Carolina Moosians Oppose Amendment 1

Who's Cary WASP, I hear you muttering from behind your computer screens, and what does she have against Amendment 1? Cary WASP (not her real nickname) is the Older Sister of the Moosians. She lives in Cary, NC (Cary -- Get it?), and she is not in the habit of making signs and carrying them around at festivals in the rain, but she did so Saturday because she is a good sister and a good citizen and she knows the simple truth that there can be no classes among citizens. Amendment 1, like all attempts to grant legal rights and protections to some relationships and withhold them from others, is discriminatory on its face. Since same-sex marriage is already illegal in North Carolina, Amendment 1 can't even be justified on the usual stupid grounds of preserving the sanctity segregation of marriage from teh gayz. It goes further, banning any type of "domestic legal union," including civil unions and domestic partnerships.

Yo, Carolina, want to protect marriage? How 'bout making sure this creep never gets a license to wed again? (Cheap shot, I know. Couldn't resist. But, still, srsly.)

The amendment seems likely to pass, despite the efforts of Cary WASP and Bill Clinton, who puts on his sweetest, thickest southern drawl in these charming robocalls that are going out in the state in advance of Tuesday's vote.

Thank you, Cary WASP, and thank you, Big Dawg, for fighting the good fight for equal justice under law. We'd be proud to march with you any day, rain or shine, win or lose. Some days, if you can't be on the winning side, you console yourself by knowing you are on the right side. March on, dream on, fight on, my pretties. And if you live in North Carolina, for dog's sake get out and vote on Tuesday! Peace out.

A Picture-Perfect Week

Wednesday night at QTU, Angela Davis spoke to a huge, rapt audience on a range of topics, including the killing of Trayvon Martin, Americans' resistance to seeing racism as a structural problem, and the cause of prison abolition. (You can watch the whole event here.) The Moms were in the house and on the second row, which gave Moose a chance to snap this shot of the scholar-activist listening attentively to a question from the audience:

(Photo Credit: Moose, 4/18/12, College Park, MD)

Friday, as many of you know, was the day of the big gay spring carnival Moose's happy little program hosts every year on behalf of DC Queer Studies. This year's symposium was extra special, focused on honoring the life and legacy of writer/critic Samuel R. "Chip" Delany, who turned 70 on April 1. The day was drenched in sunshine, the papers were uniformly splendid, and the guest of honor was genial, generous, and wise. Moose snapped this shot of Delany getting ready to read from his new novel, Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders:

(Photo Credit: Moose, 4/20/12, College Park, MD)

What's the takeaway from this long, exhausting, yet deeply gratifying week? Maybe it's something as simple as the importance of finding work that feeds the soul and keeps one focused on a world larger than oneself. Both Davis and Delany have spent their lives as writers and scholars engaged with questions of race, sex, and justice, and both seem, at 70 or on the brink of it (Davis is 68), to radiate equanimity and an optimism that seems not naive but hard-won and fiercely guarded. At breakfast with a group of faculty women the morning after her lecture, Davis amiably entertained more than 90 minutes of questions on everything from prison reform to the politics of university catering. She was thoughtful, funny, generous, and sanguine about the prospect of continued, if slow, progress toward justice. She counseled patience and emphasized the importance of building movements from the ground up. She reminded listeners that the election of Barack Obama was a victory not for him but for those who voted him into office. She feels that the Occupy Wall Street movement, whatever else it did or did not accomplish, was a sign that citizens felt empowered by Obama's election to mobilize against rising inequalities of wealth and the rise of corporate power. In reply after reply, it was clear Davis refuses despair. She sees what's happening. She grasps the underlying problems with depth and nuance. And her years in the trenches tell her that it simply means we are all going to have to spend a few -- or many -- more years in the trenches. All right, then.

Look, darlings, I know it isn't always possible to find work that feeds your soul. Indeed, sometimes, to pay the rent and stay alive, you have to take jobs that make you worry you are selling or crushing your soul. You may find yourself in the devil's company, on your knees and on his payroll, but that doesn't make you a devil. Sometimes you do what you have to do -- but you do it without losing sight of what you want to do. You'll get there, my friend. Take the long view, as Davis and Delany have clearly done in the course of their own complex, amazing journeys. Keep your eyes and your heart open. You might have to do a little more than click your heels together three times, but you will get to where you want to go, even if it isn't on any map you've ever seen. Don't ask us how we know. We just do.

We'll end with what is perhaps Moose's favorite image from this picture-perfect week, because it celebrates not only longevity but clever design that tastes as good as it looks. Here is the cake she had made to honor Mr. Delany at the party after Friday's symposium. It's decorated with the image used on publicity for the event:

(Photo Credit: Moose, 4/19/12)

We offer a virtual piece of this pretty cake to one and all, as a way of saying, "Eat, laugh, never give into despair. That's the one thing we truly can't afford." Peace out.

* * *

For Will Danger, who is working.

Remembering Adrienne Rich

As you have no doubt heard by now, another shero has left the building. The poet Adrienne Rich, whom Moose has lovingly described as the fairy godmother of lesbian feminism, died last Tuesday at her home in Santa Cruz, California. Tuesday, you may recall, was Moose's birthday, which adds an extra bit of poignance to the loss here in Roxie's World. Rich was only 82 years old. Only -- Yes, children, 82 sounds kinda young to the ornery 50-somethings who hang out here. Someday, you'll feel the same way. Swear to dog.

What can we say about Rich that others haven't already said in the outpouring of praise and sorrow that quickly followed news of her death? Simply that her poetry was and is, like certain pieces of music, part of the soundtrack of our lives. It is lodged deep in our heads and hearts. Lines come to us unbidden, in sleep, in crisis, in moments of intimacy. Whatever happens with us, your body will haunt mine. . . .I came to explore the wreck. / The words are purposes. / The words are maps. / I came to see the damage that was done / and the treasures that prevail. . . .With whom do you believe your lot is cast?

The collage above features the autographed title page of Moose's well-worn copy of the book dykes of a certain age all had on their shelves in the 70s and 80s alongside their well-worn copies of Our Bodies, Ourselves and The Moosewood Cookbook. You couldn't get dates back in those days if you couldn't quote most of the "Twenty-One Love Poems" from memory. While changing the oil of your girlfriend's car. Or holding a mirror up to your vajayjay in a circle of your closest friends. (Closest friends: That's lesbian-speak for ex with whom I am still complexly entangled or chick I am hoping to sleep with next.) Just kidding, kinda.

