WHEN I FIRST MOVED to Los Angeles to matriculate at the University of Southern California in 1998, …I did not even know that ONE had existed, that many homosexuals in the country-and the world-had looked to the people in these neighborhoods for support, encouragement, and inspiration.
But gradually these ghosts revealed themselves-and they demanded to be heard. …
MoreWHEN I BEGAN my online diary, “Living in the Bonus Round,” in March 1996, there was no way I could have anticipated that eleven years later it would lead to my being invited by pop star George Michael to play John Lennon’s “Imagine” piano. The route was unexpected, circuitous, and completely unplanned. But it was entirely representative of the numerous unexpected and life-affirming experiences that have come from my simple desire to create an easy way to keep my family and my doctor updated about my failing health
MoreFOR A CENTURY or more, it seemed impossible for literary biography to acknowledge a subject’s homosexuality, and this was due in part to the reticence of some writers to allow an accurate record of their private life to circulate. Before his death, for example, Henry James systematically burned all of his private papers and encouraged friends to destroy any letters that he had written to them. W. H. Auden specified that no biography be written of him …
MoreWhat I almost never saw from my seat at my favorite haunt-the Café de Paris, chosen because, not attached to a hotel, it always attracted more Tunisians than tourists-were any signs of a visible, easily identifiable gay or lesbian culture.
MoreIn 1873, when French poet Arthur Rimbaud was staying in London with his
more famous lover Paul Verlaine, the spark-striking and strategically
untruthful nineteen-year-old added two years to his age so that he
could pass through a set of doors normally closed to minors. …
MoreHarvey Milk was working for an insurance company in New York City
before he became the flamboyant politician portrayed in Gus Van Sant’s
recently released movie, Milk; he lived on the Upper West Side, voted for Goldwater, and loved to go to the opera. …
MoreIn the aftermath of the passage of California’s Proposition 8, a new
generation of activists emerged to protest the loss of the right to
marry one’s same-sex partner. The GLBT media has dubbed this new wave
of activism “Stonewall 2.0.”
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Forster’s legacy and prominence have soared since his death, threatening to eclipse many of his Bloomsbury peers and certainly eclipsing the reputation of Joseph Conrad, say, whom Forster revered as “our greatest living novelist,” or George Bernard Shaw, called by Forster “our greatest living writer” some time later. …
More… An analysis of how the pro-8 forces succeeded reveals a campaign of misinformation and unlikely alliances, one that took years of planning dating back to at least the mid-1990’s. It also reveals a shrewd, media-savvy, and well-funded grassroots organization that understood California’s complex geographic and political landscape.
MoreWhat was particularly striking about the campaign to enact Prop 8 was
the extent to which proponents went out of their way to claim that the
new provision would not take rights away from gay couples.
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