Another friend is gone

This morning when I checked Facebook I learned that Tom, a friend I met through podcasting back when I first started, had died during the night my time, while I was asleep. That sort of thing has happened many times over the years, but this time I knew it was coming because we’d been told his cancer journey was nearing its end—but knowing that a loss is coming never makes it any easier, of course.

I met Tom through podcasting, and listened to his podcast, “Ramble Redhead”, that featured interviews of folks who were part of or connected to the LGBTQ+ community. In 2007 he asked to interview me after I started my podcast for that reason (surprisingly, moving to the other side of the globe for love isn’t all that common…). His was the second podcast I was on, after Paul Armstrong’s ArcherRadio. We lost Paul last year.

Tom was also the first podcaster I met in real life, way back in December 2007 when I was in Chicago to tie up a few loose ends. Tom and his partner at the time drove from Indiana to the far Northside of Chicago, where I was staying, so we could meet, have lunch, and hang out. It was an awesome—and unbelievably cold—day. The photo was taken on Northalsted across from the LGBT+ community centre that didn’t exist the last time I’d been in Chicago.

After that, we were often both on Paul’s ArcherRadio group shows, and frequently caught up online, especially on Facebook. He and I were also part of the Pride 48 Network of LGBT and LGBT-friendly podcasts, and we both participated in the live streaming events. Nigel and I always hoped to attend the in-person streaming events, but never got the chance, and so, Nigel never got the chance to meet Tom in real life. However, when I was in Chicago in 2007, we rang Nigel so Tom could say hello, and he spoke with Nigel like they were old friends, even though they’d never spoken before. That was just Tom. A few years later, they were both on shows with me (my own live shows, I think? It was a long time ago…).

Tom was one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, radiating positivity and support for others. As the years passed, we didn’t chat online as much as we once did, but even so I could tell how happy he was when he met and married his husband, Roger. Just as I understood what Tom was feeling then, I also understand what Roger will be going through now, and that, too, breaks my heart.

Tom was loved and admired by so many people, especially in the Pride 48 family. He used to end his podcast episodes by saying, “Just remember, a crazy redhead in Indiana loves you.” For so very many people, it was definitely mutual.

Farewell, my friend.

The photo up top is from a January 2008 blog post about my trip to the USA I mentioned above. This post is a revised version of what I posted to my personal Facebook page.

Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 19

This week forty years ago, on December 22, 1984, a new song became the final Number One of the year. That week, ”Like a Virgin” (video above) by American singer Madonna became the new Number One, the first for Madonna. The song was the lead single from her second studio album, also called Like a Virgin. The song—spoiler alert!—would stay at the top of the Billboard “Hot 100” for six weeks.

Like many of the other Number Ones of 1984, this song was played on the radio a lot and was also part of MTV and other video music programming, but it wasn’t her first hit: In 1983, “Lucky Star” reached Number 4 on the Billboard “Hot 100”, and it and her previous single, “Holiday”, both went to Number One on the Billboard “Dance Club Songs” chart. I first became familiar with her because of those two 1983 songs, probably from going to gay clubs.

In those days, there was a stereotype that if a boy or young man liked Madonna, he had to be gay, and so, many of them wouldn’t admit to liking her music, whether they were gay or not. It would be a long time before young men and adolescents would say that they liked an artist like Madonna not just despite the perception among some that she appealed to The Gays, but even because of it. She helped usher in a time in which young gay men and youth could start to feel a bit safer to be who they were, and they first started exploring that by openly liking Madonna. I was mostly an observer to all that: I was still in the “young man” category when I first heard of her (24, to be exact), and I became aware of the stereotype somewhere around the time “Like A Virgin” was released, but by then I was a grassroots gay activist, so I was past hiding anything.

I well remember the music video for “Like a Virgin” from various music video shows on broadcast TV at the time, but especially in—surprise!—the gay clubs in Chicago, the video bars in particular.
I liked Madonna back in the day, and over time I both admired and was fascinated by her ability to reinvent herself and take on new approaches to pop music. That appealed to in the same way it appealed to me when David Bowie did that: It kept their work fresh and interesting. Over time, I may have paid less attention to her, but that didn’t change how I felt about her earlier work. Madonna is around five months older than me, and I think it’s safe to say that we’ve probably both changed a lot since the early-to-mid 1980s.

The song “Like a Virgin” reached Number One in Australia, Number One in Canada, 2 in New Zealand (Platinum–Digital, meaning it wasn't certified before the digital era), 3 in the UK (Gold), as well as Number One on the USA’s Billboard “Hot 100” and their “Dance Club Songs” charts, and was also Number One on Cash Box “Top 100 Singles”, Radio & Records “CHR & Pop Chart”, as well as Number One on the “Disco” chart from Music Week”. It was also certified Gold in the USA.

The album Like a Virgin reached Number 2 in Australia (7x Platinum), 3 in Canada (Diamond), Number One in New Zealand (5x Platinum), Number One in the UK (3x Platinum), and Number One on the USA’s “Billboard 200”, as well as Number 3 on the Cash Box “100 Albums” chart. It was Certified Diamond in the USA.

This is the final post about the Number One songs of 1984, however, there will be a series finale on December 31, and perhaps one more between now and then. The first post in the 2025 series will be published on February 2, due to the fact that “Like a Virgin” remained Number One throughout January. I guess I get a “Holiday”, but probably not “Like a Virgin”.

Previously in the “Weekend Diversion – 1984” series:

Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 1 – January 21, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 2 – February 4, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 3 – February 25, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 4 – March 31, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 5 – April 21, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 6 – May 12, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 7 – May 26, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 8 – June 9, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 9 – June 23, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 10 – July 7, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 11 – August 11, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 12 – September 1, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 13 – September 22, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 14 – September 29, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 15 – October 13, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 16 – November 3, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 17 – November 17, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 18 – December 8, 2024

Stupid games should fool no one

A bill to ban anti-LGBTQ “conversion therapy” used against minors passed its first reading in Parliament Thursday, no thanks to the New Zealand National Party. The party’s leaders claim to support the ban, but want changes. Seriously. Do they think we’re stupid, or are they?

In case it’s the latter, here’s a brief reminder for their MPs, who perhaps don’t understand how Parliament works: The first reading of a bill is only the start of the legislative process. If a party supports what the bill is for, they vote in favour of it at the first reading so it can go to select committee where hearings are held, feedback given, and amendments are considered. THAT is where MPs dig in their heels if they think a bill they genuinely support in most respects needs to be changed, not at the first reading.

I don’t seriously think they’re too stupid to know that’s how Parliament works—they’re just playing political games. We know this because ALL the political parties in Parliament, regardless of ideology, supported the first reading except National. They knew their votes were irrelevant and the bill would pass the first reading without them, and that gave them a good opportunity to wage more of their divisive culture war bullshit, which is what their stunt was really all about.

Simon Bridges, who was dumped as party leader well before the last election, is now their “justice” spokesperson. He used his speech [Read: Full transcript of the debate] to spread disinformation to present the sort of typical rightwing nonsense arguments against a ban that have been used in other countries—despite the fact that his disinformation was also completely irrelevant to a ban on conversion therapy. Worse, he also flat out lied.

