I came out in the 1990s at the tail of the glory days of gay culture. There were gay bookstores then in most major cities, and a mix of gay social clubs, where you could gather to bowl, two-step, play cards or organize for LGBT rights.

Most important, there was a gay paper in every city that could sustain one.

At the time, the mainstream media didn’t cover gay issues often or well. The New York Times called us homosexuals and didn’t cover our unions in their social pages. It was tough to find articles about our rights that didn’t have an obligatory quote from a religious conservative explaining that being gay is immoral, wrong and in many places illegal.

Before the internet, the gay press was the only place where you could find reliable, objective information about LGBT issues. It was the only place you could learn about vigils, bars specials, group gatherings, protests.

And now it is disappearing.

The demise this week of the Washington Blade (40 years old), Southern Voice (20 years) and other publications owned by Window Media hit me hard. Like many young gay writers who came out in the 80s and 90s, my first job was at a gay paper. I learned how to interview politicians, how to report on events, how to copy edit and assign stories and crop photos and layout pages. And I gathered deep knowledge about gay and lesbian history, icons, politics, culture.

Gay papers are our community’s treasure. The stories there are more local and gay-specific than the mainstream media, more reflective and better reported than what often appears on the Internet. Gay reporters who work at gay papers take politicians to task and hold them to their promises. And gay papers themselves – since they are staffed by a small group not by individuals working remotely – pass along knowledge, skills and expertise to the next generation of gay reporters.

Blogs are wonderful, of course. We all read them. They can disseminate a lot of information quickly. But they also get things wrong; and in the constant churn of information, important stories – stories that dominate front pages for a week – can be lost under other, less significant posts.

And don’t forget that few blogs actually report news – most only link to and comment on news that has already been reported by other sites.

Newspapers as a class are being killed by many things besides blogs: the rise of free and convenient information and news on the web; the loss of classified advertising to sites like Craigslist; the expense of paper.

And the gay press is further hurt by the rise of gay reporting in the mainstream media.

But don’t be fooled. Just like chain bookstores reduced their gay and lesbian section to barely an aisle after forcing local gay and feminist bookstores out of business, the mainstream media reports only on stories about the gay community that are of mainstream – not LGBT – interest.

Gay papers and gay reporters are important. We need to support and nurture the ones we have. Perhaps, too, we need a new model – something like Pro Publica, the non-profit organization devoted to investigative news gathering. If we were able to gather the best LGBT reporters from around the country and give them the resources to investigate important local stories, we could provide fuel to activists and bloggers everywhere.

I mourn the Washington Blade and all the other gay papers now gone that both built a community and explained it to itself.

But I celebrate the papers we have left. And I admire the reporters who staff them, providing the information to our community we just can’t get anywhere else.

Jennifer Vanasco is an award-winning, syndicated columnist. Email her at Jennifer.Vanasco@gmail.com; follow her at Twitter.com/JenniferVanasco.

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President Barack Obama was AWOL when it came to the marriage vote in Maine and the partnership vote in Washington.

The DNC was worse, actively working against us by sending out an email to Maine Democrats asking them to campaign for New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine – instead of asking them to man phones in their home state, working for marriage equality.

Despite a supposed commitment to gay civil rights expressed in the DNC platform and by the Obama campaign and administration, there has been relative silence on our issues.

That needs to change.

And thanks to John Aravosis and Joe Sudbay, it’s about to.

Aravosis and Sudbay run the political website Americablog and this week, angry about the Administration’s inaction around Maine, they declared they had enough.

So they are launching a financial boycott of Democrats called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Give.”

The idea is this:

Gays and lesbians should stop giving money to the DNC and President Obama until ENDA passes and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and DOMA are overturned.

“It’s really more of a ‘pause,’” than a boycott,” Aravosis and Sudbay say on Americablog.com. “Boycotts sounds so final, and angry. Whereas this campaign is temporary, and is only meant to help some friends – President Obama and the Democratic party – who have lost their way. We are hopeful that via this campaign, our friends will keep their promises.”

This is exactly the right thing to do.

Americablog lists almost 40 grievances, large and small, against the President, the leader of the Democratic Party. Together, the grievances paint a portrait of a man who is not just refusing to show leadership on our issues – he seems unaware of why our issues are important.

And the DNC, despite including us in their platform, seems to be hardly aware that, post-campaign, we exist.

The most powerful tools we have to fight this sort of blindness are money and media attention, and this boycott highlights both, because they get less money but more (negative) media attention.

It’s a brilliant strategy.

As Americablog says: “Democratic leaders see the LGBT community as a guaranteed source of cash, regardless of their broken promises.  They think we, and those who support us, have nowhere else to go, that there’s nothing we can do.  It’s time to draw our own line in the sand, and use the one thing that matters to the Democratic Party: our money.”

