Blabbeando

Ecuador: Lesbian who led fight against 'gay conversion' clinics appointed to Presidential Cabinet

2012-01-23T16:03:00.001-05:00

Presidential Cabinet appointment: Continuing with his LGBT-friendly record, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa announced this week that Carina Vance Mafla, who is a lesbian, would take the reigns of the country's Health Ministry. The appointment followed the resignation earlier in the month of the previous health minister over criticism he had failed to modernize a health system that has been mired in inefficiency.

Vance made no mention of her sexual orientation when she was introduced to the press on Wednesday nor did the press ask about it. Instead, the press picked up on it a day later after the Ecuadoran LGBT-advocacy organization Equal Rights Now (Igualdad de Derechos Ya!) released a press statement calling her a "lesbian activist" and saluting her appointment as a historic first.

In the statement, the organization goes on to say that they hope the newly appointed minister will pay attention to current delays in the distribution of HIV medications, create guidelines to prevent discrimination against LGBT individuals at hospitals and health centers and take action on shutting down illegal religious "clinics" that promote "cures" for homosexuality.

Background: It's not as if Vance is unwilling to talk public about being gay. In the April 2010 issue of the Ecuadorean magazine Cosas she describes coming to terms with her sexuality after a harrowing experience that happened on a bus when she was just thirteen years old.

Born in Oakland, California, Vance lived in Europe during her teens. In the article she describes hanging out with her first crush and holding hands with her as they rode a public bus in Europe. She says that she stopped holding hands the moment she realized a group of guys in their twenties had noticed the gesture.

Vance says that one of the men got closer and started spitting at them while a second man sat behind them and shouted insults. When she turned around to confront the guy shouting homophobic epithets, he punched her in the face. She thought she would be safe the moment she got off the bus but she was wrong.

"They followed me home, kicking me and shouting at me," she says, "for me, it was a matter of pride that kept me from running, so I just walked on forward even as they continued to kick me. [The experience] not only helped me to become fully aware of my sexuality but also made me aware of the societal reaction to it."

Vance would then move to Quito with her family where she attended high-school but says that she felt it was impossible for her at that particular time to live openly. She decided to move back to the United States after graduation where she spent twelve years finishing college and graduate degrees.

"When I returned [to Ecuador] in 2004, it shocked me to see the gay flag prominently displayed at a university" she says.

Vance realized just how much Ecuador had changed for the better and told the magazine that she now lived in Quito happily and openly without fear of being attacked.

"Lesbian torture clinics": In 2008, I wrote about a two-part investigative report in Ecudor's El Universo which exposed a network of 140 illegal "clinics" that promised to "cure" gays and lesbians and turn them straight ("Ecuador: Kidnapping, torture and confinement at ex-gay therapy centers").

The articles earned the paper a prestigious journalism award and led to calls for the government to shut down the so-called clinics.

Most recently, the "clinics" gained renewed attention when U.S. based online activism petition sites Change.org and AllOut.org launched calls in November for the Ecuadorean government to shut down the "lesbian torture clinics" at the request of Ecuadorean lesbian-rights organization Fundación Causana.

The "clinics", as reported, actually don't discriminate based on gender when it comes to their zeal to convert the gay away and, to their credit, the government took some action last September when they shut down 30 clinics back in September.

Yesterday, Change.org claimed victory in pressuring the Ecuadorean government to take action on these clinics.

They quoted a statement from Fundación Causana:

After ten years of outcry, the nation of Ecuador - through the Ministry of Public Health - has entered into a commitment with civic organizations and society in general to deconstruct the belief that homosexuality is an illness and root our the use of torture in these clinics. We extend our thanks to all the men and women who signed our petition. It has been invaluable to have this support in starting to change this reality.

That is amazing news but this is what is just as amazing:

The online petitions that Change.org and AllOut.org posted were addressed to Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and the former Health Minister David Chiriboga Allnutt. That Health Ministry seat, of course, is now held by Carina Vance.

Well, it turns out that at the time Vance gave that interview to Cosas on coming to terms with her sexuality, she just happened to be the Executive Director of Fundación Causana.

In other words, the agreement that Fundación Causana announced with the government probably has a lot to do with tremendous international pressure. But in an amazing turnaround of events, it's probably also due to the fact that the woman who previously led the agency leading the drive against the clinics is now the country's Health Minister.

Just amazing.

Related:

Ex-Gay Torture Clinics Raided, Shut Down Following Online Campaign (Change.org Press Release)
In a Stunning Turnaround, Ecuador Pledges to Close 'Ex-Gay' Torture Clinics and Names Lesbian to Lead Ministry of Health (AllOut.com Press Release)

Reactions:

Ecuadorian clinics allegedly use abuse to 'cure' homosexuality (CNN)
Rights groups hail Ecuador's crackdown on lesbian 'torture clinics' (MSNBC)
Ecuador to crack down on clinics that 'cure' gays (AP)
Ecuador President appoints lesbian to cabinet (The Washington Blade)
Ecuador: Lesbian activist appointed to presidential cabinet (The Advocate)
Ecuador's Ministry of Health names lesbian minister, pledges to close 'Ex-Gay' torture camps (Queerty)
Anti-"gay conversion" activist appointed health minister in Ecuador (News Taco)
Tortured for being gay? Not anymore (The Huffington Post)

Previously:

In a busy Quito city street, free 'makeovers' to look like the opposite gender (October 25, 2009)
President Rafael Correa vows to fight homophobia in wake of NYC murder (December 21, 2008)
New Ecuadorean Constitution grants gays civil union rights, bans gay adoption rights (September 29, 2008)
President Rafael Correa on same-sex marriage, abortion and including 'God' in the Ecuadorean constitution (March 31, 2008)

Leading Costa Rican LGBT-rights activist Abelardo Araya dies at 42

2012-01-21T16:31:00.002-05:00

Abelardo Araya, one of the leading LGBT-rights advocates in Latin America, has passed away at 42 years of age.

Friends and relatives found Araya dead at his apartment on Thursday after not hearing from him for a couple of days. Police have ruled out foul play and believe that he died of a heart attack. Araya had recently spent a few weeks at a local hospital for ailments related to high blood pressure, heart problems and diabetes.

La Nación says that Araya developed his thirst for activism while living in Ecuador in the 1990's. When he returned to Costa Rica in 1998 he became the coordinator of a program offering support to parents and relatives of gay and lesbian children at the Latin American Health Prevention and Education Institute.

He would later launch Movimiento Diversidad (the Diversity Movement), a non profit LGBT-rights organization which sought to visibilize the Costa Rican LGBT community and increase its political power.

Speaking to Telenoticias 7, Marco Castillo, the organization's attorney and a close friend of Araya's said that while members of the LGBT community already had begun to organize, Araya was the first person in Costa Rica to organize public LGBT conferences and offer invitations to media to cover the events.

Araya had last appeared on Telenoticias 7 on December 29th when he announced that members of the LGBT community would provide entertainment to the public during the end of the year bullfighting ceremonies. Yet another way that Movimiento Diversidad sought to give the community a public face.

One of Araya's biggest political battles was promoting the legal recognition of same-sex partnership rights. In 2006, several legislative leaders sought his counsel in authoring a bill that would make civil unions legal for same-sex couples in Costa Rica. Several versions of the bill have been drafted but have failed to get much traction to this date.

In May of 2011, Movimiento Diversidad also provided support for two gay couples who went to court and demanded the right to marry. The court ruled against the couples but the action drew so much attention that Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla was put on the spot.

Chinchilla, who had ran on a "family values" platform and had previously spoken against same-sex partnership rights, stunned everyone when she said she would actually not be opposed to the legalization of same-sex marriages in her country.

In December, 20 legislators sent President Chinchilla a letter asking her to be the lead sponsor of a same-sex civil union bill. She turned them down saying that her job as a president was to focus on the country's economy and public safety.

Former Costa Rican José Meino del Rio, one of the sponsors of the 2006 civil unions bill, showed up at yesterday's wake to talk about the integral part that Araya played in moving these bills forward. Addressing Araya's mother directly, Meino del Rio spoke of the hateful homophobic insults her son had endured from the religious right.

The [2006] bill and others that have been introduced since then have created a national debate in which we heard, in effect, the voice of hate from the religious leadership. Pay it no mind, Mrs. Araya. Have no doubt that wherever [Abelardo] is, he is looking at us. And, from there, he is saying "Have faith! Push forward! Do not let them win, do not give up! Let my death not be forgotten as an example because no one dies as long as someone remembers you'.

Tico Bears, of which Araya was a proud member, posted a video of Meino del Rio's remarks which I have excerpted above.

Even after death, homophobia in media: On a related matter, as news of Araya's death hit social media yesterday, people on Twitter were outraged by a story on Araya's passing posted without a byline in a Costa Rican MSN News affiliate.

The post, which has since been removed but can be read in a cached version here, was shocking in its homophobic insensitivity.

Saying that Araya had spent years fighting for "the so-called rights a same sex couple could enjoy," the writer chalked up his recent ailments as "just one additional problem that added to his suffering."

He goes on: "Araya had already spent more than ten years leading of these kind of people, a group that has grown larger than it ever should as the days go by; nevertheless, even though it's all sorrow to them, they will have to let the days pass and then sit down to figure out who might become the new captain of their Love Boat."

Kölbi, The cell company that runs the MSN News page on which the article was posted later apologized and said that the site had inadvertently reproduced content from a separate site not affiliated with the cell brand of MSN News.

