Okay, but I still prefer my old copy of Les poulets n'ont pas de chaises -- Chickens don't have chairs, a great book of completely surreal French comics published by, who else, Grove Press, in 1969.
Meanwhile "buck buck b-buck, we should take our bucks elsewhere and boycott Utah and LDS owned business." There a list to a link in a post below.
Back in the 70s, when the post-Stonewall gay movement was young and feeling the rush of a number of successes, the air started to go out of the energy. GLF ceased to exist. GAA meeting attendance had fallen precipitously. And then the orange juice queen squeezed our newly claimed rights out of Dade County. And the movement had a public figure who energized us and organized us.
Thank you Mormons. You've done it again.
The lgbt movement had become complacent. We are served by organizations that for the most part have a moribund leadership. So many queer folk think that because corporations are willing to advertise to us that we have our rights. Uh, no.
More important than marriage rights, we can still be fired all over the country, with no recourse, because we don’t have employment rights, housing rights or any of the anti-discrimination laws other groups are protected by. While I have fought for marriage equality here in NYC, in much of the country, marriage is not the first issue on the table. Discrimination laws. Hate crime laws. These come first. However, the Mormons have woken up the anger of the vast population of queer folk in places where relative equality has led to complacency. And this means marriage is the order of the day.
Certainly, I understand very deeply the reasons for marriage equality. The man I wanted to marry was a foreign national, and to stay in this country he had to deal with lawyers, visas, work regulations…a maze of madness that was nothing compared to post 9/11 insanity. There are many who live overseas with their partners simply because they do not enjoy the rights of any bi-national heterosexual couple. These folks are heartened by the new awakening of queer rage. And these Love Exiles are organized.
So let’s talk about queer rage and our enemies. Alison Stateman writes in Time Magazine about the dangers of being on a gay enemies list. Give me a break. Nixon had an enemies list. Me? I just want to know who considers my rights expendable, so I can be certain not to spend my money with their businesses. Yes, they have their right of free speech — which the court has decided includes monetary contributions to political campaigns. And I have my right to know who is saying what — and respond accordingly.
Which means I want to know what businesses are Mormon owned. I don’t want to stay at a Marriot thank you very much. I also want to know how many TV and radio stations are owned directly by the LDS church. I want to know which supermarket chain is Mormon owned.
That’s my right. I’m a man who likes to do business with people I like. Which means I don’t want to shop at companies I know contributed to opposing my rights. That said, if I were an employer, I would not discriminate against a Mormon in a job interview. Hell, I once hired an evangelical Christian who took his vacation to do missionary work and who volunteered with Campus Crusade for Christ. He was a good writer, and that was all I cared about. It’s not like I wasn’t out at the office. Everyone, everywhere I have ever worked, has known I’m gay. And the relationship with this employee was interesting to say the least — after all, I’m a member of several faith communities, and I was happy to talk to him about the Gospel of Thomas, among other things. This is where minds change and relationships evolve, one person at a time.
Which brings me to another development today: the Bangor Daily News reported “that more than 120 religious leaders from 14 different faith traditions across Maine have formed the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry in Maine.”
That’s big news. And it’s news that doesn’t get out so well. Here in New York, Empire State Pride Agenda’s Pride in the Pulpit has hundreds of congregations and leaders of faith representing a whole host of denominations and faith traditions, including Methodist ministers in Syracuse, Reform rabbis in Westchester, Roman Catholics in Utica, Buddhist priests in New York City, and proud people of faith throughout New York State.” Yes, you read that right, Roman Catholics.
So I want my community to remember that people of faith are not the enemy. Organized religion isn’t even the enemy. Organized bigotry is the enemy. And bigots can use the already existing infrastructure of organized religion to pursue their agenda.
The Mormons though, are indeed a special case. This is a religion that had to have a prophetic revelation that only came under the duress of legal action, so that black people would be treated equally. It was Mormon doctrine that blacks could not be Mormon priests.
This gets into the dicey area of freedom of religion and the world of the Flying Spaghetti Monster revelations of the Book of Mormon. And it’s not like the denomination of Judaism that I am affiliated with (Conservative) doesn’t have its own issues — with women only being ordained within the last 20 years, and queer folk only being accepted in the last year. But those are fights within these religious organizations. It is when a religious organization takes those beliefs and brings them into the public political process that I take issue.
