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A federal judge annuled the marriage of two gay men that took place in Buenos Aires last week, according to the Catholic News Agency; but gay marriage bills are still moving ahead in Argentina.  Judge Felix Gustavo de Igarzabal of Buenos Aires ruled that marriage is defined by being between a man and a woman – and since both parties were men, no marriage took place. This reversed an earlier decision allowing two gay men to marry at the city’s civil registry office on March 3. The Argentine congress is currently considering two bills that would legalize marriage equality. Some polls have shown that up to 70 percent of Argentinians support gay marriage. The Argentine Supreme Court is also currently hearing two cases on gay marriage. The Justice Minister is on record as favoring a gender neutral marriage law, as is former president Nestor Kirchner. Two men were legally wed in the province of Tierra del Fuego in December, after the governor ordered the civil registry office to perform and register their marriage. Cohabitating same-sex couples have the right to collect the pensions of their deceased partners in Argentina and gay prisoners can receive conjugal visits. Civil unions are recognized in four jurisdictions in Argentina, including Buenos Aires.

(Paris) The latest show at Paris’ Quai Branly museum comes with a warning for visitors: “This exhibition of Moche ceramics shows sexual acts of an explicit nature.”

But the extraordinary and graphic testimonial of the ancient Moche civilization of Peru isn’t about physical pleasure or procreation, according to the curator.

He says the sexual acts evoke the rituals that accompanied the death of dignitaries, and the human sacrifices that went with them. They tell a story about the power of the elite that he says has parallels with modern life.

“Sex, death and sacrifice in the Moche religion,” which opened this week and runs until May 23, brings to Europe for the first time 134 erotic Moche ceramics on loan from the Larco Museum in Lima, Peru.

The Moche lived on what is now the northern coast of Peru between the first and eighth centuries. The ancient Andean people belonged to one of the first societies to organize itself in way that would be recognized as a state, constructing cities with elaborate monuments and specialized centers for the production of textiles, metal and ceramics.

Their culture is on display at the anthropological Quai Branly museum, whose recent exhibits include an exploration of the Teotihuacan people of ancient Mexico and a tribute to African literature and culture.

The visitor to the Moche show is asked to look beyond the graphic nature of the exhibits, such as the outsize penis used for pouring liquids, or the grimacing woman being forced to perform oral sex.

Some of the acts are disturbing and violent – but not in the provocative fashion of pornography or some modern artists.

They don’t reflect scenes from ordinary Moche life, the exhibition explains.

Curator Steve Bourget, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin who has made his career studying the Moche, says he believes they were part of ritual or sacrificial ceremonies – bloodthirsty and wild though strictly controlled affairs.

Some of the ceramics are almost anatomical – the Moche artists have made clear, often in minute detail, the nature of the acts they are depicting.

That may be because the artists were making what Bourget says is an important distinction between vaginal intercourse, which is rarely shown, and other forms of sex.

Vaginal sex is usually performed by a supernatural being called Wrinkle Face – which Bourget believes makes it associated with the afterlife.

Non-vaginal intercourse often involves women engaging in sex with skeletal beings or sacrificial victims, seen as inhabiting a place between this world and the next.

As such Bourget believes the sexual acts are linked to a ritual inversion of order which takes place during funerary or sacrificial rituals associated with the transition into the other world.

“How do you go back from being dead into going in another form of life?” he told The Associated Press during a visit this week. “All the cultures have problems with that.”

Both an anthropologist and an archaeologist, he says its only possible to understand such a long-gone culture because “I eat the Moche, I sleep the Moche, I talk to the Moche.”

It’s a relationship that seems to be working out for him.

“The Gods of the Moche seem to like me so they keep letting me find stuff,” he says.

Fifteen years ago he discovered the broken and sex-sated bones of male warriors who’d lain for centuries in a massive sacrificial site.

After the first bodies were discovered, it took archaeologists several days to work out what they had found, but the cut marks on the throats, on the vertebrae, on the neck bones gave it away.

He also found outfits, textiles, and objects similar to those depicted in the ceramics, after which “it’s only a small step” to imagine them performing the sexual rituals.

Originally interpreted as evidence of a decadent culture, Bourget says the sexual acts should be seen as a visual discourse on the power of the Moche elite.

It’s a story that has parallels with modern debates from the burqa to the death penalty.

“All state societies be they French, be they American, be they any, are by definition violent systems,” Bourget said.

“The state gives itself the right to kill, to put people in jail, to control them.”

In places where the ideological pole is strongest – from the Moche sacrifices through Ancient Rome to modern day Texas – the state tries to magnify its power through ritualized violence.

He says the Moche religion is not the only one to seek to control sexuality. The burqa is a form of control, as is the Catholic aversion to condoms, he says.

“You control sexuality, you control access to it, and in the process you give yourself power over groups, over people and you embed this power into values and you disseminate the values as being part of the population,” he says.

“The population accept this because they believe its part of their values. They don’t think they are being controlled.”

(Munich) German educators sharply criticized Catholic church officials for their handling of a spiraling child abuse scandal even as more alledged victims came forward Thursday, including a former member of the all-boys choir led by the pope’s brother.

The uproar came a day before Germany’s highest bishop was to meet Pope Benedict XVI in Rome.

Germany’s top education representative, Ludwig Spaenle, blasted the church for failing to report cases of physical and sexual abuse in a timely fashion.