"Kölbi reiterates the respect we have for sexual diversity and expresses our deep sense of solidarity with Mr. Araya's friends and family," said a statement from the company, "Kölbi commits itself to give absolute respect to sexual diversity, as it has done in the past, on the basis of the corporate guidelines of our parent company, the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity."

I have a feeling that Araya would be proud that, even in death, his legacy would lead to a national company restating their commitment to respect the LGBT community in his country.

Rest in peace, Abelardo.

UPDATE: Tuanix Interactive Media, which provides content for Kölbi, has released their own statement apologizing to the Araya family, to Kölbi and to MSN for the homophobic column. They have announced that the author of the piece, Walter Carrera, was fired on the spot on the same day the company became aware of the column he had authored.

Related:

Costa Rica's LGBT community mourns death of leader (Tico Times)
Abelardo Araya's FB wall (Facebook)

Nelson Rodriguez and Juan Rodriguez get married...

2012-01-12T20:46:00.001-05:00

Photo: Juan Rodriguez, former president of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (Screen capture).

One of the least reported stories about the success of the marriage equality push in New York in 2011 was the role of Spanish language media and its positive impact on passage of the law. In particular, the decade long support expressed editorial pages of the most widely read Spanish-language newspaper in the city, El Diario La Prensa.

Last year, as the legislative battle heated up, El Diario's pro-marriage equality stand drew the wrath of homophobic Pentecostal preacher and Democratic New York State Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr., a leading opponent of the bill.

In April announced a boycott of the paper and said that the paper would be forced to drop its daily circulation by 20,000 copies. He repeated the threat at several of the rallies he organized against marriage equality (video from one of the rallies here).

Editors stayed mum on the boycott most of the summer but a month after the law was signed into law, El Diario's Chief Editor and CEO Rossana Rosado appeared on NY1's "Pura Política" and spoke about the boycott's utter failure as well as the paper's longtime stand in support of marriage equality ("Was Reverend Ruben Diaz, Sr.'s homophobic boycott against NY's 'El Diario La Prensa' effective?").

Interviewed by Juan Manuel Benitez, Rosado also revealed why the marriage equality issue hit so close to home and become such a personal issue for her (video of full interview here):

One of the first gay weddings will take place at my home. It will be between our friends Nelson and Juan who have spent 36 years together and who will get married and - at last! - they'll have the right to do it in this State.

This was also the year in which my daughter revealed to us that she is gay. She is 17 years old and her friends, her cousins, our family, everyone has given her their full support. There has not been a single negative reaction. I think that's the world we should pass on to our children.

The gay couple who planned to marry at Rosado's home were Nelson Rodriguez - who works for El Diario La Prensa - and Juan Rodriguez - who served as the former president of the Puerto Rican Independence Party of New York.

Rodriguez and Rodriguez were among the hundreds of couples who lined up outside City Hall in Manhattan on July 24th - the first day gay couples could register for a marriage license. Bryan Llenas, who was covering the story for Fox News Latino, happened to take this great picture of the happy couple. They would get married a month later on August 20th (photo used by permission from Bryan Llenas and Fox News Latino).

A month later, in October, Juan Rodriguez (on the right) would die from cancer.

On a special 'Top Stories of 2011' episode of "Pura Politica", host Juan Manuel Benitez took a look back at El Diario La Prensa's stand on marriage equality. He ended the segment by honoring Juan Rodriguez' life (turn on annotations for an English-language translation):

This, ladies and gentlemen, was one of the many reasons why El Diario's editors supported marriage equality - and one of the reasons why Senator Diaz wanted to boycott El Diario.

---

In a lighter vein, in the same show, political pundit Gersón Borrero was invited to discuss the stories of the year. It might be a tad politically incorrect, but here was his take on Senator Diaz' opposition to marriage equality.

OMG.

Borrero, a former editor at El Diario, has been calling Diaz "Lucifer" for years. Diaz, to this date and to the Senator's credit, Diaz still takes his calls.

An interview with me!

2011-11-25T15:55:00.000-05:00

I have been doing a few interviews as of late and by that I mean who could forget my incredible tête-à-têtes with the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Michael Musto, Tim Dax and Lisa M?

Now comes the greatest interview of all: An interview with me!

Don't worry, I am not as infatuated with myself to have conducted the interview. It was just happy happenstance that my friend Enrique TorreMolina was gracious enough to reach out and ask a few pressing questions. Some excerpts:

Me on immigration: There is no reason why the wealthiest nation in the world cannot provide opportunities for immigrants to develop their full potential regardless of economic or educational background.
Me on blogging: Not every blog writer posts a daily entry or multiple daily posts. I’m sure most people don’t even realize how much perseverance, dedication, personal sacrifice and time it takes a blogger to keep up that sort of blogging rhythm but it’s almost a Herculean task.
Me on gossip: For a while I tried to be snarky and gossipy because I felt readers would enjoy it, but ultimately it wasn’t my style. I ended up erasing a few posts where I felt I had dished out at a couple of celebrities. It just made me feel dirty. Others do gossip much better than I do.
Me on Latino LGBT priorities: Sometimes the question about community “priorities” bothers me –and I know you didn’t mean it that way– because it’s usually code speak for ‘your priority is not important, my priority is’.
Me on my which other blogs you should be following: It might be an eclectic list but...

Heck, I'll let you read the whole interview, and check out some of the blogs I gave props to, here: Blabbeando with Andrés Duque.

If I may say so, it's probably the most important interview you will read in your life.

Thanks, Enrique, for having the great taste to interview me! You rock.

Stunning LGBT campaign ads from Argentina

2011-11-21T11:20:00.000-05:00

A year ago, Argentina became the first country in Latin America to grant same-sex couples full marriage rights. Before this year is over, the Argentinean congress might very well pass a groundbreaking transgender-rights law extending health care protections to transgender individuals and making it easier for trans folk to change their ID's to better reflect their gender identity without requiring proof of gender reassignment surgery.

Getting to this point has certainly taken years of work by Argentinean LGBT organizations, activists, advocates and allies. It has also inspired some pretty amazing television and online video ads.

The following two ads come from the Observatory for the Promotion of Sexual Diversity Rights in Salta or Obs.Salta for short and were made possible through grants from the United Nations (turn "annotations" on for my on-screen translation).

The second ad takes a similar take in a different setting...

The ads have actually been out for more than a year but somehow I missed them. You might also have missed a couple of really amazing ads I featured earlier.

The first one came as the ultimately successful marriage equality campaign was about to begin its final phase...

The most recent ad I featured is also a stunner and comes as advocates push for the transgender rights bill...

These are truly amazing ads. When I try to think of any LGBT advocacy ads from the United States that are similar to these I am at a loss. True, attitudes towards these issues might be different in Argentina than in the United States but does anyone know of any related ads produced in the U.S. that seem as immediate and vibrant as these ads?

Reaction:

New gay TV ads (Wockner)
Do Argentina's LGBT ads outshine the handful we've seen in the U.S.? (Instinct Magazine)
Two great rights clips from Argentina (Joe.My.God.)
Vidéo: Un couple hétéro viré d’un resto, vous y croiriez? (Tetu)
Strålande kampanj från Argentina (Ottar)
Wonderful LGBT Campaign from Argentina (Globewriter)
Stunning LGBT campaign ads from Argentina: Can you believe this? (Accidental Bear)
Argentina produces more amazing LGBT advocacy vids (Bilerico)
Watch LGBT campaign ads from Argentina (Queer Me Up)

Cuban exile group in Miami stages hilarious protest against Ricky Martin

2011-11-19T00:33:00.001-05:00

Details are sketchy but a small group of Cuban exiles in Miami apparently held a protest against pop singer Ricky Martin for daring to take the role of "Che" in the new Broadway version of the play "Evita".

Once feared for instigating boycotts against any music band that dared to perform in Cuba or had any allegiances to Cuban-based artists, Vigilia Mambisa, as the group calls itself, has become a shadow of its former glory and has lost favor with newer Cuban-American generations who see them as out of touch with political realities.

Images captured at the event, which was held on Friday, November 11th, in the parking lot outside the Miami's American Airlines Arena, show a woman holding a sing that reads "Ricky Martin: Undesirable, not worthy of appreciation - Boycott". Signs on the steamroller read "Boycott Ricky Martin's music" and "Vigilia Mambisa - Freedom".

The same group has mounted similar protest against a number of music bands including Miguel Bosé, Juanes and Los Van Van. This is not even the first fictionalized "Che" they have boycotted. In 2008, they riled against the Steven Soderbergh movie about the life of Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

Ironically, according to Wikipedia, the character of "Che" in "Evita" was originally not even based on the Argentinean-born left wing revolutionary leader who helped Fidel Castro take over Cuba. Apparently it was later that Harold Prince suggested that actors play the character as such when he joined production at a later stage in the play's development.

It's also not the only protest mounted against Ricky Martin in Miami in the last twelve months. On December 18th of last year, a group led by a Hispanic evangelical church stood outside Miami's Univision studios claiming that an interview with the pop idol that aired on November 2nd had been pornographic, indecent and obscene (it had been none of those things) and, of course, promoted the gay lifestyle.

Other than their target, the two protests apparently had something in common: Neither seemed to attract much attention or press.

Previews for "Evita" with Ricky Martin, Elena Roger and Michael Cerveris begin on Broadway on March 12th.

[Source]

Senator DeMint to Obama: Stop promoting human rights protections for LGBT communities outside the United States

2011-11-18T17:23:00.000-05:00

NOTE: This entry has been cross-posted at The New Civil Rights Movement. Thanks to NCRM Editor David Badash for hosting the post there as well.

