AfterElton Briefs: Dan Savage has a plan, burning gay books, and more!

Wear brown pants...........they ruined that good looking man!

You made up the name of todays model, didn't you?  Ease Yer Trail, eh?  :)

Book burnings?  Seriously?  We're back to that.  Doesn't it seem like the country is regressing slowly? Maybe not so slowly. I... I don't know what to say.  I really don't. 

 

Reading stuff like this just hurts.  Like, honest to God, hurts.  Where the hell is all this hate coming from?  All this fear?  From God?  They say it is.  They say it's their divine mission.  I don't see it.  I seriously don't see God in any of their actions.  Maybe the God of the Crusades, but not the God of the New Testemant.  There is no Christ left in their Christianity.  Just vengence and wrath they they are dishing out, not God.

 

You know, I keep telling my friends that this stuff takes time, that civil rights and social change take time.  They do.  They take a lot of time, and a lot of work, and even then, you can't change everyone's mind.  Sometimes it is hard to be patient when groups of people are attacking with such violent, seething hatred.  They don't like it, and so they think no one else should be exposed to it.  They don't want ideas that aren't their's being spread.  So they react with violence, they destroy it, and that scares the hell out of me.  Cuz when the books are gone, what do they go after next?  Eventually you know it's going to be a who, and you know that can't end well.  Not for anyone. 

 

Check out my blog soap at:

soapsudzbybobo.blogspot.com

It'd look fantastic lying on my bedroom floor.

Thanks for noting the work of the amazing Dan Savage. "Skipping Toward Gomorrah" is one of my all-time favorite books!

And this is what would happen... you would get arrested and then after some cool down time you would be let go. This is what happens daily at the White House. Lately it has been Tamils and Orange Jump-Suited Guantanomo Torture Protestors. Working down the street from the White House every day we see all sorts of things. Frankly, unless its a celebrity couple a week it wouldn't matter much in the daily workings of the White House.

How about we actually force our gay leaders to do something other than cozy up to straight politicians. We need to take this grassroots and show we are your son, daughter, father, mother, neighbor, friend, coworker, etc? Why don't we do a nationwide "I'm Out" campaign where everyone who is gay or lesbian or an ally wheres a distinctive color to symbolically show who we are. We can also show up at our GLBT insitution meetings and demand for return on investment for our money. Our rage must be seen but we must also practice a "I'm Just Like You" campaign as well. In the end we must confront people 1 on 1 in this country to let them know we aren't just in big cities and the coasts. We must show we are not the Village People stereotype but the office worker, crossing guard, garbage man, and small business owner too.

Sorry, but getting arrested at the White House is not really going to make any point and in the end no record will be even on the books. Arrests just are given email alerts to various government workers saying an "X entrance is closed" shortly followed by "security incident resolved." The local papers and tv don't even really cover it anymore. Sorry to sound critical but it is just reality here in the USA capital.

My opinion on the March is positive but in the end marches really haven't meant anything since the early 1980s here in DC. What would be effective might be a series of Lunchtime protests at the White House and Capitol which would allow people of all types to use their DC lunch hour to show up be counted and then do it again the next. Its efficient, doable, and persistant.

Oh and the weekend that the march is supposed to happen my partner and I are having our wedding coincidently. How about I send our wedding invite to the Obamas and Bidens?

Stephen Gately was the first gay guy I ever had a crush on...

I even planned to become a world-famous pop singer so I can meet him in one of those shared concerts and I would get him to fall in love with me...

He's gained a bit of weight since he was 21, then again I'm now almost double the size of my 11 year old self...

I don't mind the outfit... I'd like to dress him up like an anatomically-correct Ken doll...