“Internal church guidelines as well as school authority directives to report criminal offenses instantly have been circumvented,” Spaenle, who is president of Germany’s 16 education ministers, was quoted as saying by the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper. Church officials need to put “everything on the table.”

Spaenle and his colleagues set up a task force to come up with a new strategy against sexual abuse in schools.

“For us there is ‘zero tolerance’ for the perpetrators,” he said in a statement Thursday.

At least 170 former students from Catholic schools in Germany have come forward with claims of sexual abuse recently and others have spoken of physical abuse.

Wolfgang Blaschka, a 52-year-old graphic designer, told The Associated Press that corporate punishment was the rule, not the exception, when he was a student at the Etterzhausen school just outside Regensburg.

“It was a climate of terror and oppression,” he told the AP, saying one principal grabbed him by the hair and “lifted me into the air.”

Blaschka spent two years at the school before joining the prestigious Regensburger Domspatzen Choir in 1968, which was led by the Rev. Georg Ratzinger, the pope’s brother, from 1964-1994.

“The misery was right in front of his door. He must have known,” said Blaschka, who added that Ratzinger himself hit him.

“I myself have been slapped in the face by him,” he said. “He wasn’t a sadist, but he was obsessed with music.”

The scandal has clearly shaken the Vatican. On Friday, Pope Benedict XVI meets with Robert Zollitsch, the head of the German Bishops Conference, just weeks after he summoned Irish bishops to Rome to hear about the Irish abuse cases. The pope has not commented personally on the German scandal.

On Wednesday, the Vatican’s U.N. envoy dedicated his entire speech to a U.N. meeting on children’s rights to the matter of sexual abuse of minors. Archbishop Silvano Tomasi insisted that protecting the young was “high on the agenda” of all church institutions, as was providing assistance to victims.

But he seemed to imply the church was not entirely at fault, saying what was needed to prevent more abuse was a “culture of respect of the human rights and human dignity of every child” – and improved screening for caregivers and teachers.

Petra Dorsch-Jungsberger, a former Munich communications professor who specializes in church matters, said everyone in Germany was waiting for the pope come forward and offer guidance. She said Benedict might be facing the greatest moral issue for the Roman Catholic Church since World War II.

“He is standing with his back against the wall,” Dorsch-Jungsberger told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

The Roman Catholic Church has been hit by years of sexual abuse claims in the United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia and other countries. Yet the German abuse allegations are particularly sensitive because Germany is the pope’s homeland and because some of the scandals involve the choir that the pope’s brother, the Rev. Georg Ratzinger, led for 30 years.

Dorsch-Jungsberger said it’s likely that more details will emerge about the abuse cases in Germany.

“This issue is not at its end by a long shot,” she said. “We can expect a few surprises.”

• Today was supposed to be a new start for Chile. The new President, Sebastian Pinera, was being sworn in as a 7.2 magnitude aftershock hit the center of the country. Although very few reports of the extent of the damage have come in thus far, it’s a reminder for all of us this morning of the devastation both Haiti and Chile have experienced over the last month. It’s an important thought as we begin today’s watercooler.

• But, though there is more bad news to come, we can always distract ourselves with a little reality TV gossip. I am not a huge television fan, but I have caught a couple episodes of the Millionaire Matchmaker and the show, while keeping my jaw on the floor with all its ridiculous antics, is pretty entertaining. It also has recently branched out into bisexual set-ups. Now, the set up was extremely awkward, but look at the advice the “therapist” gave the millionaire woman:

Tricia: To me it’s not if you’re female or male, but if you’re a good person.
Dr. Nikki: So here you are at this potentially new stage of your life. What you want to do is be authentic. Is my authentic desire to be with a woman? Then I want to learn to do that. Or I want to be open to do that. And that includes all your feelings, your hopes, your dreams, your fantasies. And I think it’s brave. And I think it’s wondrous that you’re opening to this possibility.

Pretty amazing stuff for “reality” if you ask me.

• It’s too bad that actual reality is a lot less progressive. At least if you live in Mississippi. A student at a Miss. high school tried to bring her girlfriend, also a student at the school, to her high school prom. The school was so outraged, they have canceled the entire prom rather than risk allowing a gay couple to attend. The ACLU is on the case, but the student will likely not see any positive results for years.

• As some of you may remember, I was an avid watcher of “I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here.” One key member of that show’s cast was Speidi. Actually it’s two people, Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt. Well, Heidi has announced the death of Speidi. In case you are going to take a moment to mourn, don’t bother. A new member of the Speidi extravaganza has arrived: psychic Aiden Chase will be Heidi’s new manager. I can’t wait to see what Chase’s first move is…

• And, because who wants to end the day on a sad note, we can celebrate a recent move made by the Governor of Virginia. The Governor overrode a piece of advice issued by Republican Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli stating that University’s in the state had no right to prohibit discrimination against LGBT students. Thankfully, the Governor has some decency and common sense and quickly moved to contradict the ridiculous abuse of legal power exercised by the AG.

See, aren’t you smiling now?

Last night, the New York Times’ gay and lesbian affinity employee group hosted a Q&A session with Prop 8 superlawyers David Boies and Ted Olson.

I saw Joe Sudbay from Joe.My.God and Paul Schindler from Gay City News there – also Andy Towle and Corey Jonson from Towleroad (go there for a great interview with the lawyers), as well as representatives from the local offices of most of our major gay organizations, the wonderful David Mixner, and many, many Times employees (including publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who sat in front of me).