He said that the bill would mean “that good parenting will be criminalised”, and he added that a parent advising their trans child not to take puberty blockers could be prosecuted. It seems to me that he was either deliberately lying or else he doesn’t understand what “conversion therapy” actually is.

Do Bridges and National seriously mean to suggest that a “good parent” is one who would subject their child to electric shock treatment, forced fasting, sleep deprivation, drugs, psychological manipulation, and the other extreme techniques often used in “conversion therapy”? By definition, a real good parent would never subject their child to such harm, and so, they would never face prosecution. Ever. But even bad parents who would choose “conversion therapy” wouldn’t face prosecution unless they were also practitioners who conducted the sessions themselves. From what Bridges actually said in Parliament, apparently any parents willing to personally effectively torture their own children would be what National thinks are “good parents”.

Also worrying is that the party’s youth wing, the Young Nationals, had urged the party’s caucus to support the bill, and when the entire caucus failed to do so, the Young Nationals said they were “very disappointed” in their own party’s caucus. Maybe the National Party just doesn’t care about the views of young people, even when they’re stalwart supporters of the party?

The National Party has become more and more disgusting in recent months. They had a disastrous loss in 2020, and they’ve apparently decided their salvation lies in divisiveness, like rightwing populists around the world. Their leader has been spouting rank racist rhetoric, like the other day when the National Party Leader said there should be a taxpayer-funded referendum on banning the use of New Zealand’s Māori name, Aotearoa, by government agencies. That came a day after one of her MPs floated the idea of banning it.

The reality for me is that I have problems with, and criticisms of, every party in Parliament, without exception. That’s perfectly normal in a democracy. But when a party’s behaviour becomes so disgusting that it becomes an object of contempt, that’s not normal—and it’s definitely not okay. National’s problems go beyond their leader and senior MPs: For example, they apparently may be about to dump their party president. If the National Party doesn’t reverse its slide into rightwing, racist, culture warrior populism, they’ll deserve to lose in another landslide at the next election.

This is a revised and greatly expanded version of something I posted to my personal Facebook yesterday,

Forgiveness is a gift

I posted the above to the AmeriNZ Facebook Page yesterday. The questions raised by the linked article are simple: Can we forgive those who have caused us grievous harm? Also, should we?

The story is about a man who promoted the myth that gay people can be “cured” though so-called “conversion therapy”, which is also known by the colourful phrase, “pray the gay away” and the more pointed, “ex-gay torture”. His work harmed countless vulnerable LGBT+ people over the 20 years he promoted that nonsense. Can they forgive him? Should they?

By promoting the ex-gay myth, he also harmed the friends and families of LGBT+ people, not merely through giving them “false hope”, but especially by putting them through it all for nothing. Moreover, it also gave people without LGBT+ friends or family members reason to hold onto their anti-gay animus: They could continue to believe that “change” was possible, that gay people who lived their lives with honesty, integrity, and authenticity were being wilfully sinful and disobedient, instead of the reality, namely, that they were being themselves. Can they forgive him? Should they?

People like this guy harmed specific LGBT+ people and their family and friends, and he hurt us all by providing a sort of moral cover for his kindred religionists to cause us great harm. That can’t possibly be undone merely because he’s repudiated his past and come out as gay.

The now openly gay former “ex-gay” torturer was part of a whole system that leads to hatred and violence against LGBT+ people. He cannot escape his role in that. So: Can we forgive him? Should we?

I think that the answer is entirely personal: We each must decide for themselves. But we also have to realise that there are no easy answers, that each instance is unique and requires thought and reflection.

Personally, I think the “ex-gay” torture guy could merit forgiveness if he sincerely and appropriately atones for his wrongdoing—and merely turning away from it or saying it was wrong isn’t enough. Similarly, the fact he’s now out doesn’t absolve him of his duty to atone. Because he did such enormous damage to individuals and to an entire community, he has a moral obligation to try and make up for that. Then we might be able to talk about forgiveness.

People often say, “forgive and forget”, as if they’re the same thing, or at least connected. They’re neither. We can forget about grievous wrong done to us without ever forgiving the person who did it. Basically, we move on with our lives. Or, maybe based on our personal belief structure we forgive such a person, despite the fact we can’t forget what they did. Others can’t do either.

It is a rare person, I think, who can do both. Forgiveness really is a gift of sorts, as I said in the Facebook post. It’s something that many of us can never quite achieve when it comes to the big wrongs done to us individually or as part of a larger community. I think that’s okay.

I stand by what I said the other day, that when people do or say bad or stupid things, they need a path to redemption. I’ve laid out one path the “ex-gay” torture guy could take, but, obviously, that path won’t please everyone. Ultimately, he needs to choose his own path to redemption, and leave us to decide for ourselves whether he’s earned forgiveness. Or not.

Forgiveness is a gift. The people who have caused us harm are the best ones to give us that gift. The choice on forgiveness, ultimately, is theirs well before it’s ours.

Weekend Diversion: All the hits

Time was, I waited eagerly for the new music charts to come out, first the ones put out by radio stations, then later the ones from Billboard. Looking back, I have no idea why I cared about them, but I know I liked seeing the songs I liked doing well. This “Weekend Diversion” post is made up of current hits, the Top 4 in New Zealand, minus one.

First up, the video above. Every once in awhile, a video comes along that makes us go, “WTF?!”, and that was my reaction when I first saw the video above, “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, "WTF?!" was precisely what I said (only not as initials alone…). I first saw it on our now defunct broadcast video music channel, and I’ll admit that I couldn’t quite figure it out. Watching it I was a bit like the people on the street in the opening shot.

I was surprised when the video went to Number One in the USA and other places, but the fact that it went on to become the song reigning at Number One on the Billboard pop chart for longer than any other song. That was as historic as it was unexpected. Even more, the fact that this was achieved by a young black gay man was simply astounding. Times have changed?

The song accomplished this, in part, because Billboard counts all remixes and versions when calculating chart position. The version that charted in New Zealand was a remix. This week the song is back up to Number Two here (it was Number Three last week), and has been on the NZ chart for 19 weeks.

Overall, the song went to Number One in Australia (6x Platinum), 3 in Canada, Number One in New Zealand (3x Platinum), the UK (Platinum), and the USA (3x Platinum). It also reached Number 19 on Billboard’s country chart—despite earlier being removed because it “didn’t fit the genre” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Town_Road#Billboard_genre_classification_controversy )

I may have originally been confused or sceptical by the song, but it IS catchy, and it grew on me. Plus, Lil Nas X is really endearing in the video. I wouldn't have noticed any of that if I hadn't had that "WTF?!" reaction at first.

Next, the Number One song in New Zealand this week, “Señorita” by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello:



Shawn was the subject of a “Weekend Diversion” post a year ago, but I’d never heard of Cuban-American singer Camila Cabello before this song, even though they’ve recorded together before. Both Mendes and Cabello are credited among the song's co-writers.

The song and video were released on June 21. So far, the song has reached Number One in Australia (Platinum), 2 in Canada (2x Platinum), Number One in New Zealand (Gold) and the UK (Silver), and Number 2 on the on Billboard “Hot 100”. It's been Number One in New Zealand for several weeks.