When President Barack Obama named Puerto Rican lawyer Mari Carmen Aponte as his choice to become the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador in 2009, the nomination ran smack into a wall set up by Republican Senators who simply refused to vote on a wide array of diplomatic candidates nominated by the president.

At preliminary hearings at the time, conservative South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint led the charge against Aponte raising several "issues" including ludicrous rumors that she might very well be a Communist infiltrator.

Facing an obstructionist Republican Senate, Obama waited until a congressional recess to pull several of the nominees out of the regular nomination process and use his presidential powers to appoint them as interim ambassadors. That meant that they could immediately start serving as diplomats but would have to eventually face confirmation hearings at the end of the next calendar year from the date in which they were appointed.

Among those who were appointed for interim posts on August of 2010 was Aponte.

On a related matter, on June 27th of this year U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held the third annual LGBT pride event to happen at the U.S. Department of State under her watch.

In an extraordinary speech before staff from the Department of State and members of the U.S. diplomatic corps, Clinton saluted their work on promoting respect for LGBT communities throughout the world. An excerpt from the full speech:

There is the tremendous work that our diplomats have been doing in regional and international institutions to strengthen a shared consensus about how governments should treat their citizens. And we’ve made the message very consistent and of a high priority. All people’s rights and dignity must be protected whatever their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The very next day El Salvador's La Prensa Gráfica published an opinion piece by Ambassador Aponte titled "For an end to prejudice, wherever it exists". An excerpt from the article (full translation at the end of this post):

Last March, before the Human Rights Council at the United Nations, the United States, El Salvador and eighty-three other nations signed a pledge to eliminate violence against members of the LGBT community; additionally, on May of 2010, Salvadorean President Mauricio Funes signed Decree 56 which prohibits all forms of discrimination by the government of El Salvador on the basis of sexual orientation or identity. I applaud efforts by the government of El Salvador in support of the LGBT community both on the national and the international level.

The OpEd drew an immediate and furious rebuke from a small but powerful group of right-wing conservative religious leaders from El Salvador and other Latin American countries.

On July 6th, ACI Prensa reported that 42 so-called "pro life" and "pro family" organizations from the United States and Latin America had signed a statement rejecting the opinion piece ("Civil groups energetically reject the gay ideology of the United States in El Salvador"). A translated excerpt:

Aponte's article is essentially a cover for those so-called 'gay rights' which are actually an attempt to disguise an absolute imposition of the LGBT lobby's ideology on Catholic countries such as El Salvador - a position promoted by the Obama administration and by his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in particular.

It's a position taken as a ploy to impose gender ideology - which stems from the tenents of feminism and homosexual thinking - and use it to promote the idea that the differences between a man and a woman are merely social and not biological or based on nature.

As for the risks of such ideology being "imposed" on El Salvador by the United States? The actual statement released by the organizations made comparisons between the United States and the Roman Empire in the following way:

The fallen Roman Empire was considered to be modern and progressive. Babies were aborted, newborns were murdered, and - similarly - people would engage in homosexual, bisexual and incestuous relationships, pedophilia, zoophilia and orgies. Such decadence weakened said empire and led to its fall.

Salvadoran cultural observer Marvin Aguilar took the homophobic religious doomsayers to task a week later in an OpEd that ran in La Página ("In consideration of what was said by the U.S. Ambassador"). A translated excerpt:

In the Tuesday, June 28th edition of La Pagina Gráfica, Mari Carmen Aponte wrote about the policies of the current U.S. president which which observe June as the month in which the United States commemorates LGBT pride.

She argued in favor of combating violence, hate and misconceptions about a specific community of individuals. She explained the efforts made by the current government she represents in understanding that the rights of homosexuals are Human Rights and described how [homosexuality] was no longer classified as a pathology or a perversion that should be corrected or silenced.

Nowhere in the text authored by the Ambassador did she refer to any intent by the government she represents to intervene directly in the culture, tradition and values of El Salvador.

Which brings us to this: As an recess appointee, Aponte must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate before the end of this year to be able to keep her post and, once again, Senator DeMint is the one leading the charge against her. But now, instead of the Cuban infiltrator charges, DeMint is questioning Aponte's strong support for the protection of LGBT communities in El Salvador.

From a November 8th confirmation hearing before the Foreign Relations Committee...

And a partial transcript...

I would like to ask unanimous consent to submit for the record an opinion piece published in El Salvador by Ambassador Aponte in June of this year. In her OpEd, Ms. Aponte, presuming to represent the view of all Americans, in strongly promoting the homosexual lifestyle, wrote that "everyone has the responsibility to inform our neighbors and friends about what it means to be lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender." The OpEd upset a large number of community and pro-family groups in El Salvador who were insulted by Ms. Aponte's attempt to impose a pro-gay agenda in their country.

I would also like to ask unanimous consent to submit, for the record, a response to the OpEd from a coalition of more than three dozen groups and a letter from Salvadorean groups to the United States Senate asking the Senate to oppose Ms. Aponte's confirmation and I quote "We respectfully request that Ms. Aponte be removed from her post as soon as possible so that El Salvador may enjoy the benefits of having a person as a government representative of your noble country."

I would like to apologize to the Salvadorean people on behalf of the United States and reassure them that most Americans share their values. Ms. Aponte's personal, professional and political contact over many years raises numerous questions of judgement. I will vote 'no on Ms. Aponte's confirmation and strongly recommend my colleagues do the same.

In an OpEd published the next day in the conservative website Human Events, DeMint singled out Aponte's praise for Hillary Clinton ("Aponte's Agenda").

Aponte praised Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her previous remarks that “gay rights are human rights” and also noted gay pride month is celebrated with “parades, festivals, and educational campaigns” in the United States where the gay rights movement “celebrates its identity throughout the country.”

That's right. Senator DeMint is urging the U.S. Senate not to appoint Aponte as U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador based on an OpEd in which she saluted the government of El Salvador for their own initiatives to protect their LGBT populations.

Aponte, who was at the hearing, defended herself against DeMint's accusations when she had a chance to reply. "The OpEd reflects the policies of the Obama administration, the Salvadorean government and sixty-three other countries," she said to La Prensa, "It was not drafted as an insult to anyone."

Salvadoran columnist Marvin Aguilar, in an OpEd column published in La Prensa on November 10th, described DeMint's attempts at getting rid of Aponte as follows:

Catholic fundamentalists in El Salvador, skipping over historical papal lessons, have begun a Christian crusade to cleanse El Salvador of Mari Carmen Aponte. They say she is a destroyer of national family values, that she promotes heinous sinfulness and, in adition, some say that she even likes the arts. Leave it up to us, the Latin American beggars, to be more papal than the Pope when it comes to defend conservative beliefs, customs and traditions which are - of course - shared by all Salvadoreans.

Love unites but hate also brings people together. That's the way that local Catholics with an European pedigree have built an alliance with Jim DeMint, U.S. Senator from South Carolina, who is - according to U.S. political analysts, the most conservative congressmember in the Senate. He is a member of the Tea Party and is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate.

In sharp contrast to Salvadorean Catholic leader Archbishop Escobar Alas, DeMint has promoted prayer in schools; in contrast with people from El Salvador, he is in favor of abortion when the life of a mother is at risk; he does not want undocumented Salvadoreans living in the United States and is in favor of deporting them unlike other Catholics; he supported the Iraq invasion and when he finally visited Honduras in 2009, he met with Roberto Micheletti even though our country had not recognized his de facto government.

Nobody is perfect, least of all politicians whether they are from the U.S. or El Salvador, but... What is someone who is a Protestant Baptist and the son of divorced parents doing creating alliances with Salvadorean Catholics who sustain that divorce is a sin? What sexual agenda unites them against Mari Carmen Aponte?

Senator DeMint has publicly said that gays, single mothers, heterosexuals in civil unions as well as sexually active persons should not be hired as school educators. Similarly, he also has been and advocate that, if government does not have the authority or the legal tools to restrict homosexuality, it also should not be promoted through the legalization of gay marriage. And that is why he has echoed the tumultuous and sad complaints shouted to heaven by the increasingly strident Salvadorean Christian movement that has taken its lobbying activities to U.S. grounds.

Senator DeMint has said that his statements [on homosexuality] are based on his personal beliefs and should not be interpreted as issues he wants or should bring up as a Senator. It's surprising, then, that he is now opposing a column written by the U.S. Ambassador in La Prensa Gráfica which only sought to explain the vision of the Obama government as related to the gay community in the United States.

A tiny drop of fundamentalist fanatics cannot represent the ocean of Salvadoreans who respect the ways of other nations.

Aguilar is making reference to several on the record comments DeMint has made in the past ("Sen. Kim DeMint: Gays and unmarried, pregnant women should not teach public school", The Huffington Post, Oct. 2, 2010).

Covering last week's hearing, La Prensa also mentions that Marco Rubio, U.S Senator from Florida and Tea Party darling, asked Aponte if she had felt pressured to write the OpEd piece. Aponte reminded the Senator that she has written a regular opinion column for the paper and that she had written on LGBT issues specifically from a human rights viewpoint.

I have yet to find a full transcript or video of the hearing but Senate Republicans, in voting against Aponte, but her written testimony can be downloaded in PDF form here. Three former Salvadorean presidents traveled to Washington, DC, last month to support her confirmation ("Felix Rodriguez: In U.S. National Interest, confirm U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador", Miami Herald, Nov. 5, 2011).