Moose isn't quite sure when she got Rich's autograph on the sacred text. She thinks it must have been at a reading at Womanbooks in New York (which is discussed in this totes excellent Signs article by Kristen Hogan on women's studies and feminist bookstores), when Rich was promoting her next book, A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far. Yeah: Fall 1981. Moose was the scraggly grad student standing in line clutching the poet's previous book, which she had gotten as a gift from one of her closest friends. She eventually got around to purchasing A Wild Patience and writing a paper comparing it to Dream, because she took a course called Theories of Female Creativity and you could get by with that sort of thing as long as you threw in a dollop or two of French theory to make it all look legit.

Did you really expect this post to be about Rich? Here, let's try again.

We needed a fairy godmother, someone whose words had the power of incantation and a wisdom that seemed ancient. We needed that to counter all the voices in and out of our heads shouting "No!" to our every desire, our dreams, our ambitions, our longings for another kind of world. Rich was important because she gave voice to those dreams, even as she demanded that her readers attend to the world 

as it is     not as we wish it
as it is     not as we work for it
to be 

("The Spirit of Place")

For all the dreamy feminist utopianism of her lush lyricism, Rich always had a foot firmly on the ground of the world "as it is." Yes, she gave us permission to revel in the joys of erotic pleasure and outlaw love, but she also reminded us that the world was always with us and those private pleasures couldn't command all our energy and attention. In the nineteenth of the twenty-one love poems, the speaker reminds her beloved, "I told you from the first I wanted daily life, / this island of Manhattan was island enough for me." The remark is in parentheses, a graphic emblem of the tensions between separateness and connection that are the subject of the final poems in the sequence.

You hear in that "I told you from the first" something of the moral rectitude that could make Rich both annoying and bracing. She was capable of a prescriptivism that could be damaging to both politics and poetry -- and wrote about that risk in poems like "North American Time":

When my dreams showed signs
of becoming
politically correct
no unruly images
escaping beyond borders
when walking in the street I found my
themes cut out for me
knew what I would not report
for fear of enemies' usage
then I began to wonder

What felt like righteousness, though, was also a consciousness of privilege and of the duties Rich obviously felt as a white, North American, middle-class woman to make use of the power she had to try to effect change. You could say she exaggerated the amount of control women had over their lives, as she seems to do in a line like, "Only she who says / she did not choose, is the loser in the end" (XV, "Twenty-One Love Poems") -- Or you could say she recognized that no amount of oppression ever let one off the hook. We are all to some degree responsible for our lives and accountable to our moment in history -- "the life of your tribe / the breath of your planet," as she puts it in "North American Time."

Adrienne Rich gave voice to our dreams, and she demanded that we work to make those dreams real. Rich has moved on, too soon, alas, but the work, of course, continues. We realize now it isn't just women's work, as we might have supposed in earlier, separatist moments. It's all our work, and we'd better get to it. Because somewhere, we might imagine, Rich and her friend and sister/warrior Audre Lorde are impatiently waiting for us "to perform the needed acts" ("Toward the Solstice"). Let's get started, shall we?

* * *

For other remembrances of Rich, see Katha Pollitt in The New Yorker, our pal Margaret Swedish on her writing blog, another pal over on Gukira, and a poem by Marge Piercy on the Ms. blog.

Contact -- and Non-Contact

This kicks off Monday at QTU, which partly explains the radio silence around here lately.

(Image Credit: Mira Azarm, Assistant Director for Client Publications, QTU)

Moose has also been a bit preoccupied by the action on marriage equality in Annapolis and by preparations for this big gay fundraiser (which you should totes support/attend if you happen to be in the 'hood on Feb. 23), which she is co-hosting in her capacity as big gay member of the Board of Directors of this organization.

Also, we've been having our hearts broken by both Lady and Non-Lady Terps. Oh, basketball, you can be a cruel mistress.

It's not that we don't love you, darlings. We do. Indeed, we will allllllllllllllllllways love youuuuuuuuuu. (Whitney? Girl? Are you freaking kidding me?)

We're just ridiculously busy. Don't hate us. We shall return. Swear to dog.

You Can't Stop Us

Or, Another Damn Post on Marriage Equality. We'll stop writin' 'em when the homophobes give up the hate and extend the ball and chain the right to wed to all citizens.

Moose encountered and shared the vid below on Facebook the other day. It's of our Maryland state delegate (and pal!) Heather Mizeur, speaking on the floor of the General Assembly during last March's debate on a bill that would have brought marriage equality to the Free State. The bill passed in the Senate but was pulled in the House when it was clear there weren't enough votes to pass it. Gov. Martin O'Malley introduced a similar bill this week, so the whole battle is about to play out again. (Oh, goody -- Reruns!) The hope is that the bill will fare better this time around with O'Malley taking on more of a leadership role and in the wake of the passage of marriage equality in the New York state legislature. We shall see, kids. Y'all know we've been skeptical of O'Malley, pretty as he is, and now his equally lovely wife, Judge Catherine O'Malley, has ruffled feathers by speaking the truth, publicly declaring that the bill failed last year because "some cowards . . . prevented it from passing." Judge O'Malley quickly and predictably announced that she regretted her choice of words, though we happen to think she was right. Some delegates who had signed on as cosponsors of the bill ended up voting against it once churches in more conservative districts whipped up opposition. Because, you know, God Hates Fags.

In any case, watch the vid:

 

We like the rhetorical moves Mizeur makes in this brief clip, the calm yet righteous eloquence of her assertion that the bill's opponents cannot stop LGBT people from establishing marriages and families, from loving each other and declaring their love before the divine entity referred to around here as Dog. The repeated "you can't stop us from . . . " serves as a powerful anaphora that reminds listeners of how dramatically social and legal conditions for same-sex relationships have changed in the decades since Stonewall. It taunts those who would vote against the bill by suggesting that the war is in some sense already over and queers have won -- but then it pivots back to the painful reality of what the lack of full legal equality can mean for same-sex couples: "You can't stop us from loving each other," Mizeur intones. "You can't stop us from getting married. You can't stop us from pledging to forever to our God and to each other and to support each other in the toughest of times. You can't stop that. All you can do is make it really, really, really difficult for us in the worst, most challenging times."