Finally this week, the Number Four song in New Zealand this week, "Beautiful People” by Ed Sheeran and Khalid:



My first impression of this song was that it covers much of the same thematic territory as, Sheeran’s song with Justin Bieber, “I Don’t Care”, which I shared in a “Weekend Diversion” post on July 14. And, having shared one of Sheeran's song so recently, I’d have been reluctant to share another so soon, were it not for its current chart position. But I wanted to share it because I think it’s the best performance by Khalid in ages.

I first heard of Khalid when he released his second single, “Young Dumb & Broke” [WATCH/LISTEN], released on February 2, 2017, a few days before his 19th birthday. I really liked that song—but not a whole lot of his songs since then. Because the defunct music video channel played his songs so much, I saw most of his videos over the past couple years, and not only did I not like most of them, some really annoyed me (especially ones that were visually similar to each other). In fact, at one point I thought about doing a “Weekend Diversion” post about how overrated I thought he was, in light of what he’d done the past couple years. But I don’t usually do negative posts, so I canned the idea. And then along came this song, and my faith in Khalid was restored, at least a bit. His vocals are kind of Tracy Chapmen-ish at points, but the important thing is that he doesn’t sleepwalk through the song, something I felt he was doing for most of his songs the past couple years.

So, when I heard the song when I listened to the NZ Top 40 Chart a couple weeks ago, I thought I might share this video. A post about the current top pop songs in New Zealand provided the perfect time to do that.

So far, the song has hit Number 4 in Australia (Gold), 6 in Canada (Gold), 2 in New Zealand, Number One in the UK, and Number 19 in the USA.

There is a reason this is the Top Four minus one, and it’s not merely that I prefer to share, ideally, only three videos. The reason is that the current Number Three song in New Zealand is “The Greatest” by New Zealand band Six60 (currently one of the biggest-ever NZ bands, at least, in this country). I’ve shared their videos twice, one in a 2018 post about the NZ Music Awards, and also on Day 8 of the series of posts I did for NZ Music Month back in 2014. But the reason I’m not sharing them this week is that they don’t have an actual music video, just an audio-only one [LISTEN]. Maybe I’ll share it later on if they do a music video, and if I like it enough.

• • •

That’s the end of this little trip through New Zealand’s most popular songs this week. Turns out, I actually still like following the charts. Some things really don’t change, I guess.

Stonewall 50

Today is the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, which launched the modern LGBT+ movement for equality. It profoundly changed things in the USA and around the world because it meant that for the first time in the modern era, LGBT+ people were standing up to discrimination and oppression and asserting their right to be fully human and to live authentic lives. That struggle isn’t over yet.

I don’t remember hearing about the events of June 28, 1969 and the days following until I’d been at university for a few years, possibly as late as 1981. That was 12 years after the rebellion, and the following year I took part in my first LGBT Pride Parade in Chicago, and the year after that my real activist career began. All of that happened because of those June 1969 events, even though I couldn’t know that until I came out, more than a decade after Stonewall.

It’s not unusual for people not to know their own history, or the names of the trailblazers who came before them to clear the path. Each of us has to find our own path through life, after all, and that’s as true now as it was in my day or in the aftermath of the Stonewall Rebellion. The important thing, I think, is that when we find out what we didn’t know, we look for more of the story that we never even knew existed.

When I came out, I had a friend who gave me lots of books to read, especially history and fiction. I practically inhaled it all. Part of me was angry that all of that had been hidden from me—essentially denied to me—by a society that not only saw the stories and histories of LGBT+ as unimportant, but even as illegitimate. But I was also thrilled and excited to discover the stories of people who were like me, the first time in my life that had ever happened.

When I became an activist, I had two motivations. First, to make life a bit easier and safer for me and the rest of the LGBT+ communities. My other goal, or maybe my hope, was that doing so might one day mean that other LGBT+ youth wouldn’t discover their true nature and think they were the only one in the world. Much of the first part was successful, the second part somewhat, but more so after I left activism.

While I was proud of what I accomplished in my activist years, I was also keenly aware that I was standing on the shoulders of those who fought the battle years before I came on the scene, the people whose stories I’d finally learned. Those who began their activism after me have done and are doing the same. We are all inextricably linked, and always will be—even if sometimes it’s in spite of ourselves—in a great chain linking us all back to Stonewall, and to all the pioneers in the many decades before that.

So Stonewall is, for me, an intensely personal anchor, of sorts, a touchstone, even. The courage of those who struggled before me gave me strength to continue the fight, but they also helped me keep things real: It was never about me, it was never about my ego, and it sure wasn’t about what I could personally get out of it all. Other people, with the same general starting point I had, took a different path, and many became professional activists or politicians. That just wasn’t my path.

I’ll admit, there were times I regretted not becoming a paid activist, even though comparatively few actually did that in those days. The people who rebelled in June 1969, most of them, never made a professional career out of what they did then, and I didn’t from my time, either. That doesn’t make me (or them) “good” or whatever, it just means I was true to myself, to my nature, and to my path in life. I was being the most authentic me I could be—the very lesson I’d taken from my predecessors in activism.

At this major anniversary, as probably seldom before, I’m keenly aware of the tenuousness all the progress we’ve made over the past 50 years. Even now, there are people who want to turn back the clock and force us all into closets (or worse…), and some of them are very powerful, and some are even succeeding in starting to undo our work.

That’s precisely why it’s so important to remember Stonewall, and all the people who struggled before it and since, all working for the simple justice that LGBT+ people should have had as a birthright. Remembering them and what they did is one way to keep their work secure, and to honour the struggle that continues to this day.

That struggle isn’t over yet.

Pride and parades

LGBT+ Pride is about a lot of things, and even within our LGBT+ communities we don’t always agree with each other about what those things are. In fact, we have people in our communities who reject the very need for Pride Parades at all, or who say they’re “embarrassed” by them. Even so, it’s neither kind nor helpful when our adversaries belittle our very right to feel pride or to have a parade, and they often do that. One of our adversaries’ favourite old stunts is about to be revived, yet again, and it’s as offensive as ever.

In August, Boston may have to endure a “straight pride parade”. It is a massive trolling operation, stupid, childish, and offensive. As a veteran of the fight for social and legal equality for LGBT+ people, it would be natural to expect that I might be deeply offended by the whole “straight pride” nonsense, but I’m not. I feel sorry for them, sure, and shake my head at their shallowness, but if they want to act like idiots, that’s their business—and their own idiocy to wear—as long as they act entirely within the law, of course.

In the case of the “parade”, the city has no choice but to issue a permit for the “parade”. Boston’s mayor, Martin J. Walsh, explained it on Twitter:

I know everyone has read the news about the "Straight Pride Parade" group that's looking to host a parade in Boston. We want to clear a few things up.

First, Boston's values are clear: respect, diversity, and acceptance of all. As Mayor, I'm proud to host our annual Pride Week, where our city comes together to celebrate the diversity, strength and acceptance of our LGBTQ community.

Second, permits to host a public event are granted based on operational feasibility, not based on values or endorsements of beliefs. The City of Boston cannot deny a permit based on an organization's values.

This "Straight Pride Parade" doesn't yet have a permit, but is working to amend their application for permits to host a public event.

