NOM and R.I.M., saving straight marriage one awkward acronym at a time.

First, do your research:
1. NOM ad about "the gathering storm" of gay marriage. And, the rainbow coalition of people gathering to "protect us from gay marriage:"

2. The audition videos for hilarious NOM video above:

And now, the main event:
3. Amazing. Thank you thank you gay actors, and straight actors. Thank you for your comedic literacy and perfect wit:

A Gaythering Storm from Jane Lynch

4. And finally, another little gem from Rachel Maddow:

Gay Slurs Lead to Child's Suicide

I found this tremendously important to watch and think about. Hearing this story too, makes me glad Austin has organizations like OutYouth, to help our young people with self-acceptance and raise the understanding, acceptance and celebration of diversity in Austin as well. There's so much further we could go, but at least we have resources to work with.

Snuggie Pub Crawl

Maybe Austin needs one of these. The drawback is that you have to actually buy a Snuggie. Which is a HUGE drawback.

I prefer the mobile gay bar. But I do want to see pictures of this: Snuggie Pub Crawl, Chicago. 

The nice thing is the proceeds from tickets sales to the Snuggie Pub Crawl go to the AC-Orphanage in Tanzania, an orphanage that houses and supports children whose parents have died of HIV/AIDS or TB.

(Never heard of the Snuggie? See my old post about it here: Creepy Blankets).

Cornify it up

Just click it. And just keep on clicking it until you fall backwards from the bubbling glitterweight of the unicorns and rainbows.



For an explanation see: Cornify.com

Inauguration Poem for Obama, on Inauguration Day

As we watch the Inauguration with joy today, a re-post of my poem celebrating Obama's victory, the beauty of our collective connected humanity, and the conscious evolution we are undertaking.

Above the Streetlights Poem with an ASL Interpreter

Dave Pokorney was also filming my poem at the Vets for Peace Concert. Here's his video, from Vimeo. Diane Delange is the incredible ASL interpreter next to me. Thank you Diane.

Above the Streetlights

My most recent poem, with mention of Austin at the beginning, performed at a Veteran's for Peace benefit concert in Gainesville, Florida.

Prop 8, the musical

How did I miss this before?

I like it!

"Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and many more... by Jack Black

Transgender Day of Remembrance, Austin

November 20th was TENT's (Transgender Education Network of Texas) Austin vigil at City Hall for International Transgender Day of Remembrance. Transgender Day of Remembrance is a day in honor of the lives of people who were killed because they did not conform to traditional gender norms. Some of those killed identified as transgender, transsexual, or none of the above, some dated someone who identified as something other than the traditional gender binary and were killed for doing so.

Each attendant was given a glow stick instead of a typical vigil candle. This proved to be a very sentimental symbol, as my sweetie and I still have our glow sticks sitting in our room and their glow fades a little more each day.

TENT's vigil honored those who were murdered for their radical gender identities by having twenty-nine empty chairs on the stage, one for each person murdered for their gender identity in 2008. At the very end of the vigil, one of the organizers read the full 2008 TDOR Names List, and as each name was read, someone from the crowd came up and sat in one of the seats. Live, human bodies, transgender, transexual, beautiful beings in varying expressions of gender, emerged from the crowd to populate the chairs. They then sat in silence and we all soaked in the reality of these killings.

There is still no legislation banning hate crimes based on gender identity. Some states still do not have legislation protecting transgender people from job discrimination. As a sidenote, Vermont, is the only state in America that has never had an anti-transgender murder occur in it.

Photos of the Proposition 8 Protest in Austin

My photos of the Proposition 8 protest in Austin at City Hall. To see them at a higher resolution, click on "link" which will take you to the photo hosted on my flickr page.
For more photos see the Austinist's post.

Organizers said there were about 3,000 people in attendance. It was a big and nicely varied crowd. Kate X Messer, of the Chronicle's Gay Place spoke at the very beginning but I missed it.

I arrived as a ten year-old boy was speaking. That was my favorite part of the protest. He had lesbian moms and talked about how he wanted his moms to be able to be married. He spoke on the definition of a "normal" family in the U.S.: a married dad and mom, with kids. He said that if that's "normal" then only 23% of families in the U.S. are normal and all the other types of families: kids raised by grandparents, single moms, single dads, gay dads, lesbian moms, transgender parents, must all be queer! Which means, the majority of families in the U.S. are queer, just like his family! Precious. He made a great point.

