs and news stories we should be talking about on any topic, or just put in a nomination for boneheaded remark of the day by any pol.
In the meantime, here are a few random items to nosh on…
* Papa Ratzi: “Gays and lesbians marrying is an obstacle to world peace.” We are a powerful lot, huh? Yet another bleat of the week from the Vatican (h/t Towleroad):
Presenting the nuclear family as the “first and indispensable teacher of peace” and the “primary agency of peace,” the 15-page document links sexual and medical ethics to international relations.* Chris Matthews calls for marriage equality. The host of MSNBC’s Hardball normally gets my ire up on quite a few topics, but this is a pleasant surprise. PageOneQ has video.“Everything that serves to weaken the family based on the marriage of a man and woman, everything that directly or indirectly stands in the way of its openness to the responsible acceptance of new life … constitutes an objective obstacle on the road to peace,” Benedict writes.
* The author of one of my favorite books, Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II, gay historian Allan Berube, has died. The tome was a fantastic work. A statement by his close friend Wayne Hoffman is below the fold.
* Click over to an interesting article on being black and gay, from the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, A minority within a minority: African-American gays report existence is comfortable, somewhat invisible. Reporter Mark Melady drops the ball semantically by using the terms “gay marriage” and “sexual preference” in the piece, and one interviewee, Rodney Glasgow, director of diversity at Worcester Academy (and the first fully out faculty member at the school) has this to say, which should stimulate discussion.Berube was, for decades, an independent historian and community activist. He first came to progressive political activism in opposition to the Vietnam war, working with the American Friends Service Committee in Boston in the late 1960s, after dropping out of the University of Chicago. After coming out in 1969, he joined a “gay liberation collective household,” and later moved to San Francisco to join a gay commune for craftspeople. He remained in San Francisco for many years, and was one of the founders of the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay History Project in 1978. His slide shows about women who dressed and passed as men — and married other women — were welcomed by enthusiastic audiences around the country.
Berube is best remembered for his groundbreaking work of gay history, published in 1990: Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II. The Lambda Literary Award-winning book, which was later adapted by Arthur Dong into a Peabody Award-winning documentary, was often cited in Senate hearings on the military’s anti-gay policies in 1993.
For the past several years, Berube lived in Liberty, N.Y., in the Catskills. There, he owned a bed & breakfast, and operated Intelligent Design, a store selling mid-century modern collectibles. Berube’s partner, John Nelson, said, “Allan just loved it when people walked into the Liberty store, looked around, and were happy.” In addition to Nelson, Berube is also survived by his mother and three sisters.
African Americans’ unease with homosexuality has its roots in the emasculation of black men during slavery, Mr. Glasgow said. “A gay black male evokes that dynamic in the black culture,” he said. “And a lot of the avoidance of the issue of black homosexuality has to do with the decline of the black family. A black gay male is seen as adding to that decline.”* Also, Ben Hinzel of OutFront Blog points to a piece by Laura Nguyen on being gay and Asian and one by Ivette Lopez, on being gay and Hispanic.The gay community is as racist as the population at large, Mr. Glasgow said, maybe even more so because male homosexual racial attitudes are often interwoven with sexual stereotypes and fetishism. “My friends are shocked when I say this, but I feel most out of place in gay places,” Mr. Glasgow said, referring primarily to gay clubs.
Too many white gay men view black gay men through the prism of sexual desire based on racist typecasting, Mr. Glasgow said. “They want the hypersexual black male or the finger-snapping black diva,” he said. Racism among gays is part of the reason Mr. Glasgow does not believe gay rights should be linked to the civil rights movement.
“Gays want to jump on the civil rights wagon, but they are not doing any anti-racism work,” he said. “I’m also uncomfortable with a connection to the civil rights movement because that’s still in progress.”
25 Responses to “Odds and Ends - open thread”
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Oh, no! I use that text in so many classes, in lots of ways. It was groundbreaking, and remains a fantastic book. This makes me sad.