Whatever outside groups may try do, our values won't change. I invite each and every person to stand with us, and show that love will always prevail. Join us in celebration this Saturday for the @bostonpride Parade and in the fight for progress and equality for all.

Case law—including some very recent cases—is very clear on this: No unit of government can suppress free speech unless they can prove it poses the risk of imminent lawlessness. The possibility that the "parade" might inspire people to go out and commit acts of violence against LGBT+ people—as long as it's outside the "parade"—is not risking imminent lawlessness, and so, cannot legally be suppressed.

However, that doesn't mean that the phoney “parade” has to be treated as legitimate, and the city is free to ignore it after the permit, if any, is issued. There was separate talk by the organisers of having a "straight pride" flag, whatever that is, and having it flown from Boston's city hall, but doing that or not is clearly discretionary under law, and the city doesn't have to fly whatever flag they come up with. City decoration, as a nonofficial flag actually is, can be whatever the city wants.

The organisers know all this, and they're trying it on to push the city as part of what's actually a massive trolling operation (as they always are), and it may very well never happen (they usually never happen—have they ever?). Most of the time the sorts of people proposing a “straight pride” parade are merely seeking publicity and attention, giving the middle finger to LGBT+ people, and/or trying to cause trouble, probably for the first reason.

We know that this is just a stupid stunt because the reason there’s no such thing as “straight pride” is obviously that it’s completely unnecessary: Straight people don’t risk being fired or evicted from a rented home if someone finds out they’re in a relationship with or even—gasp!—married to someone of the opposite gender. Gay people still face that sort of discrimination in most of the USA and most countries in the world (not in New Zealand, not legally, anyway). Straight people are never beaten up or killed for being straight, but that happens to LGBT+ people throughout the world, including New Zealand (and trans* people are murdered at a much higher rate). Straight youth are never rejected by their families and churches merely merely for being straight, but LGBT+ youth often are because they're LGBT+.

All if which is why LGBT Pride is actually about celebrating the fact we’ve survived despite all the attempts to keep us down—or even to kill us. Sure, we’re as proud of living genuine and authentic lives as anyone else would be, but the main thing we’re proud of is that they haven’t defeated us. Straight people have never experienced anything similar.

Having said all that, the reason I’m not offended by the “straight pride” bullshit is simple: I fought long and hard and sacrificed WAY too much for one simple thing, namely, the absolute right of people to live their lives authentically. My fight was to make the world safer for LGBT+ people so they could live their true lives. All of that would be for nothing if I didn’t back the right of pathetic losers to act so petulantly and childishly.

They're definitely “pathetic losers”, too, because we fought hard for our rights, and we paid in blood, sweat and tears—and too often our lives. They had those rights handed to them at birth. They fought for absolutely nothing, but they get all weepy because an oppressed minority fought for and managed to win some of the rights straight people were born with, and because we dare to celebrate what we’ve achieved and our freedom to be fully human. It's their own shallowness and bigotry that makes them pathetic losers.

As the saying goes, though, instead of asking why there’s no “straight pride”, they should thank the universe every damn day that they’ve never needed it, and never will. We can't say that we don't need it, because our rights exist on the edge of a knife.

And THAT is why we march in parades, and why still we need to.

This post is a revised and greatly expanded version of a comment I left on a friend's Facebook post. The graphic up top is a meme that pops up on social media from time to time.

Stonewall Forever

The video above, Stonewall Forever, is a short documentary from New York City’s LGBT Community Center. Directed by Ro Haber, it “brings together voices from over 50 years of the LGBTQ rights movement to explore queer activism before, during and after the Stonewall Riots.” It’s one of the most balanced documentaries I’ve seen.

Films like this make it easier for young LGBT+ people to learn their own history, and how they got to be as free as they are. I hope that it will also alert them to how fragile those freedoms are, how politicians can take it all away. Which is why it was so appropriate that the film begins with a rally protesting the current White House regime’s war on trans* people. If the regime remains in power, they won’t stop there.

As a veteran of the fight during the height of the Plague Years, I really want young LGBT+ youth to know what we did, how hard we fought, how much we won, and how much we lost. I want them to understand how vital it is that they continue the fight, that they never—ever—allow them to erase us, because certain people absolutely have that as their goal.

It all begins with knowing where we came from and how we got here.

Then, it’s time to get busy.

More of our history

There are so many untold stories about the pre-Stonewall days, and these two videos present some more of them. There also plenty of stories about what happened after Stonewall. Most of those sorts of stories, both pre-Stonewall and post-Stonewall, still haven’t been told. It’s important to document what we can.

The video above is about the pre-Stonewall years, as well as a bit about the first few years afterward. It includes about some eyewitness testimony about things I’ve only heard about as reported history, not as lived experience.

The video below is about the larger picture, starting with Stonewall and the ripples that spread out form that event. It mentions that Chicago had the USA’s first Gay Pride Parade, and I knew the main guy who’d helped organise that. Another Chicago colleague of mine is pictured in one of the photos of Mattachine Society protests. This provides me with a very personal connection to events that happened when I was far too young to know about, or understand, any of it.

Taken together, the two videos talk about the history of of those who made my own later activism possible, the people whose bravery and bravado led inevitably to the freedom I later had—and could work to expand. It’s no understatement to say that I will forever be in their debt.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it", as George Santayana put it. If we study our history we’ll not only avoid repeating it, we can also forge a better future. When I was young, most of my community's history was still well-hidden. One of the greatest changes over the past 50 years is that more and more that history is finally being revealed.

There are so many stories left to tell. We’d better get busy.

60 and 38 years ago today

Today is an anniversary, but one I don’t mention very often: Sixty years ago today I was baptised. By itself, a 60th anniversary could be a reason to mention it, but it’s also the 38th anniversary of the first time I ever did anything to publicly come out. All of which makes today the only truly double-barrel anniversary I have.

I talked about my baptism back in 2009 and said:

…my grandfather baptised me, giving me the wrong name in the process. Baptism didn’t have any legal standing, of course, and the certificate had my correct name, anyway. Since the only legally required item was my birth certificate, I forgot all about my baptism.

As I said in that post, the only reason I remembered the date at all was that I found my baptismal certificate, probably in 1983. I recognised the date as also being the date I did anything publicly to identify myself as a gay person.

Back in 2016, I talked in more detail about the “second baptism” in a post on the 35th anniversary of coming out. I dubbed that my “Outaversary”. The story in that post shows that I wasn’t always the cool, focused, courageous gay dude everyone knows me as today, oh no, I was once very different. In all seriousness, I wasn’t alone in feeling so anxious, having grown up in a time many years before a high school “gay/straight alliance” could be a reality, much less actually was one. From my perspective in 1981, being afraid was a sensible thing to feel, because in that first year of Reagan’s presidency, the world felt very, very frightening for a lot of gay people—especially ones like me that were just beginning to come out.

But something I said back in that 2009 post is particularly relevant:

Fifty years and twenty-eight years later—again, to the very day—it’s clear it was the second event that had the bigger personal effect on me because on that day, in a sense, my parent’s work was completed as I began my own life. On that 1981 day I started to stop being afraid, though I had more work to do.

