Griffin (L) and Belton (R), AP photo

Bloomington, IN – Professor Don Belton, 53, a gifted writer and author in the Creative Writing MFA Program at Indiana University-Bloomington, was found murdered in his home on Sunday, December 27.  His body had been stabbed repeatedly in the back and in the side.  A suspect who confessed to the murder has been arrested and charged with murder: Michael Griffin, a 25 year old white Marine who had recently been deployed in Iraq.  Griffin is being held without bail at the Monroe County Jail in Bloomington. Prof. Belton reportedly considered Griffin to be a friend.  According to sources in the university community, Griffin is using a version of the “gay panic defense” to justify his actions.  The suspect alleges that Prof. Belton sexually assaulted  him twice on Christmas Day, and “refused to apologize for it,” according to ABC World News with Diane Sawyer. A faculty source says this is most unlikely.  ”We deplore the cowardice of such a claim in the face of the open-heartedness of such a man as Don,” the faculty colleague said.  The Indiana University News Room issued this statement from Provost of the University, Dr. Karen Hanson: “Assistant Professor Don Belton was an important African-American writer specializing in fiction and nonfiction who began teaching at IU Bloomington in fall 2008,” said Provost Karen Hanson. “He was a generous and talented professor who had much potential. We were shocked and saddened by his death.”  The case was cracked when investigators located a note on a 4″x6″ card beside Prof. Belton’s home computer addressed to a person named “Griffin” containing an e-mail address, a phone number, and  directions to the Belton home.  Police worked with officers in Batesville, IN, who informed the Bloomington PD that a girlfriend of Griffin’s had phoned in to say she believed her lover was involved in the murder.  The arrest was made at Griffin’s home, where he lived with his 2-year-old son.  Griffin confessed that he had gone to Belton’s home in his girlfriend’s pickup truck to confront him about the alleged sexual incidents.  When Belton showed no remorse and offered no apology, Griffin said he stabbed Belton “until he quit moving.”  He then stripped from his bloody clothes in the truck, apparently having taken a change of clothes with him.  Griffin said he put the bloody clothes in a plastic trash bag, and threw them in a dumpster.  The knife believed to be the murder weapon, a ten-inch blade issued by the military called a “Peace-keeper,” was found at Griffin’s residence.   A personal journal was discovered at the crime scene with an entry by Prof. Belton indicating that he was grateful that “Michael” had come into his life.  Bloomington police have not made a determination about whether any alleged sexual activity between the two men was consensual or not, but are dealing with the murder as a “crime of anger or passion.”  Though decisively discredited as a courtroom tactic, the “gay panic defense” is often used by killers to explain or defend their lethal actions.  Until confirmation from other sources can be determined, allegations of “sexual assault” need to be treated with suspicion, since the only source claiming such harassment is the suspect in question.  The victim is unable to defend himself against the charge.  Besmirching the character of a deceased gay person is routinely part of the so-called defense, often an attempt to tap into the cultural or religious prejudice against gay men in a community, thereby winning sympathy for the killer.  The interjection of a child and a girlfriend into the news stories also tends to win sympathy for the suspect who may have been essentially heterosexual and then “wandered a bit.”   Prof. Belton was a noted writer, the author of the acclaimed novel, Almost Midnight, and the editor of Speak My Name, an anthology of essays exploring the disparity between real and imagined representations of black male sexuality, according to his faculty web page at IUB.  IU English Department chairman Jonathan Elmer said of his person and his work, “His great talents as a writer, his extraordinary generosity to his students, and his warmth of personality were gifts to us all. We will miss him terribly,” as reported in The Indiana Daily Student.  A community vigil honoring Prof. Belton was held Friday night, January 1 at the Monroe County Courthouse.

"Peace-keeper"

Houma, LA –  Early on Christmas morning, Robert LeCompte, 39, was found stabbed to death in a prominent gay and lesbian night club he managed.  His body was riddled with stab wounds, suggesting the possibility of a hate crime.  $4,700 was reported missing by the club’s owner, Randall Chesnut, with whom LeCompte lived.  Terrebone Parish law enforcement officers are working to develop clues in the case. When LeCompte did not come home as expected, Chesnut called the police, leading to their discovery of the gay man’s blood-soaked corpse lying in the middle of the dance floor of the Drama Club on Hollywood Road.  Chesnut spoke kind words about his employee to reporters from the Tri-Parish Times: “He had no enemies,” Chesnut said. “The boy was loved by everyone. He wasn’t but 5-foot, 2 (inches), and soaking wet he didn’t weigh but 120 pounds. I’ve probably just lost one of the best friends I’ve ever had, and the best employee, too.”  Initially, the missing money led the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office to communicate to the media that this was a robbery only.  But Chesnut, himself a former detective, is not persuaded.  ”I would believe motivation would be definitely robbery, but when you start stabbing the body multiple times, that’s a crime of passion. I’m not ruling out the fact that it could be a hate crime. Whoever killed him was very angry, as far as the police are concerned.”   Major  Malcolm Wolfe, spokesman for the sheriff’s department, said that no strong leads exist in the case yet.  He indicated that sheriff’s officers were working night and day to crack the case.  According to Chesnut, the LeCompte family is unable to finance their relative’s funeral and burial by themselves, so members of the gay and lesbian community have stepped up to the challenge, and donations are coming in.  He told Tri-Parish Times reporter Brett Schweinburg, “The gay community, I’m so proud of them. They’ve stepped up, and they’re pissed. They’re not scared. He has lit a fire in this community,” said Chesnut. “Most of the people in this community, they fear the law or they fear this, but it’s taken the opposite effect. There’s a determination here.”  A vigil for LeCompte was held on Christmas Day at the Drama Club, with over 150 people attending.  Vigils and fund-raisers are planned in Houma, Baton Rouge,and New Orleans with a memorial at the Drama Club set for Saturday, January 2, 2010.  One of the saddest ironies of this possible anti-LGBT hate crime murder is that Christmas Day was his birthday.

