| WeHo Pride: Soon to be 90% prouder?
Instead of just blowing the whole load in a weekend of parade festivities, a West Hollywood City Council task force is recommending that the community's gay pride celebration should be expanded into a month-long social and cultural event. Flaggy. Keeping with the suggestion, we think the entire month of June should simply be renamed June Likes Girls, So Get The F**k It Over It. While it may be wordy and a bit annoying for those who like to write out a month's name rather than use its numeric representation, we think it would drive our "We're Here, We're Queer" point home in ways far greater than any flag and float-filled parade could ever hope. So what do we think, world -- summer of '07 begins on June Likes Girls, So get the F**k Over It 21, 2007? We're thinking we're on to somethin'! It's unclear if any other areas of the country will follow WeHo's lead and consider expanding their own pride festivities.
Cleric wades into gay pride row
The Catholic Archbishop of Glagow has controversially defended the nine firemen who have been disciplined for refusing to distribute fire safety leaflets at a gay pride event. One officer was demoted, eight others were given warnings, and all were required to attend diversity training after they disobeyed orders to attend the Pride Scotia event in Glasgow. But Mario Conti, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow, issued a statement today saying that the disciplinary action was 'dismaying'. Archbishop Conti said that 'the duty to obey one's conscience is a higher duty than that of obeying orders.' While some of the firemen had said that they were refusing to give fire prevention advice at the event in June because they had religious objections, other refused to do so simply because they said it would be embarrassing.
`Gung ho,' gay - and alive today
I am in agreement with William Butte's commentary of Sept. 4 on the military policy of "Don't ask, don't tell." It reminded me of my experience in the U.S. Navy in 1964: 43 years and nothing has changed.
Just out of Catholic high school and in a hurry to become a working adult, I joined the U.S. Navy. I thought the four years would "teach me to be a man" and allow me to get an education and some worldly knowledge.
I was very innocent and, to be sure, quite ignorant about the ways of the world. I was very sexually active with boys all during my school years, even as early as the fourth grade. I liked guys, but didn't consider myself "queer" and had never heard of the term "gay." "Homosexual" was a derogatory dictionary term.
In basic training I decided I would like to go to corps school to become a Navy corpsman.
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