I went on to become an LGBT+ activist, winning some battles, not winning others. But along the way I found strength and determination I couldn’t have imagined that April day in 1981. A couple years later, when I found that baptismal certificate, I was beginning that career as an LGBT activist. Through it, I developed a personal sense of commitment to make the world a better and safer place so that no kid would ever again have to feel the fear I felt as I creaked open the closet door for the first time. I like to think we may even have succeeded.

So this date, which has two different anniversaries, has always stuck in my mind because of the second—and more important—anniversary. I don’t think that will change, whether I talk about it very often or not, because It’s important to remember where we’ve come from, literally and figuratively. Today is one of those times for me remember. We should all do that.

The photo up top is from my 2009 post; I really need to re-scan that slide some time. The image at the bottom of the post is what I posted to my personal Facebook in 2016, and used in the “Outaversary” post.

Another one like me, sort of…

The video above is the American Idol audition by Jeremiah Lloyd Harmon, a 25-year-old man who had been working as a janitor in the church where his dad is a pastor. He’s also gay, and in this case, that matters.

Harmon’s audition song, “Almost Heaven”, is a song he wrote, which is about, he said, “questioning whether there is a place for me and people like me in heaven.” Most of the gay Christians I’ve known over the years have wondered the same thing, including me. Harmon’s family apparently still struggles to accept the real him.

Similar though me may be in both being a gay P.K., that’s kind of the end of it, really. I never experienced the family struggle he has, though it was because I never had the chance to come out to my parents. But, as I’ve said several times, I don’t think they would have had a problem with knowing the real me.

Of course the bigger difference is that I cannot write a song, in whole or in part, nor can I carry a tune without a bucket. Neither of those is not entirely true, mostly, but, when compared to him, it absolutely is literally true.

It is very unusual for me to hear anyone use the nickname “P.K.” for a preacher’s kid. Hearing two of them (Harmon and judge Katy Perry) talking about being one is even more unusual. To see a P.K. who is gay and trying to be true to who they are in every sense is awesome to see.

I left religion behind a very long time ago, but I still remember what it was like to be between two worlds. It’s good to see a fellow gay P.K. finding ways to merge those worlds. I hope he does well.

This audition is yet to air in New Zealand; someone shared the YouTube version on Facebook, which is how I saw it. The series is airing on New Zealand TV channel Choice TV (this information is provided for informational purposes only; no endorsement is implied).

Weekend Diversion: Videos I don't love

My Weekend Diversion posts about music have (mostly) been about sharing music that I run across and that struck a chord with me. This post is about that, though somewhat different. This post is about two videos I cannot watch.

The video above isn’t a new song, but one from 2014. It’s Irish musician Hozier’s big hit, “Take Me to Church”, and I love that song—but I can’t watch the video. The song is a metaphor, with Hozier comparing his lover to religion. He was frustrated with and critical of the Catholic church’s influence over his country, particularly in areas of love and sexuality.

The music video is best summed up in the Wikipedia entry on the song:

The concept for the "Take Me to Church" music video was the result of a collaboration between Hozier, Brendan Canty and his writing partner Emmet O'Brien. It was directed by Brendan Canty and Conal Thomson of Feel Good Lost and was released on 25 September 2013. The video, shot in grayscale on location at Inniscarra Dam in Cork, Ireland, follows a same-sex relationship in Russia and the violently homophobic backlash that ensues when the community learns of one of the men's sexuality. The video had a budget of 500 Euros. The song went viral following its release. "I remember someone texting me to say it was getting 10,000 views an hour", he recalled. The song achieved 230,000 YouTube views within two weeks.

Hozier stated, "The song was always about humanity at its most natural, and how that is undermined ceaselessly by religious organizations and those who would have us believe they act in its interests. What has been seen growing in Russia is no less than nightmarish. I proposed bringing these themes into the story and Brendan liked the idea." [For sources, see the original]

The reason I can’t watch it is because it’s too damn real. We all know that Russian fascists kill gay people all the time, and that violence against them is epidemic, inspired, fuelled and encouraged personally by the Russian dictator. But that sort of thing can happen in any country, including the USA, and I can feel the crime, the pain and the loss it causes and the love—and because of that I cannot watch the video at all. Ever. When it comes on our music video channel, I always look away and just listen, because I do love the song.

For the record, the song was Number 2 in Australia (6x Platinum), Canada (8x Platinum), New Zealand (3x Platinum), the UK (3x Platinum), and on the Billboard Hot 100 (6x Platinum). As I prepared this post, the video has had 250,395,746 views on YouTube.

Next is a video that’s very different, but I still can’t watch it:



The song is “Happier” by Marshmello, an American electronic music producer and DJ, and featuring British band, Bastille. The song is basically about when one person in a love affair says it’s over before one of the two wants to admit it.

I think the song is okay, as such songs go, and kind of summery popness. But the video is quite different (and neither Marshmello nor Bastille appear in it). It tells a story about a different sort of love, its transformative power, and of loss. There’s one scene in the video I simply can’t handle, very much so, in fact, even though I know it’s coming. It’s because—spoiler alert—I’ve loved and lost so many wonderful dogs in my life, and know I will again, so the pain is real and personal for me. So, I always look away when the video, or that scene, are on.

For the record, the song was Number 3 in Australia (2x Platinum), 2 in Canada (3x Platinum), 3 in New Zealand (Platinum), 2 in the UK (Gold), and 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 (Platinum). As I prepared this post, the video has had 128,710,827 views on YouTube.

What’s interesting to me is that at the moment these are the only two videos that affect me this way. I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older and am more easily affected (heck, TV commercials can make me weepy under the right circumstances), or if these videos are unusual in being able to affect me so intensely. Certainly there are other videos or songs I really like that can make me feel something or other, but only these two videos (at the moment) trigger such intense reactions.

I was having second thoughts about publishing this post. In fact, I’d decided against it (because I’d already published two posts today). But as I got ready to iron some shirts a little while ago, the music video channel I had on in the background played “Happier”, and I decided to go ahead and publish this. As I finished the post, "Take Me to Church" came on. I didn’t watch either video. Still, the coincidence was interesting. Were they demanding to be shared? (Answer: No. Tonight the music channel also played several other songs I’ve already shared. Coincidence is just coincidence).

In any case, this is a different way to begin Weekend Diversion posts for 2019. I kind of like that.

Ask Arthur 2018, Part 5: About conversion therapy

As we near the end of this year’s “Ask Arthur” series, the remaining questions were thought-provoking for me, and today’s question from Roger Green, was that, and also about a controversial topic:

Did you see this story about "gay conversion"? [video below] CAN you see it in NZ? If you can, what did you think of it? Regardless, were you, or anyone you know, subjected to it?

Before answering, I need to make a point of personal privilege: The video from CBS Sunday Morning, was introduced by Jane Pauley. I first saw her many years ago hosting Chicago’s local TV news. Same place I saw many others, like Lester Holt, for example.

That out of the way, yes, I was able to see it. After a long period in which we were geoblocked from being able to see such videos, that’s becoming more rare as time passes. I have no idea why that is, but at least now more often than not I can see what people are talking about.