Marcel Proust

In Within a Budding Grove (À l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs), the second volume of Marcel Proust’s novel, In Search of Lost Time, the young narrator describes his disillusionment with New Years Day and the moment he discovers that “New Years Day was not a day different from the rest… it’s not the first day of a new world.”

Suddenly Proust’s narrator begins to see that time passes indifferently.  The future does not magically open up on New Years Day; there is no break in the calendar.  There is only the unheeding fluidity of the old days and years that, unknown to the Years themselves, we choose to invest with a different name each January in our attempt to shape and modify them to suit us.  Proust writes:

“I returned home. I had just spent the New Year’s Day of old men, who differ on that day from their juniors, not because people have ceased to give them presents but because they themselves have ceased to believe in the New Year.”

For Proust, loss in the belief in New Years is a loss of hope.

So, as the year come to a close (a random demarcation in the fluidity of days or not) the Gay Groom is spending some time looking back over the past 364.25 days and pondering his successes and (shall we say) non-successes of 2009.

There were many grand moments. I finished the first draft of my novel, had it read by an editor who gave me feedback and asked to read the second draft, received a grant for said novel from the Toronto Arts Council, had a chapter published in filling Station magazine, planned a wedding, created a blog about it (which had thousands and thousands of views, by the way), I lost twenty pounds for my wedding, got married to a wonderful guy (probably the high point for your humble blogger), and I saw Mexico for the first time.

And there were less than grand moments.  I missed a deadline of December 31/09 to complete the second draft of my novel for the aforementioned editor, had to deal with illness in my family, gained back twenty pounds after the wedding, was literally blown away by Hurricane Rick during my Mexican honeymoon, and made an ill-advised decision to grow a mustache.

“But”, Proust may have asked if he were to drop by this New Years Eve,  “does the Gay Groom still believe in New Years?  Or will he have the New Years of old men.”

“Well, Marcel,” I’d say as I handed him a cognac, “believe isn’t quite the right word.  Instead, I choose to accept the contrived and artificial demarcation of New Years.  Let’s call it a ‘New Years of mature men’”.

I choose to accept New Years because I hope.

And aren’t all those fresh pages in my new red 2010 journal (which one day will prove to be a most scandalous memoir) 364 pages of lined hope?

At the end of Proust’s enormous novel, when his narrator (after squandering year after year of his life and writing potential on frivolous society parties and obsessive love) suddenly discovers that death is imminent, is overcome with the need to write.  In writing, the narrator regains time by folding time – and himself – into the pages of the book.

And on that note, your humble blogger signs off for the year.  I have a new deadline to finish the second draft of my novel coming up and must keep writing if I ever hope to finish.

The story continues…

Happy New Year!

Jeffrey, The Gay Groom

With visions of NHL hockey contracts dancing in his head, each winter my father would stand out back of our house in the freezing cold and flood our lawn with a garden hose to make my older brothers and me a backyard skating rink.

My dear old dad wanted your humble blogger to be a great hockey player.  He had me on ice-skates before I was two years old.  The logic being, I suppose, that the earlier I was on the ice then the better skater I would become.

Sadly, for him, this was not to be the case.

Unlike my older brothers, I hated hockey. I hated the cold. I hated the big heavy uniform.  And I especially hated how my brother’s hand-me-down ice-skates hurt my feet.  I told my dad that skating for long periods hurt my chest (my asthma not yet being diagnosed) but any protestations I made were dismissed by my father with a shake of his head as he would put those damned skates on my feet at the kitchen table each evening and then have me skate in circles around that backyard ice rink.

“You just need more practice,” he would say as he shoved me out into the cold.

On Saturday nights, he would have me sit in front of our huge Zenith color television and watch “Hockey Night in Canada.”  The little Gay Groom did not like watching hockey anymore than I liked playing it.  The games seemed to go on forever and I never really cared who won or lost.  To pass the time as they skated up and down and up and down and up… I would critique the colors of their uniforms:  loved the purple and gold Kings, hated the brown, yellow and orange Canucks, and decided that the Whalers needed a splash of crimson.

I would wait patiently for the end of the game when the camera would move into the locker-room and someone would put a microphone in the face of a half-naked husky hockey player with a bare chests and long sweaty hair.

In those days your humble blogger really dug those Montreal Canadians with their French accents.  Actually, your humble blogger still does.

When I was seven, the time came for me to join the city boy’s hockey league, just as my brothers had, where I played on a team called the Cardinals.