And this makes me laugh
““Everything that serves to weaken the family based on the marriage of a man and woman, everything that directly or indirectly stands in the way of its openness to the responsible acceptance of new life … constitutes an objective obstacle on the road to peace,” Benedict writes.”
He’s not even trying to make sense anymore. And did you catch the implication that birth-control is also an obstacle to world peace because it would be something that “stands in the way of [the family’s] openness to the responsible acceptance of new life”…
If he could work blood libels in there he’d really hit the jackpot…
Am I the only one who has a bad taste in my mouth when erstwhile media “liberals” actually do support liberal causes?
I sometimes feel that all it does is make it so people continue to believe the media is liberal, equate media elitism with liberalism (where d’y'all think people get their images of liberals as effete chardonay sippers?) and make statements like “well even the liberal Chris Matthews thinks the Dems have gone too far” …
In my more paranoid moods, I sometimes wonder if “liberal” editorializing by media types is merely part of some grand plan to keep the media — and especially any critical reporting they might do regarding the GOP — discredited by making sure people think the media is biased (in the exact opposite way in which they actually are biased).
At the very least, it’s grand-standing … if media types really feel this need to be “liberal”, why don’t they actually, well, be liberal?
I’m really disheartened by Mr. Glasgow’s comments. I don’t deny them - the MALE gay community is really harsh, on a lot of fronts. Race/ethnicity, body image, pretty much anything that is externalized. But that doesn’t mean that homosexuality issues are not a civil rights issues (reference Soulforce). Another thing that is left out is the black, FEMALE, lesbian perspective. I would be interested to know what kind of counterargument would come from that experience. Personally, I have 3 black friends all of whom find solidarity with me. Minority/majority issues are somewhat universalized, although one experience does not replace, or even perfectly mirror, the other.
An old coot who has never been married is lecturing us on the importance of heterosexual marriage?
I swear to God, Pope Benedict is trying to undo every tiny step toward progress the Catholic church has made in the last 50 years. It’s depressing and infuriating.
The last 50? Hell, Benny 16 is shooting for 500. Watch for the Counterreformation in a torture chamber near you!
And btw, I’m not related to Allan Berube, so far as I know, but I was always honored to be briefly confused with him. Coming Out Under Fire is truly a groundbreaking book, and I’m very sorry Allan is no longer with us.
The “fetishization” of the black gay male … If there is one thing that gets my goat that would be it. From my experience, it either one extreme or the other: they either think you’re some wild animal in bed, or they will NOT sleep with a black man … ever!
IMO, the latter is the worse of the two, especially how it seems to come up so randomly. I will usually meet someone through a group of friends in a casual setting (usually a party), a conversation begins about something funny on television or politics or even the weather and then suddenly out of the blue, “but I’m not interested in black men.”
It usually throws me for a loop especially since I never express romantic interest in the person who says it. It’s as if they say it in self defense, just in case I was interested. What bothers me, though, is how comfortable people seem to be in saying this. As if I should just, you know, understand where they’re coming from.
I’m curious. Do African-American lesbians have the same experience?
“The last 50? Hell, Benny 16 is shooting for 500. Watch for the Counterreformation in a torture chamber near you!”
Coming soon! Inqusition II - This time it’s everyone…
Nuclear family as center of the universe? Check.
Bizzare, strained ties between sexual and medical ethics and global politics? Check.
15-page, spittle flecked screed? Check.
Yep, looks like the pope is a crazy old coot who’s sending his amazing insights to all his buddies scribbled longhand, because the letters-to-the-editor people just ignore him now.
//at least he didn’t work in something about how public education is creeping socialism. maybe next time.
This is absolutely not acceptable, and I apologize. This reminds me SO much of how sometimes straight guys will say something to the effect of, “just in case you’re interested in me, I’m not interested in you.” Okay…thanks.