Speaking of which, the video Roger was talking about:



I’ve heard many of these sorts of stories many times, including, as this time, whenever the mainstream media exposes the lie of “ex-gay” torture programmes. It was appropriate that the report mentioned the film Boy Erased, which I talked about a couple months ago, because that’s what the movie was about. I think it’s good and important for the lie that is this “therapy” be exposed as much as possible, so this report was good, if short.

I say this because it’s a subject on which I won’t concede anything: The practice of “gay conversion” is disgusting and evil. It should be outlawed altogether. I’m not the least bit interested in any “middle ground” on this issue because I will not compromise now or ever.

Here’s why I’m so unalterably opposed to the “ex-gay” torture program fundamentalist “Christians” love: It doesn’t work—at all—and it’s immoral and sick to even try. The main reason everyone should oppose it, though, is that it kills.

Being gay is not a “sin”. I’m well aware that fundamentalist “Christians” think it is, but that’s just plain stupid, and they need to get over that delusion. I could give them the scriptural and theological reasons why they’re wrong, but they’d never listen to or believe me, especially considering I’m one of the people they’d like to erase through their torture programme.

That aside, the reality is that being gay is no more “sinful” than being lefthanded—though once upon a time “Christians” used to beat kids who used their left hands because they believed it was of their devil. They now realise how sick and stupid that was, and some day they’ll realise the same thing about their persecution of gay people.

The biggest problem is that the “ex-gay” scam does actual, serious harm to people. It gives people dealing with prejudice of the people in their lives they most trust—parents, preachers—the false hope they can stop being gay. But because that’s not possible, and they will fail, far too many will see suicide as the only way out.

Moreover, it carries the presumption that the gay person is “broken” and needs to be “fixed” (they’re not and don’t), and it carries the delusion that there’s something inherently wrong with being gay when there isn’t. When someone is dealing with what the fake “Christians” love to call “same sex attraction”, it causes harm to tell them to constantly tell them that they’re “broken”, and/or that they’re “defying” the fundamentalists’ god, and/or that they’re doomed if they don’t stop being gay. This, too, can lead the victims of the fake “Christians” to see suicide as the only way out.

Even when the victims of the scam don’t choose suicide, they will carry mental and emotion scars from the abuse that will haunt them for years, and take a lot of time and work to undo.

This scam is so dangerous and even deadly that all real professional mental health organisations ban the fake therapy. The potential for severe harm to children and adolescents is the reason more and more jurisdictions are banning the use of the torture programme on children and young adults (hopefully New Zealand will soon ban it, too). In my view, this doesn’t go far enough and it ought to be outlawed altogether for all people, regardless of age. It’s that dangerous.

Religion is the driver of the crusade against gay people, but it has to be enabled by non-religious people cooperating, even if it’s just for the money. For example, there was an App to promote “ex-gay” torture, and when Apple was made aware of it, they banned it. As of today, Google and Amazon have not banned the “ex-gay” App. They must do so.

I was never a victim of the scam, but I never had the chance to come out to my parents, so that could never happen to happen to me. Moreover, it also wouldn’t have happened because Lutherans are Mainline Protestants and most of us rejected the bizarre beliefs that fundamentalists clung to. So, there was never any risk that I’d be subjected to that torture scam for that and other reasons. Lutherans were never at the forefront of the fight for the human and civil rights of LGBT+ people, but neither were they lighting the torches and sharpening the pitchforks.

I was trying to remember if anyone I knew told a story of any form of “ex-gay” torture, religious or not, and I can’t remember any. That doesn’t mean that none did, just that they weren’t close enough to me for me to remember it clearly. I certainly don’t remember any close friends telling me they’d been victimised, but that could just be because of my ageing memory—though I don’t think so, because my hunch is none did.

Thanks to Roger for these questions! Now, go ask him a question!

It’s not too late to ask a question—though it’s getting close: Simply leave a comment on this post (anonymous comments are allowed). Or, you can also email me your question (and you can even tell me to keep your name secret, although, why not pick a nom du question?). You can also ask questions on the AmeriNZ Facebook page, though some people may want to keep in mind that all Facebook Pages are public, just like this blog. If you’re on Facebook, you can send me a private message through the AmeriNZ Page.

All posts in this series are tagged “AAA-18”. All previous posts from every “Ask Arthur” series are tagged, appropriately enough, "Ask Arthur”.

Previously:

Let the 2018 asking begin – The first post in this year’s series.
Ask Arthur 2018, Part 1: Perfect place
Ask Arthur 2018, Part 2: Living where?
Ask Arthur 2018, Part 3: About religious stuff
Ask Arthur 2018, Part 4: About what I like

Older Gays Guess Famous Gays

In the video above, “Old Gays Guess Famous Gays”, some older gay guys try to work out who various famous gay people are. Their results are mixed. I guess I must be officially old, because I didn’t know who all the guys shown were. Better than their panel, sure, but nowhere near 100%.

On the other hand, most of them are American, and I don’t live there, so maybe I did as well as could be expected? I really don’t think I could know who all the Americans who are because many of them are—to be blunt—no big deal in this part if the world.

Or, maybe I’m just old. Even if that’s the case, I can at least take comfort in the fact that I at do try to stay current. That’s something, right? Right?!

This is the third video featuring the older gays that I’ve shared this year. The first was part of a post on slang, and the second was the panel reacting to Troye Sivan videos.

Sudden recollection

It’s not uncommon for someone in pop culture to die, of course—it happens to us all sooner or later. What we think/feel about such a death depends on a lot of things, including how much we linked the person’s work. But sometimes a person we weren’t exactly a fan of can give us momentary pause, too. Then, we move on with our day and maybe not give it another thought. This time, I thought I’d mark such a death because at one time in my life, when it mattered a lot, I connected with a particular song.

Pete Shelley died today at the age of 63. He’s probably best known for being the co-founder, songwriter and lead singer for UK punk band Buzzcocks, founded in 1976. When the band broke up in 1981, he went on to a solo career.

I wasn’t that familiar with Buzzcocks’ songs, but the one I knew best, though probably not at the time, was 1978’s “Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)” (video below). It was well-regarded, though it reached only Number 12 in the UK. In an interview many years later, Pete said “the song was about a man named Francis that he lived with for about seven years”, though at the time of its release he wasn’t officially out as bi.

The first song in which I was aware of Pete personally, though, was his 1981 song, “Homosapien” (video above). But that, too, came some time after it was released, after I left university. The song reached Number 4 in Australia, and Number 6 in Canada, and Number 14 on the US Dance Chart (and it would probably have been a club where I first heard it, most likely after I moved to Chicago in 1982-3).

The song, which was originally intended for what would have been Buzzcocks’ fourth album, was banned by the BBC because of what they called the song’s "explicit reference to gay sex", the lyrics "homo superior / in my interior". Now, the BBC, like broadcast executives in many places, have had a history of having humourless prats making such decisions, and in this case they were right AND wrong.

I say they were “right” only because when I first heard the song I sort of giggled to myself at what seemed like a somewhat risqué veiled reference, something those “in the know” might get, but that, in context, weren’t risqué. Of course, I also knew the entire lyric, something the BBC language guardians apparently didn’t:

Homosuperior
In my interior
But from the skin out
I'm homosapien too
And you're homosapien too
And I'm homosapien like you
And we're homosapien too

In context, the lyric in question can be seen as completely innocent, describing himself. Still, in those days “the Beeb” wasn’t going to give anyone the benefit of the doubt, especially anyone gay or bi.