Goose has long maintained that what fuels the right-wing hysteria about marriage equality is the recognition that teh Gayz Agenda has already captured the hearts and minds of the vast majority of Americans. As a generation of kids raised in and around and on Modern Family comes of age, the idea that civil marriage has to be protected from the assaults of creepy scary queers is losing whatever power it has left as a wedge issue. A November, 2011 Pew poll found that support for marriage equality was strongest among Millennial generation voters (born from 1981 to 1993), at an impressive 59%. Of course, Millennials seem far less invested in marriage than previous generations have been. The same poll shows that they are far less likely than earlier generations to marry when young. Currently, just 23% of 18- to-30-year-olds are married. By contrast, 49% of the Baby Boomers were married at that age. There is considerable irony in gays clamoring for access to marriage in a period when its power as a social institution seems to be declining precipitously. If conservatives had a lick of sense or objectivity, they'd realize that modernizing marriage and expanding access to it will do more good than harm. David Brooks, who has such sense, has been making that case since 2003.

As the Moms approach the 28th anniversary of their commitment to love without marriage, they are keeping a close eye on what's going on in Annapolis. They are still not chomping at the bit to run down to the courthouse and get legally hitched, but they respect the desires of those who are and they believe right down to the bottom of their ornery radical hearts that queers should have the same rights to legally wedded bliss or catastrophe that everybody else has. Mizeur is right: You can't stop us from loving each other and building lives together. You could if you wanted to build other ways to grant legal protection to relationships and to distribute the 1038 rights and benefits currently available only through marriage,  but until that day comes, a lot of us want and need marriage. You can't stop us, but you can hurt us and slow us down and make the darkest days of our lives darker still by setting up legal obstacles that make us vulnerable at moments of illness, injury, or death. You can't stop us, because the genie is out of the bottle closet. You can only make us continue to pay the price for your bigotry. Don't kid yourself that the creator of the universe is on your side in this fight. Whatever S/He is, Dog is assuredly on the side of love. Why aren't you?

Oh, we know you are on the side of love, my pretties, and we reckon some of you might also be interested in the drama unfolding in Annapolis. Want to help? We've got some ideas.

• Make a donation to Equality Maryland, the state's largest LGBT civil rights organization, which is working hard under new leadership to pass the marriage bill and a gender-identity protection bill during this session. Full disclosure: Moose is on the Board of Directors of the Equality Maryland Foundation, but if you contribute there your donation is tax-deductible. Do it -- and tell 'em Moose sent you!
• Get on the phone. Marylanders for Marriage Equality (a coalition, which includes Equality Maryland, set up to work for passage of the marriage bill) is holding weekly phone banks throughout the state to rally support. Find one near you, and start practicing your very best phone manners.
• Sign up for Lobby Day in Annapolis. It's Feb. 13. Go march around in the cold, then head indoors to give your representative an earful or a pat on the back. The Moms can't be there, because Moose is hosting a shindig on campus that day (which you should totally attend if you are not able to go to Annapolis).

All right, rabble rousers, it's time to step away from the laptop and go enjoy what's left of this lovely afternoon. We hope it's pretty in your neck of the woods and that you'll do some fighting for joy as well as justice on this last weekend of January 2012. Peace out, and play fair.

(Image Credit: Via.)

Dear Hillary Clinton,

We love you so. No, really, we adore you and totally groove on the way you have become like the Global Queer-Affirming Good Girl. Srsly, the burly women and pretty boys of the world unite in saying that you are homolicious!

Nonetheless, with all due respect, we wish you would re-think the hair. I am sorry, Mme Secretary, but we cannot love a ponytail.

Yours sincerely,

Roxie

(Photo Credit: Anja Niedringhaus, Associated Press [via]. New York Times caption: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, left, after her speech on human rights issues at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday. [Video of the speech is here.])

It is a violation of human rights when people are beaten or killed because of their sexual orientation, or because they do not conform to cultural norms about how men and women should look or behave. It is a violation of human rights when governments declare it illegal to be gay, or allow those who harm gay people to go unpunished. It is a violation of human rights when lesbian or transgendered women are subjected to so-called corrective rape, or forcibly subjected to hormone treatments, or when people are murdered after public calls for violence toward gays, or when they are forced to flee their nations and seek asylum in other lands to save their lives. And it is a violation of human rights when life-saving care is withheld from people because they are gay, or equal access to justice is denied to people because they are gay, or public spaces are out of bounds to people because they are gay. No matter what we look like, where we come from, or who we are, we are all equally entitled to our human rights and dignity. -- US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, "Remarks in Recognition of International Human Rights Day," Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland, 12/6/11.

You go, girl. With you till the last dog dies. Or 2016, whichever comes first.

Empire State of Love

The Moms are about to catch a train for a big gay wedding up in the Big Apple this weekend. They also managed to snag a pair of tix to the hottest show in town, The Book of Mormon, so Moose is, like, you know, over the moon with excitement.

Our pal Julie, who's getting hitched, confessed on Facebook to having some difficulty writing her vows. Let's help her out, kids. What should a girl promise her girl as she publicly, legally commits to hanging in with her until the last dog dies? When the Moms stood up together in 1989 for their (not legal in any state) practically a wedding ceremony, Moose promised Goose a joke a day for the rest of her life. That's worked out pretty well, and it totally avoided all that pesky, bummer-inducing crap about sickness and death.

Leave your suggestions for Julie's vows in comments, darlings, and have a lovely, if soggy, weekend. Meanwhile, we'll play the girls off with a bit of relationship advice from Mr. Bruce Springsteen (who turns 62 today!) and the E Street Band. Here's a lovely version of "If I Should Fall Behind," which really tells you everything you need to know about what it takes to hang in with someone over the long haul. It all boils down to patience and compassion, doesn't it? If I mess up -- and I will -- bear with me. If I lose my way, don't lose faith. I will find my way home -- to you, to me, to us.

Should we lose each other in the shadow of the evening trees
I'll wait for you
And should I fall behind
Wait for me

Peace out, lovebirds.

Monday Night Link-O-Rama

Quote of the Day: "Being an English major prepares you for impersonating authority" -- Garrison Keillor. Yes, it was that kind of day.

Latest Indication That Our Children Is Not Learning: SAT reading scores reach record low. Is kids to blame? Um, no.

Funnest Thing the Teacher Has Picked Up So Far in This Semester's Trans Lit Course: CISSEXUAL Prince Harry plans to be the first Royal to boldly go into space -- and even wants to enter NASA training. Trannies do too have a sense of humor!

Oh, So That's Why All Our Pals in the Midwest Are Switching to G-Mail: Proposed e-mail policy at U of Illinois gets knickers in wad.