“Shouldn’t cardinals be in red?” I asked my dad when I saw my green uniform for the first time.

“Stop worrying so much about color,” he said.

And I was hopeless on the ice.  I tripped.  I fell over.  I slid on my face.  And at times I simply gave up and lay on my back staring up at the lights on the ceiling as others skated around me.  The lights are pretty from down here, I thought.

“Get up!” my father yelled from the stands. “For Christ’s sake, skate!”

I didn’t feel like it.

After a few games, I was not put on the ice much and spent most of the game sitting on the bench with Tommy Young who was also a terrible skater (and who, incidentally, I would run into at a gay bar a few years later) and discuss important things like Tiger Beat magazine.  Warming the bench with Tommy was fine by me.

(I should mention at this point that many gay men are great athletes and, particularly, great hockey players… and the Gay Groom’s own rottenness at hockey should be in no way seen as stereotypical of all gay boys.  There are excellent gay hockey players out there – I am just not one of them.)

On the drive home from the neighborhood hockey rink after a Cardinal’s game my dad was always quiet.  He was never one to mask his disappointment well and would look shell shocked as he drove (rather like he did years later when I told him why my roommate and I had rented an apartment with only one bedroom).

“But he was on skates before he was two,” he would say quietly say to himself.

When we got home he would make me put my skates back on and skate circles around the backyard rink in the dark.

“You need more practice,” he said.

One night after he made me go out in the backyard to skate circles I waited until I saw him looking out the kitchen window at me.   Then I stretched out my arms wide at my sides and, in the best Dorothy Hamill imitation my lousy skating skills could muster, I started to do big flamboyant figure eights on the ice.  As my father’s eyes narrowed I even managed to throw in a few tiny little jumps without falling.  The final spin never materialized properly but I still finished with a defiant “TA DA!”

It worked.  He flew outside in a rage running over the ice in his stocking feet and pulling me by the shoulder, threw me through the back door.

My dad never made another backyard ice rink.

And as for your humble blogger’s first and only year playing hockey with The Cardinals?  Now the only reminder I have of that unhappy winter is my team photo.

TA DA!

Worst Hockey Player Ever?

Jeffrey, The Gay Groom

“Being a woman is of interest only to aspiring male transsexuals. To actual women, it is simply a good excuse not to play football.”  Fran Lebowitz

I read once that drag queens are just men who think they can be women better than women can. I was a little shocked to read it at the time (being a healthy left-wing woman myself) but as I placed distance between myself and the words, they started to make sense to me.

We’ve seen on this blog before, men would really rather do anything than women’s work because they don’t want to be mistaken for women under any circumstances. This is partly what is behind homophobia as well. An unsophisticated straight male wants to kill any other male who is tempted to treat him like he is a woman.

However, underneath all that there is a belief that a woman’s life is not one that he doesn’t understand.

Despite the endless protestations that they can’t understand women, men think that they do have a good handle on who she really is and how her day is. Deep down they do like to think “gee, how hard can that be?”

At least, if they don’t think this, then their actions send the message that they do.

But let’s get away from the straight men and take a look at the gay men.  One of the first political acts of a gay male when he comes out (and often before that) is to take on falsified characteristics of being female. This is also true for certain styles of lesbians. But it is the men who think they can “out female” the women.

Nowhere is this more accurate than in the drag shows. The men dressed up in those shows do not look like women, but they do look like what men think women should look like. And except for certain female gay icons, for the most part, the men are sure they can “be female” better than the women.

In romance novels even when the men love other men, they try to be men. They could be men in dresses but they’re MEN in dresses, not men pretending to be women. Women who love romance novels don’t mind experimenting in the bedroom. It’s lending out their lipstick that leaves them cold!

Sometimes Robin William's ad-libs get on Toni Collette's nerves so much she wants to strangle him.

(Miramax) Robin Williams, Toni Collette, Sandra Oh, Joe Morton, Rory Culkin, Bobby Cannavale, John Cullum, Lisa Emery, Ed Jewett, Becky Ann Baker, Joel Marsh Garland. Directed by Patrick Stettner.

Our view of reality is really made up of a series of perceptions, not all of them ours. Very often we believe something to be merely because somebody told us that it was, be it the media, a friend or a loved one. Just because we are told something is so doesn’t necessarily make it so, no matter how much we may want it to be.

Gabriel Noone (Williams) is a radio personality on NPR, and one of the most popular on the airwaves. His late night show “Noone at Night” mainly consists of Noone telling tales about his life, concentrating on the eight-year struggle of his partner Jess (Cannavale) with AIDS. As a result, he has become a hero to the gay community and a well-respected raconteur everywhere else, a kind of gay Garrison Keillor.

As successful as he is, he is having all sorts of problems at home. His relationship with Jess is disintegrating, and it’s tearing him apart. Unable to get past his grief and pain, he is unable to do his show. Ashe (Morton), a friend of his in the publishing industry, in an effort to cheer him up hands him an unpublished manuscript of a book that his publishing house is about to put out, about a courageous young boy named Pete (Culkin). Pete grew up in a household of abusers who put him through the worst kind of tortures imaginable. Little more than a sex toy, he was eventually rescued and later adopted by a sympathetic social worker named Donna Logand (Collette), but by this time the boy had contracted AIDS.