In my newly-out days, I was still finding out that there was such a thing as pop performers—including singers and songwriters—who I could relate to without “filling in the blanks”, as I put it a few years ago. “Homosapien” was one of those songs and for a completely ordinary reason: It was just fun. I was also slightly subversive to me, not the least because of the frequent vocal stress on homo.

Around that same time, I also remember seeing guys in Chicago wearing white t-shirts with the word “Homosapien” and no other printing. I was sure they were kinsmen, and, at the time, it seemed like they were giving a knowing wink to anyone who knew the song. But, I also could easily have been projecting.

So today, when I heard that Pete Shelley had died, I remembered that song I once thought was fun and subversive, and I also remembered what it felt like to discover songs like that after having been denied them all my life until not long before then. I wasn’t exactly a fan of Pete or of the Buzzcocks, but I once really liked that one song of his, and today I remembered that.

I’m glad it’s now so easy to find openly gay artists to listen to, and that I no longer have to “fill in the blanks”. But there was also something fun, exciting, and kind of revolutionary-feeling about finding those songs and artists all those decades ago, and Pete Shelley was part of that, and for that, and for that fun song, I thank him.

RIP, Pete Shelley, and thanks.

Not a whole other country

The story linked to above is an interesting one for a number of reasons. It’s also sad and pretty pathetic, in a “totally not surprised, but still…” kind of way. The story, though, isn’t just about the crap politics of one small town in Texas, it’s really about much of small town America and what could spread throughout the country.

The story paints a picture of a town run by a political cabal who appear to be interested only in their own power, and who will stop at nothing to protect it. In that sense, this story really isn’t about their undeniable homophobic bigotry, but about their ruthlessness in pursuing their political self-interest.

Even so, rank homophobic bigotry is absolutely at the core of the story. The politicians easily exploited that bigotry to get what they wanted, just as Lee Atwater famously exploited racism for Reagan and Bush the First. But it seems highly improbable that those smalltime Texas politicians will ever be bothered by their actions or repent for them as Atwater did as he was dying.

What that young city councillor did was nobody’s damn business. It was legal and between consenting adults, end of story. Can the Good Christians™ of that Texas town REALLY be sure that their elected representatives are pure and wholesome? What about their pastors? Their neighbours, friends, coworkers, their family members. They don’t know, and the harsh truth is that they don’t want to know. They have no interest in hating those people, only the young gay man.

In a sane and rational town, they would have swallowed hard and got on with it. They would have celebrated having a young person involved in a field dominated in most places by old(er) folks. But, no, their hatred and bigotry blinded them to the opportunity they’d been handed, and arming themselves with religious zeal and rank hypocrisy, they lunged for their victim.

I can guess what the result of their cynical campaign will be, as, in fact, everyone else probably can, too. Bigoted small town Texas is highly unlikely to act against its nature. But the thing is, they’re really not so different from any small town in the USA where a small clique runs everything, and religion is used as a shield to hide away what they don’t want voters to see, and as a weapon to smite their political enemies. Worse, those people exist in big big towns and cities, too, just waiting for allies to help them take control.

It’s that last part that we must note. Fascism is on the march throughout the world, including the USA, and it’s not hard to map out scenarios in which all of the USA could become like that small town in Texas and its cousins throughout the country. The base is already there, and all it needs are willing enablers and enforcers, something it has in abundance is the current regime and Republican-controlled Congress. Whether they advance or are pushed back will depend on what happens next week.

No matter what happens, stories of elected officials exploiting bigotry in pursuit of political greed, corruption, and ruthlessness will not go away. The question is, will they become dominant?

Matthew Shepard to be Interred at Washington National Cathedral

Earlier today I ran across a press release from National Cathedral in Washington, DC:

Washington, DC – October 11, 2018: Matthew Shepard, who was murdered at 21 years old in 1998 in an anti-gay hate crime, will be interred at Washington National Cathedral following a service of thanksgiving and remembrance on Friday, Oct. 26, at the request of the Shepard family. This Friday, Oct. 12, is the 20th anniversary of Shepard’s death. The service will celebrate and recall Shepard’s life and will be followed by a private interment in the Cathedral crypt. The service will be presided over by the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, Episcopal Bishop of Washington, and the Right Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay priest to be consecrated a bishop in the Episcopal Church.

“We’ve given much thought to Matt’s final resting place, and we found the Washington National Cathedral is an ideal choice, as Matt loved the Episcopal church and felt welcomed by his church in Wyoming,” said Judy Shepard, Matthew’s mother. “For the past 20 years, we have shared Matt’s story with the world. It’s reassuring to know he now will rest in a sacred spot where folks can come to reflect on creating a safer, kinder world.”

A longtime supporter of the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the life of the church, the Cathedral considers LGBTQ equality one of the great civil rights issue of the church in the 21st century. The Cathedral hosted its first same-sex wedding in 2010, and welcomed its first transgender preacher, the Rev. Cameron Partridge, to the Canterbury Pulpit in 2014.

“Matthew Shepard’s death is an enduring tragedy affecting all people and should serve as an ongoing call to the nation to reject anti-LGBTQ bigotry and instead embrace each of our neighbors for who they are,” said the Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith, dean of Washington National Cathedral. “In the years since Matthew’s death, the Shepard family has shown extraordinary courage and grace in keeping his spirit and memory alive, and the Cathedral is honored and humbled to serve as his final resting place.”

Shepard will be one of approximately 200 people to have been interred in the Cathedral over the last century. Others interred at the Cathedral include President Woodrow Wilson; Bishop Thomas Claggett, the first Episcopal Bishop ordained on American soil; Helen Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan; and U.S. Navy Admiral George Dewey.

The service will be steamed over YouTube (video below) while I’m asleep, however, it should be available as a recorded video afterward

• • • • •

This caught me by complete surprise because I had no idea it was happening. That means I don’t know the backstory about how this came to be, how the timing was selected, etc. None of that matters, of course.

I have no use for organised religion, but I nevertheless think this is pretty awesome, though not for the religious aspects—that’s the family’s business. Instead, there are plenty of other reasons this is a good thing.

First, it’s important to have a celebration of Matthew’s life. The circumstances of his death made him a symbol and an inspiration around the world. The intolerance and hatred that killed him gave a face to everyday oppression in a way that resonated with “ordinary Americans”, and while of course they should have cared before, Matthew gave them a reason to care that statistics in a report never would. There’s more to say about that, but not here, not in this context. What matters is that he still provides inspiration.

The symbolism of being interred in the crypt at National Cathedral is important. The church strives to be “a house of prayer for all people and a spiritual home for the nation”, which makes him being placed there important for symbolic reasons, the nation symbolically engaging in a small re-balancing of the harm done to Matthew—and all the LGBT+ victims in America whose names we’ll never know.

Finally, there’s also a very practical thing here. If his remains were going to be interred anywhere, then the crypt at National Cathedral is a safe place. It’s among the least likely places that anti-LGBT+ extremists would be able to desecrate his grave, something I’m absolutely certain they would do were he interred in a conventional cemetery.