Latest Proof That Eating Conscientiously Does Not Mean Giving Up Comfort Food: Cooking Light's makeover of Mac & Cheese -- with butternut squash. It's the meal you will make every time the forecast calls for snow this winter. It's the reason you will tune into the weather every evening praying there will be snow in the forecast. It's the reason you will soon regret every meal you ever ate that did not include butternut squash. And, you know, moderate amounts of gruyère, pecorino, and parmesan cheese.

Most Amusing Search Phrase That Led More Than One Reader to This Blog Recently: "what to wear in new york during summer for a wedding in city hall same sex." I know, I know, darlings: Social change is discombobulating. Aim for comfort and style. Even the dykes have gone snazzy now that we've all figured out we could end up hosting the Emmys. You will just have to cope.

That's all for now, kids. Both moms are already howling about what a crazy week it is, and the teaching part of it hasn't even started yet. Wevs. No matter how busy you are, don't forget to raise a paw to the long overdue demise of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which officially lapses at midnight tonight. Let us know if you run out and join the Army, will ya? We love a girl -- or guy! -- in uniform. Peace out, y'all, and, you know, Semper Fi.

Here's a shot of that yummy casserole to help ease the pain of your work week.

(Photo Credit: Moose, 9/18/11)

Body Matters: Short Takes

As we ease our way back toward serious blogging, we thought we'd call your attention to a few stories that caught our attention in between ocean swims and fine meals and beach reading of books Moose emphatically decided not to include in the trans lit course she'll be teaching this term.

The Aging, Vegan Ex-Presidential Body: Bill Clinton turned 65 the other day, which prompted a spate of stories on the Big Dawg's impressive efforts to manage his heart disease through diet and exercise. The former president, who has a family history of seriously bad tickers, had a quadruple bypass in 2004 and angioplasty in 2010. Since then, working with Dr. Dean Ornish, he has dropped 20 pounds  and become mostly vegan, though he confesses to CNN's Sanjay Gupta to having a bite -- one bite, he says, with a wag of his famous finger -- of turkey at Thanksgiving. Moose liked this story because she is delighted to claim her favorite living former president as a comrade in Lifestyle Adjustment. She also thinks it's good for the country to have to reckon with seeing the nation's most famous devotee of Big Macs and Krispy Kremes as a poster boy for clean living and healthy eating. Moose imagines she would choose death over veganism, because she isn't sure she could live in a world without eggs, but she was endowed by her creator with a ridiculously healthy heart and so has never had to face that choice. Mostly, though, we like this story because it offers further proof that we just can't stop thinking about Bill Clinton's body. We need to know what he is ingesting, how he is looking -- fabulous! -- and how he is feeling (more energetic than ever!). Clinton's successor in the Oval Office also turned 65 earlier this summer, and the AP story focused on the thousands of virtual birthday greetings he received through a campaign orchestrated by his wife. No one, it seems, wants to think about Shrub's aging body or what's going into it. I know: Quelle surprise. And we sincerely apologize for putting that image into your head so early in the work week.

The Professorial Body: Duke's Cathy Davidson, who is garnering raves for her new book, Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn, did a marvelous blog post a couple of weeks ago on a Pilates class that resonated with some of our musings here about yoga, bodies in middle age, and minds/bodies in techno-culture. The post advocates balance, breathing, and compulsory dance movement in schools and workplaces as a necessary counter to the seated life of the mental worker staring at the screen. It offers compelling observations about kids' relationships to their bodies and movement in an age in which bike helmets and pain avoidance constrain them in both body and soul. It even offers a couple of simple exercises to foster alignment and deep breathing. Read the post. Try the exercises. And get Davidson's book, for dog's sake, because everyone else you know is getting it and you don't want to be out of the loop. We've got Now You See It loaded up on Kindles and iPads throughout Roxie's World and can hardly wait to read what this passionate yet practical digital visionary has to say about the world in which we live, think, work, and breathe.

The Lesbian Body: Christina Santiago was 29 years old, a lesbian, a native New Yorker living in Chicago, and manager for the Lesbian Community Care Project at the Howard Brown Health Center. She was killed in a freak accident at the Indiana State Fair on August 13. Four other people died, and Santiago's partner, Alisha Brennon, was also seriously injured when a concert stage collapsed in a strong thunder storm just before the group Sugarland was to begin a show. The story caught our eye in part because the tragedy occurred in Moose's home state but also because of allegations that began circulating on the queer interwebs that the Marion County coroner's office refused to release Santiago's body to Brennon for burial because of the state's DOMA law. First reported by Bil Browning on The Bilerico Project, the charge went viral when Dan Savage wrapped it up in a fiery denunciation of how such laws "serve to torment and persecute gay people at the most trying moments of their lives."

The problem, as it turned out, is that the story wasn't true. The critically injured Brennon had not contacted the coroner's office and appears not to have been treated disrespectfully by anybody. Her partner's body was released to an aunt of Santiago's who was listed as her next of kin. Santiago's funeral and burial were in the Bronx, but those closest to Santiago and Brennon suggest matters were handled amicably and sensitively. Brennon is still hospitalized but seems to be recovering. Bil Browning posted a lengthy apology for his poor judgment and reporting, admitting that his "history of dealing with homophobic behavior by Indiana office holders" likely predisposed him to believe the story without sufficiently verifying it. In his retraction, Savage noted that, "These sorts of things have happened -- surviving gay spouses barred from bedsides, not allowed to retrieve their partner's remains, barred from funerals by hostile family-of-origin members -- but it didn't happen this time."

Savage is right, of course. Such things do happen, and we need to work hard to reduce the likelihood of their happening by securing full legal equality for LGBT relationships. That will require overturning the federal Defense of Marriage Act and every mini-DOMA on the books in states from sea to shining sea. Bil Browning is to be commended for his thorough and thoughtful self-criticism, but we can also learn something from his mistake, from his -- and our -- willingness to believe that a low-level functionary in a coroner's office would see it as his or her job to enforce a state DOMA in such a cruel fashion. (Since Santiago and Brennon were residents of neighboring Illinois, Brennon could presumably have claimed her partner's body under that state's domestic partnership law.)

Again: Such things do happen, but that doesn't mean we can assume they've happened without fully and fairly investigating the claim. Browning didn't try to speak with Brennon because she was still in intensive care and "it seemed crass to call her for a statement." Fair enough, but shouldn't the fact that Brennon was in intensive care have made him doubt that she was in a position to call the coroner's office to try to claim Santiago's body? That it apparently didn't is powerful evidence of how strongly inclined he was to believe what he was hearing without fully corroborating the charge. Yes, Indiana is full of homophobes in high places and lacks the most basic protections for LGBT citizens and relationships, but that doesn't justify jumping to conclusions and circulating falsehoods about particular offices or officeholders. Such mistakes don't serve the cause of advancing LGBT rights, as Browning knows. They also don't honor the memory of Christina Santiago or comfort her grieving partner, family, and friends.