I have translated Ambassador Aponte's "controversial" OpEd on LGBT rights. As you read it, please ask yourself who is seeking to impose certain values on El Salvador: Ambassador Mari Carmen Aponte of South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint.

Clearly for DeMint this is not only about Aponte. This is a rebuke against any attempt by the U.S. government to promote policies that extend human rights protections to LGBT populations throughout the world.

For an end to prejudice, wherever it exists

by Mari Carmen Aponte - As published in Spanish in La Prensa Gráfica on June 28th, 2011

On May 31st, President Obama proclaimed June of 2011 as the pride month for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.

"The history of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in the United States," says the President's proclamation, "is the story of our parents and children, our mothers and daughters, our neighbors and friends who continue the task of making our nation a more perfect union."

In the U.S., June is recognized as Gay Pride Month, a month during which the LGBT community celebrates its identity throughout the country through parades, festivals and educational campaigns.

When Congressman Barney Frank, who is openly gay, was asked why they should be proud of such a natural and innate human characteristic, he said "We are proud to stand up to hatred, prejudice and violence, specially when it is so difficult to stand up and say 'This is me'; To do so should make us feel extremely proud".

No one should be subjected to abuse because of who he is or who he loves. Homophobia and the brutal aggression that [gays] often endure are often based on a lack of understanding about what it truly means to be homosexual or transgender. We should work together too prevent negative perceptions through education and offering support to people who confront those who promote hate.

A year ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with great passion, stated "gay rights are human rights." In the same way, we believe people should not be stripped from their rights on the basis of their sexual preference or orientation. For that reason, the United States will continue to support the elimination of violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation on a worldwide basis.

Last March, before the Human Rights Council at the United Nations, the United States, El Salvador and eighty-three other nations signed a pledge to eliminate violence against members of the LGBT community; additionally, on May of 2010, Salvadorean President Mauricio Funes signed Decree 56 which prohibits all forms of discrimination by the government of El Salvador on the basis of sexual orientation or identity. I applaud efforts by the government of El Salvador in support of the LGBT community both on the national and the international level.

However, the responsibility does not only lie in the hands of governments. Everyone has the responsibility to contribute whether it's by confronting intimidation or violence when it happens in our schools or worksites, or by helping to inform our neighbors and friends about what it means to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. As our nations advance, we also experience an ongoing transformation on what it means to be a citizen in a democratic society. Together, as governments and as individuals, we can work to break the cycle of violence and discrimination.

It is the responsibility of each generation to bring our nations closer to fulfilling the promise of equality. Progress takes time, but history is on our side when we come together to demand an end to prejudice, wherever it exists, and to celebrate the great diversity of the Americas.

Reactions:

DeMint accuses El Salvador Ambassador of 'promoting the homosexual lifestyle' (Think Progress)
SC Senator DeMint doesn't want pro-LGBT U.S. ambassadors anywhere in the world (Queerty)
DeMint: El Salvador Ambassador has "gay agenda" (The Advocate)
South Carolina Yokel rushes to aid bigots in El Salvador (Truth Wins Out)
Senator apologizes to El Salvador over 'Pro-Gay Agenda" (Bilerico)

Honduras announces LGBT hate crimes investigation unit after pressure from the United States

2011-11-14T13:55:00.001-05:00

This week the Central American government of Honduras announced the launch of a special police unit dedicated to investigate crimes committed against members of the country's LGBT population ("Special unit will investigate crimes against 'gays'", La Tribuna, November 13, 2011).

The announcement follows years of local, regional and international criticism of the Honduran government's handling of a number of horrific crimes committed against the LGBT population in the past few years and, in particular, transgender women.

Of key interest in this announcement is not only that it's probably the first Latin American country to launch such an unit but also the direct and highly visible hand the United States government had in pressuring Honduras to investigate these crimes.

First came a statement from the office of U.S. Ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens released on January 17th which read, in part, as follows:

The protection of Honduran law extends to all its citizens regardless of sexual orientation and the Lobo Administration has repeatedly expressed its commitment to defend the rights of all Honduran citizens.

It is in this regard that we call upon Honduran law enforcement authorities to vigorously investigate these crimes, bring to justice the perpetrators, and take all necessary steps to protect LGBT persons, who are among the most vulnerable to violence and abuse in Honduras.

Then came statements in late January from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. President Barack Obama himself in which they alluded to the Honduran murders and offered assistance in the form of experts who could train local police officers on how to investigate the crimes ("United States to assist in the investigation of transgender murders in Honduras", Blabbeando, January 28, 2011).

In comments published yesterday by La Tribuna, Oscar Aguilar, the Spokesperson for the newly launched Sexual Diversity Unit of the National Investigation Chairmanship (DINIC), said that the unit would work closely with local LGBT-rights advocates and organizations.

"We know that many of these crimes are left unresolved due to a failure in determining the real causes why they were committed and that is the reason why the Sexual Diversity Unit was launched: To try to resolve them," he told La Tribuna.

In the interview Arce admits that officers have yet to be trained specifically on dealing with the LGBT community but highlights the unit's specific focus on investigating LGBT crimes. The Unit opened it's first office in Tegucigalpa on Monday and are concentrating on local crimes but Arce says that he hopes to expand their reach and open other offices in other regions of the country down the line.

I am a little weary about Arce's admission that the Unit's officers have yet to receive specific training on how to investigate LGBT-related crimes despite the public offers for assistance from the United States. It raises suspicion that the announcement might be more of a public relations effort to push back against international criticism rather than a full-faith effort to combat homophobic crime in Honduras.

It is still a remarkable example of how the United States can use pressure on Latin American governments to demand protections for their LGBT populations in a diplomatic but effective way.

Photo: DINIC Spokesperson Oscar Aguilar via La Tribuna.

Previously:

U.S. to assist in the investigation of transgender murders in Honduras (Jan. 28, 2011)
U.S. Ambassador to Honduras addresses transgender murders (Jan. 22, 2011)
U.S. Embassy in Honduras expresses concern for recent LGBT killings (Jan. 19, 2011)
IGLHRC: Ask Hinduran authorities to put an end to transgender murders (Jan. 11, 2011)
Gay rights under attack in Honduras (Oct. 19, 2005)

An ode to Steven Mackin

2011-10-28T01:49:00.002-04:00

It's been five years to the day since my friend Steven Mackin lost his battle with cancer. He would have been 32 yeas old this year.

Before he passed away, Steven asked me to write about him and post his photos on this blog so he would not be forgotten. I am not prone to observe annual themes on this blog but I always make an exception for Steven on this day.

In Steven's name, I ask you to Stand Up To Cancer. Better yet, if you have some time on your hands, please visit his hilarious, candid, sad, unpolitically correct and incredible LiveJournal blog "Things I've Found In My Butt".

Steven began writing as a way to document his struggle with cancer and, ultimately, he ended up leaving a testament of the amazing, funny and beautiful man he was while alive.

In 2007, the Associated Press featured his blog as an example of how people dealing with a terminal illness were using online diaries to leave a legacy behind ("Blogging at Life's End").

My heart goes to his mom Sheila tonight.

Univision promotes homophobia through sister network Telefutura

2011-10-13T20:53:00.001-04:00

***START OF UPDATE (as of Oct. 14, 2011): Monica Trasandes from GLAAD reached out to me this afternoon and said that they brought up my concerns to the producers of "Noche de Perros". In response, the producers said they "get" why the clip might be considered offensive by some viewers and have made a decision to pull it off the air.

As for the English-language online version of the promo - as can be seen here - it turns out that a second person used basically to make the same joke as in the televised version happens to be openly gay and is one of the show's hosts. The producers have told GLAAD that they are more than thrilled to include an openly gay person as a host.

That's great of the producers but does the fact that the person is gay change the fact that he is still being used as the punch joke? If they found the televised version to be problematic, it should be clear why the online version is problematic as well. They should pull it offline as well. END OF UPDATE***

Lately I have been watching a great telenovela from Colombia called "Correo de Inocentes". It's airing on the Telefutura network which was launched by Spanish-language powerhouse network Univision to counter Telemundo.

On the Univision corporate site, they describe Telefutura as a "leader in cutting-edge content" and highlight the fact that it often beats Telemundo in their ratings - though not during prime time.

Imagine my surprise, then, when the following clip ran during the commercials as I watched the telenovela...

Sigh! But wait! There is more!

The same Univision corporate site has an English-language promo reel aimed at drawing advertisers for the show and it pulls a similar joke using a different actor.

Promoting homophobia on television and lesbophobia to draw English-language advertisers? I have a feeling GLAAD will be knocking on Univision's door pretty soon.

Mexican president Felipe Calderón in hot water over comment perceived as homophobic

2011-10-05T22:47:00.000-04:00

While current Mexican president Felipe Calderón might have his hands full with the failing state he'll undeniably leave behind, he also leaves a homophobic legacy as the man who ordered his general attorney to challenge Mexico City's marriage equality law before the Mexican Constitutional Court --- and failed to get the Court to overturn the historic law.

Yesterday, at a government sponsored breast cancer awareness event, Calderón inadvertently stoked up his homophobic legacy by making a throw away comment that was quickly picked up online and turned into a widely shared Twitter hashtag.

At the event, President Calderón wore a pink ribbon.

Halfway through his speech, he made note of the ribbon and made sure the audience knew that the color pink symbolized breast cancer awareness and nothing else.

"No vaya a pensar otra cosa", he said with a sheepish smile (or "Don't go thinking it means something else" in English).