Olsen and Boies were amazing – articulate, warm, witty, thoughtful. Everything they seemed to be in the courtroom. What did they talk about? They were interviewed by NYT Supreme Court reporter Adam Liptak and so were asked some tough questions.

There was the usual fare: How did this unusual partnership come about (they’re old friends; Olsen, who defended Bush in Bush v. Gore, thought this was an important issue that bridged the Republican/Democrat divide and so asked Boies – who defended Gore – to join); Is this the right moment for the case, considering the makeup of the Supreme Court (there was going to be a case brought anyway and they have the resources to do it right).

Needless to say, both lawyers are super confident that they will win the current, district-level case, the appellate case – and even the Supreme Court.

But there were three things that surprised me.

Liptak asked if the Supreme Court ruling about not videotaping and broadcasting the Prop 8 trial said anything about how the Justices would rule in the final case, or how they felt about the judge.

No, Olsen said. It’s just that the Supreme Court is very shy about having cameras in THEIR court room and they feared that allowing these cameras in a constitutional case would make it very hard for them to avoid cameras in their own court.

But instead of saying that, they sided with the Prop 8 backers who said they feared intimidation were they to be videotaped. That decision, Olsen said, was “fundamentally wrong.” First of all, all Prop 8 witnesses were videotaped in deposition – Olsen and Boies are free to post those tapes to the web, and may do so. Second, all the pro-Prop 8 witnesses were people who had made speeches, given money, and generally made themselves into public figures.

The second  [and more important] thing that surprised me: Olsen and Boies believe that this case can have no bad outcome.

 If the Supreme Court rules against us, they said, the Justices are likely to decide that whether gay marriage is permitted should be left up to the states.

And the third – and most surprising  – thing:

Boies and Olsen believe that this case will be decided by the Supreme Court by fall 2011.

I’m working on getting the video of the event – if that comes through, I’ll post it here. In the meantime, here are a couple more photos, all courtesy of Sara Krulwich from The New York Times.

 

 

As many of you know, New York State Senator Hiram Monserrate is a worm. There is that misdemeanor assault conviction against his girlfriend, getting booted out of the state Senate, and his ability to compare himself to murdered civil rights workers.

And who can forget his efforts to make Albany more dysfunctional than it already is, and his vote against marriage equality? Who supports such a man? People who are proudly spreading an anti-gay ad in area churches. The fliers tell folk to give their vote to the worm in next week’s special election; the ads also describe Democratic rival Assemblyman Jose Peralta as a pawn of “mega-rich gay fanatics.” Please don’t ask if  Monserrate denounced the rhetoric. He hasn’t. Why should he? A worm loves  muck and mire.

But don’t worry. Fight Back New York is  making Monserrate its first target. The PAC, committed to getting rid of state senators who voted against gay marriage, released an ad with Cynthia Nixon. The actress gives a brief history of last year’s state Senate vote and argues that after trying the carrot, it’s time we use a stick. Not a bad idea. Head over to the site and see what you can do to help.

As for Monserrate, hopefully voters in his district send the worm into the political sunset.

(Richmond, Va.) Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has directed state agencies not to discriminate against gay people, essentially overriding the state attorney general’s advice to colleges.

McDonnell’s directive Wednesday came amid a public uproar over Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli’s letter last week telling public colleges they lack the authority to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. Cuccinelli told colleges to rescind or change any anti-discrimination policies that include protection for gay people.

The Republican attorney general’s letter was denounced by gay-rights groups and Democrats. In the letter, Cuccinelli said colleges can’t include gays in their anti-discrimination policies without General Assembly authorization.

I am not a girlie-girl. Not by any means. Aside from girl parts and long hair, most of my traits are pretty boyish. Or boi-ish. I don’t wear pink. I don’t carry a purse (unless you count a messenger bag). I don’t wear skirts. And I don’t know how to walk in high heels.

But Miss Vera’s Finishing School for Boys Who Want to be Girls in Manhattan is helping my butch self connect with my inner femininity.

I called the school a couple weeks ago with plans to watch a class at Miss Vera’s. But she wouldn’t stand for it.

“No, everyone takes the class,” she told me. “You’ll have to bring a pair of high heels.”

“But I don’t even know what size I wear in girl shoes,” I complained. Heels in my mind are associated with pain. So I try not to keep a pair on hand.

“What size are you?” she asked.

“Six and a half in boys,” I told her sheepishly.

Pause.

“Get an 8,” she said. “You can get a cheap pair at Payless.”

Monday night, with my $12.99 shoes hidden discreetly in my messenger bag, I headed to the Midtown studio for class. I’d selected a slightly wider heel, to ensure maximum stability. While I have no problem walking on stilts – really – a stiletto heel was out of the question.

The class meets monthly and costs $49 per session, but I paid a discounted press rate. The classes range in size but average around eight people and include both what Vera calls “bio femmes” and transgender folks who are learning to walk gracefully in heels. Miss Vera’s Academy also offers a range of other classes, including voice, makeup, etiquette, modeling, dining out and dance. And while it’s not exactly in the course listing, what graduates leave the school with is confidence in themselves and acceptance about who they are.

“It’s my way of being political,” Vera said.

In the studio, the sound of clicking heels reverberates against the wood floor. Instructor Maryanne Byington, the school’s dean of high heels, is putting on her skirt and heels. With a background in competitive ballroom dancing, she is a master of balance, poise and grace – three things I lack.

The confirmation letter from the academy said to come in anything from “drag to drab.” My classmates Rita, Misty and Clair took the drag route – each dressed in a skirt or dress. I wore slacks.