Want to start a religion where women can’t officiate? Sure, go ahead and good luck to you. Just don’t try to then pass laws that women can’t vote, hold executive jobs, or don’t have control of their own bodies. Want to invite blacks to tithe but not accept them in leadership positions? Go ahead, see where that gets you. It’s your religion and we don’t regulate it. But step into the public square with your organized bigotry and I promise I will do everything in my power to fight you.
And step into the public square and you expose yourself to public scrutiny. The LDS is crying unfair that lgbt groups are targeting their business. Boo hoo.
Writers Alison Stateman see cases like Scott Eckern, who resigned from his position as the artistic director of the California Musical Theatre in Sacramento when his contribution to Yes on 8 was revealed as evidence of a gay mafia that controls who works where.
No Alison. We’re not in charge. We just choose who we want to do business with. And that may have consequences. Don’t like it? Well, pardon me, ENDA, the Employment Non Discrimination Act, which protects lgbt people on the job, is not law. That doesn’t look like power to me. Scott Eckern chose to resign in the face of protest. I could be fired tomorrow and have no recourse.
And so, to my brothers and sisters in this chaotic movement in response to 8, don’t forget that there are also other important battles we have to win. There are gay throwaway kids living on the streets who need our support. There is homophobia in minority communities that needs to be addressed. And coming out for a demo on a nice autumn day isn’t enough.
The Mormons may have made us angry. So did orange juice queen Anita, and that made us, uh, concentrate. Now, as we fight for marriage, we need to look at really building relationship — with others in faith communities who are our allies.
Tonight the NYC queer community expressed its anger at the passage of Prop 8 in California with an old-fashioned street demonstration outside of the LDS church on Broadway and 65th Street. It was encouraging to see thousands of us to fight for marriage equality, even though it was for another state. How many of those that were out tonight have been part of the marriage equality fight in New York state? Certainly quite a few, since I recognized quite a number from the annual lobbying day in Albany. But many are not connected to any organized efforts. And there were some who chanted slogans that were anti-church.
Now, I am not exactly pro-church. I continue to be amazed that the one thing that brought together all the feuding religions to sit down in Jerusalem was their desire to issue a statement condeming queer people. It's enough to make a queer Jewish Buddhist into a militant atheist. Except that's actualy accepting their definition of queer folk — outside the spiritual. And quite frankly, I refuse to deny my connection to the Divine.
Ours is a community that has been spiritually wounded by the religious establishment. And often, at demonstrations like these, where the religious establishment has truly done something heinous, the pain of this wounding comes out in expressions of hatred for religion and denial of our deepest longings for experiencing the Divine. The reason I seek loving relationships with men is that is where I experience the Divine Presence. I experience divinity and mystery in all my relations (to steal a phrase from Body Electric) whether they are physical or not, with men and women. But that highest connection has been in loving relationship with another man.
This evening I heard a lot of anger. And anger is appropriate. But I don't want my queer community to throw out the baby with the bath water by jettisoning spiritual connection while fighting organized bigotry and ignorance masquerading as religion.
Over at fivethirtyeight.com, Nate Silver has been debunking the analysis that it was the black
community that was responsible for the Prop 8 loss. His analysis of the voting patterns showed that it was a demographic I fall in, that is voters over 45, that made the difference.
But the point i really want to make here is the lesson that needs to be learned from the Obama campaign. The queer community in California created advertising that talked to people who were already on their side. Or just to themselves. They did not get shoe leather on the ground organizing in communities around the state. They did not work hard to engage people in the middle who could be swayed one way or the other. Sure, the LDS poured lots of money into the state. But churches are also communities that are highly organized. Where is our community organization? Our leaders are not deep in the community — and they sure dont' do much cross community organizing.
The very fact that we are even having this issue be fought so closely is something I never expected to see in my lifetime. I expected when I came out and joined the gay movement in 1970 that I would see a world where we felt safe, and were not objects of ridicule, disrespect or violence. That how we expressed our love would not be a violation of the law. I wasn't expecting to see legal recognition on the order of marriage. In fact, in 1970 there were many in the movement who wanted nothing to do with the institution they saw as obsolete.
