Ameriqueer

Matthew K. Miller, a friend of mine, wrote an amazing blog posting about Stonewall entitled "Here, Queer, and 40 years later." Check it out . Forty years ago this past weekend, New York City Vice police raided an unremarkable gay bar on Christopher Street in New York's Greenwich Village. The mafia-affiliated establishment was known as the Stonewall Inn and this was not its first raid. Tonight, however, was special. This was the night that Judy Garland, the gay man's only friend in Hollywood, was buried after a troubled life filled with heart-break and pills. This was not the right night to pick a fight with a queen. That night a HUNKY Raymond Castro was there and fought back against the police . Martin Boyce and Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt did too . Many people did. The riot began with queens, homeless youth, and young regulars--the outcasts of the gay community . People started showing up from the neighborhood, the cops became outnumbered and a full-scale riot b...

The following is the FIRST EVER Ameriqueer guest column from Charleston, IL peer, Matt Mattingly . Matt and I often DISAGREE on Obama, but we very MUCH agree on this story here in two respects: sexual abuse and assault is heinous and evil; and that the gay community has an obligation to call attention to and be angry about evil committed by those who fuel our enemies' fires, rather than sweep these awful things under the rug. When we show OUR own anger as a community over these atrocities--and others, like racism, prostitution, risky sex and indiscriminate drug use--we do the responsible thing, and pull the rug out from under those who want to convince others these things are characteristic of our community. There is a little bit of self-loathing involved in ignoring these evils, and the sooner we address them, the more legitimate our fight becomes. The religious right is ALREADY trying to spin the evil of one gay man against OUR WHOLE COMMUNITY --be outraged about this child ...

BREAKING-- AL FRANKEN WINS ! Harry Reid congratulates ! IF YOU'RE ANGRY ABOUT THE RAINBOW LOUNGE FIASCO IN FT. WORTH TEXAS, THAN YOU NEED TO GET INVOLVED. We have a long way to go to full equality, and we have many fronts we are pushing on right now. One of those fronts is Employment Discrimination. If you DON'T know what it is, the inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) will protect LGBT people nation-wide from sexual orientation or gender identity-based discrimination in hiring/firing. CLICK HERE AND LEARN ABOUT HOW TO GET YOUR REPRESENTATIVE TO SUPPORT ENDA ! In.D.C|| Joe Biden acknowledges things are moving too slow at that controvercial DC fundraiser that DISAPPOINTINGLY raised $1M . Read LAW DORK'S AWESOME ACTION PLAN on turning rhetoric into results ! Service Members Legal Defense Network (SLDN) demonstrated in front of the White House on Saturday to protest DADT -- watch the video here . President Obama acknowledged the shamefulness of the disch...

I have received word earlier this afternoon from an editor at the Dallas Voice that Chad is improving. According to the Dallas Voice's Tammye Nash: The latest I have heard on Chad is that the bleeding has slowed but he is not out of the woods yet. I have not spoken with his family today. When I know where you can send flowers, cards or just drop an email with your thoughts and encouragement, I will post it. Until then, if you want to send positive thoughts to our brother Chad in Texas, please post them as a comment to this post, and when I can, I will forward them to whomever can get them to him. In the mean time keep Chad and his family in your thoughts and prayers! Thank you!

This morning, bright and early, I got a call from Sgt. Pedro Criado--a man who sounded like he'd lost quite a bit of sleep lately. I had called the "media contact" number last night and left my information, expecting a standard email, and to my surprise I got a call back bright and early (7am, Texas time). Sgt. Criado was very cordial and forthcoming in answering my questions about the "code inspection" at the Rainbow Lounge, and he was able to clear up some mysteries--though now I have more questions for the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission; who, by the way, are those guys in the tan shirts that say "State Police." In fact, there needs to be a separation made here between the guys in the tan "State Police" shirts and the guys in the blue "Ft. Worth Police" shirts... I've taken a look at all of the pictures from the event--all of the photos of people being calmly handled (hand-cuffed or not) being questioned in a standin...

Chad Gibson was brutally attacked this weekend by police on a "routine code inspection" at the Rainbow Lounge in Fort Worth Texas. He is in intensive care, and--though at last report his prognosis was decent--we have no idea what the long term effects of this police brutality will be. All of this happened on the EVE OF THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE STONEWALL UPRISING, ANOTHER BRUTAL GAY BAR RAID FORTY YEARS AGO. We are angry and we want IMMEDIATE change... but in the midst of this lets NOT forget about the PERSONAL TOLL that violence takes. I want this post to be to welcome positive comments of hope for Chad Gibson, which I will forward to him once I get his contact information. I have woken up in the hospital after having the shit beat out of me before. Thankfully it was not by the police and not because I was gay. It also wasn't in Fort Worth Texas, though. I know how much it meant to have my friends come see me and sit with me until I was released. I want to pour tha...