I apologize, Tony, for ignorant white dipshits like you’re describing. I just want to shake guys like that. (Like Shaken Baby Syndrome…not in any kind of sexual way. “I’m not interested in white men.”)
I sometimes feel that all it does is make it so people continue to believe the media is liberal, equate media elitism with liberalism (where d’y’all think people get their images of liberals as effete chardonay sippers?) and make statements like “well even the liberal Chris Matthews thinks the Dems have gone too far” …
I don’t know what to make of Chris Matthew, but liberal he is not.
He has been anti-war since 2003 though–I remember him saying he had a lot of doubts about the war–so maybe thats why people think hes liberal. He also seemed to really resent the swift-botaing of Kerry–remember his dressing down of Michelle Malkin? But man oh man does he hate Hillary Clinton and love Giuliani and Thompson. It makes no sense.
I’d bet you cash that in any randomly sampled population in the US, just as many straight white dudes wouldn’t date black women either. Racism runs really deep when it comes to dating, as do other prejudices, and a lot of the time it’s like whole communities have reserved the right to be able to wave any problematic overtones away by saying “it’s just personal preference, it’s just personal preference!” Well hmm. Where do personal preferences come from, eh?
I guess it’s just more disappointing because we like to expect MORE from gay communities. We like to think that there’s going to be better politics, better about race, better about class, etc. But it’s sadly not true at all. If anything, it’s worse because of the “I’m gay so of course I’m liberal and of course any stereotypes I employ are used in SOLIDARITY with y’all, my brothers and sisters!” attitude.
Ugh - nasty article peddling rape stereotypes, and the comments are even nastier.
On the lighter side, this story is even wackier than the xtian guys sitting in a circle passing The Cock around, and beating their chickens.
“//at least he didn’t work in something about how public education is creeping socialism. maybe next time.”
I’m hoping he’ll branch out and make a series of rambling, incoherent statements about how fluoridation is contaminating our bodily fluids.
At least it would be more interesting…
Wow. There was me thinking that the nuclear family was a really recent social phenomenon, that extended family units were far more common til recent times and in many parts of the world still are, that until perhaps 150 years ago maternal bereavement was incredibly common, that in the countries worst affected by the AIDS epidemic it’s currently common for a child to lose one or both parents before maturity… Well, I guess peace is hard to come by. Maybe impossible if you’ve not lived as a privileged person in a Western society in the 20th-21st centuries. Wow.
Ohh, and I meant to share these two delightful blogs that get not nearly their fair share of love;
http://radicalmasculinity.blogspot.com/ - a really in-depth look at feminism and gender issues on the F2M spectrum.
http://learnalilgivinanlovin.blogspot.com/ - an AusBC blog about race, art, mental health, and occasionally Jesus.
If anything that stands in the way of the nuclear family is such a problem, what about siphoning men and women into a life of celibacy and/’or chastity?
Why isn’t the priesthood itself judged by the same standards?
I wrote a wrap-up of the public housing debacle in NOLA, providing links to different sources of info and coverage. As I was doing that, I got word from activists in the city that demoliition of B.W. Cooper, one of the developments, started this afternoon. So awful.
I disagree with everything Glasgow said. If pornography says anything about the sexual preferences of those who consume it, it’d turn out that black men are the least attractive ethnic group to the average gay male. — I have no clue of what he means by saying black gay men are fetishized.
Glasgow also offers a pathetically stereotyped image of (non-black) gay men, making one believe they have no standards of analyzing other men other than by sexual fitness; and no way of relating to them other than by sexual stereotyping. He is too light on (of even apologetic of) black homophobia - his only explanation for it is based on emasculation of enslaved black men. I’m sorry but — whata hell? It is surely a creative explanation, but is it realistic? Higher degree of religiosity, lower levels of educational achievement (both of which are negatively correlated with tolerance in any community), plus the very fact that blacks are still on some level second-class citizens would be more accurate explanations for modern black homophobia instead of the “haunting” image of emasculated slaves. Am I to believe, after all, that when Beenie Man calls for the execution and burning of gay men, he does so because this poor child is frightened by the thought of having his penis cut off?
