You can purchase an autographed copy of Anything But Straight by sending a $35 check or money order to:
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Wayne Besen
PO Box 25491
Brooklyn, NY 11202
I saw this movie last night and it was excellent. Even if you don't think you will like it, check it out, for you will likely be surprised. The characters are a lot of fun and you may learn a little bit too. Plus, the actor who plays the son, Toby, is incredibly HOT. Two thumbs up for the movie - Two thumbs, fingers and toes up for the shirtless scene with "Toby."
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Tempers flared on day three of questioning as Senator Kennedy demanded more information about Alito's affiliation with a conservative Princeton alumni group. Alito was slippery with his answers and acted like he knew nothing of the controversial group. I'm hoping the Democrats have opposition research to prove that he is a liar, as I suspect.
Would someone please remove Alito's wife from the hearings. Martha-Ann Bomgardner threw a histrionic fit and scurried out in tears. Let's not pick on the woman, but if she can't take the heat...
Particularly obnoxious are Republicans who are claiming the Democrats are being mean. If they wanted a nice confirmation hearing, they could have urged Bush not to nominate a right wing shill. The ever-nelly Senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham was at his most insincere when accusing the Democrats of being cold hearted.
"Guilt by association is going to drive good men and women away from wanting to sit where you're sitting. ... Judge Alito, I am sorry that you've had to go through this. I am sorry that your family has had to sit here and listen to this."
Did it occur to Graham that Alito wouldn't be in this mess if he would not have so freely associated with the guilty?
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A few years ago, I had the privilege of meeting a gay professional basketball player for the Utah Jazz. He desperately wanted to come out of the closet, but feared reprisals and career suicide. The man relayed to me the great difficulty of having an active social life in conservative Utah. As a gigantic, well-known black man in lilywhite Mormon Country, it wasn't as if could slip into a gay bar unnoticed.
There were teammates who were aware of his sexual orientation and accepted him. Still, he was forced to live a painful double life of secrecy that led to extraordinary loneliness. In essence, the Utah Jazz locker room became this man's Brokeback Mountain.
I mention this heart-wrenching story because Utah Jazz owner Larry Miller has canceled plans to show Brokeback Mountain in his suburban Salt Lake City movie chain. Salt Lake Tribune columnist Holly Mullen reported that Miller had told a local radio station that he had intended to show the movie.
"It's something that I have to let the market speak to some degree," Miller told the radio station KCPW-FM just hours before the theater nixed the film. "I don't think I'm qualified to be the community censor."
So, imagine the surprise of moviegoers when they reached the box office and found an offensive note taped to the ticket window: "There has been a change in booking and we will not be showing Brokeback Mountain. We apologize for any inconvenience."
It is abundantly clear that Miller pulled Brokeback as the result of a last minute right wing pressure campaign. Instead of treating viewers like adults and letting them decide whether to see the movie, he buckled to Utah's infamous neo-Puritan lobby.
"I just think (pulling the show) tells the young people, especially, that maybe there is something wrong with this show," said Gayle Ruzicka, president of the Utah Eagle Forum.
The right wing busybodies often claim that they speak for 'the people.' They position themselves as martyrs that heroically stand up to the liberal elites. However, Mullen points out that Brokeback Mountain is showing on two screens at the independent Broadway Centre Cinemas in Salt Lake City, and the theater's take for the week was 12th-highest nationwide.
It turns out the true elitists are the censors at Eagle Forum who believe they should decide what movies Utah citizens can see. Clearly, if people are allowed to make their own choices free from blue-nosed censors, they flock to this award-winning movie.
What I find particularly disturbing is that the right wing does not give a damn about children, nor do they have even the slightest interest in upholding traditional values. They are simply anti-gay and want to see homosexuals disappear from the face of the earth.
How else do you explain the uproar over Brokeback Mountain, while the right remains silent on Miller showing at his theatres, the grisly horror movie Hostel? The Associated Press describes this movie as one "which follows a trio of twenty something guys on a European vacation that begins as an orgy of sex and drugs and descends into brutal, bloody sadism."
Sounds like wholesome fare.
It seems the Neo-Puritans believe that their children are threatened by a beautiful love story involving two men. Yet, they have no problem with a gory movie where an eyeball is pushed out of a woman's eye socket. It is clear that the far right offers nothing of value to real families and has a queer obsession with gay people.
If anything, these fanatical yahoos seem to glorify violence more than your average American. This helps explain why Mel Gibson's psychotic "The Passion of the Christ" was such a hit. Instead of focusing on Jesus' message of love, these pious vigilantes seem to get off on watching their savior get pureed.
Sadly, the people who most need to see Brokeback Mountain are the homophobes who often protest just a bit too much. For example, if the Reverend Lonnie Latham had seen the gay western, it may have helped him come out and avoid an embarrassing scandal.
Last week, the Southern Baptist Convention leader was arrested in Oklahoma City for allegedly propositioning a plainclothes police officer posing as a male prostitute in a cheap motel parking lot.
During my book tour for "Anything But Straight," I had an event in Salt Lake City. I met some wonderful people and partied at a hopping nightclub overflowing with homosexuals. Indeed, it was one of the best looking crowds I had ever seen. I remember joking that it was almost an advantage for a person to be ugly, because one would be considered exotic. Even in the reddest of red states, there are out gay people and they have many allies.
The right wing can stop Brokeback Mountain in isolated theatres run by gutless owners like Larry Miller, but they can't censor reality. With the current momentum and social change fueled by such groundbreaking movies, it is only a matter of time before even a Utah Jazz basketball player can come out of the closet.
51 Comments
In a 1985 memo as an official of the Reagan administration, Alito described a legal strategy for chipping away at abortion rights. Questioned about the document, he told the committee,
"That was a statement that I made at a prior period of time when I was performing a different role and, as I said yesterday, when someone becomes a judge you really have to put aside the things you did as a lawyer at prior points in your legal career."
This man is a snake and can't be trusted. Only a filibuster will keep this right wing zealot from his life-long dream of abolishing the right to choose.
The chief executive of the United States ski team said Monday that Bode Miller's comments about alcohol use in conjunction with competition were unacceptable, and that he would discuss the issue with Miller this week. Toward the end of a profile on the CBS program "60 Minutes" on Sunday night, Miller, the reigning World Cup champion, said he had been in "tough shape" at the start of a race. "Talk about a hard challenge right there," Miller said. "If you ever tried to ski when you're wasted, it's not easy."
Should he be able to speak his mind or should he be forced to put a cork in it? I have mixed feelings. I certainly don't want a sloshed skier on the slopes. But, then again, sometimes we go to far policing language.
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A majority of Americans (53%) favor the confirmation of federal appeals court judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the U.S. Supreme Court and an even larger proportion believe Alito would not vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll. Indeed, only 18 percent say they believe he would vote to overturn the decision.
Here is the catch: A majority of Americans DO NOT want him confirmed if he would overturn Roe.
This leaves me scratching my head. Alito has spent his entire life angling for a way to get onto the Supreme Court so he can specifically overturn Roe v. Wade. Anyone with two brain cells knows this. He has said that he is particularly proud of his work to overturn this precedent.
So, in supporting his nomination the American people are:
a) In denial b) Ignorant c) Just plain shit stupid
Take your pick folks, but if you want the right to choose, you can't be for this obvious extremist who disdains Roe v. Wade with every fiber in his radical, right wing being. I predict if he is confirmed, Roe is doomed.