For this strategy to work, we all need to join in on the boycott. First, you should get over to Americablog and sign the pledge form – and stick to it.

But even that’s not far enough. The DNC needs to know that this is not laziness. It’s not just that the economy is lousy or that we want to spend more money on Christmas presents.

So give as much as you can to a gay activist group, national or local, of your choice, instead. Send in the receipt for the donation to the DNC with a note explaining that your money went elsewhere and why.

Will this hurt Democrats? Will it make it more likely that much more repressive Republicans get back in power? Americablog addresses these types of questions. Their answer is no – I fear that actually, the answer is yes.

But that’s the point.

The DNC and President Obama need to start taking us seriously. They will only do that if we start affecting their pocketbook. Gays and lesbians raise a large amount of funds for the DNC. Until our major issues are addressed, it is time we close the gayTM.

Don’t give until the DNC and Obama have met their obligations to us. We have waited long enough.

Jennifer Vanasco is an award-winning, syndicated columnist. Email her at Jennifer.Vanasco@gmail.com; follow her at Twitter.com/JenniferVanasco.

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It doesn’t matter if you attend religious services weekly or if you have fallen away, if you’re atheist or agnostic, if you think religion is the opiate of the people or the road to peace – established religion in America is an important force.

So when the bishops of the Episcopal Church voted last year to affirm gay clergy, it was an important move.

Ever since 2003, when the openly gay Gene Robinson was consecrated as a bishop, the 77 million-member Anglican communion – the worldwide body of which the Episcopal Church is a part – has been threatened by schism.

Three years ago, there was a moratorium on future elevation of gay bishops until the issue could be more carefully considered. The gay Episcopal group Integrity says that the inclusive vote effectively ends the ban, though others say that it just affirmed what was already the case, that gays and lesbians are a full part of the Episcopal Church.

Also last year, conservative breakaway churches in the U.S. formed their own Anglican group aligned with more conservative South American and African diocese. Called the Anglican Church in North America, they have a paltry 100,000 members compared with 2 million Episcopalians – yet if the international Anglican groups choose to align with them instead, that could change.

For now, however, their absence has led to a more liberal Episcopal Church. A committee voted that the Episcopal Church should also permit the blessing of same-sex couples. When it came to testifying in favor of the measure, 50 people did so – only six testified against it. At the 2009 General Convention then, the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies voted to approve a measure that allows Episcopalian bishops to bless same-sex marriages at their discretion.  The Houses also voted to begin a process of writing official liturgy for the blessing of same-sex unions.

All of this might seem like inside baseball to you if you’re not Episcopalian, even more so if you’re not Christian or not religious at all.

But it is important to all of us who are gay and lesbian, for a couple reasons.

First, the Episcopal Church is seen as the canary in the coalmine by other mainline Protestant Churches. They are waiting to see if accepting gays and lesbians as full members of the church will lead to a breaking away from the international church, or whether different views will be able to co-exist happily.

If the Anglican fellowship survives with an inclusive Episcopal Church, it might lead other denominations – Lutherans, Presbyterians – to follow the example of the United Church of Christ and become fully inclusive of gays and lesbians as well.

And once all mainline Protestant churches start approving of gay marriage, it will be very difficult for politicians and anti-marriage advocates a religious argument against gay marriage, since it will be even clearer that not all denominations agree on this issues.

Secondly, however, the entire issue points out something that is easy for us American gays and lesbians to ignore: the rights (or lack thereof) of gays and lesbians internationally has an effect on us here at home.

There is the threat of a schism because gays and lesbians in many parts of South America and Africa (South Africa being the notable, progressive exception) lag behind their American counterparts when it comes to how they are viewed by their societies. If gays and lesbians were seen as nearly equal in those parts of the world, we would have more rights in the U.S. now.

That is, mainline churches would have accepted us already – which would lead to more pressure on politicians – which would lead to a quicker change in our laws.

A gay rights battle in one place – whether that place is within the Episcopal Church or in a city in Africa – affects gay rights in every other place.

We will not have full equality here until gays and lesbians have equality everywhere.

Jennifer Vanasco is an award-winning, syndicated columnist. Follow her at Twitter.com/JenniferVanasco; email her at Jennifer.Vanasco@gmail.com.

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In the ad, the two men are watching the big game.

They are scruffy, wearing football jerseys, and appear to be straight.

A roar rises from the TV. The men cheer and both reach for the chips. Their hands touch. Their eyes lock. And then, with a singer crooning “I really want to kiss this guy” in the background, one jumps onto the lap of the other, and they share an exaggerated, hokey – almost jokey – kiss. We never see their lips touch, but we know what’s going on.