I deeply believe marriage is important and makes communities stronger. And so I want it for my queer community. I believe deeply in the American value of freedom of religion. That means there will be religions out there that will never recognize my relationships as either valid or expressions of Divine love through human action. That's okay with me. I don't have to join that religion. And they don't have to marry me to anyone.
The mixture of marriage rites and marriage rights are some of the confusion that makes this a problem in the pubiic arena. But we are not engaging the people of faith who would be on our side. I am thrilled that the Empire State Pride Agenda has a program called Pride in the Pulpit, which engages communities of faith and leaders of those communities so that they actually are a large part of the efforts in Albany to extend marriage rights. I would have liked to have seen those people at the demonstration tonight. I chose to wear a star of David and a kippah at the demonstration be be out as a person of faith, because I felt it was important not only to be queer identified, but identified with Divine love. Which transcends religion.
May we open up to the pain of our spiritual wounding and use it to reconnect. May we use this reconnection to reach out to those who would hear us and support us if we learned to listen to them and truly hear their concerns. And I know we will prevail in our cause, because ultimately, nothing can withstand the power of love.
And as I left I saw the line of police cars that we so often see even when there are no demonstrations. As though they were there to intimidate the population. When Ann Northrup was instructing the marshalls on how to make sure there was no violence at the march, all I could think was, there are provocateurs in this crowd. There are secret police taking photos. And the line of police cars did not make me feel safer, they reminded me that the Bush years have been a growing police state, that used the terrorist attack of 2001 as an excuse to further strip us of our freedoms. I can only pray that the new president can reverse this trend, even though so much of this erosion is local.
Ruth is one of my heroes — New York lost when we didn't elect her mayor. But the world won, since she went on the lead a truly great humanitarian organization, American Jewish World Service.
I remember the first time I saw her, handing out leaflets outside Zabar's, running for City Council from a very left 3rd party. Of course, she didn't win in that race. But soon she was inside the Democratic Party and raising hell when she did get on the Council from my nabe, jewish left central, the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
Ruth is 68 today. And I am sure the results of Tuesday's election was present enough for her. But best wishes from this old supporter and left handed/left headed queer Jewish Buddhist.
Image credit: Chrystie Sherman
All blessings, and life, flow from One Source — a Source that is beyond time and space — and which has sustained us and brought us to this moment.
Yes, we did.
Yesterday was spent phonebanking for Obama with my friend John down at UFT headquarters near Wall Street.
We called voters in swing states. PA. FL. Then tonight we were off to Room Service in Chelsea where the local queer Dems were holding an election party to watch the tally as the polls closed.
It was a wild scene that began with some tension that lifted as the count clearly headed in our direction. When Christine Quinn took the stage after CNN called the race at 11pm, the crowd was screaming (including one man who vented his fury at Quinn for voting with the mayor on extending term limits). I left at 1am, after our new President spoke to the crowd in Chicago. I still don't know where we are in CA on Prop 8. But I do know this, while the road ahead in this country will still be hard, and while we are clearly still a country very divided, we have a leader who is clearly about healing division. Here at home. And abroad. And that is a real reason to say the Shehecheyanu prayer.
Last night, a former President, Clinton, spoke to the delegates of the 2008 Democratic convention about the need to get behind the ticket (and I couldn't agree more). But the moment that stopped me was when he mentioned gay rights as an equal to other important issues. Given that the Clintons and Barack Obama do not support marriage rights, well, it's a quibble since there is so much more that must come first, including ENDA. However, I wanted to bring up a little history, going back to the convention of 1972, when Gay Activists went to protest at the Democratic National Convention.
The FBI, which was under the control of the closeted and self-hating J. Edgar Hoover, was (and most likely still is) infiltrating political groups like the Gay Activists Alliance at the time. And one of their domestic spies reported that gay activists were planning to bring hand guns and rifles to a demonstration at the convention. Can you think of anything more preposterous? Nevertheless, you can see it yourself in black and white, below, in a document released as part of FOIA requests:
As a former member of GAA I can't tell you how bizarre this is to read. All the more disturbing is the list (see below) that the FBI complied of delegate activists from GAA organizations around the country — it includes the name of Marc Wald, who was also a member of Gay Youth when I was chair, and eventually was chair of the group himself for a brief time. I figure I'm going to come across my name sooner or later in FOIA documents. After all, what could be more threatening to the mindset of those who believe in a police state than an out and proud queer Jew?
