No, I don’t mean gay dads. (More about us later.) I mean dads with gay son, who are proud of their gay sons.
I posted about the Details article on heterosexual dads who are worried their sons might be gay. (But, hey, they’re not homophobes. Some of their best friends are gay. So they can’t be homophobic, right?) Well, PFLAG is responding to the article with a weeklong series of posts by dads about why they’re proud of their sons.
OK, I’ll admit up front that PFLAG has a special place in my heart, for many reasons. I still get teary eyed when I see the PFLAG contingent marching in the Capitol Pride parade. Whenever I saw them, I’d usually run out into the middle of their group and get as many hugs from as many supportive parents as I could.
I’ve only recently begun to restrain myself from doing that, since I got kids of my own to parent. (One of whom is big enough to give great hugs.) But if they don’t mind, these PFLAG dads have made their way onto my list of “PFLAG Parents I’d Like To Hug.”
Reports of my demise have been exaggerated, but only slightly.
Seriously, though. I don’t know how many people emailed me about that New York Times story on blogger burn-out, but it was enough that I began to wonder whether people were worried about me. Yes, I’ve been stressed lately. And yes, some of that stress has been blog-related. But I haven’t reached the end of my tether.
Not yet, anyway. But I can see it from here.
I didn’t get a chance to comment on the NYT story when it came out, but the disappearance of two important voices from the blogosphere in the last couple of weeks — seemingly swallowed up by the same conflict — brought it back to mind.
A Greek court has been asked to draw the line between the natives of the Aegean Sea island of Lesbos and the world’s gay women.
Three islanders from Lesbos — home of the ancient poet Sappho, who praised love between women — have taken a gay rights group to court for using the word lesbian in its name.
One of the plaintiffs said Wednesday that the name of the association, Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, “insults the identity” of the people of Lesbos, who are also known as Lesbians.
“My sister can’t say she is a Lesbian,” said Dimitris Lambrou. “Our geographical designation has been usurped by certain ladies who have no connection whatsoever with Lesbos,” he said.
The three plaintiffs are seeking to have the group barred from using “lesbian” in its name and filed a lawsuit on April 10. The other two plaintiffs are women.
After the blogroll catastrophe last week, I thought maybe I needed to bring back the “round-up” posts I used to do, featuring favorite posts from whatever blogs I’m reading. I’m looking for a way to do this automatically in Wordpress, and haven’t found an ideal solution yet. But for the time being I’ve found a relatively easy way to share some of the stuff I’ve been reading, but can’t find time to actually blog about.
I’ve been called a lot of things, believe me. But “too black” has never been one of them, by any stretch of the imagination. So, I was initially amused when I read that The Bilerico Project — where I’m a regular contributor — has been accused of being “too black” and “too transgender.”
Monica Roberts has an interesting post on Transgriot about white flight that directly mentions TBP and some of the things people have been saying about us.
I’m also seeing and hearing the same whispers on other GLBT oriented lists that I peruse that Bilerico is ‘too Black’ or ‘too transgender’. Is that your code word or whatever the frack excuse you’re using for not only not wanting to read the posts of people that don’t look like you, but don’t want to engage in the frank discussions we have on various issues on the Project?
If that’s your opinion, you’re entitled to it. But basing those comments on a small portion of the generated comment of the Project being authored by African-American GLBT people is bigoted and asinine.
That just begs today’s open thread question… What kind of blog do you think Bilerico Project is? When you think of us, what’s the first word that pops in your head? Poll after the jump so you can vote on whether we are too [insert group here].
This weekend, we attended a local conference for LGBT parents and families, and I spoke on a panel about interracial couples and intercultural families. At some point, I found myself speaking less as a gay dad and more as a black man raising two black sons, and wondering aloud just how I would prepare them for the reality of what they will likely face as black men, and how I will prepare them for that without catalyzing what I know is an inevitable loss of innocence; the same innocence I love to see in them, and so want to protect as a parent.
But I know that I will be doing them a disservice as their father if I don’t prepare them for the reality I’ve experience myself, and that they will both have to face in their own time. It’s no surprise that in the middle of the panel discussion, I remembered an exchange I had with my own father.
When a new web app is launched, I usually find myself asking “What is this good for?” Well, when it comes to Twitter, I now have my answer: It might get you out of jail.
I tried to do it last year, and just couldn’t. Now Shutdown Day is upon us again.
Shutdown Day is a Global Internet Experiment whose purpose is to get people to think about how their lives have changed with the increasing use of the home computer, and whether or not any good things are being lost because of this.
