Tag Archives: gay

Big Pink Crosses (or some such TV nonsense)

This is one for my friend Steve to comment on. Yahoo reports that “In 1994, just 19 of the Fortune 500 companies advertised their brands in gay media in the United States. Last year, 175 did”. [Source: Advertisers out of the closet with gay-themed ads – Yahoo! News] It’s just a shame all those stereotypes still exist. The worst gay ads are the ‘Get Fruity’ Muller sponsorship of Living TV’s Will and Grace. All that cheap innuendo; it’s amazing they don’t give the audience a little more credit.

And talking of Will & Grace, Eric McCormack – who played Will – appears to be struggling to find work now that the series is gone and finished. He told Sunday’s Observer that “I have this big pink cross to bear”. Still, I guess with all the money he made from Will & Grace, he’s in a position to be able to hire somebody to carry it for him. [Source: The Observer | UK News | I can’t shake off my gay image, says Will]

On this day…

2006: All You Need To Know About Sharon Osbourne’s New TV Show
2006: In The Air Again
2002: Temptation

Gay Music Stars Still Stir Headline Writers

We all know there are plenty of gay folks in the music business, but few of the stars feel able to come out. Stephen Gately did it a few years ago, Andrew Kinlochan did, and so did Will Young. Yesterday, Mark Feehily (the quiet one in Westlife) told The Sun newspaper he was gay, and that got reported all over the place. It stuns me that anybody bothers to write about this anymore (or uses the word ‘admit‘ in the headline), but I, along with plenty of other gay men in the UK, wish him well.

On this day…

2004: Technology Gets The Better Of Me
2004: Another Chart
2004: Celebrity Justice?
2002: A Haddock is A Wet Fish

Saturday News

I think perhaps I am now behind the times. Apparently, this should be a video site:

Mr Bouwman is the vanguard of the latest internet trend: video logging or vlogging. One step up from the now familiar internet blogger, vloggers upload personal video clips of everything from the US Democratic convention to what they had for their tea, via rants about tax rises and conspiracy theories.

[The Guardian]

Luckily for you, I’m no good with movie cameras. However, if I were, perhaps I would head for Hull (you know that northern town famous for The Housemartins and the Deputy Prime Minister). Do I hear you ask, Why Hull? Well, apparently, some bright sparks want to make it the new gay capital as it, apparently, has the fastest growing gay scene in the whole of Europe’.

The city council has already consulted with its hoteliers to ensure that they will welcome all visitors, and next week it will host a weekend trip for journalists from the gay media.

[The Guardian]

Now I wanted to joke about it, but I can’t really think of any reason to do so.

On this day…

2006: Button Is A Winner!
2005: London’s Living Room
2003: RSS Feeds
2003: No More Clause 28
2003: July 2003 And All That
2002: Where Are You Now, Miss Boo?

Missed Todd’s Coming Out

2 Replies
bruno langley is todd

Reading the Yahoo group, it seems the storyline for Coronation Street got all exciting last night, and so I now have to remember to catch the ITV2 repeat. It’s funny, but I really do only watch it for the gay storyline and fast-forward through the rest of the episode.

For the uninitiated, Coronation Street is a classic British soap that has been on-screen forever (see the FAQ). Rumour has it that Adam and Eve watched it back at the beginning of time. Anyway, Todd (engaged to be married, father) had a ‘moment’ with his fiancée’s brother (who, to be honest, is hot). It was the first ever openly gay moment on The Street (which is what it’s known as here and has no link whatsoever to stocks and shares and New York City). So, Todd gradually realises his preference is for men and falls for hunky nurse Karl. This week was the big coming out moment. The storyline is helped by the fact that Bruno Langley is also cute as hell too. So, despite the fact I don’t watch the soaps anymore, I keep watching bits of this storyline (and so, apparently, did lots of other people).

And if my friend Steve is reading this I am expecting a nice long comment about Gail Tilsley and what a joy she has been since her arrival on The Street (a hundred years ago – or so).

On this day…

No other posts on this day.

Same Sex Partnerships in 2004

And so we say welcome to a brand-new year, and I thought I would have a look at the news to see what might come our way in 2004 in light of the promised partnership bill. I see we’re still in for the same old arguments.

On a positive note, there has been some coverage in the last few days of the National Trust’s decision to allow same-sex couples to hold commitment ceremonies on its premises. As I suspect they don’t discriminate when it comes to taking money from people for entry or membership, it’s about time they caught up and let everybody use the many fine buildings around the country.

Of course, some can’t hide their distaste. Ann Widdecombe said it was a “terrible idea“, and the Christian Institute also seems to think it’s a bad idea. As The Gay Vote points out, their ideas are – sometimes – a little contradictory. Still, not as odd as Peter Luff’s thoughts (he’s the Conservative MP for Mid Worcestershire), who applauds the use of National Trust properties for civil unions but was “against the ceremonies becoming legal marriages”. Ah well, this year will be interesting when the partnership bill comes before Parliament.