“We have to be able to see your ankles,” Vera told me. I rolled my pants up.

“Walking with heels is more head to toe than just feet,” Boyington said as class began. “Standing well is going to be the best aid to walking in heels.”

Standing in line, we practiced moving our hips left to right, then standing coyly on one foot. I noted my trouble finding my hips, but Boyington assured me I did have them.

Under Byington’s direction, we walked in circles, turning our toes out, one foot in front of the other. Good posture was key to providing the right balance. With each stride, we learned to adjust our weight to make our hips sway.

“Your body should float quietly above your legs,” she told us. She noted my feet did not offer that same quietness.

“Ruth, you’re getting there,” she encouraged. “But you’re getting there with a thud.” (Any of my exes can tell you that thud is my signature. You can always hear me coming downstairs.)

“It’s hard depending on the shoe. But you should try to not land with a thud,” she said.

As the class progressed, we learned to sit properly in a chair.

“The key is keeping your knees together,” Byington said.

We learned how to get into a cab, how to walk down steps and how to make an entrance.

“Show them how fabulous you are,” Byington said.

I gave it my best. After class, and back in my regular dress shoes, I still found myself gliding across the sidewalk with a new level of grace I didn’t think I had a few hours before.

Asked whether it was harder to teach men or butch girls to walk in heels, Byington said, “neither. It’s just different.” – it is about learning to know how the body works.

I’m sure mine will continue to thud, but next time I get all girlied up, I’ll definitely be more confident in my own shoes. And, in the end, that is what Miss Vera’s academy is all about.

(Washington) Hundreds of couples applied for marriage licenses in Washington during the first week they were available to same-sex couples.

Courthouse spokeswoman Leah Gurowitz says the 466 applications received from both gay and straight couples is much higher than the 50 or so applications normally received in a week.

Couples can pick up their license three business days after applying. Tuesday was the first day couples could pick up their licenses and actually marry in the city. The district Council approved a bill making gay marriage legal late last year.

New York City police are investigating the beating of a 22-year-old man in Brooklyn on March 2 as an anti-gay hate crime.

The man was attacked by five other men and suffered cuts on the back of the head and bruises on the face, said WPIX.com news. During the assault, the men used anti-gay slurs.

“I was appalled and sickened to learn of last weeks anti-LGBT hate crime , said New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is a lesbian. “New York City’s greatest strength is our diversity.  All New Yorkers should be free to walk our streets without fear of being attacked for who they are or who they are perceived to be.”

“The victim of last weeks attack was simply walking on the street when he was beaten by a group of men while being called anti-gay epithets.  This is outrageous and unacceptable,” she added.

 This week, we talked to Michael Urie from Ugly Betty, Thomas Jay Ryan, and Nick Westrate about the shows they’re currently appearing in about the gays.

That’s right! What’s better than an historical play that focuses on gay men? TWO historical plays that focus on gay men! Also, Christmas. This week on Logo Drama Club, we chilled with the casts of “The Boys in the Band” and “The Temperamentals,” two plays currently running in New York.

The Boys in the Band is being staged in a renovated loft space that The Transport Group has turned into an “apartment” of sorts with the audience sitting inches from the action. Meanwhile, The Temperamentals has recently moved from a smaller theater to its new home at New World Stages. Meanwhile, I’ve recently moved into both of these cast’s lives to talk to them about their current show. And I’m staying for a while.

 

Gay music and video from NewNowNext.com

* Rev up your Kindles everybody. Scott Brown is writing a book says Daily Intel. His plan is to focus on “his background, his early career, and his ascent to the office of Massachusetts senator.” Hopefully, his “descent to the dirty pages of Cosmo” will also get a chapter.

* Last night, Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) and Glenn Beck produced the most fascinating hour of television. Fascinating in a 10 car pile up sort of way. Massa continued to plead his innocence of any sexual harassment saying, “Not only did I grope him, I tickled him until he couldn’t breathe.” Not really helping your case buddy. Massa then went on to detail a steamy shower room encounter with Rahm Emanuel. Check it out:

* DON’T WORRY. There definitely has NOT been a compromise reached on the topic of abortion coverage in health care reform. Bart Stupak went out of this way to make sure you were aware of this by clarifying, “Everyone’s going around saying there’s a compromise – there’s no such thing.” I’m not sure that many people had jumped to the conclusion that a compromise had been reached in Washington, but thanks for clearing that up, Bart!

* 31 life-sized statues are being installed on rooftops and sidewalks across New York’s flatiron district as a new public art installation. The installation is called Event Horizon and the artist is attempting to “play with the city and people’s perceptions.”

* U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts said yesterday that Barack Obama’s comments about the Supreme Court at the State of the Union were “very troubling” and that the speech had “degenerated into a political pep rally.” Obama used this year’s State of the Union to criticize the court’s recent decision to allow corporations and special interests to spend money freely on political ads.

* Newsweek editor, Jon Meacham, is in negotiations to host his own television show which will air on Friday night’s and will be called, “Need to Know.” Mr. Meacham won a Pulitzer last year for “American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House.”

* Did Anderson Cooper take his boyfriend to the Vanity Fair Oscars party? Is it just me or is the Coop slowly easing one silver fox foot out of the closet at a time.

* Finally, Jon Stewart analyzed some anti-gay going ons in the great state of Virginia:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c Gaywatch – Virginia Edition www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show
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DAVID GREGORY!!