The camera pans to the left, where their stunned friend watches. His face says, “Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?”

Clearly, he didn’t know his friends were into each other.

There is nothing romantic about this ManCrunch ad. There is nothing sexual or sexy. If anything, it is LESS explicit than the controversial 2007 Snickers Super Bowl ad where two men accidentally share a kiss and then rip out their chest hair to show they are still “manly.”

Yet CBS rejected the ad from down-low dating site ManCrunch, saying, “it is not within the Network’s broadcast standards for Super Bowl Sunday.”

For CBS, it seems, a kiss is not just a kiss.

Clearly, it is time CBS revised their standards.

It’s not a surprise that CBS rejected the ad. After all, they accepted, for the first time, an advocacy ad – one that supports the pro-life movement, from the anti-gay conservative religious organization Focus on the Family. This comes after rejecting the beautiful “Bouncer” ad a few years ago from the United Church of Christ, which said that “no matter who you are you’re welcome here” and included an image of a happy lesbian couple.

That on its own shows that the network likely has a slightly conservative bias.

And the Super Bowl, of course, is a conservative show, pepped with ads that are filled with outdated images of women as objects to fantasize about, instead of people to get to know.

CBS says that they rejected the ManCrunch ad after looking at the company’s financials. They say the ManCrunch ad is a stunt, that the site could never afford to pay. Maybe. Maybe not. It’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility.

But stunt or not, the fact is that CBS said in a letter that the ad “is not within the Network’s broadcast standards for Super Bowl Sunday” and that “our Standards and Practices Department would be open to working with you on acceptable creative” if the credit issue were resolved.

If the decision were only based on credit worthiness, then why would the subject of inappropriate creative even come up?

No, the fact is that CBS is a broadcasting network as conservative as the Super Bowl – but not as popular. That designation goes to ABC, due, in no small part, to its scripted shows like Modern Family, Brothers & Sisters and Grey’s Anatomy (and, of course, to Ugly Betty, though low ratings has made this the final season).

These ABC shows are popular because they reflect the new reality of American life. We are bilingual. We have people of different colors in our workplaces and gays and lesbians in our families. Our lives are messy and complicated and good TV shows – and good networks – reflect that.

CBS is betting, I suppose, on winning over the conservative Fox audience. But the younger the audience gets – on any network – the more gay-friendly it is. If CBS – which has an average viewer age of 53 – wants to keep broadcasting to the next generation, they are going to have to revise their views on gays and lesbians.

CBS is going to have to acknowledge that, even between men, a kiss is just a kiss. And an ad showing that kiss should be accepted without comment.

Jennifer Vanasco is an award-winning, syndicated columnist. Email her at Jennifer.Vanasco@gmail.com. Follow her at Twitter.com/JenniferVanasco

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Last week, I sat in a room in the presence of history.

At least that’s what it felt like.

Ted Olson and David Boies, the two lawyers who are arguing for equal marriage in the California Proposition 8 case, were in New York to talk about their experience.

There’s no decision in the Prop 8 case yet – there haven’t even been closing arguments. But Olson and Boies expect a decision by June.

And they expect it to be pro-gay marriage.

To anyone who followed the testimony while it was happening, this is no surprise. Olson, Boies and their witnesses made eloquent arguments for why gays and lesbians have the right to marry.

They recapped those arguments in a Q&A with warmth and power.

First off, they said, the Supreme Court has already said that marriage is a fundamental right. Not just in Loving v Virginia, the famous case that struck down bans on interracial marriage, but also in cases like one in Wisconsin, which had a law against people like domestic abusers marrying. Wisconsin had decided that if you get marriage wrong once, you can’t have it again.

The Supreme Court said no.

Missouri had a law that if you’re in prison for life, you can’t marry.

The Supreme Court said no.

Marriage is so central that even if you’re in prison for life, even if you’ve married seven times, even if you’ve abused a previous spouse, you have the right to marry.

That is how important it is. And therefore, discrimination against the right of gays and lesbians to marry, Olson said, is “wrong, destructive and serves no state purpose.”

Second, there is just no evidence to show that gay marriage hurts straight marriage. But there is plenty to prove that not being able to marry hurts not only gay and lesbian people, but also our children.

Even the pro-Prop 8 side admitted this. When Judge Vaugn Walker asked one of their lawyers if gay marriage would hurt straight marriage, he said, “I don’t know.”

Sure, the other side keeps saying – over and over again – that it is in the state’s interest to “protect” marriage between a man and a woman because they are most likely to procreate and procreation is in the state’s interest.

