CNN Commentator: Gays are Mostly Petulant White People

ESPN reporter and CNN commentator LZ Granderson is putting the smack down on uppity white gays who are leading the chorus of disappointment over Obama's turtle pace on gay issues. To call gay the new black is offensive and underscores the disconnect between a truly disenfranchised people and a bunch of Lady Gaga-listening white people who act like "a petulant child throwing a tantrum because he wants to eat his dessert before dinner." Blacks, says Granderson, have had it tough way longer than the gays have ("Miley Cyrus is older that DODT") and they are loving their new black President. It's justice served and all you gays need to love the moment and stop complaining.

Still, Granderson isn't attacking the gay rights movement, he's putting gay white culture - that which most of America sees - on blast. He speaks like an outsider, conflicted over the sting of not fitting in yet not wanting to belong anyway. Case in point: he's happy to accept the praise of organizations like GLAAD, who gave him an award for journalism this year at a $500 a person fundraiser in New York (I was there) but you know, he still wants to be down.

I can understand his frustration, and I can understand that being gay, educated and a person of color does pose a lot of challenges for men of color who are expected to be a certain way, namely not gay and educated.

But the rights gay people want transcend color, and the gay community has every right to express its disappointment with President Obama. The longer he takes to enact fair policy and give gay people the rights they deserve, the more credence he lends to conservative arguments against gays. And this community has been on his side, putting all of its resources behind him to help put him in the White House. As for the petulant child comment - that's just ignorant. A gay person of color should have a greater impetus to effect change and blunt the blow of exclusionary politics than anyone.

Granderson's comments are a distraction and speak more to his internal turmoil than to any latent racism within the gay community. There's room for everyone under that rainbow flag, but we can't sit idly by and let elected officials pander to us on the campaign trail only to denigrate us once they're in power.

GCL Goes to the Movies: Bruno Sucks

Feel free to place the requisite Euro dots over the u's in the title of the post.

Before I delve into why Sacha Baron Cohen's follow up to 2006's critically acclaimed Borat sucks, I have to say that as a publicist who has to tell every one of his clients "welll, maybe this particular story isn't good enough for the Today Show," I'm beyond pissed that Matt Lauer had to promote this film on Friday because the shows's parent company (Universal) distributes it. Meanwhile my laundry detergents, airlines and destinations go unnoticed. It isn't fair. So, for that alone, fuck you Matt Lauer and NBC Universal. Again, stick those dots where you see fit.

The unfairness of why Matt Lauer won't do a segment on any of my clients notwithstanding, Bruno is a piece of (Euro)trash. And I love gross humor (kinda) - just last weekend I was dying over the hijinks of Bradley Cooper in "The Hangover." But Bruno was just stupid. (And Bradley Cooper is just so yummy.) Picture all of those gay jokes you heard in junior high school - all those anal-centric jokes, to be exact - and now picture them on the big screen. Within five minutes the lead character finds himself on his knees having a massive dildo pedaled into his rear end by his Pygmy boyfriend. And then champagne is poured out of said Pygmy boyfriend's derriere, which Bruno then proceeds to pound furiously with a fire extinguisher to produce all sorts of yellow gunk which flies across the frame. There's also a love story beneath Bruno's attempts at stardom, and this too winds up in fisticuffs, plastic sheets and soiled hand prints in a motel room.

The film, according to Baron-Cohen, is meant to satirize anti-gay attitudes. So they sent a flamey sexual deviant into red states to poke fun at Jesus and hit on a bunch of yokels. Let's just see how many times the word faggot can be tossed around by a bunch of stupid Americans (incidentally, it's not - ever - even by the most visibly disturbed and straight laced/ignorant/whatever people the film is trying to expose).

Now, the good people at GLAAD are upset about the movie, and God bless em', their mission is to make sure that Tim Gunn reigns supreme as the model for how gay men should behave on TV and how the world should embrace them. So they're right to kick up a fuss. As a gay man myself, however, I'm not the least bit offended by the movie - the character is so off the mark with who I am and who my partner and friends are that, yes, he is laughable. But I do think it's appalling that most media outlets have jumped on this bandwagon, hailing Baron Cohen as a genius, devoting fashion spreads to him (thanks, NY Times, GQ) and, once again, a full segment on a morning TV show (because Today Show moms will LOVE to see a giant penis waved in their face, repeatedly, at $12.50 a pop). That's what's objectionable to me: the media's complicity in peddling this sort of stupid filth.