(Johannesburg) Cuts in donor funding could cause an HIV “nightmare,” the United Nations’ AIDS agency chief warned Monday.

Michel Sidibe appealed to government and private donors to keep investing in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an international financing institution. He said that cuts in donations will decrease the availability of free or subsidized life-saving drugs to African patients.

An estimated 94 percent of patients on anti-retroviral treatment in Africa count on external donor funds to provide their medications, Sidibe said.

“If we stop now, if we reduce the financing, the people who are on treatment today … we will transform their hope for universal access into a universal nightmare, because they will start dying,” Sidibe told The Associated Press Monday.

In South Africa, 920,000 people are currently receiving anti-retroviral treatment, just over half of the 1.7 million who need the drugs. New policies which will expand the reach of the program announced by South African President Jacob Zuma in December 2009 will also require increased financial resources.

South African Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said the country’s HIV treatment program is heavily dependent on external donor funding. An estimated 5.7 million South Africans are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, more than any other country.

The Global Fund’s “Results Report”, released Monday, described the substantial advances that have been made in AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria prevention and treatment since the fund’s establishment eight years ago, including the possible elimination of mother-to-child HIV transmission by 2015.

“It is also now possible to imagine a world with no more malaria deaths,” said Michel D. Kazatchkine, the Global Fund’s executive director. In addition, tuberculosis prevalence in many countries is declining, and the Global Fund believes this could be halved by 2015. However, it cautions that the achievement of these goals is only possible if health programs receive increased investments as planned.

The Global Fund will meet in The Hague, Netherlands, on March 24 to examine how it can meet its goals eliminating or reducing instances of the three diseases by 2015. The group will present donor countries with three public health scenarios, based on amounts of funding ranging from $13-20 billion, for the period 2011-2013.

In October this year, the Global Fund will ask donors for financial contributions during its conference in New York. This will be the third time since the fund was established in 2002 that donors are being asked to replenish their finances. There is concern that the global economic downturn could negatively impact the funding commitments made by donor countries.

“The world’s investments are clearly making a difference,” Sidibe said, “but without a fully funded Global Fund, we would be putting the lives of millions of people currently on treatment in jeopardy.”

Remember a few weeks back when Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage, and blogger Andrew Sullivan went toe to toe at a  Cato Institute seminar? The organization’s president said out gays and lesbians worked for it. She declined to name names at the time, but we thought it would be a great story/interview. Gays and lesbians working for NOM, an organization fighting hard against gay marriage? Who wouldn’t want to write about that? After some emails and a phone call to  NOM’s press person, who was polite and professional, Gallagher “declined to comment.”

I’m not one to tell the other side how to sell its ideas, but if I were her the  gays and lesbians allegedly working for NOM would be playing point. Can you think of a more effective photo-op against gay marriage than gays standing shoulder to shoulder with Gallagher?

Gallagher could have simply been forgetful with the truth when discussing the deep ties NOM has with LGBT peoples, but no need to take it there. Last week the folk over at Box Turtle pointed to at least one gay guy who agrees with the group.  His name is David Benkof, a/k/a David Bianco, and from Box Turtle’s account it’s understandable why NOM hasn’t picked him as their spokes-gay-guy.  He has trouble quoting people accurately….and other “issues” (yeah, I’m being polite).

Well if you are reading this Ms. Gallagher, the offer remains. We’ll gladly talk to you and your gay fans.

(Providence, RI) Mayor David Cicilline, an openly gay man, claims he has cleaned up Providence after the corruption of his predecessor, but his family relationships and connection to a former staffer could raise new questions about his reformer credentials.

His father is a mafia lawyer. His brother just got out of federal prison after serving time for a courthouse corruption scheme. Now, his former police driver, the husband of his longtime executive assistant, has been arrested as part of a state police bust of a cocaine dealing ring that also netted two other Providence police officers.

The bust comes as the Democratic mayor – the ultimate successor to Mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci, whose 2002 federal corruption conviction forced him to resign – is running to replace Rep. Patrick Kennedy in Congress. Cicilline says he believes voters will understand the criminal behavior of his brother and the allegations surrounding the police department are not connected to him.

“I have full confidence that voters will make judgments about me based on my experience,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

But Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University, said the news of Thursday’s bust makes Cicilline’s job that much harder at a time when voters don’t trust elected officials.

“Even though he may be completely clean here, it’s an additional burden for him because he’s running for an election in an environment of high skepticism and doubt,” she said.

Kennedy said last month he would not run for re-election to represent the 1st Congressional District, which stretches from the state’s urban core in the north, and south through more affluent suburban towns down to Newport. Cicilline and former Democratic Party Chairman Bill Lynch soon jumped into the race, joining the sole Republican, state Rep. John Loughlin.

Cicilline, 48, was elected the city’s first openly gay mayor shortly after longtime mayor Cianci was convicted in a federal investigation into widespread corruption at City Hall.

Cicilline attended Brown University, where he co-founded the Brown Democrats with John F. Kennedy, Jr., and others, and got a law degree from Georgetown University. He became a criminal defense attorney like his father, John F. “Jack” Cicilline, and brother, John M. Cicilline.

The elder Cicilline is one of the state’s top criminal lawyers and has defended some of New England’s most notorious mobsters, including the late godfather Raymond L.S. Patriarca, whose family controlled organized crime in New England for decades. Jack Cicilline was acquitted in 1985 of coaxing a witness to lie.

