Posted March 31st, 2010 by outerlimits
A recent poll on a gay dating site has produced some surprising results. Asked whether they would willingly take a pill or drug, should one be developed, to turn them straight, roughly 77% of members said no, with the ones most likely to say yes in the remaining 23% coming from those aged 18 to 24 years. How can younger gay men be so downcast after an unprecedented period of advances in gay rights and the social acceptance of LGBT people?
A few respondents were uncomfortable with the very idea of a straight pill, with its underlying implication that being gay is a disease in need of a cure, a point of view with has been rightly consigned to the cobwebbed halls of Victorian psychiatry. As a kind of science fiction possibility as desirable to most of us as a one-way trip to a Swiss flat run by Dignitas, however, the idea has a certain vintage. I remarked long ago on the Mothership Gay Forums how comedian Frankie Howerd, belonging to a less fortunate generation before gay sexual liberation, might well have taken a drug that would have made him heterosexual, if only for the reason given by some ‘yes’ respondents in this poll, that it would make their lives a lot easier.
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Posted March 18th, 2010 by outerlimits
I’m in Blackpool for a short break, a place perfect for chilling out and contemplating the future. A fog rolled in two days ago, and shrouds the vast tumescence of the sea. Despite a long winter season, the gay scene remains vibrant while much else lies in semi-repose. Stella Artois draws a regular crowd to her Sunday School at the Mardi Gras club every weekend, a sort of tattooed docker in spangled frocks with a fine singing voice and devastating wit. When Richard Whiteley of Countdown fame died, Stella announced it, saying:
“He found a nine-letter word - cremation.
It was inevitable that Blackpool, long an epicentre of raucous and spectacular entertainment, should gather a gay population to rival Brighton, with its own annual Pride festival, cavernous Flamingo 2 nightclub, top professional theatrical revue Funny Girls, and an aptly named Flying Handbag. It’s a place where LGBT people really enjoy themselves as the clubs and discos catch the latest music trends from Europe. There are also lesser known places to which the scene extends.
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Posted March 1st, 2010 by 1stofficer
Elton John
In 1966 John Lennon unleashed the fury of evangelical groups for saying The Beatles were “more popular than Jesus”. Elton John achieved the same result without egotism recently when, being interviewed by American magazine Parade he made a remark that he didn’t think would be published ( relating to the persecution of lesbians in the Middle East): “I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems”. There has been a steady movement for decades among gay Christians towards claiming Jesus as one of their own, of which Elton’s now much-publicised statement is the latest manifestation.
Sir Elton John, globe-bestriding star, singer and composer, firmly established as the gay lord of the music world’s dance, enjoys a model civil partnership with David Furnish, and will long be remembered for his expression of the nation’s deep emotion at the loss of Lady Diana. His immense fundraising efforts for AIDS causes stretching from the early case of Ryan White to his tribute to Wyoming gay murder victim Matthew Shepard, “strung on a high-ridge fence”, evidence his own compassionate nature.
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