Picking up on those exact words, people on Twitter started using the #NoVayaApensarOtraCosa hashtag to make fun of Calderón's snide dismissal of all things pink and it quickly found traction and started spreading online.

By tonight it became clear that the Calderón camp knew it had a problem on their hands and that the "pink ribbon" issue threatened to overwhelm political discourse in the next few days.

President Calderón himself took to Twitter to apologize. Using the #NoVayaApensarOtraCosa hashtag himself, Calderón wrote "I reiterate my profound respect towards sexual diversity and my rejection against all discrimination".

In short, Calderón himself was acknowledging that the comment he made a day earlier had homophobic connotations.

As a Mexican friend wrote to me, the faux-pas wasn't necessarily something to lose sleep over, considering the hardships facing the Mexican government. But the easy way in which the Mexican president seemed to engage in homophobic sentiment was not something that should have been easily dismissed either.

To Guanabee or not to Guanabee...

2011-09-29T16:12:00.001-04:00

Can you force someone to give an apology he or she does not believe in? Of course you can! It happens all the time in major showbiz or in sports.

Does it matter if the apology has been forced out of somebody if only to save face? Perhaps. But I'd rather the apology be sincere rather than half-assed or insincere.

This comes to mind because I took a decision last night to sever my ties with a website I have absolutely adored up to this point and has given this site major support as well (you no longer see their 'Partner Scoops' widget on Blabbeando anymore for one).

When quirky Latino gossip site Guanabee approached me a couple of years ago and asked if I was interested in being a "Featured Partner" I jumped at the chance. It's not that I got any monetary compensation from it but they often highlighted some of my posts which brought a lot of traffic to this site. The value of that traffic wasn't necessarily the number of hits on Blabbeando but the fact that they came from readers of a non-LGBT Latino site. In that sense, Guanabee helped to direct a lot of non-LGBT Latino readership to what happens to be a site with an LGBT-focus and I thought that was great.

As a gossip site, Guanabee does engage in campy humor sometimes and probably uses language that would not be used on other newsier sites. But, even within those parameters, yesterday I was alerted to a post that I felt went beyond the pale.

In "Eva Longoria Confronts Bitchy Queen on H8R", Guanabee Associate Editor Marcelo Baez using his Nacomprende nickname writes the following:

The CW is running a new show called H8R (pronounced "hater") where celebrities confront random people who hate them while attempting to win them over [...] We actually enjoyed the episode. In it Eva Longoria confronts a bitchy queen who fags out on her and her supposed self-Mexican hate

In the clip featured on Guanabee, a guy who comes across as an obnoxious twit goes all off on Eva Longoria's 'Latina-ness' and then gets all flustered and embarrassed when Eva Longoria shows up to challenge his views.

Call the guy an obnoxious twit, call the guy insufferable, but Baez instead calls him a "bitchy queen" who "fags out" when she shows up. This, on a site that is marketed to the general Latino public.

Up to this point, I've had a great relationship with the site's leading editors so I reached out to them to privately express my concern. In response, I was forwarded a message that Baez sent to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) when they made an inquiry about the post. In it, Baez stood his ground and argued that the informal tome used on the site and the fact that gays had appropriated terms such as 'queer' gave him the liberty to call someone a 'fag'. Baez also argued that he wasn't necessarily questioning the man's sexuality but, instead, he was calling him off on his intolerance.

That pissed me off even more so I wrote back again and tried to calmly explain, among other things, the fact that gays appropriating certain language does not mean it gives free reign for these words to be used at free will, by anyone, on any site or publication - or in day to day conversation.

I never got a response. Instead, Guanabee posted a follow-up last night titled "Gays, Do The Words "Fag" And "Loca" Offend You? GLAAD Says They Do"in which Baez defends the post making some of the same arguments he made in the response to GLAAD e-mailed to me and expanded on them.

I blew a fuse. And I quickly fired a Tweet severing my relationship with the site.

In the meantime, GLAAD, who alerted me to the post in the first case and had been exchanging messages with the editors as well, also reacted. They launched an action alert asking people to "Tell Guanabee.com you are not laughing". It mentions the actions I took last night.

In my anger I missed something in Marcelo Baez' latest post: For what I believe is the first time on the site, he tells his readers he is an openly bisexual man. In retrospective, it does explain his argument about appropriation of words that are used to insult members of the LGBT community even though I still don't agree he should have used the terms.

Does this make any difference? There was no mention of this on the original post that would have led anyone to assume that Mr. Baez was trying to appropriate such language as an openly bisexual man. Instead the words "fag" and "fagged-out" were used to denigrate the man in the CW show. I have since had an exchange with Marcelo on my strong feelings that it would have been wrong even if he had disclosed his sexuality in that post and I know he strongly disagrees with my assessment.

This morning, though, I woke up feeling something was missing from all of this. GLAAD's call to action will continue and sites, like this one, will begin to pick up on it. Guanabee and Marcelo will decide whether to stick to their guns and push back - or eventually apologize.

But in the larger context of things, I do see an opportunity here to expand the dialogue on usage of these terms in the Latino community as well as whether the fact that the person using the language is a member of the LGBT community changes these dynamics in any way (in some ways, the debate is similar to usage of the 'N'-word among African-American individuals where some African-Americans feel it's always wrong and others feel it's a way to appropriate the term and strip it from it's original intent to hurt someone based on one's race).

As things stand right now, I have asked to be removed from the Guanabee site. GLAAD is mobilizing against Guanabee. And Baez and Guanabee seem to be standing on their ground. I've had several exchanges with the editors of Guanabee throughout the day, including Marcelo, and they have expressed in no uncertain terms that they are sad to see me go, would love to continue the relationship, but understand my decision to go.

Part of me keeps looking at that post and the way the language was used, with or without the context that it was written by a bisexual man, and wonder how I can keep a relationship with a site that doesn't 'get' why I am so disappointment by the post.

Having said that, if Guanabee had been as homophobic as some are charging - and I am not talking specifically about GLAAD's reaction but that of individuals who might not have ever visited the site and are judging by this post alone - they would have never prominently featured this blog on their site and be so open to promote gay content on their site. It turns out, according to Marcelo, that he is the editor at Guanabee who promoted most of the Blabbeando content that made it on their site.

I know I don't often ask readers to comment and with such long posts, who is gonna bother reading this entry to this point. But, if you would please take a moment or two to comment, should I stay or should I go? Would working with Guanabee promote an editorial decision I do not agree with or would it provide a platform for their general Latino readership to continue having access to my point of view on the issue and on other issues as well.

Snickers TV ad: Is it homophobic?

2011-09-24T18:46:00.000-04:00

Mexico's National Council to Prevent Discrimination (CONAPRED) and the National Women's Institute (Inmujeres) have accused a Mexican ad agency working for U.S. giant Mars, Inc. of promoting homophobia, sexism and misogyny for a television ad promoting the Snickers chocolate bar brand.

In many ways the ad is similar to one of the most popular ads that ran during last year's Super Bowl in the United States, with a couple of major differences.

In the U.S. version you see a number of friends playing touch football when out of nowhere actress Betty White goes for the ball and gets tackled. This is the exchange that follows:

Guy #1: Mike, what is your deal man!
Betty White: Oh, man, you've been riding me all day!
Guy #3: Mike, you are playing like Betty White out there!
Betty White: That's not what your girlfriend says!

Someone hands Betty White a Snickers bar and, after taking a bite, it becomes clear she'd been a guy called Mike all along. "You are not you when you are hungry" reads the tag line at the end.

In the Mexican version of the ad, pop singer Anahi takes Betty White's role. Here is my translation of the similar exchange that follows Anahi falling down from a bike:

Guy #1: What's your deal, Carlos!
Anahi: Stop getting in my way!
Guy #3: Every time you get hungry you turn into a sissy.
Anahi: That's not what your girlfriend says!

And here is the actual ad:

In addition to adding Anahi, there is also the matter of one of the lines that was changed for the Mexican version: "Every time you get hungry you turn into a sissy."

In a joint statement released by CONAPRED and Inmujeres on September 12th, the government bodies say they received complaints about the ad and tried to reach the Effem Mexico ad agency to request the ads be removed and specifically call it misogynist, sexist and homophobic.

The ad agency has so far refused to remove the ads from the air arguing that they tested the ads with a number of women before the launch, none of whom thought it was discriminatory, and that versions of the ad have also ran in 15 different countries without anyone raising any concerns.

CONAPRED and Inmujeres argue that none of the women in the test screenings were experts on the issue and that the agency should have reached out to such experts before airing the ad.

On September 20th, an anonymous source at U.S. Mars headquarters spoke to Milenio and said that Mars would go to the Mexican courts, if needed, to prevent the ad from being removed from airing on Mexican television.

"It's something that took us by surprise, since the campaign was launched in October [of 2010]" said the surprisingly unnamed Mars representative who is only referred to as "a director of the business agency".

Pop music star Anahi also came to Mars' defense telling TV Notas that there was nothing sexist about the ad and that it is simply based on her reputation as being a troublemaker.

She stretched her defense a tad much by arguing that the line "you turn into a sissy" was meant to refer to a character she played in the successful soap opera that launched her career --- and not necessarily an insult.