John M. Cicilline was sentenced in 2008 to 18 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to shaking down drug-dealing clients. He has since been disbarred and was recently released from prison.

The mayor’s brother’s actions in another case raised questions about the mayor’s own conduct. The brother wrote the city a check for $75,000 to cover a client’s tax bills, but the check was returned for insufficient funds. The mayor has said he didn’t know about it at the time, but his former chief of staff told investigators that the mayor instructed him in 2006 to “see what you can do to resolve it.”

The mayor says his brother’s actions have been talked about “ad nauseam,” and while he loves him, he has always condemned what he did.

“I’m not responsible for the behavior of a sibling,” he said.

Cicilline has condemned the officers arrested, calling them “three rogue officers.” One, Stephen Gonsalves, is accused of attempting to arrange cocaine buys for his own use, and worked as part of Cicilline’s security team after he was first elected mayor in 2002.

Gonsalves was reassigned after about a year-and-a-half, Cicilline said, and there were no problems with him as a driver. The mayor says the two did not have a social relationship, although he did walk Gonsalves’ wife, Cicilline’s assistant, Xiomara, down the aisle when the two were married.

The mayor said he did not know about Gonsalves’ alleged drug use.

Questions about the relationships could drag him down a bit with voters, but most aren’t going to condemn him for the actions of those around him, said M. Charles Bakst, retired longtime political columnist for The Providence Journal.

“It’s baggage. It doesn’t mean it can’t be overcome,” he said.

What may be difficult for Cicilline to overcome is the particular problems of being mayor of Providence, which has several failing public schools and high property taxes, Bakst said.

“A number of people outside of Providence look at Providence as sort of a den of iniquity. Any mayor that’s running’s going to put up with that,” he said.

In Cicilline’s favor are his ties to interest groups. He is gay, Italian and Jewish, and he can tap those groups for national fundraising, Bakst said.

Cicilline’s opponent for the Democratic nomination has so far stayed away from trying to connect Cicilline to the troubles of people surrounding him. When asked Friday to comment on whether the arrests put the mayor in a bad light, Lynch’s spokesman, Bill Fischer, said, “We’re not going to go there today.”

Cicilline says he’s focused on assembling a campaign team and getting out into the district to hear from voters. He’s touting his work reforming the city’s schools, making efforts to attract high-paying jobs, and other initiatives.

“My responsibility is to talk about the work that I’ve done as mayor,” he said. “What people are looking at is who has the experience and the skills and the passion and determination to fight for hardworking middle class families.”

(New York) Annie Leibovitz, the photographer who mismanaged her fortune so badly that she faced losing legal rights to some of pop culture’s most enduring images, has reached a long-term agreement with a private investment firm to help manage her debt and market her vast portfolio, both sides said Tuesday.

Leibovitz, 60, will retain total control of her multimillion-dollar portfolio under the deal she signed with Colony Capital LLC of Santa Monica, Calif., on Monday, said Richard Nanula, a principal with the firm.

Under the agreement, Colony will become the photographer’s sole creditor and help market her archive of such provocative images as a nude John Lennon cuddling with a clothed Yoko Ono hours before his death, as well as a nude and very pregnant Demi Moore.

Leibovitz obtained an extension last year to repay a $24 million loan to a Manhattan firm, Art Capital Group, in a financial dispute that had threatened her rights to those images and others.

The specific terms of the new deal were not disclosed, but Nanula said “it pays off all the Art Capital loan. … It cleans up the rest of her balance sheet.”

The Colony loan also contains more than $20 million of real estate collateral, Nanula added – Leibovitz’s three Manhattan town houses. The Art Capital loan was repaid Monday, he said.

Art Capital confirmed the repayment and said in a statement that it “is pleased to announce that its loan to Annie Leibovitz has been satisfied. We are encouraged by the results of this complex transaction and wish Ms. Leibovitz the best in all of her future endeavors.”

“It’s long-term in nature,” Nanula said of the partnership with Leibovitz. “Our interest is in helping her be successful and to be her financial partner.”

“Colony is a dedicated and creative team,” Leibovitz said in a statement. “We will be working on new projects, and I will have the support and freedom necessary for nurturing my work and preserving my archive.”

“Colony Capital, LLC has formed a new partnership with Annie Leibovitz, one of world’s greatest portrait photographers,” the firm said in a statement. “We are delighted to be able to do that here by partnering with Ms. Leibovitz in a business relationship that allows her to continue to flourish as an artist while together we seek opportunities to enhance the value of the magnificent body of work she has created over the past 40 years.”

Those opportunities, Nanula said, could involve traveling exhibitions of Leibovitz’s works, books and fine-art copies of her photographs.

He stressed that any commercialization of her work would be decided by Leibovitz and that Colony would be her financial partner in any such venture.

Leibovitz’s portfolio is estimated to contain more than 100,000 images and 1 million negatives.

“It’s one of the most valuable and unexploited” photo archives, Nanula said.

The deal between Colony and Leibovitz was first reported in the Financial Times on Tuesday.

Colony Capital is a global firm that focuses primarily on real estate-related assets, securities and operating companies. Last year, it purchased a loan with a face value of $23.5 million on Michael Jackson’s Neverland in California, giving it the rights to the late singer’s nearly 3,000-acre property.

In the course of her 40-year career, Leibovitz’s lens has captured such famous faces as Queen Elizabeth II and Bruce Springsteen, many for the covers of Vanity Fair, Vogue and Rolling Stone.