It turns out that Pete is a big fan of Noone’s radio show, and the two strike up a series of conversations. Noone comes to admire the boy’s courage and spirit. He is in the final stages of the disease now, in the hospital more often than he is at home. The boy’s fight slowly brings Noone out of his shell of despair.

However, something is not quite right. When Jess finally gets to talk to both Pete and Donna, he notices that their voices sound alike. Upon further examination, it turns out that nobody has ever seen Pete—only Donna. Gabriel’s research assistant Anna (Oh) does some digging and can find no records anywhere of a situation even remotely resembling that of Pete Logand. When Gabriel talks to Donna about his misgivings, she has an explanation for everything. Still, the misgivings persist and the publisher eventually decides to delay publication until they can get to the bottom of things.

Gabriel is torn. He wants to believe that Pete exists, but he has doubts and yet if he is real, then he just helped kill the dream of a dying boy. Wracked by guilt, Gabriel decides to go to Wisconsin to ascertain the truth for himself.

The novel that this movie was made from was in turn based on the story of Anthony Godby Johnson, the “author” of the book “Rock and a Hard Place” and who victimized such people as Oprah Winfrey, Mister Rogers, Keith Olbermann and novelist Armistead Maupin, author of The Night Listener. I thought it interesting that Maupin gave his lead character the name of Noone—or no one. Clever, don’t you think?

Williams, who it now can safely be said is one of the more gifted actors working, takes on the role of a gay man riding an emotional roller coaster. There is a great deal of sadness in him but also a good deal of resolve. He isn’t a typical hero for a thriller, clearly conflicted about his own doubts. He really needs to believe, but can’t quite bring himself to.

Ever since she first came to my attention in The Sixth Sense Toni Collette has continued to impress me more and more. She is taking on roles that challenge her and stretch her nearly every time out and she has the ability to take a role that has little substance and make it something better. She is given a lot more to work with here, and she is magnificent.

Director Stettner, on only his second feature film (The Business of Strangers was his first) shows a sure hand. The pacing is steady and unrelenting. There is not a bit of wasted business. He also makes some intriguing choices. For example, he shows Donna early on in the movie to be well dressed, good looking, competent and confident. When Gabriel finally meets her she is frumpy, plain and unpredictable. The idealized Donna is what Gabriel imagined her to be; the reality turns out to be a bit different.

This is a well-written, well-acted drama…er, thriller…ok both. I was pleased to see the gay characters portrayed as people whose sexuality happens to be of that orientation. Too often gay characters in the movie are flamboyant queens (and Williams bears some responsibility for this here) who can’t really be taken seriously. Gabriel Noone is a serious character, flawed and over-emotional sometimes yes, but with a heart as big as a buffalo and a mind to be reckoned with. Maybe that will be what The Night Listener is remembered for in the long run.

WHY RENT THIS: A competently executed thriller/drama whose main characters are gay men whose sexuality is merely a part of their personality. Williams and Collette give solid, grounded performances. There are a lot of subtleties in the movie that are delightful upon further reflection.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Noone behaves inconsistently from time to time which while making him a more realistic character can sometimes be annoying to the viewer.

FAMILY VALUES: Some disturbing sexual content, as well as some fairly rough language.

TRIVIAL PURSUITS: The real-life husband of writer Armistead Maupin plays Jess’s friend Lucien, whom Noone refers to as “Lucifer.”

NOTABLE DVD FEATURES: None listed.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

TOMORROW: Sukiyaki Western Django

Rather than making you all feel bad that you are not in sunny Puerto Vallarta sipping margaritas by my side, I’ll make you feel bad that you are not in sunny Puerto Vallarta while everyone else sips Coronas and margaritas while preggo you enjoys your bottled water and stealing sips off your kids’ cherry lemonade. Life is hard.

I have been to Puerto Vallarta twice before, but both were a very long time ago. The first was in 1990 for my high school graduation party. As you can imagine, that was pure debauchery, which I don’t remember very well except for vague memories of waking up in only my bathing suit bottoms on the bathroom floor (apparently, I thought swimming at 3 am after a night of partying was a good idea. Luckily, my stomach didn’t feel the same). The second time was for a college friend’s wedding in 2001, but that was almost the same as the high school grad trip except for the fact that I was a little more mature so I didn’t get quite as dumb-ass drunk.

So maybe that explains why I don’t remember PV being such a gay mecca. I have seen more banana hammocks in two days than my entire time backpacking through Europe. The fact that PV had become a gay destination gradually dawned on us as we approached the main beach. We could hear the techno thumping a mile away. As we started noticing that the party scene was mainly made up of well-oiled, hard-bodied men trying to strike their best poses in their itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny speedos, a Mexican man trying to sell us on a booze cruise asked us as we walked by:

“Are you part of the family?”

Me, my husband and my two sisters looked at each other. What did he mean, exactly? We were party of a family, but were we part of the family?

“What family are you talking about?” I asked him.

“The gay family,” he said, a note of impatience in his voice, as if I should have known what he was talking about.

Oh, I thought, ‘family’ must be a code word for ‘gay,’ kind of like when people ask “Do you party?” they mean more than just drink alcohol.