Ismael Flores, writing for one of my favorite Mexican blogs Vivir Mexico agrees with CONAPRED and Inmujeres. In an essay published on September 19th, he writes:

In middle school we all had a call to battle: "The last to arrive is a girl!" Then, as we went on to high school, the word "girl" turned into "fag". In college, when it began to matter conquering an improvised career, the phrase turned into "you turn into a sissy". And that's that's the way it has been with our language, changing from time to time, but staying true to its essence: The feminine as an insult, as something degrading, as an instrument of discrimination. Hence, there is nothing bizarre about CONAPRED's complaint.

Wenceslao Bruciaga, who has a blog at Milenio in which he often documents gay life in Mexico, has a different take:

According to CONAPRED, the sequence of images [in the ad] "reaffirms the framework of the inequality between men and women... and highlight the erroneous and discriminatory social perception against girls and women as persons who may assume the masculine domain as being normal."

Every time I listen to commentary such as this I get mixed emotions: I bust out laughing or get a knot in my stomach. It's similar to when I am asked to comment on my opinion or position regarding the usage of words such as 'puto', 'joto', 'maricón' [all can be translated as 'fag']. What am I expected to say? That it's discriminatory language? What about 'estupida' and 'babosa' [akin to using 'gurrl'], words used between gay men to communicate in the most intimate of circles... is it politically correct? Aren't they promoting the wrong common perception of women? Should we tell them to behave more like men? Sorry, I'm probably promoting the most retrograde of machismos.

The vicious circle of what's politically correct.

Bruciaga closes his essay by noting that while CONAPRED is going after the ad agency that handles the Mars contract in Mexico, in part, because of homophobia, they failed to follow up on hundreds complaints of homophobia against Mexican morning talk-show host Esteban Arce.

Arce famously went live on air on December 18th of 2010 and questioned whether homosexuality was 'natural', said he was afraid young men who were drug users were susceptible to 'letting themselves go' into homosexuality and, when told by a guest on the show that homosexuality was prevalent in animals, Arce argued that male dogs who mated with other male dogs probably suffered from 'animal dementia' or been forced to go without sex for a long time.

Arce remains on Mexican television with his show "Matutino Express", which - wouldn't you know it! - recently began airing on U.S. television through Spanish-language network Galavisión. As recently as September 5th, there he was telling AOL Latino he hoped to bring his "moral and religious values" to American television.

So what do you think? Are CONAPRED and Inmujeres right to slam Effem Mexico and Mars, Inc. over the ad as Ismael says? Or is this a case of political correctness gone a muck as Wenceslao argues? I'll let you be the judge.

UPDATE: In the original version of this post I translated 'nena' literally as 'little girl'. A Mexican reader tells me that a more appropriate translation is 'sissy', which somewhat explains the homophobic claims.

RELATED:

Snickers Mexico website here

The Lisa M. Interview (English)

2011-09-22T22:23:00.000-04:00

Last year few people noticed what I thought was a mini-trend: After a relative dearth in LGBT representation in the Latino music industry, several performers came out as gay or lesbian between the months of February and April (OK, maybe I was the only person who noticed).

The run-down: 1. First came former Menudo singer Angelo Garcia when he spoke to online site Paragon Men about being gay in February; 2. Then, in mid-March, came up-and-coming performer Rita Indiana who appeared on the red carpet with her partner Noeilla Quintero at the Dominican Republic's most important music awards ceremony; 3. Before the end of that month, Ricky Martin would use his official site to proclaim himself as a "proud homosexual" and, finally, in April, 4. Puerto Rican salsa and reggaeton singer Lisa M. decided to tell her followers on Facebook that she was a lesbian.

Both Angelo Garcia and Rita Indiana say they never really hid their sexual identity from anyone and that it was media who suddenly took an interest on their personal lives. Ricky Martin and Lisa M., on the other hand, spent years building their successful careers in the Latino pop industry actively shaping a performing persona while assiduously avoiding talking about their personal lives.

Born Lisa Marrero Vázquez, Lisa M. probably had the biggest commercial success of her career as a salsa singer in the late 1990's with huge hits like "Tu Pum Pum" and "Menéalo". But, artistically, she probably reached the professional high-point of her career with 2007's "Respect", a lavishly produced reggaeton album which also served as her last commercial release and contained the single "Hey Ladies".

On Friday, I had the opportunity to speak to Lisa on the phone from Puerto Rico. In her first exclusive interview with an English-language venue - or an LGBT-venue for that matter - Lisa addressed her decision to come out on Facebook last year, her relative silence since then and her plans to release a brand new single and album late this year or in early 2012 (for the original Spanish-language version of this interview click here).

Blabbeando: It’s been a little more than a year since youdecided to tell your followers on Facebook that you are a lesbian. What made you decide to do it and didyou feel scared at all when you finally came out?

Lisa M.: Well, look, when I actually did it, I was in Spainand, before that, I had already been thinking of coming out in public. I wanted to come out, not because I hadany specific purpose, but because that was the purpose… to come out.

At that moment, all the stuff about Ricky Martin hadalready surfaced. Obviously,when Ricky takes something as delicate as his private life and decides to shareit with his fans, with his family and with the rest of the world, it wassomething quite beautiful. And it’s not that I came outbecause he did it but, basically, it was a ‘wow’ moment for me.

As a fellow artist, I saw it as an incredibly beautifulmoment and I felt it was the perfect moment to offer my support not only to himbut also myself and other artists who truly want to live their lives freely. SoI made the decision and I said ‘Look, I’ll write ‘I’m gay!’” And that’s what Idid on my Facebook page.

I’ll be very honest. I posted it without knowing or thinkingabout any consequences or truly expecting it to get the reaction it got. In other words, first I wrote “I’mgay!” - saying it like ‘Wow!’ - but I later I reaffirmed it by writing “I’mgay” – no exclamation point. That’s when…

Blabbeando: Yes, because the first time you posted it Iimagine your followers didn’t know what to think about it, whether it was ajoke or something else. But the second time you posted it - that’s when peoplereacted…

Lisa M.: Exactly, yes, the second time, when I reaffirmedit, well, everybody did react, writing stuff like “WHAT!? WHAT DID SHE SAY!?HOW!?”. It was such a tremendousreaction that it made it to People en Español, it went all through theinternet, all throughout media… All of Puerto Rico basically just fainted[laughs].

Yes, it was such a huge reaction that… I’ll be honest, thereaction to Ricky was ‘Damn, Ricky, we sorta knew it or imagined it already’,but he did have a reaction… but with me, being a woman and being Latina - andI’ll put this out in the open - well, it probably turned off some people, but theoverall reaction was positive. Thank God almighty it wasn’t something where I lacked people’ssupport. On the contrary, thereaction was very positive and I received a lot of positive feedback.

People, a lot of people – and I’m saying this because ithappened a lot during those first days, weeks and months – sent me messages. Ireceived a lot of e-mail messages from women congratulating me, married women,who would say “Look, I am gay but I am married” and so, for me, it was a ‘Wow’moment to realize so many people had taken umbrage in what I had said.

And I learned to take it more seriously each day and to giveit more respect. Respect towards me, as a person, and towards the public… andso much respect towards the gay community, which has also given me so muchsupport.

Blabbeando: The reaction was immediate but you were inEurope when it happened and pretty much unreachable for comment…

Lisa M.: Yes. That’s the way I wanted it. I wanted to feel a bit more prepared before being able to give a morepublic response to the media. WhenI took the decision and saw the consequences, I told myself ‘This has reachedanother level, now it’s serious, it’s slipped from my hands and I will have totreat it respectfully and carefully.’

So I held media at bay a little bit but, yes, I can tellyou that what took place with all the media was impressive. From the start, when I gave anexclusive to an important radio show in Puerto Rico via telephone, and, ofcourse, now that I have returned to Puerto Rico from Spain and have begun toaddress all media. And, thank God,I have always enjoyed great respect from the press, now and at that moment, forwhich I am thankful. They treatedme very well and understood my point of view and my way of loving someone andthey accepted it.

And let me tell you that today I feel it is so normal totalk about it and to watch Ricky and his boyfriend, his partner, at the awardceremonies, to see him be free and be able to express himself, his feelings,you know? It’s a beautiful thing. And that is the same way I feel.

Blabbeando: I know you received some homophobic messagesback in January but you seem to be saying it’s been the exception to the rule…

Lisa M.:. Yes…

Blabbeando: I also know you have worked with other reggaetonsingers such as Tego Calderón. Itwas also interesting for me to see that there didn’t seem to be any homophobicreactions from your peers.

Lisa M.: Yes, thank God, I’ve also had my peers come to me…and everyone has remained in their place, everybody has treated me withrespect, everybody has accepted it well.

Look, Andrés, we are living during an era in the businesswhere it really doesn’t matter who you are, you know? It’s all about what youcan give. It’s as if people want a different life, a different way to sharethings, they want something more positive, they don’t want to tear an artistdown or hurt them.

It’s my understanding that in the industry, right as of now,it is not a taboo, it’s not a barrier, it’s not an illness, it is not somethingthat will hurt your fans.

Blabbeando: At the same time, there are female artists suchas La India and Ivy Queen who have faced false rumors about their sexualidentity and, in Ivy Queen’s case, even questions about her gender, just forpresenting themselves as strong women. What do you think about thosestereotypes?

Lisa M.: What has happens is that, obviously, we arestronger women thanks to what we have done as artists, based on our personalityand the way we have handled our careers, you know? [We are] women with astronger character… fighters. And being fighters makes us stronger, it makes usbrave, and so we create that character, a warrior’s armor, from having to be upfront as women. And then that strength is reflected in our songs, they way weinterpret a song, the way we talk, how we dress, how we express ourselves, and that’swhat people see.