The idea of Shutdown Day project is simple - just shutdown your computer for one whole day of the year and involve yourself in some other activities: outdoors, nature, sports, fun stuff with friends and family - whatever, just to remind yourself that there still exists a world outside your monitor screen.
Michael Taylor, the original partner in the idea of Shutdown Day, says
“I certainly could not and would not want to live without my computer. However, I am often drawn into spending hours chatting on MSN, simply because my friends are online instead of socialising face to face. I am often too busy to cook a proper dinner, because I want to see the latest news on digg.com or the latest YouTube video. I know parents who are so addicted to the computer that they spend little time with their children, and I also know children who do not spend time with their parents because they are always using the computer. We are not preaching to anyone to turn off their computers. We are just suggesting that people might like to take part in this experiment, and see what happens.”
What he said. In solidarity with the Day of Silence, I’m not posting anything else today.
If you’ve come here looking for something to read, I invite you to spend some time reading the stories collected in the LGBT Hate Crimes Project. (Which I’ve decided needs to be taken up again.)
Yikes! I’m not sure when this happened, but I discovered it when I took a minute to update my blogroll just now. Apparently, it just disappeared, which absolutely sucks. I had a pretty sizable collection of blogs on various different lists. I don’t know where they all went. I just hope I can figure out how to get them all back. Any suggestions?
This list of 16 lies mothers tell their kids shouldn’t just apply moms. I’ve told a few of them myself: 3, 4, 5, 12, adn 15 specifically. Hey, I’m no above using them, if they work. Especially now that we have two kids.
OK, I know I’m being completely superficial here. But this guy would only have to ask me to marry him once.
Spanish pop singer Enrique Iglesias says he has tried repeatedly to convince his girlfriend Anna Kournikova to marry him — with no luck.
Iglesias spoke to reporters Friday after arriving in the Dominican Republic for the first of nine concerts planned across Latin America.
Iglesias says he’s been involved with the tennis star for at least three years and says she keeps ignoring his appeals to wed. In his words, “I always try, but she pays me no attention.”
I mean, what’s the problem? He seems like a good guy with a good heart to me. Hell, I’d keep an officiant on retainer and ready to be there in 15 minutes or less the next time he asked.
But maybe she has her reasons. Or maybe it’s just something he tells the press when they ask him when about marriage, etc.
I can't believe this story is still churning. Part of me wants to yell "Enough, already!" But part of me also wonders what else might be uncovered. Oh, wait. The "smoking gun" is another photograph. A few, actually. The suggestion is that she wore a fake baby belly and, I guess, was dumb enough to go out without it and let herself be photographed. OK. That's not a stretch. But neither is it a stretch that a 44 year old woman might have a Down's Syndrome baby. She's much more likely to do so than a 16-year-old...
Mark this day on your calendar: August 4, 2009. It may not all happen on that day, but it will mark 9 months since November 4, 2008: the day Barack Obama defeated John McCain in the presidential election. So, that would be "zero day" for the Obama baby boom.
Well, I'd hope so. Anyone stupid or careless enough to put an uzi inthe hands of an eight-year-old ought to be charged with something. The D.A. looking into "whether anyone committed a reckless or wanton act" by allowing the child to fire a weapon. Oh, I'd say that qualifies as reckless and wanton. If it doesn't, then nothing does.
I admit it. My first thought when I saw this was, "Honest, officer. I don't know what happened. I totally meant to hit the brakes. I guess my foot just slipped."
I'm not saying its the kind of thing that anyone should base their vote on, but I gotta admire a campaign when I find out about the candidate's economic plan on an LGBT social network, and then get a link to read or download the entire plan on Scribd. It tells me that a campaign is making a special effort to reach out to people like me, and that the campaign is up to date on the latest ways to disseminate information.
If you haven't yet, take the time to stop by Box Turtle Bulletin, where they have been doing a great series of day-by-day posts on the Matthew Shepard murder. Today's post is a particularly heartbreaking one, about the moment ten years ago when Dennis and Judy Shepard walked into their son's intensive care room and saw him for the first time since the attack. It also links to the earlier posts in the series.
Its sounds like a joke, but it's true. You know the economy has gone South when folks around in Macon (or anywhere else in the south) are going to restaurants and not ordering sweet tea.
Reading: "Top 10 Gay Friendly Places to Live: Countries Where Gays and Lesbians Have Equal Rights." We're number seven. ( http://tinyurl ... 3 days ago
No, I don’t mean gay dads. (More about us later.) I mean dads with gay son, who are proud of their gay sons.
A Greek court has been asked to draw the line between the natives of the Aegean Sea island of Lesbos and the world’s gay women.
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