Attention, please: This brief rant has been brought to you by Moose, who feels bad for circulating Savage's post about the Marion County coroner's office on her Facebook page without independently checking out the story. You heard it here first, folks: Not everything you read on the interwebs is true. Be skeptical. Be fair. Be thorough.

RIP Christina Santiago. Your memory will endure, and your vital work will go on. Our condolences to those who loved you and healing thoughts to Alisha Brennon for a full and swift recovery.

Peace out.

Picturing Marriage Equality

This here blog has had quite a bit to say on the subject of marriage equality over the years. We've mapped out a tortured, wishy washy carefully nuanced, ambivalent position that captures our passion for civil rights and our (queer/feminist) skepticism toward marriage as a means of arranging intimacy and distributing benefits to which all citizens should be entitled, regardless of relationship status. Do a label search on "gay marriage" if you are interested in finding those posts. Our all-time favorite on the subject is a piece from March 2010 commemorating the Moms' twenty-sixth anniversary. Its subtitle is "Love Without License." A close second would be a long postmortem on the 2008 election, in which, you may recall, voters elected the nation's first African-American president while voting down same-sex marriage in California, Arizona, and Florida. That one is called "Repetitive Motions."

We may not be quite the rainer on the same-sex marriage parade that our good buddy queer legal eagle Katherine Franke is (here she is on WNYC), but, having said so much, we feel permitted to take a pass on coming up with something pithy to say about Gay New York becoming Gay-Married New York, as civil marriage rights became available Sunday to same-sex couples in the Empire State. Instead of telling, we're more in a mood to do some showing -- of some of the very compelling images that have come out in the last day or two. Regardless of how fraught and fuzzy necessarily complex our position on marriage is, we have to admit that pictures like these move us. They make us smile or bring a tiny tear to a jaded eye. More importantly, though, they also have significant political potential in the power they may have to reframe the way the culture sees not only the institution of marriage but sex and gender variation more generally. (We've made this point before, deep in this post.)

As of Sunday, in New York, this is what a newly married couple looks like (via):

(The couple is Connie Kopelov, 84 [in the wheelchair], and Phyllis Siegel, 76, who have been together for 23 years and were the first couple married in Manhattan. This lovely shot reminds us of the Ladies First etiquette that prevailed in San Francisco back in 2008 when pioneering dyke activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon were the first same-sex couple to jump the broom during the brief period when marriage equality was available in the Golden State.)

These folks, too, are ready to play The Newlywed Game:

(The image above is a partial screen capture of a gallery of "Portraits From the New York City Marriage Bureau" that ran in the New York Times. All photos by Fred R. Conrad, NYT. See the whole thing, which includes links to brief audio commentary by each couple, here. The website BuzzFeed also ran a collection of 60 portraits of just-married same-sex couples. Access here.)

The logic of such representations is inescapably normalizing. A wedding portrait is a wedding portrait, whether the couple at the center of the frame is same-sex or opposite-sex. These images fit comfortably into the matrimonial grid, as it were, and into the assimilationist logic embraced by many proponents of same-sex marriage. "We feel a little more human today," commented a 68-year-old New Yorker who married his partner of 42 years on Sunday. Wow: State-sanctioned love makes us a little more human. So much for that whole We don't need no piece of paper from the city hall keeping us tied and true, eh? Please, sir, license my love so that I may feel a little less monstrous than I have felt these 42 years.

On the other hand, there is also something ineluctably queer about these photos, shaped as they are by a homologic we don't see in opposite-sex wedding portraits. Roxie's World is in general opposed to same-sex couples dressing alike, which is why the Moms carefully consult one another before ordering out of certain catalogs that cater to women of a certain age and sensibility. In the wedding photos, however, sartorial similarity -- matching jackets, ties, tee-shirts, banners -- injects an element of symmetry that is, in this context, destabilizing and revealing, accustomed as our eyes are to the traditional asymmetry of a groom in a tux and bride in a gown. On closer examination, the new marital order turns out not to look like the old one, at least not entirely.

The photos also have a giddy, anarchical quality we don't tend to associate with hetero wedding portraits, hyper-stylized and air-brushed as they are. The slightly unruly, improvised look in some of the photos from New York no doubt has something to do with the excitement and uncertainty of rushing to get on stage for the opening performance of a new musical we ought to call The Empire (State) of Love. One might hope, though, that something of that unruliness will persist even as the novelty of same-sex marriage wears off, in New York and elsewhere. For those who would insist that marriage will change (for the better) once queers get hold of it, the signs of difference and disruption in these images are encouraging: State-sanctioned love doesn't make us more human. We make state-sanctioned love more queer. Pretty to think so, isn't it?

As we pause here in that happy interlude that comes after the first weddings and before the first divorce, yes, my darlings, Roxie's World raises a glass and a paw to the idea that queer love can survive anything, even marriage. Congratulations to all of those who took the plunge this week. May your landings be soft and your love as stubborn as an old queen trying to get the bartender's attention at last call. Peace out and mazel tov!

(Niagara Falls [via] all decked out [maybe] for same-sex marriage.)

Progressive Versus Fauxgressive

A WaPo editorial on last night's passage of marriage equality in the Republican-controlled New York Senate nicely clarifies the distinction between a progressive Democrat (NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo) and a fauxgressive Democrat (MD Gov. Martin "You, Sir, Are No Jack Kennedy" O'Malley). Cuomo, according to the Post, fought hard for the bill, which makes civil marriage equality the law of six states and more than doubles the number of citizens who live in states that offer it: "[Cuomo] used the bully pulpit to garner public support around the state. He backed that up by using the power and prestige of the governor’s office behind the scenes. Cuomo was personally involved in securing votes until the very end."