But what Olson and Boies say to that is simply this: no state has ever had a fertility test before granting a marriage license. No state has ever asked a couple about their intention to procreate. So how invested in procreation can the state be?

And finally – the argument from tradition is specious. It’s true, Olson and Boies say: allowing gays and lesbians to marry will change the definition of marriage. But allowing interracial marriage changed the definition of marriage, too.

As Boies said, quoting Justice Kennedy, “The fact that discrimination has gone on a long time doesn’t make it fine – it makes it worse.”

Watching Olson and Boies speak gave me shivers because they laid out a clear pathway to winning. They said that just the fact that they made such a clear case, bringing all the evidence together for the first time, will move the country forward, because it tears down the other side’s position.
But even better, their arguments are arguments we can all use when explaining equal marriage to family and colleagues. They are not defensive. They are not overreaching. They are right.

We will win the current Prop 8 trial. And we may win the appellate trial. But Olson and Boies’ confidence and solid reasoning made me think for the first time that we will also win the Supreme Court. And if we win California, we will have gone a long way toward winning equal marriage everywhere.

Marriage is coming. And those of us who were in that room last week were lucky enough to meet the men who may help make it happen.

The full Olson/Boies Q&A is available at 365gay.com. Jennifer Vanasco is an award-winning, syndicated columnist. Email her at Jennifer.Vanasco@gmail.com; Follow her at Twitter.com/JenniferVanasco.

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Elena Kagan

supreme lesbian?
by Jennifer Vanasco

Suddenly, it seems possible that the next Supreme Court pick might be a lesbian.

Surprise!

Solicitor General Elena Kagan is not openly gay at the moment – which of course may mean she’s not gay at all. But persistent rumors, an absence of denial, and some assurances from people I trust make me think that yeah, she probably is.

And she’s right now on the short list of potential Supreme Court nominees to replace Justice John Paul Stevens on his retirement this summer, along with appellate judges Diane Wood and Merrick Garland.

Kagan would be a good choice. Though she hasn’t won the love of people who worked for her, she is known for reaching out (and hiring) more conservative faculty and diplomatically increasing the range of viewpoints when she served as Dean of Harvard Law School.

Diplomacy is good – and undervalued – on the Supreme Court. A liberal position on a case helps no one if a justice can’t get four other justices to side with her.

The short list is no guarantee, of course. This could be a list of names being floated by the White House; it could be names they’ve already discarded; it could be a list someone in the blogosphere made up.

The Wall Street Journal is already warning that conservatives are against her, because she spoke out against the Solomon Amendment, which forbid federal funds to be distributed to law schools (like Harvard) that did not allow the military to recruit on campus because of it’s discriminatory policies.

The idea that she herself may be a lesbian – and the conservative stand against that – is buried in the subtext.

Would it matter if the next Supreme Court Justice was a lesbian?

Well – yes and no.

No, because we all know that our sexual orientation doesn’t dictate how we feel about any issue. Some of us are Democrats, some Republicans – and I bet some of us are even Tea Partiers. We fall on different sides on hate crimes, military service and even gay marriage.

Her record as a Dean and a professor are more indicative of her liberal leanings than is the (possible) fact of her lesbianism. Though, interestingly, because she hasn’t served as a judge or a legislator, her on-the-record views of most issues that might come up before the Court is non-existent.

But yes, in terms of visibility and representation, it would matter, especially (and perhaps only if) she came out. Having an open lesbian serve on the Supreme Court would mean that young gays and lesbians would have a significant role model and would solidify our place as a minority that deserves representation in our political system.

Perhaps more importantly, though, we could be secure in knowing that there was at least one justice who started with the baseline understanding that gays and lesbians are fully human and should be treated like the full citizens we are.

It also is likely that having her as a close colleague will gently shift the perspective of even the most conservative members of the court (Does Antonin Scalia have any close gay friends? He may, but I think it’s unlikely) and make them less afraid of the lavender menace.

I wonder, too, if lawyers who come before the Supreme Court will argue differently. Most cases are not gay cases, of course, but a few important ones – marriage, military – are likely to come up in the next few years, and it would be interesting to see if the lawyers for the anti-gay side modify their arguments to make them more palatable to a gay justice.

For example, I imagine that there would be no labeling gay people as being bad for children, or of gayness being immoral.

But all of that is speculation. We need to wait and see who the actual nominee is. In the meantime, we can hope.

A lesbian on the Supreme Court. Twenty-five years ago, who dreamed that might happen?

Jennifer Vanasco is an award-winning,
syndicated columnist.
Email her at Jennifer.Vanasco@gmail.com; Follow her at twitter.com/JenniferVanasco.

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