September-October 2012
SOME BOOKS are meant to be read cover-to-cover: Madame Bovary, War and Peace, Fifty Shades of Grey. Others may be dipped into at any point, since there is no continuous narrative, only-as in the case at hand-self-contained accounts that take a few pages each. Gay Lives, by Robert Aldrich, a professor of European History at the University of Sydney, belongs to the latter category. …
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This new collection of [Bayard] Rustin’s letters is also a publishing first, and it will undoubtedly do much to help more people appreciate Rustin’s contributions to the Civil Rights movement. …
MoreEVEN IN THE FIRST DECADE of the now three-decade-long HIV/Aids plague, there was already talk about ‘the changing face’ of the epidemic. …
While it’s true that the proportion of minorities with HIV has risen over the years, the fact is that, since AIDS was first reported among a group of gay men in 1981, gay and bisexual men of all colors continue to account for by far the largest number of those infected with HIV, those at risk for infection, and those living with untreated HIV. Like it or not, HIV/Aids in America is still a profoundly “gay” disease. …
MoreHEN SPAIN became the third country in the world to grant same-sex couples the freedom to marry in 2005, it came as a surprise to many watching from the United States. How could a traditional, Catholic country that had been under a fascist dictatorship for most of the 20th century suddenly be at the forefront of marriage equality for same-sex couples?
Spanish GLBT rights activists describe the change in dramatic terms: …
MoreAnti-Americanism is perhaps an expected feature of French public education, at least according to a study conducted by Barbara Lefebvre and Eve Bonnivard in 2004, which suggested that French textbooks are anti-American to the point that French high school students might be led to wonder, “could it be that all evils in the world are caused either indirectly or directly by the actions of the United States?” (Lefebvre and Bonnivard, 2005). It is true that 2004 reflected a high point in anti-American sentiment in France, and it is reasonable to assume that things have calmed down since then. Yet …
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THIS IS THE STORY of a lesbian FBI informant who worked undercover in the American Communist Party from 1942 to 1949, and who testified at the 1949 trial of the Party’s leadership in New York City’s Foley Square. Like all the Communist trials of the period (including that of the Rosenbergs) it was a conspiracy trial, which meant that no overt act was alleged. Under the 1940 Smith Act (officially the Alien Registration Act), the charge was “conspiracy to advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government by force and violence.” …
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LET ME BEGIN with a simple provocation: queer folks-every last one of us-should vote to re-elect President Barack Hussein Obama in 2012. From an electoral standpoint, there’s really no choice for GLBT people this or any other November-that is, if you define “choice” as having more than one viable option. …
MoreCHAI FELDBLUM is one of five commissioners on the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She was appointed to that post by President Obama in March 2010. This interview was conducted over the phone, and transcribed in real time by the interviewer, on July 2, 2012.
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