“No, no, we’re not part of that family,” I told the man. But he was not so sure.

“But she has a butterfly tattoo on her back,” he said, pointing to my sister Julie.

“A butterfly tattoo? Why does that mean she’s gay?

“Some people might think that’s a sign she’s papaya,” he said.

Papaya? Apparently, an orange fruit is another code word for ‘family.’ I was learning more code words that a double agent at the CIA.

As we walked home, Siig got depressed that no man was even batting so much as an eyelash at him. “I ain’t got it no more,” he said. “I’m old.” 

To make it up to him, I bought him a mango-on-a-stick that some vendors were selling on a beach. “It ain’t papaya, but it will do,” I said. “But you’re still forbidden from ever wearing a speedo.”

As the year comes to a close, a question arises: what will your humble blogger do now?

After all, I have nothing more to say about florists, wedding cakes, caterers or the like.  Just what happens to a wedding blogger after the wedding day?  Do we simply fade away into the ethereal?  What did, I wonder, Julie Powell do after cooking all 524 of Julia Child’s recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking?  Oh yes, she wrote a book about it, didn’t she?  And then there was a movie…

Nothing like that is going to happen to The Gay Groom, I’m afraid.

Yet, I do hope that you have enjoyed reading about the Gay Groom’s experiences in putting together his big gay wedding.  I truly enjoyed blogging about it.  I have had literally thousands and thousands of visitors to my blog and I’ve met some wonderful people (both gay and straight) along the way.  I have awesome readers.

But what’s next for the Gay Groom?

Well your humble blogger has decided to keep on writing his blog.  The mandate, of course, will have to change as will the frequency.  It will no longer be a wedding blog and without a deadline (like a wedding day) I will write when the mood strikes me – and when I feel I have something interesting and/or entertaining to say to you.

I had thought of stopping the Gay Groom blog completely and begin a new one blog (perhaps The Gay Newlywed?) but ultimately decided to continue with the The Gay Groom.  This saves me the hassle of setting up a whole new blog on WordPress.  And this way people who are so inclined can still find me.  I am a writer after all, I don’t want to make things difficult for my readers.

So at we stand on the precipice of 2010, your humble blogger is looking forward to blogging about something other than weddings and marriage for a change.  Though I expect the trials and joys of marriage with The Husband will be popping up from time to time.

Thanks for reading!

The Gay Groom (pink tie) and The Husband (white tie)

Jeffrey, The Gay Groom

This was the first year the Husband and I celebrated Xmas as a married couple.

Our condo-sized Xmas tree twinkling away in the den

Though it wasn’t the first Xmas we’ve spent together.  In fact we have spent every Xmas together since we began dating in 2000.  That’s TEN Xmases.  A decade of turkeys, putting up (and taking down) the tree, and watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” together.  That’s a lot of wrapping paper in the recycling bin!

But this year was special.  This year we were married.

Many people have asked us in the (almost) three months that we have been married, “Is it different?”  “Does it feel like something has changed with your relationship now that you have the wedding license?”

The answer is a resounding ‘YES’.

Though I must admit that I for one never thought our relationship would undergo the change it did.  After all, what could be so very different after signing the papers and cutting our cake?  What indeed!

Yes, a seismic shift occurred.

Now, your humble blogger can’t speak for anyone but his humble self.  I’m well aware that marriage is not a choice given to most of my fellow gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in the world today.  And the Gay Groom certainly knows how fortunate he is to have had the right to marry his Partner up here in Canada.  Further, I am also personally acquainted with many unmarried couples (gay and straight) who are perfectly content in their own relationships without a license or endorsement from the state.

So you don’t need to send the Gay Groom nasty emails and comments about how I’m “belittling the relationships of those who cannot legally get married” or how “my internalized homophobia makes me strive toward the heterosexual concept of a conservative marriage” – trust me I’ve received quite enough unpleasant comments from same-sex marriage-hating right wing nut-bars since starting this blog.  And it’s certainly not my intention to upset my gay and lesbian friends as well.

I can only try and explain how marriage has affected the Gay Groom.

Since October 3, 2009 I FEEL married.  There is a gravity (in the Newton sense) that was not there before the “I dos”.   Neither The Gay groom nor the Husband can simply walk out the door with a wave.  We are connected legally.

And I like it.

Any severing of our entanglements now will require lawyers, fees, time etc.  Just like our straight married friends who chose to end their marriages.  Hence a little of the gravity I mentioned.

But it’s more than legalities.

We have promised in front of our family and friends to stick it out for richer and poorer, in sickness and health and all the rest (including signing the register).  And seeing that neither your humble blogger nor his Husband is twenty-one, we have experienced enough of life before taking those vows to know what we are signing up for.  Trials, illness, hardships and all those unfair and unpleasant things life tosses at one through the years are not a possibility, when you hit your 40s – you know these sorts of things will eventually happen (though we hope as far in the future as possible).

And when these things do happen, I intend to be beside my husband through it all.

But that’s marriage for ya.

And that’s why this Xmas was special for your humble blogger this year.  And at some point, during the celebrations, I kissed the  Husband and told him I loved being married to him.

It IS a wonderful life.