In 2008, Leibovitz put up as collateral the three town houses, an upstate New York property and the copyright to her images to secure the Art Capital loan to repay debt that the firm said stemmed from mortgage obligations, tax liens and unpaid bills.

Art Capital, an independent provider of financing for the art world, agreed at the time it extended the repayment on the loan to sell back the rights to her works.

(Havana) Looking in the mirror used to make Yiliam Gonzalez sick to her stomach.

“I would see myself, and my body didn’t match who I was,” said the 28-year-old wedding pianist, who went by William before receiving a sex change under Cuba’s universal health care system.

Gonzalez is living proof of a small but remarkable transformation for the rugged revolution of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and a band of ever-macho, bearded rebels, who long punished gays and transsexuals – but now are paying for sex changes.

Standing six feet (183 centimeters) tall, with shoulder-length blonde hair, heavy makeup and an ID card still bearing a man’s name, Gonzalez underwent the procedure in 2008. She was one of eight Cubans to do so through a program begun in 1988 – then suspended for two decades, after many complained the communist government had better ways to spend its scarce resources.

The operations have begun anew under President Raul Castro’s daughter Mariela, Cuba’s top gay-rights activist, and 22 more transsexuals are waiting to have it performed.

Mariela Castro says the government is moving cautiously, doing only a few per year.

“There has been a lot of resistance because homophobia remains strong in our culture,” she said at a recent conference on sexuality.

In the 1960s, Cuba was ferociously anti-gay, firing homosexuals from state jobs, imprisoning them or sending them to work camps. Many fled into exile. Transsexuals, though not gay, were considered the same.

While gay jokes remain as common as shots of strong espresso in Cuba, government media campaigns now discourage homophobia. Hundreds of gay Cubans marched down Havana’s spiffy “La Rampa” boulevard last spring, just a year after authorities had forbidden a gay-pride parade.

“I’d like to think that discrimination against homosexuals is a problem that is being overcome,” former President Fidel Castro said during a series of interviews with French journalist Ignacio Ramonet between 2003 and 2005. “Old prejudices and narrow-mindedness will increasingly be things of the past.”

Mariela Castro has seen to it that the state formally recognizes transsexuals. A state-trained kindergarten teacher with a degree in sexuality, she runs the National Sexual Education Center. It spent years lobbying communist officials, who finally agreed to lift bans on sex changes in 2008 – though the resolution was never made public to avoid unwanted attention.

“These processes of negotiation are sometimes done very quietly,” Mariela Castro said, “so as not to stir up ghosts.”

She now says that financial concerns in the past were simply used to hide prejudices.

That’s not unusual, said Denise Leclair, executive director of the Washington-based International Foundation for Gender Education.

“In many countries people complain bitterly. It’s primarily driven by religious beliefs,” Leclair said.

Religious objections weren’t a problem in Cuba, which was officially atheist for decades. Instead, many Cubans claimed their country was too poor to pay for the procedure, writing letters to the editor in the Communist Party newspaper Granma after the first successful Cuban surgery was announced in 1988.

Leclair said a male-to-female change can cost $10,000 to $25,000 in the U.S., or up to four times higher than that, depending on all the procedures performed. About a dozen American doctors do between 1,000 and 2,000 such operations a year, she said.

Canada, Britain, France and Brazil offer government-financed sex changes, among other countries.

San Francisco began paying for sex changes for city and county employees in 2001, and Fort Worth, Texas, is considered following suit. Some large employers, including IBM and the University of California, negotiated contracts with their private insurers to cover the procedure known medically as “sexual reassignment surgery,” and other insurance companies have begun covering at least part of the treatments.

Still, Leclair said most of the largest U.S. insurers don’t cover the surgery.

Cuba won’t say how much its sex change costs, but doctors earn state salaries worth an average of about $20 per month.

Despite a global recession that has hit Cuba especially hard, prompting Raul Castro to announce unspecified cuts in health-care spending, his daughter says the state can’t afford not to perform the surgeries.

Gonzalez said opponents “don’t know what a person who is transsexual suffers. It’s a prison you can’t get out of.”

Gonzalez knew she was different almost from birth. By 4, she was already so partial to girl’s clothing and toys that her parents put her in therapy. The government formally designated her transsexual in 2000. Six years later, Mariela Castro won approval to restart the procedures, and Gonzalez was among the first recipients.

Gonzalez refused to say the exact date of the operation or how she was chosen.

Two specialists from Belgium performed it over eight hours with a team of Cuban doctors.

Leclair said 40 percent of transsexuals become suicidal. But Gonzalez says her boyfriend of seven years kept her from getting depressed.

“He always saw the woman in me and accepted me how I was,” she said, “but we couldn’t have sex in a complete way until now.”

Gonzalez can’t get married, however, as she is still waiting for permission to change the name on her government ID card. Until then, she also cannot work in another wedding venue, though she would like to, or go back to school because her name no longer fits the woman she has become.

It’s a problem that Cuban Olivia Lam knows all too well. She was born Alfonso Manuel but has been waiting for sex-change surgery for two years.

While her name has not been changed, authorities allowed her to take a new picture for her ID card – one where she is dressed as a woman.

“The picture is me, even if the name is not,” said Lam, a gregarious 43-year-old who waves her arms when she talks, making her ever-present hoop earrings dance on her earlobes.

Both women say they think the delay in getting ID cards is because of the slow Cuban bureaucracy and not any kind of government resistance.