There were activists in attendance passing out flyers to get domestic partner benefits at the University of Texas at Austin, and young artists selling t-shirts they had silkscreened that morning that said "Texas Queers" on them. A remarkable number of dogs were present at the protest (see the photo above of matching lesbo chihuahuas in a stroller) and lots of really cool little kids who have great parents (see photo of baby in slideshow above). The baby's mother told me this was the baby's first protest of many to come.

At the official end of the march, some younger homos, likely UT kids, led the crowd off down the street in a march along Guadalupe, over on 4th by the gay bars and then up Congress to stop at the Capitol building for a bit before heading back. Lots of great chants happened and traffic certainly enjoyed the show. As we passed Rain on 4th, (incidentally it is owned by a straight man but he's an incredible gay ally and supporter of Project Transitions) and as we passed Oil Can Harry's, the doormen of both places thanked us for marching and cheered for us.

Austin Proposition 8 Protest

The protests are occurring nationwide at the same time. 1:30 PM EST all the way to 8:30 AM in Hawaii. To find the protest nearest you, to upload photo or video of the protests or get more information go to: JointheImpact.

Check back here later today for my photos and documenta of the Austin event.

In Austin the protest will be at City Hall:
301 W 2nd St
Austin TX

To see more of Lydia Marcus's work, see her blog, Fotonomous.

Protests against Proposition 8 Today

Today in Austin, at City Hall, at 12:30 PM there will be a rally and protest against the passing of Proposition 8 in California (and Proposition 2 in Florida, Proposition 102 in Arizona, and a measure in Arkansas banning gays and lesbians from adopting).

I'll be there, with a dance mix cd in hand and Sasha is bringing a boombox so we can at least have some fun while we make our dissent known. I think it's going to be an enormous rally, some of my volunteers from work e-mailed me and I never thought they'd be going. Good. It should be big. It's insane that human beings would be denied rights.

If you want to have a good laugh—and I really encourage you not to take seriously the profoundly ignorant viewpoints expressed—read the comments on the LA Times article about Proposition 8 protests. We need more education in this country. We need conscious, intentional evolution. We need cultural competency trainings. We need to evolve past viewpoints like the ones expressed in those comments.

Keith Olberman on Proposition 8

A compelling expression of thought by MSNBC's Keith Olberman on California's recently passed Proposition 8:

Fun Fun Fun Fest

Not an Obama post!

This weekend was the third annual Fun Fun Fun Fest, put on by Transmission Entertainment, at Waterloo Park in Austin.

Fun Fun Fun Fun Fun Fest had many moments of goodness and question marks and badness but here are EIGHT:

-Tim Fite's hi-quality, med-fi, transmedia, beautiful little show!

-The dust! Kicked up in round grey clouds, swirling into nostrils.

-The misogyny of Kool Keith as Dr. Octagon ("girrl, let me touch you there, I want to feel you!")(and then boys in the crowd thinking it was okay to then touch the girls they were with). The truth that he's also very talented, just needs to examine his gender and sexuality views.

-The National being so polished and tight I felt like I was sleeping inside a cold piano. I loved it when I was able to be awake for it. The horns, the piano, all. The men in the band are precious and clearly utterly musically skillful though almost too tight (in all ways) for their own good.

-A surprise band: St. Vincent. I didn't know I liked her work. I walked in at the beginning of her set and was drawn in like a moth. She's from Dallas originally and was a musical gem and also clearly a little nutbar. She reminded me of my friend Jordana who's poppa dated Hillary Clinton back in the day—hot and gently off the handle. (The video that links to is just a catchy song, really her stage presence was the slightly off the handle part)(though maybe she's just a goddamn good performer).

-Writing poems on the ground while sitting on the "bad trip" sidewalk at the back of the Minus the Bear show.

-Biking to and from the festival with Jason, our bikes covered in lights. I had seven on. Feeling swift, safe and human. Biking around the capitol building at night, all heft and pink granite, rough and elegant.

-The kindly, OLD-souled five year-old on the halfpipe with a mohawk who, while waiting for his turn for the halfpipe (among fifteen adults), would use his skateboard as a guitar, thrashing it around to the sounds from the nearby punk stage.

-Okay, there's a ninth. Why were there no queer bands that I could find? If it was radical dykes rapping "girl let me touch you there, I want to feel you," at least it would explore the meaning of that phrasing more.