Cuomo's high-profile activism on the issue and the legislative outcome are pretty much the opposite of what we saw in Maryland a few months ago when a marriage equality bill was up for a vote. Democrats here in the Free State control the House and Senate and occupy the governor's mansion. The Post explains how little that proved to matter for the state's LGBT citizens this spring:

The history made in New York stands in stark contrast to the disappointment in Maryland last March, when a similar effort failed. After passing the state Senate, a marriage-equality bill was referred back to committee in the House of Delegates after lawmakers who had supported the bill backed down in the face of opposition. Among those reneging on their commitment were Del. Tiffany T. Alston (D-Prince George’s) and Del. Sam Arora (D-Montgomery County), who got elected campaigning on the issue. For his part, Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) supported the marriage-equality bill. He even lobbied some legislators behind the scenes. But as we learned in New York, legislation of this significance needs more than rhetorical hand-holding by the governor. It needs determined leadership.

Rhetorical hand-holding versus determined leadership, platitudes versus action, bull$hit versus the bully pulpit, losing versus winning: Yep, that sums up the difference between the fauxgressive and the progressive Democrat about as well as anything we've seen. We wish we could believe that You, Sir, Are No Jack Kennedy would aspire to be the latter rather than the former as he moves forward in his promising political career, but we're not holding our breath waiting for the tiger to change his stripes. O'Malley, we have learned, is less of a tiger than a pretty but ineffective kitty cat when it comes to tough fights on hot-button issues.

Thank you, Gov. Cuomo, for showing how it's done, and congratulations, New York, for bending the arc of the moral/legal universe a little further in the direction of justice here in the Weirdly Divided States of America. We heart you today and always.

(Photo Credits: Top: Nathaniel Brooks for the New York Times [via]; New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signs same-sex marriage bill late last night in Albany. Bottom: via; Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley looks up, in hope, perhaps, of finding his missing courage.)

Celebrating Our Sister Bloggers

If my typist had the tech skill required to create speech balloons, there'd be one above this photo that said,

Having a swell time in Northampton -- Wish you were here!

(Photo Credit: Willa Cather Archive [Image Gallery]; Louise Pound and Willa Cather at the University of Nebraska, 1890s.)

Pardon the radio silence, kids. The moms have been away at Cather Camp for the past several days, making their debut as co-authors and collaborators with a paradigm-shifting (that's academic-speak for, No one in the audience audibly snored) plenary address called "Cather, Dickinson, and Sexuality." The conference was focused on novelist Willa Cather's roots in and connections to the nineteenth century (she was born in 1873), so Moose seized the opportunity to get Goose to pay her back for delivering a paper at last year's Emily Dickinson shindig in Oxford. They did indeed have a swell time hanging out with old and new friends on the bucolic campus of Smith College, which is as crawling with fiercely adorable young dykes as their fevered, middle-aged imaginations had hoped it would be. Moose used the photo above of Cather and her college crush Louise Pound to illustrate a point about how different literary history would look if women's affective and creative relationships were brought into the picture. (Goose had a similar Dickinson image, but we are not at liberty to show that to you yet -- Stay tuned!)

Anyhoo, while Roxie's World was as deserted as the executive suite at Gingrich campaign headquarters, some of our very favorite blog pals were hard at work, making news and waves and paradigm-shifting announcements of their own. We'll toot their horns as a way of getting back to regular programming. Go read 'em, and tell 'em Roxie sent ya.

• Tenured Radical announced on Wednesday that she's pulling up her virtual stakes and moving to the big stage of The Chronicle of Higher Education. We couldn't be happier for TR and look forward to seeing her wise-cracking, professionally savvy self shaking up and queering up the sometimes stodgy Chron. We are also crossing paws, fingers, and a variety of other appendages in hopes that her great and powerful blogroll will migrate with her, on account of we totally heart the hits we get by way of her influential sidebar. Love you, TR. Need you. Mean it.
• Meanwhile, in today's New York Times, our favorite queer legal eagle Katherine Franke, who runs the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia (and its blog) has an op-ed bravely arguing that marriage will be a mixed blessing for same-sex couples if it means losing some of the rights that have been gained for unmarried domestic partners and effectively forcing "people to marry — whether they be gay or straight — to have their committed relationships recognized and valued." It's a great piece and a timely one, as New York seems poised to become the sixth state in the nation to offer civil marriage to same-sex couples. Of course, as we learned in Maryland recently, there is a world of political difference and distance between being poised to become and actually being a state that offers complete marriage equality. We look forward to seeing what happens in Albany, but in the meantime we recommend reading Franke's op-ed as a way of saying, again, Be careful what you wish for, darlings. I mean, yes, equality is swell -- but compulsory marriage? Uh, not so swell, if you ask us. And you should.
• Finally, speaking of surprising news of a queer sort, our beloved blog buddy Historiann, who recently publicly confessed to being a breeder, has now announced that she has gone gay! We are delighted, of course, to welcome her to the fold and the team. We even offered to declare her male husband an honorary lesbian so she could continue to keep company with him while pursuing her new lifestyle choice sense of queer alliance and comradeship. We always knew, girlfriend, and we are here to help. Now, tuck in that flannel shirt before we slide your pisco sour across the bar. We're running a classy joint here, you know! (Srsly, kids, go read that gone gay post. It's hilarious, but it and the comment thread that follows raise some great questions about identity and conversation online.)

Paws up to all of our wonderful sister bloggers and to you, our loyal readers, who have been so patient with our sporadic attention lately. It has been and will continue to be a busy summer, but we will do our best to keep you up to date on how the view looks from the ridiculously large backyard of Roxie's World. Peace out, and a sweet summer weekend to you and yours.

Magic in the Making

Moose and her crew are puttin' on their annual big show tomorrow at QTU. It's totes free and open to the public. Y'all should hop in your personal flying machines and get here for the fun! There'll be world-premier scholarly work from award-winning queer historian Regina Kunzel and QTU Victorianist Jason Rudy. There'll be poetry by Julie R. Enszer and Jason Schneiderman. And whole lots more.

Time for someone to go get her beauty sleep. The Gleeks among you do not need to ask what song Moose will be using to pump herself up for this year's shindig. Kurt sang it in Tuesday night's ep as he (finally! mercifully!) made his way back to McKinley High and was happily reunited with his pals (and his glorious solos) in New Directions.

We'll have early morning madness / We'll have magic in the making -- Sounds about right, don't you think? Sing it, Kurt. Sing it out for smart, elegant, hard-working, high-kicking queers everywhere. Everything's as if we never said goodbye. Amen to that!

In Praise of -- Srsly! -- Fred Phelps

You read that right. I am here to offer praise for the demented Rev. Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church, whose gospel of hatred scored a major victory in the Supreme Court of the United States last week, as the court ruled 8-1 in favor of the evil rev's right to stage virulently homophobic protests at military and other funerals.