Lam, who works as a hairdresser out of her two-room apartment, first began cross-dressing at 21. Though she has been formally classified as transsexual since 2008, she has no way of knowing when – or if – approval for sex-change surgery will come.

And though the government now accepts her, Lam acknowledged that getting her own family to has not been easy.

“I don’t think any parent wants their son to be different,” she said, “but they understand that you’re not like this because you want to be.”

Former New York Rep. Eric Massa, who resigned his post this week, is the subject of an investigation concerning allegations he groped multiple male staffers, according to the Washington Post.

One source of the Washington Post story described “a pattern of behavior and physical harassment” that dates back a year. The House ethics committee is investigating the embattled lawmaker for harassment allegations.

Massa said the allegations were restricted to his use of “salty language” with staff members. He apologized earlier this week for making comments deemed inappropriate. He claims he is being vilified.

In an appearance on “Good Morning, America” on Tuesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called Massa’s response ridiculous.

“Last week, he, on Wednesday, was having a recurrence of cancer. On Thursday, he was guilty of using salty language. On Friday, we learned he’s before the ethics committee to be investigated on charges of sexual harassment,” Gibbs said. “So, look, I think, clearly, his actions appear to be in the appropriate venue in the ethics committees to look at, but we’re focused not on crazy allegations but instead on making this system work for the American people rather than work for insurance companies.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The time has come to change a policy that imposes a lifetime ban on donating blood for any man who has had gay sex since 1977, 18 senators said Thursday.

“Not a single piece of scientific evidence supports the ban,” said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who joined 16 other Democrats and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont in writing Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg.

The lawmakers stressed that the science has changed dramatically since the ban was established in 1983 at the advent of the HIV-AIDS crisis. Today donated blood must undergo two different, highly accurate tests that make the risk of tainted blood entering the blood supply virtually zero, they said.

The senators said that while hospitals and emergency rooms are in urgent need of blood products, “healthy blood donors are turned away every day due to an antiquated policy and our blood supply is not necessarily any safer for it.”

Brian Moulton, chief legislative counsel for the Human Rights Campaign,the nation’s largest gay rights group, said they are hopeful that the policy, last reviewed in 2006, will change under President Barack Obama, “who is interested in looking at all the policies that have a discriminatory effect.” The goal, he said, is “to have policies in place that are based on the science” rather than “any discriminatory idea about our community.”

The senators’ letter noted that in March 2006, the American Red Cross, America’s Blood Centers and the American Association of Blood Banks reported to an FDA-sponsored workshop that the ban “is medically and scientifically unwarranted.”

The FDA, in a statement, said that “while FDA appreciates concerns about perceived discrimination, our decision to maintain the deferral policy is based on current science and data and does not give weight to a donor’s sexual orientation.”

It said that while some groups favor relaxing restrictions, others, “such as those representing the hemophilia community, support continuation of the current policy.”

People with hemophilia, a bleeding disorder, require periodic transfusions and in the past, before screening techniques were improved to ensure blood was HIV-free, were among those most at risk of contracting the virus.

Kerry compared the effort to lift the blood donation ban to legislation he backed in 2008 to end the law banning people with HIV from traveling and immigrating to the United States. That ban was lifted last year.

Also signing the letter were Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Dick Durbin and Roland Burris of Illinois, Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Mark Udall and Michael Bennet of Colorado, Al Franken of Minnesota, Maria Cantwell of Washington, Carl Levin of Michigan, Tom Harkin of Iowa, and Mark Begich of Alaska.

Good Afternoon and welcome to today’s watercooler…

• First, today’s big news (for those who read last week’s steamy set): Law and Order: SVU decided to cut, that’s right, cut, the kiss between Olivia and Kathy Griffin. Now, it wasn’t the hottest kiss ever recorded on tape, but cutting the kiss seems unnecessary and frankly poor form for SVU. I can only hope that some actress (ahem, Mariska) threw a fit and it wasn’t the network or the show itself that chose to remove the kiss. See how they pieced it all together below.

• But for some (many) SVU isn’t the center of the universe and so we can get our giggles from the wacky world of Republican politics. In the grand tradition of “methinks he doth protest too much,” Republican State Senator Roy Ashburn who is virulently anti-gay was arrested for a DUI while leaving a gay bar. If any of you are ,or are sleeping with, closeted Republicans, give them a copy of this story as a warning. Come out now and save yourself the drunken trouble later.

• If you can’t crush on SVU gun-toting cops, turn your attention to the newest celebrity mascot: lesbian DJs. Turns out everyone has to have one. They are like the toy dogs of the future. Feel your career slipping? Grab a local lesbian DJ and start the relationship rumor mill. Now a Real Housewife of Atlanta has picked up a lesbian DJ girlfriend and is insisting that the accusation of fame grabbing is untrue. Could she be a real lesbian? I have faith….

• Students across the country are taking time off from their own gossip and multiple (hopefully some same-sex) trysts to protest the bigger issues: tuition hikes. Today is a national day of action against rising tuition for post-secondary education and over 100 schools have launched protests. It is a grand tradition, student activism in this country. Let’s hope they can sustain today’s momentum and actually help secure better fee structures for the next generation of high school graduates.

• Finally, in a little amusing international news, Bolivia’s public transit system has ground to a halt in protest of tough drunk driving laws. The drivers of buses across the country are furious that they suffer tough sentences for first offences. Well that’s an interesting cause: the rights of drunk drivers. Not sure what the banners are going to say in that march through the city streets….

Enjoy the rest of the day. Find a protest or two. It’s pretty much open season these days.