I am glad there are security people at today's convention — they managed to catch and prevent an assassination attempt. But given the arrests at the protests at the RNC convention in NY 4 years back, arrests that were all thrown out of court recently, one can only wonder what the state security apparatus is doing (apart from using AT&T to bug all our phones). And how much the Democrats can really affect this steady erosion of rights and privacy.
Don't get me wrong, I am amazed to see how far the gay movement has come in the years since the 1972 convention. But to quote my favorite red-headed president, Thomas Jefferson: eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Which means watching the watchers.
The first generation of post-Stonewall gay and lesbian youth made an important contribution to the generation that followed. And they in turn passed their contributions on...in GLYNY...Gay & Lesbian Youth New York. And they in turn...well, Out At The Center captures it all here:
I'm just proud to be in this lineage and that we continue to do good work in the community.Ad Age columnist Bob Garfield sent an open letter in his column to the CEO of one of the top agency holding companies, accusing the network of homophobia in several campaigns. He wrote:
"Stop the dehumanizing stereotypes. Stop the jokey violence. There is no place in advertising for cruelty. Pull the campaign. Do it now."
Strong language. And I have to say, the Snickers campaign, which was roundly pilloried when it broke during the Super Bowl (a ritual of homo erotic masculinity that requires homophobic expression to distract us from the obvious), continues to be abhorrent. It glorifies homophobic violence, and Garfield says of the newest addition to the campaign that:
"your commercial is just a cartoonish recapitulation of {Matthew Shepard's] brutal murder"
Strong words. It is heartening to see heterosexual columnists take offense and speak up. Of course, to pin this on the CEO of the holding company seems a little too much. The CEO of the offending agencies? Sure. They are responsible. And bringing to the attention of the holding company isn't a bad thing. Pressure from the outside to an agency is one thing. Pressure from the holding company — that's serious.
Perhaps even more fascinating are the reader comments — there are lots. If you're interested in reading real opinions from people in the ad biz on the subject of homophobia in media, this is a goldmine of information. 
But let's stop for a minute to analyze just what is going on in this new Snicker's spot. First we see a blond man with soft features speed walking down a suburban street. The camera cuts to a rear view and rests for a few precious TV seconds on his wiggling butt.
Next, a vehicle with Mr. T. crashes through a house and follows the walker while Mr. T harangues him for being a "disgrace to the man race." Visually we see the machine gun from
the POV of the shooter (very video game, because of course this is targeted at insecure teen boys and young men who need to be reassured about their masculinity — after all, there is nothing more masculine
than playing with a computer right?) pointed directly at aforesaid butt.
Uhhhh, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. But in this case? Not. Just more subconscious homosexual desire expressed in violence.
But this is where Garfield is dead on the money — the spot makes a violent response to inner desires that are unacceptable, acceptable. And that's unacceptable. One commenter points out that regardless of the agency, the clients bought off on this. So as much as I may love chocolate, Mars doesn't get any of my money. And I'm sure GLAAD will consider some action around this:
Yep, that's pretty damn bad. So while the holding company Mr. Garfield accuses does in fact treat its gay employees very well, this is seriously uncool. There are different opinions in the business classically about our influence.
One of my heroes, Bill Bernbach, one said:
"All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can vulgarize that society. We can brutalize it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level."
David Ogilvy, who believed that humor in advertising was a mistake, said:
"Advertising reflects the mores of society, but it does not influence them."
The truth lies somewhere in between. Nevertheless, I hold with Bernbach.
No, the interrobang is not a new style of violent interrogation akin to waterboarding. It is a punctuation mark created by a real Mad Man, advertising executive Martin K. Speckter in 1962. A combination of the question mark and exclamation point, it is used at the end of a sentence to convey astonishment, disbelief or to ask a rhetorical question.
The word itself comes from a combination of the printer’s jargon for the question mark “the interrogation point” and the exclamation point — the “bang.” Unfortunately, the use of an interrobang at the end of the question in the headline is appropriate, since the fact that we are torturing prisoners is astonishing, unbelievable, and unfortunately true as Jane Mayer's appalling book, “The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals,” proves beyond a doubt. Perhaps we will read a headline that ends with an interrobang someday that says "Bush Administration Officials Arrested For War Crimes!?"