Where are the TV Lezzies?

Grey's Anatomy is firing their one "outed" lesbian now, and the L Word begins its final season this year. Where am I going to get to watch people like me on TV?

Gay Thoughts, Race Thoughts

Something about living in Texas makes me get teary-eyed when I see beautiful, solid, media representation of gays (see example below). Austin is safe for gays as a whole and celebratory in some ways too, though there are always weird incidents that happen. Sometimes the incidents are far worse than just weird; there have been a few recent bus-beating incidents in Austin that definitely made me think about my safety as a lesbian.

I will say that Austin is a largely happy and progressive town, but there is a lot of general ignorance here about race, sexuality, and gender identity. The ignorance is remarkably high and un-checked compared to my experience in New York/ New England. I can only attribute it to the relative isolation of this enormous state holding down the center of our country far from the big cities of both coasts.

I was talking to my friend Amber about this last night: We all, from whatever racial background we are, need to be doing as much intentional anti-racism work, and pro-inclusion work around sexual and gender identities as we can. Let us allow each other the space to be honest and challenge each other for the parts of the collective, societal racism that we carry. It is all the unchecked bits and pieces of institutional racism we allow to survive in us that keep the collective racism alive. It is all the little unchecked pieces of racism, in even the most tolerant among us, that allow people to still be uncertain a bi-racial man could lead our country.

Now for what got me teary-eyed. I just watched the preview for a new film coming out November 21st, "I Can't Think Straight." The film is transnational writer Shamim Sarif's directorial debut and is a romantic comedy in which the lead protagonists are both women of color. More on it from the film's website:

[In] “I Can’t Think Straight”...the cultural backdrop forms an intelligent base for [the protagonists'] journey towards self-awareness and each other.

Tala, a London-based Jordanian of Palestinian origin, prepares for an elaborate wedding with her Jordanian fiancé, when she encounters a timid Leyla, a young British Indian woman who is dating her best friend Ali.

I Can't Think Straight opens in New York and Los Angeles Nov. 21. For more on the movie visit its official website.

Vote No on CA Prop 8 and FL Prop 2

Florida is currently voting on Proposition 2, an amendment to the constitution that would define marriage as between a man and a woman and deny marriage rights to same-sex couples. California has similar legislation, Proposition 8. The cast of Ugly Betty stepped up to register their dissent about Proposition 8 in this video:

And here, in English as well:

Gay-Friendly College Towns

Austin is the #1 Gay-Friendly College Town in the U.S., and Eli and I are in the fall issue of Out Traveller!
I'll scan in the image sometime soon; it's not available online.

Out Traveller did a feature on the top 10 most gay-friendly college towns.
Eli & I were over at UT for the Sustainable Business Summit when we first moved to Austin. We walked by a crowd of kids getting their photo taken on the steps in front of the UT Tower. First we noticed there were some lezzies in the back of the group and then suddenly realized the whole crowd was a group of homos. The students saw us and all turned to wave to us simultaneously. Then the photographer, Michael Thad Carter, told us to get in the photo in the front. I love homos recognizing each other. Thusly, we became gelebrities. Thank you, thank you.

Yes!

God Bless Dan Savage

Sarah Palin has deflected criticism of her anti-gay politics by saying she has gay friends. Who hasn't heard a bigot say "It's alright, I can say that, I have a {Gay/Black/Latino/Latina/Asian} friend." Unfortunately though, there's no evidence that Mz. Pale Lies indeed possesses any such homos in her friend repertoire. For more discussion on this, see The Right Hook from The Advocate online.

I mean, Sarah Pale Eyes is kind of glam, but I think it just might be her deep-rooted Creationism that keeps the party from ever getting fun enough to attract the gay love.

Fortunately, there are plenty of gays auditioning right now (yes right now!) to become Bible Spice's token gay friend. Monsieur Dan Savage, witty and talented sex columnist of Savage Love fame, started this video lineage; his video is below.

(You may also remember Dan Savage's 2003, reader invoked, contest to name a sex act "the Santorum" after Rick Santorum's famous comments equating gay sex to "man on dog" after the Texas Sodomy Laws were revoked. Dan's apparent intention with the contest was to, "...memorialize the Santorum scandal...by attaching his name to a sex act that would make his big, white teeth fall out of his big, empty head.")