My previous post is here . UPDATE: CHECK OUT THIS WHACK SHIT ! Here is a little taste of some of the eyewitness accounts in the Dallas Voice trickling out from the Rainbow Lounge bust in Fort Worth Texas from two nights ago. The General Manager's statement is the most striking to me: Randy Norman is general manager for the Rainbow Lounge. He said he saw a man on the dance floor, dancing, who was approached by police officers. “They threw him down, put the zip ties on him and took him out,” Norman said. “He told them he was not drunk, and asked that they do breathalyzer on him. But they refused.” In 2009 its unfathomable that this is even happening. This is obvious police harassment and obvious brutality and terrorism. A new gay bar opened in town, and these little-prick/big-britches douche-bags wanted to assert their dominance. I can't tell you how angry I am after reading the eyewitness accounts. Chad Gibson remains hospitalized. Last report had him listed as in Intens...

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion in NYC . Today is the livestreamed controversial White House cocktail event commemorating the evening . But all eyes, today are on TEXAS , where, on Saturday night (the night before the 40th anniversary of the uprising caused by a violent police raid) Fort Worth's new gay bar, the Rainbow Lounge, was violently raided by police . 18 people were thrown face-down on the street and then tossed into a PADDY WAGON and arrested (sound familiar?). There are many pictures and video of the incident . Sunday--THE Pride day-- protesters demonstrated in front of the bar , expressing frustration that gays and lesbians are STILL experiencing the SAME treatment and terrorism that existed 40 years ago. The strange thing is that pictures and video confirm that men dressed in uniforms reading "State Police" were recorded clearly on the scene --except that Texas doesn't have a State Police! Chad Gibson--a patron whose ...

FIRST, I don't want you to think that this is becoming just another queer entertainment blog. I posted Friday morning about Michael Jackson, and now I'm going to post about a bunch of 70s/80s/90s gay icons--I must be just losing my edge. I do plan on making these non-roundup posts much more current-events based. However, this weekend I traveled to Chicago for PRIDE, and enjoyed all of the entertainment that came with it, so there is no reason that I can't share something whimsical every once in a while between the topical! This was my first Pride with no responsibilities other than show up. For the past 5 years I've been Michigan's Membership and Community events chair for the Human Rights Campaign, which placed me squarely in charge of everything Pride-related that HRC did in Michigan for a half-decade. This was not a boring or grueling responsibility--I absolutely loved it--but it IS a lot of work, and requires me to sacrifice enjoying a majority of the rest ...

Michael Jackson was no hero. He lived a life of seclusion and isolation, surrounded himself with fantasy and delusion. Regardless of how you feel about whether or not he did 'it' we can all agree that his life as an out of touch recluse was certainly bizarre and made him target to every type of joke. Since the album HIStory came out, Michael has been an ugly characature of himself--out of touch with reality, and being very adept at making all of our skin crawl. Let's go back, however, 25 years--before most of my readers were even born--when a superstar was born and the music industry was changed forever. Today, I'd like to remember the M.J. that once was--once was the most powerful man in the entertainment industry, and the idol of BILLIONS of people worldwide. When I was 1, I wasn't paying much attention to music. The year was 1983 and the record company named for my hometown--Motown--was celebrating 25 powerful years. Motown had changed music forever, crea...

UPDATE: MICHAEL JACKSON IS DEAD!!! CNN IS NOW AGREEING WITH LA TIMES, CBS AND TMZ REPORTS THAT MICHAEL JACKSON IS DEAD!!! UPDATE 3: IGNORE REPORTS ON JEFF GOLDBLUM OR HARRISON FORD'S DEATHS--THEY ARE STILL ALIVE, HERE IS THE LINK ! I got cited on one of the best LGBT websites in the world for this tip: BILERICO ! FIRST|| FARRAH FAWCETT HAS PASSED AWAY --GOD REST HER SOUL. IN ADDITION, MICHAEL JACKSON HAS SUFFERED CARDIAC ARREST, AND IS IN DIRE STRAITS . I'm not going to lie, I'm not feeling good about that. He's a screwed up beast of a man, but the music he made still means a lot to me. Meanwhile, the Republican party continues to lose credibility on the "moral values" meme . EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MARK SANFORD . Yesterday, FoxNews decided to identify him as a Democrat instead of a Republican... all afternoon . I'm sure they'll just write it off as a clerical error... and I'm sure Ethel Backwater in Swansoon Louisiana will noti...