Blabbeando: Now, throughout your career you have launchedseven albums. The last one,“Respect” (2007) was actually pretty great. But I know you have been spending time in Europe and Spainand focusing more on a career as a club DJ under the name of DJ Miss M. Now, after spending these years inSpain, you’ve returned to the recording studio. Tell me a little bit about thelatest stage in your professional life.

Lisa M.: Well, basically the “Respect” and “Respect (Deluxe)” record was my last album. After that I embraced life as a DJ. It’s been six years or so since I began to DJ but the lastthree years have seen my DJ career get stronger and my reputation as a DJ climbto higher levels. And being in Europe and living in Spain, well, I havepositioned myself as one of the top female DJ’s in Barcelona and Ibiza. There, I got tons of work and I’ll beback later this month to close the 2011 Space Ibiza season on September 24.

And, what can I tell you? Yes, it has been a reallybeautiful part of my life in which I have experienced the nightlife, being adedicated DJ, without obviously abandoning who I am: A singer and anartist. What I have done is thatnow, in the new stage, I am mixing up both things. I am recording my new album. I am doing it in Puerto Rico andI am doing it in New York City and other places. I want to do an album that reflects everything that ishappening in my life, which is the nightlife, life at the dance clubs andlounges, the music ‘life-style’ as I call it. It’s an album that reflects that vibe, now that I’m workingas a DJ, that touches on electronic music – tech-house, techno, house, hip-hop– my new album fits somewhere along those lines.

As a DJ and producer – because obviously that determines alot of the things that have gone into the album – that’s where I’m at. And I am truly enjoying it a lot. I’mnot getting much sleep, Andrés, but I know the end results are going to be verypositive.

Blabbeando: So it’ll be a new sound, integrating old soundsbut from a dance-club perspective…

Lisa M.: Exactly. That’s it. That’s it. And, as I’m tellingyou, using little things, old sounds but modern arrangements. With really, really amazing… how shouldI say… now that I’m a DJ, which is the music genre in which I’m surroundingmyself and considering the industry is changing so much… perhaps in the way that Madonna hasdone since “Confessions on a Dance Floor”, or, later, when Black Eyed Peas cameup with that electronic sound and mixed it up with hip-hop and R’n’B, andwhat’s happening right now and blasting off the radio like Jennifer Lopez andPitbull… well, that’s the same vibe that is ruling the airwaves right now andthat’s the same track I’ll be on pretty soon.

Blabbeando: Do you have a date for the launch of the newmaterial?

Lisa M.: I’d say that before the year is over I’ll come outwith a new single, at the very least. I am pushing myself, working really hard to have it come out by year’send as well as a video.

I’m not certain yet about a record label because I am trulyworking independently. For themoment, I am producing the record myself and I do not have a recordinglabel. But I am so happy andworking so well that I didn’t miss it during the recording process.

Nowadays the recording industry has changed so much that youcan go and find an investor, do a video, tape a single, pace it, put it outthere, kick it up there on YouTube, push it on Twitter, post it on Facebook,and forget about it! You do a couple of interviews and get some cameras toshoot the video and that has some impact. And so, there you go [laughs]…

Yes. I know record companies are very good for otherthings. Moneywise, as an artist, Icannot penetrate the market in the same way record companies do their promotionand handle the ‘business’ side. They go deeper. So we’ll see what happens. Fornow, production is running really well and, as I told you, we hope to havesomething out there before the end of the year. Andrés, the record is coming out really great. I think it’llbe a totally different sound that doesn’t lose the essence of who I am.

Blabbeando: It sounds like you are in a stage of your lifein which you are at great ease with yourself and happy…

Lisa M.: Yes, I am happy. I have my partner, who is a beautiful girl who respects andadmires me a lot and that also helps me to focus and commit myself and to havesufficient strength to say let’s go forward, let’s go. And when you have someone who is sopositive next to you it does help a lot, and that’s what’s been going on in mycase.

And, yes, I am traveling a lot. But once I get back to Puerto Rico on the 28^th,look out! I’ll be immersed in what will become the new single. There are several tracks ready, Iimagine I’ll get some people together and let them listen, including thesingle. And, yes, it’s a process,but at the same time I am enjoying it greatly. Maybe sometimes I do feel exhausted but it is a stage in mylife in which I feel much calmer and feel much more at ease with myself.

Blabbeando: Lastly, is there something I didn’t ask thatyou’d like to tell readers of Blabbeando?

Lisa M.: Well, let me thank you for the interview. What I’m really wishing for is for thepublic and media to offer their support for my new project and I know that willbe the case. I know I have earned the place where I am, thanks to God. Whoever grants me their support, I knowI am a pioneer in what I do and, thank God, the public has chosen to support methroughout my career.

I do hope I’ll have additional support when the new albumcomes out because the fans I have now are fans from before and after and theyare still there. But those of now,who don’t really know about me… their parents, unless and cousins do, but thenew generation, those of now, I am truly hoping for the support of the newgenerations. And I know I willbecause, musically, I am working with groups of professional musicians andproducers who are at the level of the new generations. So we are doing good.

Blabbeando: Well, Lisa, that bring the interview to an end,I thank you so much.

Lisa M.: Sure thing, Andrés. Thank you so much for the opportunity and for thinking aboutme. What I’ll do is that when Iget the single ready I’ll send it over so you can give me your feedback andwe’ll keep in touch.

Blabbeando: Great. Hugs and thanks.

The Lisa M. Interview (Spanish)

2011-09-21T17:15:00.000-04:00

Below the fold, you will find the original Spanish-language version of my exclusive interview with the lovely Puerto Rican superstar singer, DJ and music producer Lisa M. in which she reflects on her decision to come out as a lesbian on Facebook a year and a half ago and the repercussions since telling the world she is gay. Click here for the entire Spanish-language interview. For the English-language translation click here.

El año pasado hubo un fenómeno del cual pocos se percataron. De Febrero a Abril de 2010 varios artistas de la industria musical Latinoamericana decidieron salir del closet.

Resumiendo: 1. Primero vino Angelo Garcia, ex-miembro de Menudo, que hablo sin pelos en la lengua para un portal de internet llamado Paragon Men en Febrero; 2. Después, a mediados de Marzo, fué la novelista y cantautora Dominicana Rita Indiana quien llevó a su pareja Puertorriqueña Noellia Quintero al evento más importante de la música Dominicana; 3. Antes del final del mes de Marzo se dió lo de Ricky Martin; y, finalmente, 4. En Abril, la reggaetonera Boricua Lisa M. también decidió decirles a sus seguidores en Facebook que era lesbiana.

En el caso de Angelo y de Rita Indiana, ambos insisten que jamás ocultaron su identidad sexual y que solo fue que de un momento a otro los medios de comunicación tomaron interés por su vida personal. En el caso de Ricky Martin y Lisa M., ambos tenían una amplia trayectoria profesional en el mercado de música pop Latina y tomaron esa decisión después de años de vender cierta imagen a su público.

Nacida con el nombre Lisa Marrero Vázquez, Lisa M. probablemente tuvo el éxito más grande de su carrera cuando se convirtió en una sensación de la salsa en los 1990's con éxitos como "Tu Pum Pum" y "Menéalo". Sin embargo, se podría decir que su último album con son de reggaeton, "Respect" (2007). es el mejor trabajo de su carrera artística a nivel musical.

A año y medio después de que Lisa M. decidió salir del closet, por fin tuve la oportunidad de hablar con ella sobre su decisión, la reacción de los medios hispanos, la razón por la cual se demoró a hablar con esos mismos medios y el impacto en su carrera. También hablamos sobre su reciente carrera como DJ en Europa y sus planes de lanzar un nuevo trabajo discográfico posiblemente antes de que termine este año.

Blabbeando: Hace un poco mas de un año decidiste decirle a tus seguidores en Facebook que eres lesbiana. ¿Qué fue lo que te llevó a tomar esa decisión y tuviste algún temor al hacerlo?

Lisa M.: Pues, mira, Andrés, yo cuando hice eso estaba en España y yo, anterior a esa ocasión, como que ya había pensado en abrirme al público. Abrirme no porque tuviera nada en especifico – un propósito – si no porque el propósito era… pues, el de hacerlo.

En ese momento también surge lo de Ricky Martín. Obviamente pues cuando Ricky también toma su decisión y toma esa cosa tan delicada que es la vida personal y decide compartirla con su público y con sus familiares y con todo el mundo, pues para mi fue un detalle muy bonito. Y no fue que yo lo hice porque el lo hizo pero básicamente también para mi fue como un ‘Wow!’

Yo, como artista, lo vi como un momento muy bonito y yo creí que era el momento preciso para darle el apoyo tanto a el como a mi misma y a otros artistas que de verdad quieren hacer sus vidas libres. Y entonces tomé la decisión, y dije ‘Mira, pues voy a poner ‘I’m gay!’’. Y, pues, así lo hice en la página de Facebook.

Te voy a ser bien honesta. Lo escribí sin saber, sin pensar las consecuencias y sin esperar que realmente tuviese una reacción como la que tuvo. O sea, primero fue una expresión como de ‘I’m gay!’, como like ‘Wow!’, pero luego lo reafirmé al volver a escribir ‘I’m gay’ – sin punto de exclamación. Ahí fue que...