Brash and Entitled, 40 Years After Stonewall

In the run-up to this weekend's Gay Pride festivities in New York, forty years after the floodgates of identity politics were opened by the death of a starlet, some gays wonder if the "struggle" rages on - as it should, or if it should.

Hence the "gay generation gap" cited by writer Mark Harris for this week's issue of New York magazine. Whereas one generation of gay men had to act up for their rights, my generation - according to some - just shows up and expects a round of applause for our mere existence. Our slouched stance on everything from politics to work is infuriating, according to Harris, to some gays whose identity is perpetually linked to a fight. That the fight has yielded exactly what our predecessors envisioned, an unencumbered gay life that exists seamlessly in the straight world, is unnerving to some.

For my friends, DOMA, Prop 8 and DADT are sidebar discussions - we're mostly consumed with ourselves, our careers, our bodies and our boyfriends. And AIDS, thank God, isn't even a topic of discussion. We get the significance of these debates, though, and we're reasonably appalled by the fact that our right to exist is a subject of debate, but then, what would we do about it? A few weeks ago when the California Supreme Court upheld Prop 8, there was a call for a rally from Christopher Street to Union Square. Only one of my friends went while some of us went out for drinks and dismissed the event with a yawn, we figured "what is getting upset going to do, anyway?"

That the most community-centric things I've done are limited to the Pier Dance and scoring (not buying) a seat at the GLAAD Media Awards can either be seen as disgusting or just a casualty of normalcy.

James, my boyfriend, came of age at the height of the AIDS epidemic. But when he talks about his college days, it's not with a clenched fist and rancor in his voice, he just has a lot of fun stories to tell. And after college, the fun seems to have continued with other out-and-proud gay men in the world of business. If anything, James' 80's experience is more Wall Street than Philadelphia. I suspect the guys have always been as brash and entitled as my friends and I are. Had they not been, we'd all be living a completely different experience now. For that, we say thanks.

Fun Times at GLAAD Media Awards

Being gay, even in Barack’s America, is a lot of work. I realized this over the weekend as James and I soaked in the A-gayness of the 2009 GLAAD Media Awards here in New York and sat through moving speeches by celebs (Tyra! Suze Orman! Phil Donohue!) and up-and-coming leaders who work to promote “fair, accurate and inclusive representation of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people” across all media. As I’ve said before on this blog, between the skinny jeans look-at-me-and-how-smart-I-am ways of New York and the white-capped-teeth, too-cool-for-school blitheness of Los Angeles, there are a lot of Americans who get their depictions of gays and lesbians from their churches, elected officials, and –gasp – the Fox News Channel. What that means is that, for every negative, stereotypical depiction of an LGBT person in a newspaper cartoon or for every speech by a member of our government denigrating the legitimacy of a same-sex partnership, an American stands to lose the full benefit of citizenship: employment, access to healthcare, the right to care for their partner when they are ill.

This was impressed upon me during a speech by the former Executive Director of GLAAD who said that the work of civil rights movements isn’t to bring a group over from the wrong side of equality, but to erase that divide altogether. So it was great to hear Phil Donohue talk about the importance of introducing LGBT stories into America’s living rooms when he first took to the airwaves in 1967, or Tyra Banks talk about how she relates to LGBT discrimination because not every casting director used to think she was that fierce, or Suze Orman who said she was always out, proud and perma-tanned. “I’ve. Always. Been. Out! That. Is. Not. News!” I was also struck by the fact that, beyond the parties, GLAAD is a nimble media machine that isn’t just looking for face time with Hollywood celebs, but is actually going toe-to-toe with conservative media outlets to call out biases against the LGBT community. Case in point: as soon as the NY Post cartoon depicting a dead monkey/President(?) came out, the organization was ready to address the right-wing newspaper’s past offenses against other minority groups, specifically gays.