(Photo Credit: Michael S. Williamson, Washington Post. WaPo caption: Gen. (Army, Ret.) Bill Branson stands in salute to protest the Westboro picketers during [Army Staff Sgt. James] Ide's funeral. "It is an insult to every American who has died for the freedom of speech," said the father of another dead soldier. "No one in the history of the nation has ever protested like this. Don't tell me that my son died for that.")

Now, before you start thinking that America's favorite dead dog blogger has lost her mind as well as her body, permit me to explain why I'm in the mood to plant a big wet kiss on the desiccated cheek of the meanest thing to whirl through Kansas since a tornado whisked Dorothy and Toto away to Oz.

Look, folks, it's not every day that Chief Justice John Roberts and all four of the associate justices appointed by presidents Clinton and Obama (Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan) agree on a matter of law. That in itself is cause for contemplation if not celebration. (The lone dissenter in the ruling was Justice Samuel Alito, who seems to be charting his own path on First Amendment law, favoring privacy interests over free speech in a number of recent cases, according to Jeffrey Rosen.)

Further, the decision afforded WaPo and the New York Times a golden opportunity to clear their throats and offer up a robust defense of the right to speech they respectively described as "ugly" and "hurtful." Moose took a similar position in a discussion in Thursday's blogging class, pointing to photos of some of the rev's more odious signs and declaring, "This is what free speech looks like." And, yes, she also used the occasion to talk to her baby bloggers just launching their little First Amendment machines about the great responsibility that goes along with unrestricted freedom. "Just because you can say it," she said, gesturing again toward the photos of the Westboro protesters, "doesn't mean you should say it." Lord, she's cute when she gets all soap-boxy and Miltonic.

The decision in Snyder v. Phelps also performs the useful public service of dispelling the fog of misunderstanding that too often clouds popular discussions of free speech. On the one hand, we see assertions of an After-School Special model of free speech, under which individuals are free to say anything -- as long as it doesn't hurt the feelings or offend the sensibilities of anybody else. Such a view perhaps influenced the decision of the Maryland jury in the Phelps case to award millions of dollars to the grieving family of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq in 2006 and whose funeral was picketed by the hate mongers of Westboro Baptist. On the other hand, we hear people assert that their right to free speech has been violated should they suffer any kind of consequence for, let's say, using the N-word several times on a nationally syndicated radio call-in show. We might call this the Dr. Laura model of free speech: I get to say whatever toxic lunacy happens to pop into my feeble brain, and anyone who objects or proposes boycotting the sponsors of my show is violating my rights under the First Amendment.

Both views of the First Amendment are, of course, incorrect. Despicable as the words and actions of Phelps and his followers are, Justice Roberts is right that they qualify as speech on matters of public import and were carried out in compliance with local ordinances designed to maintain order. In short, they were protected, no matter how odious they may be to the vast majority of citizens and how painful to the grieving family and friends of the deceased. As for Dr. Laura, as long as the government isn't infringing on her right to spout her idiocies, her decision to leave radio has absolutely nothing to do with getting her "First Amendment rights back," as she claimed last August in an interview with Larry King. It has to do with avoiding criticism and the economic consequences of behaving badly in a very public fashion. Dr. Laura was free to say whatever the heck she wanted to say -- and listeners were free to express their opinions of her speech by boycotting her sponsors. Money talks, after all, and in this country that kind of speech is protected, too.

There is another reason to be grateful to Rev. Phelps and his weird band of publicity-seeking followers. Beyond providing the nation with a useful object lesson in what a, um, full-throated commitment to free speech really means, we should thank the Westboro Baptists for becoming the public face of homophobia in the United States. In being so relentless, so visible, so hateful, and so singularly focused on homosexuality, they have contributed much to making homophobia, at long last, a socially unacceptable prejudice. The group's apocalyptic antipathy toward gays and gayness -- made famous in the ubiquitous slogan (and website) God Hates Fags -- has made it difficult, even for religious conservatives, to be comfortable asserting a casual anti-gay bigotry that used to be de rigueur among theo-cons. Thanks in no small part to Rev. Phelps, I'd be willing to bet that if former Senator Rick Santorum gets back into politics, you won't hear him comparing gay sex to "man on dog" sex. Shoot, I'll even give crazy Fred some credit for President Obama's self-described "evolving" position toward support for same-sex marriage. No one in public life wants to be accused of homophobia these days, no matter how mealy-mouthed their policy positions might be, and that is progress, my friends.

We were pleased to find an ally for our concurrence with the majority in Snyder v. Phelps in someone with her own painful history with the Westboro Baptist Church, Romaine Patterson, the friend of Matthew Shepard, the murdered gay man whose 1998 funeral first brought Phelps to national attention. When Phelps and his followers returned to Laramie, WY the next year to protest at the trials of Shepard's accused murderers, Patterson was ready, having organized a counter-protest in which she and her friends "dressed as angels, silently encircling [the Phelps crew], our huge outstretched wings blocking their vicious signs from view." Such counter-protests now regularly greet Phelps, as the notion seems to have taken hold that an Angel Action is what is called for when the Devil comes to town.

In Sunday's WaPo, Patterson wrote of her sympathies for grieving families who, "in their most vulnerable hour," have been subjected to the "cruel rants" of Westboro members -- and yet she strongly agrees with the court's decision in the Phelps case. Patterson, an out lesbian with a radio show on Sirius XM Radio, argues that the court has to be "blind in its devotion free speech," protecting Fred Phelps so that it might also protect her -- and me, and you. We may not be able to eliminate his speech, but we can and should counter it. Fight bad speech with better speech or a righteous, dignified, grieving, outraged silence. As Patterson puts it:

To me, the lasting legacy of our counter-protest so many years ago is the enduring power of drowning out noise with silence, of smothering hate with peace.

Amen, girlfriend. Remember that, darlings, the next the Devil shows up in your neck of the woods. Peace out. Peace always.

(Photo Credit: Via. Romaine Patterson [right] and others counter-protest at the 1999 trial of one of the men convicted of killing Matthew Shepard.)

Gay Agenda Advances

Holy feather boa, Batman, what a great week it's been for teh Gayz. I mean, srsly, not only do we have the Obama administration declaring it will no longer defend the constitutionality of the odious and patently unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act in court and the Maryland legislature on the brink of legalizing same-sex marriage right here in Roxie's World, but with the announcement Friday that Jeremy Bernard is taking over as White House social secretary, it would appear that the nation has its first official Sassy Gay Friend!