Of course, the Pope continues his battle to keep marriage tied to religion and ignore the many people who opt for civil unions today. The church continues to believe that civil partnerships for same-sex couples will, somehow, undermine the family. This is one that I have spoken about before, and the logic of this argument is still not clear to me. Still, you don’t need a crystal ball to see that the next few months will be full of such nonsense from the church again.

On this day…

2006: Who Are You?
2003: LBC Back On Air

More Gay Marriage

Yet again, Maggie Gallagher is off on a mission to tie same-sex partnership recognition to the end of the human race (if a few gay men have equal partnership rights, then nobody is going to make babies anymore).

Eric, on the other hand, posts some interesting comments about equality.

After reading an article that stated Bush’s intention to sponsor a legislation that seeks to permanently bar same-sex marriage I am quite frustrated. We live in a country that claims to be the land of the free, yet not all of its citizens are not allowed to marry who they love.

EQUALITY & THE HYPOCRISY OF A NATION

On this day…

2006: Changes At Red Bull Racing
2005: Swiss Re Tower, London
2004: Back Ache
2002: Water, Water Everywhere

No More Clause 28

Section 28 will now be repealed two months after the Local Government Bill comes into law over the summer.

Stonewall

I was reading the Stonewall site earlier and came across a piece of news that I either missed or hasn’t been widely reported: Section 28 is no more. Isn’t that fantastic news and about time. But why has it been so widely under-reported?

On this day…

2006: Button Is A Winner!
2005: London’s Living Room
2004: Saturday News
2003: RSS Feeds
2003: July 2003 And All That
2002: Where Are You Now, Miss Boo?

Gay Marriage

Last week I mentioned that I wanted to comment on Maggie Gallagher’s piece on the marriage debate for it angered me greatly when I read it (of course reading this ultra-conservative approach will always anger me so I don’t know why I do it). Of course, there’s a whole blog related to the topic at marriagedebate.com.

Apparently, losing the marriage argument ‘means losing the idea that children need mothers and fathers’. How? Why does the fact that you allow same-sex couples to marry suddenly mean heterosexual couples won’t form unions and families (married or not) and somehow deprive children of their parents?

And how do you get to “The consequences of our current retreat from marriage are not a flourishing libertarian social order, but a gigantic expansion of state power and a vast increase in social disorder and human suffering”?

There is a huge misunderstanding here. Why is it always assumed that, by allowing same-sex couples to form recognised partnerships, everybody else will stop? It’s not as if all the straight people in the world are suddenly going to decide not to marry because another group of people can. Why would they? If Maggie’s quoted ‘marriage recovery’ exists, then it is from a change in the way people relate to each other and not because gay couples can not marry. It’s not a choice of one or the other for gay couples. They will not form heterosexual marriages because they can’t have a legally binding partnership of their own. They will simply continue to suffer.

I believe I have a reasonably wide circle of friends both gay and straight. Of all the gay couples I know many have been together for a very long time. By allowing those couples to marry we do not stop children from having mothers and fathers nor suddenly see an expansion of state power.

So, why are traditional marriage supporters so afraid?

On this day…

2002: Nearly The End of July

I Have An Unbearable Feeling Of Sadness

You may recall I said, on September 11, that my thoughts were with Bart, who was going through the process of coming out as a gay man to his parents. He has been discussing this process in his blog for months and finally posted a letter to them telling them he was gay. Their initial reaction seemed positive and supportive, but now it seems to have turned negative, and he is receiving emails from his father quoting a range of anti-gay websites.

Now, I feel an unbearable sadness. Here is a young man trying to do the right thing, and here is a set of parents whose world seems to have fallen apart. While a blog offers only a small window into someone’s personality and the life they lead, I do get the impression that his parents are good people. So why do his recent entries make me feel so sad? I am certain they love their son and want the best for him. I am positive that they are trying to do (what they see as) the right thing. I am also fairly sure they will accept their son and, in years to come, regret how they handled the news (doing it all by email is, perhaps, not an ideal way to do this). Still, a part of me wants to believe people are good and supportive, and that discrimination is something we will eventually only see in historical movies. I fear I am either naive or (as I would rather be) eternally hopeful.

There are coming-out experiences posted across the web. All are useful to a certain extent, and all are useless in that none of them deal with our own families and the dynamics of our relatives and their own belief systems. Many of them, good or bad, serve to show the world what a painful process this is for many gay men. Will it ever change? Tom posted an entry (see September 16th) which summarises some of this and, one day, I may post about the awful way I procrastinated the subject for too many years.

On this day…

2004: Crazy Name, Worthy Cause
2002: Individual Portions
2002: Nike 10K