Couple kicked out of IHOP over sapphic smooch

Just one kiss. That’s all it took — to get thrown out of the IHOP in Grandview.
“It was a kiss I would share with my uncle,” Blair Funk told me. Except it wasn’t her uncle she kissed. It was her honey, Eva Sandoval.

Two young women sharing a kiss didn’t seem inappropriate to the other couple in the restaurant booth that night, Jackie Smith and the woman with whom she shares her life, Toni Smith. But someone watching the scene was offended.

So later, the manager confronted them in the lobby and told them to get out. The way Blair tells it, “He said, ‘I have to tell you, we’ve had some complaints about public displays of affection, and we’re a family restaurant. We can’t accept it, and we won’t accept it.’

SNAP Productions "I Am My Own Wife"

See this once in a lifetime performance by Nick Zudina in this Pulitzer Prize winning play! Now playing at SNAP! Productions. You will not be sorry! One of the best productions ever by SNAP!

http://snapproductions.com/Season2007/WIFE/Own_Wife.html

Gay hero dies

A true hero to all gay and lesbian people died of AIDS complications this past week.

Bob Hattoy is dead
--Rick Jacobs

Bob Hattoy died this weekend. He was famous for a few minutes as the Gay Man With AIDS in the run-up to the first Clinton election who spoke at the 1992 Democratic convention. I did not know Bob then, noting only that he was bold to speak publicly about his fight with a disease that the Reagan/Bush-Bush/Quayle administrations had pretended did not exist. (Click on link above for remainder of this story)

Other links to Bob Hattoy

http://mpetrelis.blogspot.com/2007/03/bob-hattoy-gay-aids-hero-advisor-to.html#links

http://www.towleroad.com/2007/03/gay_activist_bo.html

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/03/bob-hattoy-someone-you-should-know.html


Bob's speech to the 1992 Democratic Convention:

(link to YouTube video of the speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUashmbh1zQ


"Presentation on AIDS by Bob Hattoy"

Mr. Hattoy: Thank you. I love you. Thank you, California. Thank you, Gay and Lesbian community. Thank you, Congresswoman Pat Schroeder. Thank you, Aretha Franklin, God.
I am here tonight because of one man's courage and conviction, one man's dedication and daring and yes, one man's true kindness. He's my boss, Bill Clinton. (Applause)


You see, I have AIDS. I could be an African American woman, a Latino man, a 10-year old boy or girl. AIDS has many faces. And AIDS knows no class or gender, race or religion, or sexual orientation. AIDS does not discriminate, but George Bush's White House does. (Applause)
AIDS is a disease of the Reagan-Bush years. The first case was detected in 1981, but it took 40,000 deaths and seven years for Ronald Reagan to say the word "AIDS." It's five years later, 70,000 more dead and George Bush doesn't talk about AIDS, much less do anything about it.
Eight years from now there will be 2 million cases in America. If George Bush wins, we're all at risk in America. It's that simple. It's that serious. It's that terrible. (Applause)
(Chants of "No second term!")

This is hard. I'm a Gay man with AIDS and if there's any honor in having this disease it's because it's an honor being part of the Gay and Lesbian community in America. (Applause)
We have watched our friends and lovers die, but we have not given up hope. Gay men and Lesbians created community health clinics, provided educational materials, opened food kitchens, and held the hands of the dying in hospices. The Gay and Lesbian community is an American family in the best sense of the word. (Applause)

President Bush, we are a million points of light; you are just too morally blind to see us. Mr. President, you don't see AIDS for what it is - it's a crisis in public health that demands medical experts, not moral judges - and it's time to move beyond your politics of denial, division and death. It's time to move George Bush out of the White House. (Applause)

We need a President who will take action, a President strong enough to take on the insurance companies that drop people with the HIV virus, a President courageous enough to take on the drug companies who drive AIDS patients into poverty and deny them lifesaving medicine. And we need a President who isn't terrified of the word "condom." (Applause)

Every single person with AIDS is someone worthy of caring for. After all, we are your sons and daughters, fathers and mothers. We are doctors and lawyers, folks in the military, ministers and priests and rabbis. We are Democrats, and yes, Mr. President, Republicans. We are part of the American family and, Mr. President, your family has AIDS and we're dying and you're doing nothing about it. (Applause)

Listen. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. But I don't want to live in an America where the President sees me as the enemy. I can face dying because of a disease, but not because of politics.

So I stand here tonight in support of Bill Clinton, a man who sees the value in each and every member of the American family. And although I am a person with AIDS, I am a person with hope, because I know how different my life and all our lives could be if I could call my boss Mr. President.

