Gregory Gardner & Me

I have been waiting 28 years to play Gregory Gardner.  This summer, the waiting ends.

In 1985, The Harlequin Dinner Theatre in Rockville, Maryland did “A Chorus Line”.  I saw that production on a class field trip.  The Original Cast Recording had been playing in my house, nonstop, since it was first released.  There wasn’t a note on that album I didn’t know.  But this was the first time I saw a production of the show.  I don’t remember much.  Not the singing.  Not the dancing.  I don’t remember if the show was good or bad or somewhere in the middle.  What I remember was the character Gregory Gardner.  I remember him saying, “And then there was the time I was making out in the back seat with Sally Ketchum.  We were necking [continue reading...]

April 8, 2013
All, Featured Posts, Inside Voice
No comment

Cooper v Kagan ~ Where Are All the Good Hate Lawyers???

I have not had a chance yet to read the full transcripts from this week’s Prop 8 and DOMA Supreme Court cases.  But I have seen and heard some of the “highlights.”  This particular exchange, from the Prop 8 trial on Tuesday, jumped out at me:

What?????

For one thing, if, as Justice Kagan says while summarizing and clarifying Cooper’s main argument, the government has an “interest in regulating procreation through marriage,” can someone please explain to me why no one is arguing against the legality of single parenthood?  Where’s the ban against that?  If we’re now regulating procreation through marriage, wouldn’t making single parenthood a criminal offense be a good place to start?  Where are the cases of women being jailed for becoming pregnant out of wedlock? [continue reading...]

March 28, 2013
All, Current Events/Pop Culture/Politics, Featured Posts
No comment

An Open Letter to Peter LaBarbera Regarding Keeping Marriage from the Gays Because Our Sex is Yucky

Dear Petey ~

Recently, you were a guest on Janet Mefferd’s radio talk show.  You and she discussed the marriage equality bill in Illinois.  During the course of this conversation you asked the (I’m guessing) rhetorical question:  “How do two guys consummate their marriage?

You then proceeded to answer the question yourself:  “Yuck.”

Oh, Pete!  This is your best shot?  Seriously?  After all your years spent in the trenches of professional hate-mongering, you’re reverting to the oldest anti-LGBT rhetoric?  Really had to reach to the back of the sock drawer for that one, huh?  You don’t want us to get married…because you think our sex…is yucky?  You’re using yuck as a legal argument ~ a legal, philosophical and moral argument ~ for creating and maintaining discriminatory laws?

Has your well run so dry ~ is [continue reading...]

March 10, 2013
All, Current Events/Pop Culture/Politics, Featured Posts, Write the Power
No comment

Valentine’s Day

When I first met my husband, sometime near the close of the 20th century, and we were negotiating the parameters of our life together, one area of absolute agreement was Valentine’s Day.  We were both quite clear ~ we would never celebrate it.  We would never partake in this ridiculous “holiday” created purely to bloat the books of card, chocolate and flower companies.

We agreed that picking an arbitrary day once a year to treat each other with passion and compassion, to pay attention to and enjoy one another, was simply not enough.  We would never allow our relationship to lean against such a flimsy post for support.  It seemed clear that we should treat each other well every day.

And anyway, this mid-winter milestone ostensibly designed to bring people together in a celebration of [continue reading...]

February 14, 2013
All, Featured Posts, Inside Voice
No comment

Dear Boy Scouts of America ~ It’s Not About Banning Gay Scouts, It’s About Banning Honesty

Let’s be clear, the policy debate you’re currently having ~ or, more accurately, currently hiding from ~ is not about whether to continue your ban on gays in the Boy Scouts.  The debate you’re currently having is about whether to continue your ban on honesty and integrity within the Boy Scouts.

The simple truth is this:  there always have been gay scouts and there will always be gay scouts.  You can not ban them.  All you can do is enforce a policy that forces them to lie about who they are.

And on this issue of honesty, you have decided not to decide.  At least not right now.  In the statement you made to the press you called this an issue with a great deal of “complexity” and said that “the organization needs time for [continue reading...]