And to commemorate it, the Husband had a bulb made…

Sean and Jeff, Our 1st Christmas

Happy Holidays from Jeffrey, the Gay Groom

I wonder if the two handsome and supposedly straight men in this pic are really in the closet.

As the old year passes, and with it the old decade, those of us who believe in Justice for LGBTQ people have memories to preserve, work to do, thanks to express, and hope to rekindle.  The Unfinished Lives Project was conceived as a visual and verbal resource for the public to use in the on-going struggle for freedom from violence and fear that Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer folk face every day in the United States.  WordPress tallies show that as of this writing nearly 44,000 have visited this site since its first posting in June 2008: to educate themselves about the slow-rolling holocaust facing members of the sexual minority, to bring the stories of so many casualties of homophobia and heterosexism to light who would otherwise be forgotten, and to steel themselves for the long, difficult, painful work of changing the culture of violence against the different in which we must live.  While countless hours of writing and research have gone into creating and maintaining this web site, that is nothing compared to the stress and loss faced by so many families and loved ones who have experienced the horrors of hate crime murder during these years.  The backstory of this blog has been and continues to be the awe-inspiring courage of the bereaved mothers, fathers, lovers and friends who have been thrust into the harsh glare of activism on behalf of the LGBTQ community because they refuse to allow their loved ones to have died in vain.  We owe them, and you, Dear Reader, our thanks and our continuing labor until Justice comes.  It is to that end we at the Unfinished Lives Project keep telling these grim stories of real people who suffer in America for no other “crime” than being who they are.  The past decade, especially the past year, has seen substantive change–not enough, nor comprehensive enough, to be sure–but real change nonetheless.  Cultural, political, and religious attitudes toward LGBTQ people are changing in this country.  The passage of the James Byrd, Jr. and Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the first comprehensive hate crimes law in federal history, is now law.  Convictions under state and federal hate crimes statutes, something conservative law makers and law enforcement officers said would never happen, are occurring already in bellweather states like Colorado and New York.   This trend will no doubt continue as the New Year dawns.  The infamous “gay panic” defense, and its evil twin, the “trans panic” defense are increasingly discredited and ineffective in American courts of law. Religious attitudes have thawed slightly, but the progress is real, if spotty.  Religion and Faith offices and activism, once thought to be the “third rail” of human rights politics, have been established in all the major advocacy organizations that lobby for change.  LGBTQ lives and practices are no longer viewed as criminal by the religious leaders of conscience in the United States, and tolerance toward queer folk in congregational life and leadership is on the rise: the Episcopal Church, the Alliance of Baptists, the United Church of Christ, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America are cases in point.  Homophobia in churches, synagogues, mosques and schools is not going unchallenged in American daily life, and that is encouraging.  ENDA, DADT, and many other legislative initiatives are on the horizon for the new decade.  Marriage Equality, which heretofore has been fought for state-by-state (often attended by an alarming hike in anti-LGBT hate crime violence where the issue is most hotly contested), and now advocates are re-evaluating the tactics and strategies of equality.  There is nothing magic about the passage of the Shepard Act.  Every day, in every region of the nation, LGBTQ people and those mistakenly assumed to be like us, are suffering violence and death, and from our researches at the Unfinished Lives Project, these statistics are increasing alarmingly.  One more life lost is one too many.  Fear is no way to live in the Land of the Free.  So, we who believe in Justice will greet the New Year with resolve.  An African American spiritual lyric testifies, “We Ain’t in No Wise Tired,” and that is providential.  We cannot rest until Justice comes.  And, we are glad to be in the fight for true “peace on earth, goodwill to all,” with you.

Check out this gay kissing website. It has a kissing tutorial.

In what seems like a lifetime ago, many people would be surprised that I served as a Mormon Missionary in Tennessee. Although I am no longer affiliated with the Church after I came out, my mission was one of the most meaningful experiences in my life.

I was a fairly new convert to the religion when I embarked on my missionary service so my enthusiasm was high and my deep feeling for service was a commitment I felt to my core.

Some of my more poignant memories of this part of my life came during the Christmas holidays.  My missionary companion and I  used to have a practice where we would drop by the individuals and families, we were teaching, with little written Christmas messages that we would read and leave with them. Usually these were scriptural passages appropriate to the season.

It gave us the opportunity to contact these individuals in between lessons. It had an even deeper meaning that still reverberates in significance to me today.

Some of the individuals would receive our messages with polite tolerance while others would receive them gratefully as if it was what they needed to hear that day.  It is the latter group that I want to write about.

As missionaries, we had no spare money to buy gifts for the many people we were teaching and serving in the field. These were people we genuinely loved and would have adorned with gifts on Christmas if we could have afforded it.

All we could do was share these messages.

Fast forward to now.

In our rush to find the right presents for everyone with a more limited budget for many of us this year, perhaps we need to remember the power of sharing meaningful messages with each other.

How many around us would simply appreciate a smile and a few words of encouragement that things will be alright.  How many will simply be grateful for someone taking the time to show some interest and say I was thinking about you and wanted to know I care about you.  How many would just love a hearty, “Merry Christmas!”

The power of messages delivered face to face brings an element to the season that outweighs the most beautifully wrapped present.  The warmth of such messages last longer than any store bought gift.  They can last years in beautiful memories.