The fact that Matthew died 20 years ago this month means that holding the service and interment this month was logical. It marks an appropriate point to wrap up the 20-year anniversary remembrances.

This story is obviously not getting much media attention, based on the fact I’d entirely missed it until mere hours before the event, and then I saw it only by change when a Facebook friend shared a link the landing page for the event. Because of that, it will probably have little impact beyond those at the cathedral, at first, at least.

But there are reasons why this is a good thing to be happening. And if it brings some peace to Matthew’s family and friends, that would be the best result.

New films about something that should not be

Today I ran across a piece about two new films about the “ex-gay” torture scam. It is something that should never be allowed to exist, and is increasingly being outlawed. But times are changing, going backward, so maybe it’s a good idea to talk about it in film.

The review I saw was “Boy Erased is a safe and predictable take on the horrors of gay conversion” by the University of Melbourne’s Stuart Richards and published by Australian site, The Conversation (an interesting project, by the way).

The film in the title, Boy Erased (trailer above) is based on Boy Erased: A Memoir of Identity, Faith and Family by Garrard Conley. In talking about the film Richards presents the film as being something for general audiences, to help them understand the problem with “ex-gay” torture scams. The film will be released in the USA November, but not until sometime in 2019 in New Zealand.

That description made me think of the 1982 film Making Love, which could have been a similar educational movie—except that it was apparently mostly gay men who went to see it. At the time, a friend said to me that he wished the audiences for Making Love and Victor/Victoria, which was around the same time, were switched.

In any case, the other film that Richards talked about, and felt was better, was The Miseducation of Cameron Post, which was released in the USA last August, and is now at one Auckland cinema. The US trailer:



Miseducation is about friendship, while Boy is about a family, so they are very different approaches, even if they’re based the same problem—the “ex-gay” scam.

I’ve already seen a film about this, but it was a comedy that makes the grim subject bearable. It was 1999’s But I’m A Cheerleader (trailer below).

Obviously this subject is not funny, even though a comedy film can be. What amazes me is that in 2018 we’re STILL talking about ending the “ex-gay” torture scam—and New Zealand is nowhere near the point of doing it. Maybe films will help speed that up. But, I kind of doubt it.

Weekend Diversion: Imagine Dragons

I can’t believe I haven’t talked about Imagine Dragons before, because they’ve produced some of my favourite songs of the past year or so. What reminded me to share them, however, was I saw a video about a side project by lead singer Dan Reynolds, and now I like them quite a bit more. I like when pop music and my values combine, especially when it helps LGBT+ youth along the way.

First things first, though, because it was about the music before I ever heard about Reynolds’ work. I like Imagine Dragons because of the usual things—melody, arrangement, performance of the band and Reynolds’ vocals, and also for the often very complex lyrics. I like empty pop songs as much as anyone else who, um, loves that sort of thing, but I especially love pop music that offers me more than a good beat and a catchy hook, and Imagine Dragons has always given me that.

The first song that made me finally learn the band’s name was “Thunder” (video above). It was released April 27, 2017, the second single from their third studio album, Evolve. The song reached Number 3 in New Zealand, Number 2 in Australia, Number 4 in Canada, Number 4 in the Billboard Hot 100, and Number 20 in the UK. The video is visually striking, so much so that it practically forced me stop and watch it, and because of that, I paid attention to the band. From my narrow perspective, that video was worth every cent they spent on it.

The first single from Evolve was “Believer”, which has gone on to become a sports anthem and lent its name to a documentary (more about that later). I saw this video well after I noticed “Thunder”, or maybe I had and noticed it because of "Thunder". Either way, I liked that song, too:



The thing I didn’t realise at first was that I’d heard “Believer” on the radio, though I didn’t realise it until I paid attention to them on our music video channel. In any case, the song hit Number 21 in New Zealand, Number 33 in Australia, Number 7 in Canada, Number 4 in the Billboard Hot 100, and Number 42 in the UK.

While I later heard them in other songs, it was those two songs that I was most familiar with. Today I was catching up on my YouTube subscriptions, and saw a video suggested to me, including one from ABC News titled “Imagine Dragons lead singer on his Mormon faith and supporting LGBTQ community” and posted August 8:



I didn’t know about any of this until today, and I instantly liked Dan Reynolds as a human being, not just as a singer/songwriter/performer. Naturally, I wanted to see a bit more:



I think both those videos were well done, talking about different things, but the same general topic. There’s an excerpt of his documentary “Believer”, the documentary he talked about on The Daily Show, available online (the HBO trailer can’t be viewed in New Zealand, so I won’t include that):



So this was a band I liked as soon as I saw their video for “Thunder” on our free-to-air video channel. Now that I know more about lead singer Dan Reynolds, I like them a bit more. But it really is all about the music.

In the ABC video, their song “It’s Time” was mentioned in passing. It’s a good song (from 2012):



The song was the band’s first Top 40 commercial hit, reaching Number 37 in New Zealand, Number 27 in Australia, Number 30 in Canada, Number 15 in the Billboard Hot 100, and Number 23 in the UK. Part of the success was because, as the ABC report said, the song was covered on Glee [WATCH/LISTEN], and it was used in commercials.

From their first single, on to their newest single, “Natural”:



There: I think I’ve made up for not talking about Imagine Dragons before. And I’m glad I found new reasons for liking them.

Old Gays React to Troye Sivan Videos

The video above is the latest in the “Old Gays…” series of videos from Into on their Intomore YouTube Channel. They have a similar “Old Lesbians…” series, and in both cases they show people from earlier times what younger LGBT+ people are into now. It can be interesting and entertaining, and this one is a bit of both.

I wrote about Troye Sivan’s Blue Neighbourhood trilogy back in 2015, so I was interested to see what these older gay men thought of it, and that many of their reactions were similar to my own. I don’t know if that means I’m “old” or that what I saw is typical enough of old-ER gay men, or maybe even more common than that. But I kind of felt vindicated, for lack of a better word.

Later in the video, they talk about Troye’s song “Bloom” (video below). Apparently, he received a lot of flack for it because it is about bottoming for the first time, and because of the gender-bending visuals. He, however, was nonplussed [See “Troye Sivan Refuses To Feel Ashamed For Singing About Gay Sex” in Sydney’s LGBT newspaper, Star Observer].

One of the things that LGBT+ people don’t talk about very often is the divisions between and among us. We have sex-positive folks and deep prudes, we have hyper-masculine types and ultra-feminine, and we have people within our LGBT+ communities who hate those people. I don’t understand that, and it exasperates me when LGBT+ people start excluding other LGBT+ people because of who they are or how they present. It seems to me that people from a still marginalised community have no business oppressing anyone. Besides, they miss so many awesome people by being so bloody narrow-minded.

In any case, I still like Troye, and recognise his voice whenever I hear it. In fact, just this evening TVNZ’s “Seven Sharp” programme played a snippet of “Bloom” as their closing music. Quite a coincidence considering I was planning on this post.

There’s one thing more. There are so many young gay people on YouTube, young guys in particular, and even though many of them are really good at what they do and are interesting, it’s still really nice to hear from some older LGBT+ people, at least sometimes. I think we older gays deserve to have our lives and realities reflected, too.