February 7, 2013
All, Current Events/Pop Culture/Politics, Featured Posts, Inside Voice
No comment

Dear Chris Culliver and All the Other Straight Men Who Fear that Gay Guys in the Locker Room Are Looking at You “That Way” ~

Let me spare you the suspense:  Yes.  Yes we are.

But you’re missing the silver lining.  Most of you are incredibly unattractive.  Truly.  On the whole, y’all have no idea how unattractive you are.  And since you’re not attracted to men yourselves and you’re too hung up on being labeled gay to even entertain the notion that another dude might be handsome, you simply have no idea what an attractive man might look like.  And trust me, an attractive man is not you.  I can not tell you the number of times I’ve been in a locker room with a guy taking off his clothes and thought to myself, “Oh, for the love of all that is good and holy, cover up.  With a towel.  Or a sheet.  A tarp.  Whatever.  Just cover. that. [continue reading...]

January 31, 2013
All, Featured Posts, Inside Voice, Write the Power
No comment

Stonewall, the President, Jodie Foster, Why Coming Out is Our Duty & Why I’ve Been Tweeting “I’m Gay” Everyday

“Seneca Falls, Selma, and Stonewall.”

A simple sentence.  Yet remarkably powerful.

Before the nation and before the world, my President, Barack Obama, in one single breath, recognized that LGBT history is American history.  He plucked the Stonewall Riots from the sole purview of gay studies programs at colleges and universities and placed it squarely in the path this country has cleared with blood, sweat, tears and perseverance in its quest to fulfill its original promise:  liberty and freedom for all.  A path that bears the footprints of some of our greatest Americans.

Before the nation and before the world, I heard in my President’s words and saw in his eyes that I am an American first ~ that I am here ~ that I am equal ~ and that I deserve my shot at the American dream ~ with all its rights and responsibilities ~ on the exact same footing as my straight [continue reading...]

January 22, 2013
All, Current Events/Pop Culture/Politics, Featured Posts, Inside Voice
No comment

Dear Media ~ Stop Having Crazy Gun People On Your Shows!

I’m begging you, you gotta stop having the 2nd Amendment/Must Arm Ourselves As Protection From Government Tyranny people on your shows.  Just stop.

Why?  Why, in a country with Freedom of Speech would you not have certain people on your shows?  Because this is not a Freedom of Speech issue, it’s a “not all opinions are equal” issue.  You do it all the time.  You self-police.  You edit.  You no longer ask members of the KKK to come on and give their opinions about race relations in the country.  (You still invite professional gayhaters on your shows and ask them to present their opinions as if they’re valid, but that’s another post altogether.  This time I’d like to stick to the gun issue.)  Every time you invite someone who espouses the view that they need unlimited access to military grade weapons in order to prevent government tyranny you are turning your [continue reading...]

January 9, 2013
All, Current Events/Pop Culture/Politics, Featured Posts, Write the Power
No comment

Rush Limbaugh Equates Pedophilia to Marriage Equality

It seems we can’t go for very long without some ill-informed pustule equating homosexuality to pedophilia.

Today’s pustule is none other than carnival barker Rush Limbaugh, who really ought to know better than to say incendiary things in order to Ann Coulter his way back to some kind of national relevance.

(In the interest of full disclosure, it was difficult to even type that while maintaining a straight face.  I think we all know that the King of Glass Houses is well adept at throwing stones in order to keep himself in some sort of jaundiced spotlight.  For example, Rush, whose weight would be perfect if he were 6’5″, which he most certainly is not, once implied that First Lady Michelle Obama was fat.  For example, Oxycontin Addicted Rush spoke passionately that [continue reading...]

January 8, 2013
All, Current Events/Pop Culture/Politics, Featured Posts
No comment

New Year’s Resolution!

If your New Year’s resolution is to lose weight and get in shape, DO NOTHING UNTIL YOU WATCH THIS HELPFUL VIDEO!!!!

 

 

 

 

January 1, 2013
All, Featured Posts, Inside Voice, Videos
No comment