The theories about why women fall in love are many but none of them explain why a woman is so desperate to have a man that is unobtainable.

It defies logic, and it also defies any of the reasons as to why women like to get themselves into relationships. With the unobtainable man you can’t have a baby, you can’t get married, you can’t be taken care of and you can’t be rescued. He is unable to fulfil any of these functions that are supposed to be the reasons women want men in the first place.

But just as excellent contraception made women want MORE sex, not less, so women will always confuse those who want to narrow their desire for connection to one or two simple causes.  

The unobtainable types of men women will go for are many, but here is my top ten:

1. Married men
2. Gay men
3. Werewolves
4. Rock stars
5. Vampires
6. Characters in novels
7. Film stars
8. Shape shifters (a whole pathology behind that one)
9. Dead men
10. Men on the internet in another country

Ask any woman and she will without question have had a deep intense affair with at least one of the character on this list at some point in her life. And it’s not the same as men getting a crush on Pamela Anderson when they were fourteen. Women have very real love affairs. Thirty percent of the girls between ten and eighteen right at this moment will be having intense affairs with Robert Pattinson or Taylor Lautner.

Why women do this is not clear. I understand the lust for movie stars (he will never be real so he can’t let you down) and I understand rock stars ( ask any person that cleans up after a  rock concert and find out what those seats the women have been sitting on are like) but married men and gay men I can only explain by saying you get to beat someone else in the conquest and we all know women love to beat each other.

In romance novel every hero without exception is one of the perfect imaginary men. These men fill every criteria on the list, except for two. They are never dead and they are never, ever married. Women just love them and they can’t get enough.

Legendary Latino entertainment idol, Ricky Martin (né Enrique José Martín Morales) spoke out against anti-LGBT hate crimes in his native Puerto Rico on Sunday in an op-ed written for El Nuevo Dia.  Martin, who has been the subject of persistent rumors concerning his own sexual orientation for years, is one of a growing chorus of Puerto Rican and other Latino/Latina entertainers who are decrying the spiking incidence of homophobic attacks on gay and gender non-conforming men in the United States Territory.  The brutal murder of Jorge Steven López Mercado, the 19-year-old gay man who was found decapitated, dismembered, and partially immolated in Cayey last month, has drawn national and international attention to the problem of cultural homophobia in the Caribbean.  Now, with the emerging story of what may well be another anti-gay murder in Ponce this past Wednesday, Martin and others have taken it upon themselves to speak out.  Olga Tañón, the talk radio personality, René Perez,the reggaeton artist, and 2001 Miss Universe Denise Quiñones are among other celebrities who are becoming outspoken on the issue along with Martin.  Boy in Bushwick quotes Martin as writing, “The deaths of James Byrd, like that of Matthew Shepard, Jorge Steven López, Marcelo Lucero and Luis Ramírez, like other victims of violent hate crimes, should be unacceptable to all human beings; because we are all human beings.”  Martin urged his readers to move beyond mere acceptance and toleration.  ”If we accept each other, humanity will come together,” Martin wrote. “And if humanity comes together, equality for human rights will become a reality. If equality for human rights becomes a reality, peace will be within our reach.”  For high-profiled Martin, 38, to speak out so openly against homophobic violence is something of an event in itself.  He has consistently denied rumors about his own sexual orientation since the days he was lead singer for the pop group Menudo, and played a popular character in television’s General Hospital.  In 1999 he was named one of People Magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People.”  But it was as a singer that the photogenic Puerto Ricaño made his most lasting reputation, with such English-language hits as “Livin’ La Vida Loca.”  Last year Martin announced the birth of twin sons by a surrogate mother.  The babies, Matteo and Valentino, were frequently photographed in their father’s arms, furthering a wholesome image Martin’s publicists have attempted to blend with his smoldering on-screen persona that made him a pop idol in the late 1990’s.  Martin has forayed into public affairs before.  He created the “Ricky Martin Foundation” which gave a million dollars’ worth of musical instrument to Puerto Rican public schools. The Foundation is also deeply involved in helping children who are victims of child prostitution and/or pornography, especially in India but also all around the world.  According to Martin, “This is the biggest problem our society is going to face within the next 10 years.”  This Sunday’s op-ed column, however, is the most outspoken Martin has ever become on the issue of LGBT concerns, and is both a measure of his growing maturity and the degree to which the recent horrific murders of gay men on his home island has shaken him in recent days.

Ponce, Puerto Rico – Police arrested a suspect in the latest grisly murder in Puerto Rico over the weekend, according to EDGE Boston’s Michael Lavers.  Luis Díaz Rodríguez, 34, was jailed late Saturday night in connection with the December 16 murder of Fernando Vargas López de Victoria, 35 years of age, in a room in Ponce’s Motel Las Colinas (shown in photo at left).  Investigators reported that the victim, 5′1″ and 230 lbs., was found naked, lying face down.  He had been savagely stabbed 20 times and his throat had been slit.  The pattern of wounds on the victim’s hands and arms is consistent with a person struggling in self-defense.  Police Sergeant Richard Nazario told reporters for El Nuevo Dia that  Díaz Rodríguez and López de Victoria arrived at the hotel on Tuesday, Dec. 15. He said the two men began to smoke crack cocaine inside their room, and the attack took place in the course of “an argument.”  Motel employees,who apparently recognized the victim, said López de Victoria worked for Puerto Rico’s Department of Housing. He was thought to be gay, but there is no confirmation at the time of this report.  Díaz Rodríguez is charged with first degree murder and several weapons crimes, and is being held on $800,000 bond as the investigation continues.  LGBT activist spokesman for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Pedro Julio Serrano has called for the case to be treated as an anti-LGBT hate crime murder. “Given that the victim is thought to have arrived at the motel with another man, the brutality of the crime, the hate with which it was committed, we must insist that the authorities investigate this as a hate crime,” he said.