You would think that a gathering of politically active gays and their friends in the “elite, liberal media” would be a raucous, Republican-bashing affair. But it wasn’t. With all the good work that’s been done in the past year – even in spite of setbacks like Proposition 8 and anti-adoption legislation introduced in Arkansas – the mood was hopeful and celebratory. As mistress of ceremonies, comedienne Kate Clinton pointed out, it seems the gays are thrilled to be out of the abusive relationship that was the Bush administration and in the arms of Barack Obama (though I did want to point out that our newly elected president isn’t in favor of gay marriage either).


The evening’s highlight for me: a quick chat with Boricua actress Ana Ortiz from Ugly Betty. Another fab latina who was so nice to yours truly – as soon as I mentioned that we went to the same high school she threw her arms around me, yakked away in Spanish, and posed for two pictures (the first one sucked). James and I then meandered to the Absolut Mango-sponsored after-party where we were next to another Ugly Betty star, Michael Urie. I did want to mention that his character’s mixed-matched shirt and tie combos on the show inspire my own look, but really, why the hell would he have cared? Incidentally, I had my mango-infused vodka on the rocks with a twist of lime. I don’t remember how I got home.

Pix and vids below: one is the first part of Tyra’s acceptance speech for her award, and the other is a performance by the House of Ninja.

Note: Special thanks to my friend and colleague Holly Fussell for being a lovely hostess and our in for the evening's festivities.

You'r Either With Us or Against Us

Thought of the day: If you're not in favor of gay rights, you're a bigot hothead who's one bad day away from a violent rampage.

And that's truth.

Read the news these days and you'll see that the spectre for gays isn't as bright and rosy as one would expect. I fancy myself an informed observer of world events but I hate to say I've fallen asleep at the wheel, spending way too much time pounding maritas and hole punchers and shopping for my next man bag on BlueFly.com.

But the stories won't go away. There is indeed a culture war in this country and the casualties are mounting. This isn't a metaphor. People are actually dying because some Americans think gays are sub-human. It's as if we were waterbugs - few people like stomping on them, but no one makes a fuss when they're killed.

I'm all about playing nice and hoping for the best and giving everyone a chance to grow and learn, but I've made up my mind: people who are on the fence about gay rights, people who don't see this issue as one that needs to be addressed and fixed can click over my blog and go straight to GodHatesFags.com.

The shooting at a Unitarian Church in Tennessee this past Sunday by a man enraged over the church's pro-gay stance, the shooting death of an unarmed man at San Diego's Gay Pride festivities and the death of a gay teen at the hands of another classmate come at a time when Government officials are debating whether or not it's appropriate for openly gay men and women to serve in our armed forces.

To this day the gay community is depicted as a class of sexual miscreants, schemers who are aching to defile everything that is good and pure about America: our military, Christ, Lindsay Lohan.

Check out this video from last week's Congressional hearing on Don't Ask Don't Tell. Elaine Donnelly from the Center for Military Readiness is saying that we risk letting rogue HIV-positive rapists into the armed forces by repealing DADT:



So that gay agenda you keep hearing about...it's an agenda for our survival. If people can cite the Second Amendment in order to stockpile guns, so too can we gays clamor for a place in the military -- how else are we going to defend ourselves?

Don't let Bravo TV and pop culture fool you - the tide can turn so quickly and the same general public that's laughing along with the gays now can call for our heads the minute bread lines start to form and our economy tanks. How do you think the Jews got wiped out in WWII? In the throes of a depression in the States, they'll go after the gays, the immigrants (legal or not), the blacks, the browns, the low-income whites, and then all that will be left are cockroaches, Ann Coulter and Wall-E.

Am an I alarmist drama queen? Sometimes. But I've also heard the words filthy gay man, faggot, puto, and maricon hurled in my direction more times - in the past six months - than I can count. And then there are the headlines. And I wonder: how big is the divide between words and actions?

I don't care to find out.

But I'm not going to take this sitting down.

If fundamentalist neo-Nazis can fund anti-gay legislation, so too can the gays support organizations that have our back. One less round of maritas for me and the donations are going to:

Human Rights Campaign
Hetrick Martin Institute
GLAAD
Gay Men's Health Crisis

I do believe this is war.