Speckter's new punctuation mark never caught on, even though Specter used it in ads his agency created for accounts like The Wall Street Journal. Seems much more appropriate to use for a tabloid though.
It actually appeared on a typewriter (not however the Hermes model used by Douglas Adams that is currently up for auction) in the 60s. It was on a Remington that I’d like to add to my collection of Empires, Royals, Olivettis, Hammonds, Olivers, Smiths and Franklins. (Yes, I am afflicted with the collecting bug, and as a writer, typewriters speak to me.
And typographers include it with some fonts. It’s even available on many computers. On a Mac, four different versions can be found in the wingdings 2 font. Simply hit the ` ~ key, the ] } key, the 6 ^ key, or the - _ key and you'll be able to add this unusual punctuation to your documents.
I have to say, I don’t like the use of it in advertising. It’s kind of cheap, like the star burst, which is hated by creatives and loved by clients everywhere. In fact, a rather amusing ad was posted today to adsoftheworld by an agency in Columbia that addressed just this issue of the star burst. You can see it below — it adds to my collection of print ads that use a toilet as the location of the action.
However, I do think the interrobang works well in comic books, and one typographer has created a
variation of the interrobang for the Fritz font that I like very much, seen at right. And I do think the more traditional(!) interrobang works well in a
tabloid. Both are less formal venues. Which brings me to this venue: while the interrobang exists in some Unicode fonts, I can’t seem to be able to use it here except as a graphic. Too bad.
Then there is the symbol that appears almost entirely on the web: the copyright question mark. I have yet to determine its proper use though. Unlike copyleft, which offers up the usage of the material for non-profit use with proper attribution, I assume the copyright question mark is used when a web publisher uses material of uncertain copyright status, and wishes to make that known.
So what would a copyright interrobang mean?
Häagen Dazs has placed an entertaining if somewhat long video on YouTube to drive viewers to a site about the urgent problem of colony collapse and mass die-offs of bees.
The die off is just another sign that we are destroying our environment, and that the system that supports our own food chain is in serious danger. But that’s not why I bring up the campaign.
As an advertising creative, I get frustrated when an interesting and fun idea to publicize an important issue is ruined by poor user experience. Just another sign that the social network environment is being polluted by poorly thought through work.
At least the video is fun. But if you decide to go to the site, helpthehoneybee.com it’s first and foremost a site for Häagen Dazs, that requires yet another click to if you want to do something to help. So once you click again, you get another introductory screen, no product this time, but you still have to click again to “join the mission.” To top it off, loading time is for the animation is slow and the show isn't worth the wait. But I waited for two reasons — first because the cause interests me. And of course out of professional intereste.
So finally we get to a page with bees in a field and a hive menu that takes yet another minute to reveal itself. Finally there is a choice that says “How You Can Help.” First time I click on it, all I get is an instruction to explore the meadow. Tells me that different plants and flowers are important. Stop the presses on this news. So I try the “How You Can Help” menu again.
This time it takes me to some copy that offers me a lesson plan (I didn’t see where this was directed to teachers, but okay) and several other paths to take: Plant a Seed, Donate, Help The Beekeepers, and Tell A Friend.
Seems donating might be something to do to help. Click there and you learn Häagen Dazs is giving money to two
universities to study the problem. And you can too. Okay, so if you decide to donate to Penn State you’re sent to a Penn page that doesn’t refer to bees at all. You’re just giving money to the university. Not very satisfying. But you’ve taken a lot of time to learn that Häagen Dazs is giving money to solve this problem. They could have told me that at the end of the video. Well. What else? Okay, if you click back on the main menu to learn what else they are doing they repeat the donation claim, and then mention their new ice cream flavor, Vanilla Honey Bee.
Tell A Friend? Here is at least a fun viral component where you get to design your own cool looking bee and send it to friends so they can learn Häagen Dazs is giving money on a slow and clunky site. Not very original, but cute nonetheless. Why do I feel Ben & Jerry would have done a better job?
Good idea. Lame execution. And I don't feel that I've helped the bees in any way. I feel I've taken a long time for a PR message. Not so sweet guys.