Martin Luther King once said that our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. Fifty thousands people took to the streets in New York today because they will no longer be silent about AIDS. (Applause)

Their actions give me hope. All of you came here tonight; millions more are watching in America. Obviously, we have hope and hope gives me the chance of life. I think it's really important to understand that this year, more than any other year, we must vote as if our life depends on it. Mine does; your could - and we all have so much to live for. Thank you.
(Standing ovation)


Act Up. Fight Back. Fight AIDS. Thank you.

Queer 101: A Guide for Heteros

Conservative Americans may demonize gay people -- but how much do progressives really know about queer culture?

As last November's election neared and a Democratic victory appeared more and more likely, Republicans warned that Speaker Pelosi would impose her "San Francisco values" on average Americans. Americans to the right of the left coast felt in their gut that San Francisco values were a shameful thing, without really knowing what they were. If you remember that difference is good, you will strive to maintain American diversity while you also tend to the social safety net. In fact, many Americans fall through the cracks of government policies because those policies rely on legislators' limited guesses about who people are and what they need.
The lover of difference does not believe that all Americans do, or should, share the same set of values and habits. Who knows, if more Americans let go of their terror of the unknown, they might begin to find their own queerdom -- and find it both a liberating and meaningful way to connect with others.

Click on the title above for Cameron Scott's interesting piece for AlterNet or the link below

http://alternet.org/sex/48474/

Mexican Pop Star Outs Himself

A 22-year-old pop star's announcement that he is gay, making him the first high-profile member of Mexico's show-business elite to "come out" in public, has caused a stir in the deeply conservative Catholic country. Christian Chavez, one of six members of the glitzy pop band RBD, told fans he was gay after photographs were published on a gossip Web site purporting to show him tying the knot with his partner in a ceremony in Canada.

First Combat Injured in Iraq Asks End To "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

Defending His Country,

but Not Its 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Policy

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Once a Marine, always a Marine. That pretty much sums up the life of retired Sgt. Eric Alva, who was sworn into the Marine Corps at 19, stationed in Somalia and Japan and lost his right leg when he stepped on a land mine on March 21, 2003, the first day of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
As the war's first injured soldier, Alva was an instant celebrity. He was on "Oprah." President Bush awarded him the Purple Heart. Donald Rumsfeld visited. And strangers in Alva's native San Antonio still insist on paying for his dinner at Chili's. Last fall Alva, 36, contacted the Human Rights Campaign, the gay rights group, and asked to be involved in its lobbying effort. Today he'll stand alongside Rep. Martin Meehan (D-Mass.) when he introduces a bill to repeal the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy on gay, lesbian and bisexual military personnel.

Q. Why didn't you come out sooner?

A.Eventually my notoriety -- "the injured soldier" -- will wear off. And I can almost hear it now -- "Oh, yeah, he's that gay Marine." I'm okay with that. The truth is, something's wrong with this ban. I have to say something. I mean, you're asking men and women to lie about their orientation, to keep their personal lives private, so they can defend the rights and freedoms of others in this country, and be told, "Well, oh, yeah, if you ever decide to really meet someone of the same sex and you want the same rights, sorry, buddy, you don't have the right." That's one factor. The other factor is, we're losing probably thousands of men and women that are skilled at certain types of jobs, from air traffic controllers to linguists, because of this broken policy.

Q.You come from a military family?

I come from a family of servicemen. My dad, Fidelis, is a Vietnam vet. My grandfather, also named Fidelis, was a World War II and Korean War veteran. I was named after them. My middle name is Fidelis. Fidelis means "always faithful."

Q. What does sexual orientation -- gay, straight, bisexual -- have to do with being a soldier? A Marine?

First, thanks for recognizing that I am a Marine. Second, to answer your question, I have tons and tons of friends that were in the military at the time who knew I was gay because I confided in them. Everybody had the same reaction: "What's the big deal?" . . . The respect was still there. Your job is what you're doing at its best. Your personal life, your private life, is something you do after work. What's funny is, when I was based in San Diego, Calif., people would go to a gay club and everyone would have a haircut like mine. They had their dog tags on. But come Monday morning, nobody talked about it, nobody dealt with it, everybody was back to work.

Q. So when you were applying to be a Marine in 1990, before "Don't ask, don't tell" was implemented, the application asked for your sexual orientation?

It did.

Q. What did you put down?

I lied, I lied. The lying is what I hated most -- why I had to do it, why I had to keep on doing it, the toll it took on me.

Q. You're wearing a wedding band. What do you tell people when they ask you about your wife?

That happens all the time. It just happened on my way here to Washington, waiting on the plank as I boarded a plane. This very nice woman next to me said she recognized me. She looked at my ring and asked about my wife. I told her I have a partner. His name is Darrell. She paused and said, "Good for you."

Link to Human Rights Campaign site: http://www.hrc.org/alva/