I haven’t had the greatest run with relationships. My love life has been sucky for a while, but if there’s anything I’ve learned from it, it’s how to act while your relationship is still young, tender, and fresh. Here are some DOs and DON’Ts:

DON’T be annoying! A stage 5 clinger is the last thing your partner needs. Try to space out text messages and phone calls. Don’t check on them every 5 minutes. This will lead to serious attachment issues, believe me.

DO play hard to get! Everyone likes a challenge, so why not? DON’T, however, be too defensive. Try to find a happy medium that suits you and your other half.

DON’T make the relationship all about gifts. Sure, flashy things and nice clothes are great, but not at the beginning of a relationship. Save those for when things get serious. Remember, love cannot be bought.

DO make compromises! Don’t make it all about you, and don’t let your partner take all the spotlight. If you find that the other person tends to be an attention whore, stay away! This will only make you feel you belittled, and that should never happen. An occasional expensive dinner or splurge is appropriate, but don’t make your partner go bankrupt!

DON’T break-up because of a few fights. Conflict is natural and in some cases, necessary. Occasional verbal arguments and disagreements will always occur. If you are looking for the perfect relationship, get ready for disappointment. Not everyone can agree on the same things, so don’t expect it to happen with your partner.

DON’T expect your partner to pay for every date! If he insists, convince him to switch things up a little bit and treat him to dinner and a movie once a month. You must give him a break once in a while!

Now, I’m not guaranteeing that these tips will apply to all relationships. These tips were formulated from my own experiences in the dating jungle. Winter is the best time to spread love, so go out there and find your perfect match!

-Matt Scotto

Photo Sources 1, 2, 3, 4

ACO talks us through more queer slang. Look’s like we’ll be going A-Z. This week, B is for….

Bear: a gay or bisexual man, often with lots of facial and body hair, who tends to be stocky or heavy-set. As a metaphorical allusion to the animal, bears generally place importance on hypermasculinity, emphasizing physical strength and solid dimensions.
ACO says: Basically… a queer lumberjack.

Since were on the subject of “gay rappers” I thought I would give you all the tea on a very interesting book I heard about a while ago but never posted on here! Terrance Dean was a producer with MTV and wrote a book about entertainers on the down low after he left the television station.  If your curious about what goes on behind the scenes with gay men in the hip hop world you should check out this book. You can purchase it on:

www.amazon.com

 Are you as surprised as I am? Rapper Asher Roth will appear on E news this week to talk about coming out recently and the impact he intends on having on the music industry as an LGBT artist. Asher Roth came out with a bang! He started by attending the Gay rights parade with a  few fellow LGBT members and celebs like Lady gaga and Clay Aiken! This truly a wonderful development!! The LGBT community welcomes Asher Roth with open arms and is glad he’s defying stereotypes as a now openly gay rapper! Click HERE for article

A deserted 17th street, December 20, 2009, Washington DC

Thanks Crone Fans all, for the messages requesting Yuletide updates. The Crone has no excuse not to blog today as plainly she is going nowhere.

snowed in, Washington DC, December 20, 2009

 The snow began as the Crone’s office party ended at around 10pm on Friday night and continued to fall until late afternoon on Saturday–a very respectable 16 inches or so.  Unable to reach her children, Itchy Ankle or even the liquor store, the Crone had no excuse but to clean the house. In the bedroom, she found a single boot lost by her sister on her visit before last, nearly 18 months ago, supplies of make-up she’d long forgotten, multiple lost earrings and a couple of books she might actually read this weekend, as other options are few.

In the kitchen, she went as far as to throw out all the out-of-date things in the fridge, and even cleaned the soy sauce stains off the bottom of the kitchen cabinets. The living room didn’t so much have dust bunnies as dust kangaroos, but they too have been dispatched. Today, the Crone is warmed by a self-satisfied glow.

The advantage of living in the heart of gay Washington is that all the Crone’s neighbors are fit young men. They all have jaunty beanies, pure wool scarves, designer duffles and stout Timberland boots and, with the gyms being closed, they are more than happy to exercise their pecs and abs by shovelling snow from the sidewalks. This meant that, by noon, the Crone was able to venture out in her suede rust-colored pixie boots –although, sadly, it seems the liquor store will not open today  

Read more about the snow storm here.

Columbus Gay Men's Chorus

Powerful and beautiful, Christmas by the Hearth by Tim Sarsany is performed by the Columbus Gay Men’s Chorus. It is an original moving piece that is now added to our Christmas heritage.

Steve Townsend

A humorous testimonial on coming out  by Steve Townsend.