Glasgow, for some reason, just sounds resentful and bitter at the gay community (specially the gay male community). His portrayal of gay men (which are readily embraced by some lesbians, just see some of the comments on this page) is no more accurate than some random white stereotype of blacks.
He said:
Really? I’ve seen more efforts from the gay community to confront its own racism (which I do not believe to be more intense than in the general population), than I’ve seen sincere efforts from the black community to confront its own homophobia (which is obviously higher than in the general population - http://www.thebody.com/content/art31186.htm). The liberal black community is still pretty much in denial about its own homophobia (http://www.colorq.org/Articles/article.aspx?d=2004&x=homop).
I disagree with everything Glasgow said. If pornography says anything about the sexual preferences of those who consume it, it’d turn out that black men are the least attractive ethnic group to the average gay male. — I have no clue of what he means by saying black gay men are fetishized.
Glasgow also offers a pathetically stereotyped image of (non-black) gay men, making one believe they have no standards of analyzing other men other than by sexual fitness; and no way of relating to them other than by sexual stereotyping. He is too light on (of even apologetic of) black homophobia - his only explanation for it is based on emasculation of enslaved black men. I’m sorry but — whata hell? It is surely a creative explanation, but is it realistic? Higher degree of religiosity, lower levels of educational achievement (both of which are negatively correlated with tolerance in any community), plus the very fact that blacks are still on some level second-class citizens would be more accurate explanations for modern black homophobia instead of the “haunting” image of emasculated slaves. Am I to believe, after all, that when Beenie Man calls for the execution and burning of gay men, he does so because this poor child is frightened of the thought of having his penis cut off?
Glasgow, for some reason, just sounds resentful and bitter at the gay community (specially the gay male community). His portrayal of gay men (which are readily embraced by some lesbians, just see some of the comments on this page) is no more accurate than some random white stereotype of blacks.
He said:
Really? I’ve seen more efforts from the gay community to confront its own racism (which I do not believe to be more intense than in the general population), than I’ve seen sincere efforts from the black community to confront its own homophobia (which is obviously higher than in the general population - http://www.thebody.com/content/art31186.htm). The liberal black community is still pretty much in denial about its own homophobia (http://www.colorq.org/Articles/article.aspx?d=2004&x=homop).
Why do they say stuff that is so fucking stupid? Why? I can’t even begin to describe all the ways in which Eggs Benedict’s remarks are stupid. Just totally idiotic. Is he senile? Maybe he’ll start his second childhood and start talking about the Juden and how we need to round up the Juden, like those happy days when he was a member of Hitler Youth.
Seriously, so stupid.
I don’t know what to make of Chris Matthew, but liberal he is not - AtomicFruitBat
I know that. You know that. All us here know that. But I reckon even most relatively informed Americans might know Chris Matthews was involved in the Carter admin and figure him to be a liberal. And less informed Americans would figure him to be a liberal ‘cause he’s on the TeeVee.
And when he does say liberal things, it just reenforces the image that he’s a liberal. And is he really the kind of person we want people to think is on our side?
Tonybrown, I don’t know about African-American lesbians, but I know African-American straight men who have the: “I don’t date black men” problem when it comes to women. And the black man is fetishised in straight pornography too. I guess there’s no particular reason to expect the gay community to be less racist than the straight community.
Gee, I can’t think of any place where peace and acceptance are modeled LESS than the ‘nuclear family’. Personal ancedotes aside, I can think of no narrative in literature that runs deeper than the misery of family relations gone wrong. But then, I bet the Pope doesn’t have much time to read, and I bet HIS homelife as a child was hunkey-dorey, considering that his parents were probably terrified that he might turn them in to the Hitler Youth leader if they stepped out of line…