(Photo Credit: Washington Post. WaPo caption: The new White House social secretary will be Jeremy Bernard, left with ex-partner Rufus Gifford in 2009. He will be the first male and openly gay person in that job. [Roxie's World's bonus comment on the photo: The beagle's name is Lucas. Gifford got custody of him in the split from Bernard.])

Several burning questions arise from this big fat rainbow of happy gay news, but surely the most important is,

How in the name of dog did the republic survive for 235 years without an official Sassy Gay Friend? 

Think about it, my pretties. Imagine all the calamities that might have been avoided had we only had a First Fag keeping watch over the nation's taste: a bombastic, unsingable national anthem; a national color combo that only an (un-gay) sailor could love; a presidential residence that hasn't hosted a tea dance since the Buchanan administration; the Nixon years. Won't we all sleep more peacefully knowing that the social and cultural life of the White House will be managed by a wealthy Texas-born mo known for his "wild" sense of humor and his obsessive attention to detail? Of course we will, darlings. You need an event planner, you turn to the people who invented the field. You've got a job that requires a tricky combination of charm, diplomacy, and logistical wizardry, you turn to a community that survived centuries of prejudice and oppression by cultivating precisely such skills. Oh, and if a certain attractive member of that community also has deep connections to the prickly fat-cat donors you'll need to seduce all over again in order to get re-elected, well, so much the better. A bit of lavender icing on the cake, as it were.

You can't blame us for feeling a little giddy in the face of all this news, some of which ranks as genuinely amazing. Heck, even our queer legal-eagle pals up at the Columbia Center for Gender and Sexuality Law seem to have gone a bit daft with excitement. Earlier this week, the Center's usually super-serious blog posted a hilarious Xtranormal cartoon staging a conversation about marriage between Supreme Court (In)Justice Antonin Scalia and Yale uber-queer Michael Warner. (Click on that link. Your week will go better if you spend a couple of minutes entertaining the thought of Warner and Scalia standing in an alley calmly debating how a variety of non-procreative sex practices fit into their notions of a good life.)

You also can't blame us for feeling mighty proud of the brave band of openly gay Maryland legislators who testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday about what the pending marriage equality bill would mean to their lives and relationships. Watch this vid, which offers snippets of all their testimonies, including that of Heather Mizeur, who represents Roxie's World in the House of Delegates. (H/T Dan Furmansky.)



We've said it before, and we will no doubt say it again: Marriage is not the be-all and end-all for LGBT equality. It is not the battle we would have chosen for queers in the 21st century, but it has emerged as the dominant civil rights issue of our time. It is not a battle we can afford to lose or choose to ignore, no matter how skeptical we are about the institution of marriage and the set of privileges tied to it. Don't like marriage? Then don't enter into one, but don't kid yourself that that "choice" means anything if you don't have the same rights straight citizens have vis-à-vis civil marriage. (We reflected some on this matter in last year's post in commemoration of Moose and Goose's anniversary.)

The arc of the moral universe bent a little closer toward justice this week in the United States. That's a good thing, and we offer a hearty PAWS UP to all the local and national heroes who put their hands on the arc and pushed it in the right direction. Peace out.

Gay Action Figures of the Week

• Pretty Boys Division: Glee's Chris Colfer
• Tall Girls With Short Hair Who Vaguely Resemble Moose Division: Glee's Jane Lynch

Why? Because, dahlings, the moms have gone Hollywood (read all the way to the end of that link or you won't get the cryptic allusion), and so we care deeply about profoundly superficial things like the Golden Globe Awards and the silly, sardonic, or sentimental speeches actors make when they win them. And because Glee is the queerest thing on TV ever, the best excuse we've found yet -- and, trust me, we are always looking -- for spending Tuesday nights on the couch belting out big songs.

At the Globes this past Sunday evening, Colfer and Lynch ran the table in the Best Supporting category for their performances on the show as, respectively, Kurt Hummel, the brave, tender faggot with the gorgeous counter-tenor voice, and Sue Sylvester, the ambiguously gay cheerleading coach whose diabolical machinations are often as close as the show gets to having a plot.

Lynch, shown at left (via) at the awards show with the woman she wed last summer, Dr. Lara Embry, picks up a bonus Gay Action Figure of the Week for her acceptance speech, which was a funny send-up of the winner's obligatory performance of false modesty that ended with an utterly unselfconscious shout-out to "my wife Lara" and their two children. Oh, Jane, you are so suave, so splendid, so deft with the deadpan line and look. You make tall girls everywhere want to square their shoulders and stride gleefully across the stages of their lives. We would dream of gay-marrying you if you -- and, oh yeah, we -- weren't already taken.

Meanwhile, the luminous Colfer, at left (via), whose character's torment at the hands of a homophobic/gay-panicked bully has sparked tears and motherly/teacherly fantasies of rescue over the course of this season, was poised, eloquent, and fierce in accepting his award. He opened with a quip about having dropped his heart "somewhere between Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore" and ended with his own very special shout-out:

Most importantly, to all the amazing kids that watch our show and the kids that our show celebrates who are constantly told no by the people in their environments, by bullies at school that they can’t be who they are or have what they want because of who they are. Well [pause, wave trophy in air], screw that, kids! Thank you [exit smiling].

Yes, my pretties, we understand that visibility in pop culture is fairly low on the totem pole of queer political aspirations (or maybe it isn't -- guess that depends on the queer, doesn't it?). Still, we feel moved to celebrate these proud, public actions by Lynch and Colfer as modest yet significant contributions to the cause. There are still stunningly few openly gay actors in Hollywood, so Colfer in particular, at the ripe old age of 20, is to be commended for beginning his career by being unabashedly out and vocal on issues of importance to the community.

And Glee, for all its flaws (and we admit there are some), deserves its own bit of commendation for its commitment to queer plots and characters and for the extraordinarily good timing of its attention to bullying. (Oh, and that EW there on the left, with Colfer and the adorable Darren Chriss on the cover, should be on newsstands now.) We may be biased, but we think the show is at its best when it focuses on Kurt's proud yet uncertain efforts to grow up gay and strong. We are genuinely conflicted about who sings the best (Kurt? Rachel? Rachel? Kurt? Mercedes? Rachel?), but Kurt's stories win hands down for their emotional texture and their potent political force. Colfer's pitch-perfect performance makes the character's dignity and vulnerability so clear that the audience can't not root for him. We want a world in which Kurt can thrive. We want to hold his hand and try, together, to bring that world into being. Don't we? Yes, Kurt, we do. We want to hold your hand, too. Peace out.