Blabbeando: Si, porque la primera vez, me imagino que la gente no sabia que pensar, si era una broma o algo diferente. Ya, la segunda vez que lo escribiste, ahí fue que la gente reaccionó…

Lisa M.: Exacto, si, ya la segunda vez, cuando lo reafirmé con firmeza, pues como que todo el mundo hizo como ‘¿¡QUE QUE!?, ¿¡QUE DICE?! ¿¡COMO?!’. Bueno, fue una reacción tan grande que fue algo que salió en People en Español, por todo la internet, por todos los medios… Puerto Rico se vino patas pa’arriba [se ríe].

Si, fue una cosa que te voy a ser honesta, lo de Ricky pues también tubo una reacción así, como que ‘Coño, Ricky, ya como que lo sabíamos, o nos lo imaginábamos’, pero igualmente tubo su reacción. Pero que como que lo mio, al ser mujer y Latina, y te digo así abiertamente, pues supongo que fue bastante chocante para alguna gente pero tubo una reacción positiva. Gracias a Dios todopoderoso pues no fue algo donde la gente no me apoyaba. Al contrario, tuvo una reacción muy positiva, un ‘feedback’ positivo.

La gente, mucha gente – y te digo porque sucedió mucho y sobretodo en esos primeros días, semanas y meses – me enviaron mensajes. Yo recibía muchos e-mails de muchas mujeres felicitándome, mujeres casadas, que me decían ‘Mira, yo soy gay pero estoy casada, no se que hacer’ y entonces para mi se convirtió en un ‘Wow!’ al descubrir que mucha gente se refugió en mi decisión. Y yo cada dia pues lo tomaba mucho mas en serio y mucho mas con respeto. Respeto tanto a mi, a mi persona, como respeto al publico… y con muchísimo respeto a la comunidad gay que tanto también me han apoyado.

Blabbeando: La reacción fue inmediata pero tu estabas en Europa y creo ningún medio pudo contactarte para pedir tus comentarios…

Lisa M.: Si. Yo lo quise así. Antes de poder dar una respuesta mas pública a los medios, yo quería sentirme un poquito mas preparada. Al tomar la decisión y ver las consecuencias, pues yo dije ‘Esto ya paso a otro nivel, ya es en serio, esto ya se me fue de las manos, y lo tendré que tratar con mucho respeto y con mucha cautela’.

Entonces por ende a los medios los aguanté un poco pero, si, te digo, lo de los medios fue una cosa impresionante. Tanto al principio que por teléfono – por vía telefónica – le di la exclusiva a un programa radial de Puerto Rico que es bien importante acá, y obviamente ahora cuando regreso de España a Puerto Rico y comienzo a dar la cara obviamente a todos los medios. Y, gracias a Dios, siempre tuve el respeto de parte de la prensa tanto ahora como en ese momento, lo cual estoy muy agradecida. Me trataron muy bien y entendieron mi punto de vista y mi forma de amar y me aceptaron.

Y te digo que ya hoy en dia para mi hablar de eso es tan normal y ver a Ricky con su pareja, con su compañero, en los premios, ya verlo libre y poder expresarse, sus sentimientos, tu sabes, es bonito, entiendes? Y así me siento yo también.

Blabbeando: Yo se que en Enero recibiste algunos mensajes homofóbicos pero por lo que tu dices son la excepción...

Lisa M.: Si…

Blabbeando: Se que has trabajado con cantantes de reggaeton como Tego Calderón y otros y, para mi, también fue interesante ver que no hubieron reacciones homofóbicas en el medio, de parte de otros artistas…

Lisa M.: Si, gracias a Dios, he tenido también compañeros artistas… todo el mundo se mantuvo al margen, todo el mundo se mantuvo con respeto, todo el mundo lo aceptó bien.

Es que mira, Andrés, ya estamos viviendo en un era del negocio donde realmente lo que tu seas no es lo valioso, sabes? Es lo que tu puedes dar. Es como que ya la gente quiere otra vida, quieren otra forma de compartir, quieren otras cosas mas positivas, no quieren coger con el artista y hacerle el daño.

Yo entiendo que en el medio de la industria ahora ya mismo… no es un tabú, no es un impedimento, no es una enfermedad, no es algo que le haga daño al publico.

Blabbeando: Igual, tu sabes que hay artistas como Ivy Queen y La India que se enfrentan a un sinnúmero de rumores falsos por presentar una imagen de ser mujeres fuertes. Que piensas tu de esos estereotipos…

Lisa M.: Lo que sigue pasando es que obviamente somos mujeres fuertes por lo que interpretamos como artistas y es parte de nuestra personalidad y de como llevamos nuestra carrera, entiendes, de mujeres que somos un poco más fuertes de carácter. Mas luchadoras. El ser luchadoras, pues, nos hace fuertes, nos hace valientes, y entonces creamos ese carácter, esa caparazón de guerreras, de lucha, de estar al frente como mujer. Y entonces esa fuerza se proyecta en nuestras canciones, en nuestras interpretaciones, como interpretamos, como hablamos, como vestimos, como nos expresamos, y eso es lo que se ve.

Blabbeando: Ahora, a lo largo de tu carrera tu has lanzado ya 7 discos. Tu ultimo disco fue “Respect” que salio al mercado en el 2007 y es tremenda producción. Pero se que has estado en España y te has estado concentrando mas en una carrera como DJ. Ahora, después de estos años en España, regresas al estudio. Cuéntame un poco sobre esta etapa de tu vida profesional.

Lisa M.: Pues, básicamente el disco de “Respect” y “Respect (Deluxe)” fue mi ultimo album. Luego de eso, pues ya entre en esa etapa de DJ. Ya llevo de ser DJ unos 6 años. Pero en los últimos 3 años es donde más fuerte mi carrera como DJ se ha presentado y ya el nivel mío de DJ ha escalado muchísimo nivel. Y al estar en Europa y al estar en España pues bueno, me posicioné muy bien como una de las DJ mas importantes femeninas de Barcelona e Ibiza. Allá estuve con muchísimo trabajo, lo cual regreso ahora el dia 20 hasta el 28, para el cierre de Space Ibiza que es el Septiembre 24. Y bueno, que te digo, pues si, ha sido una etapa de mi vida bien bonita en la cual yo me he vivido muchísimo lo que es la noche, al ser una DJ dedicada a esto, sin dejar de – obviamente – de ser lo que soy, una cantante y una artista.

Lo que he hecho es que ahora, en la nueva etapa, es que voy a mezclar las dos cosas. Estoy grabando mi nuevo disco. Lo estoy trabajando en parte en Nueva York, lo estoy trabajando en parte en Puerto Rico, y en otros sitios. Quiero hacer un disco bien dentro de todo lo que está pasando, dentro de lo que ahora yo estoy viviendo que es el ‘nightlife’, que es la vida de las discotecas, de los clubes, de los ‘lounges’, el ‘life-style’ como digo yo. Es un disco que viene por esa onda ya que ahora yo estoy de DJ, tocando música electrónica - tech-house, techno, house, hip-hop - pues por ahí por esa línea es que vengo con mi nuevo disco.

Como DJ y como DJ-producer - porque obviamente eso define muchas cosas de las que van dentro del disco - pues estoy en esa etapa. Y de veras que la estoy disfrutándola muchísimo, Andrés. No duermo mucho pero los resultados yo se que van a ser bien positivos.

Blabbeando: O sea que va a ser un sonido nuevo. De pronto integrando viejos sonidos pero con un ambiente mas de ‘discoteca’.

Lisa M.: Exacto. Así es. Así es. Y como te digo, usando cositas, sonidos viejos pero con arreglos modernos. Con cosas bien, bien… como te digo… ahora que yo estoy de DJ, que es el género en el cual yo me estoy desenvolviendo y en lo que la industria ha cambiado muchísimo… también como lo que ha hecho Madonna desde su album “Confessions on a Dance Floor” - ahí yo entiendo que empezó el cambio - luego vino Black Eyed Peas con ese sonido electrónico mezclado con hip-hop y r’n’b, y lo que tenemos ahora mismo sonando bien fuerte que es Jennifer Lopez, Pitbull… y pues esa onda es la que esta predominando ahora y es por ese mismo caminito que también pues vengo pronto.

Blabbeando: Ya existe una fecha para el lanzamiento de tu nuevo material?

Lisa M.: Pues mira, yo te diría que antes de fin de año voy a salir, por lo menos, con un sencillo. Estoy apresurándome, estoy trabajando bien duro para tratar de lograr de tener el sencillo por lo menos antes de que se acabe el año. Decirte fecha específica, ya estamos en Septiembre, me queda Octubre y Noviembre para hacer cualquier lanzamiento que tenga que hacer ya de inmediato antes de que se acabe el año. Estoy trabajando duro en el estudio así que esperamos que ya antes de que se acabe el año esté el sencillo con un video.

No se con que disquera todavía vamos a trabajar porque, verdaderamente, estoy independiente. Estoy yo misma produciendo el disco por el momento y verdaderamente no tengo ninguna casa disquera ahora mismo, no tengo ‘record label’. Pero estoy tan feliz y trabajo tan a gusto que en este proceso no me hizo falta, sabes?

Y hoy en dia como ha cambiado la industria las cosas están que tu te buscas un inversionista, haces un video, grabas un sencillo, lo pautas, lo pones, le das ahí p’abajo por YouTube, le metes por ahí en Twitter, le metes en Facebook, y olvídate – que se yo – haces un par de entrevistas y apartas unas cámaras para grabar ese video y tiene su efecto. Y entonces por ahí, pues [se ríe]…

Si. Yo se que las disqueras para otras cosas son bien importantes. Yo monetariamente, como artista, no puedo penetrar de una manera y en las disqueras hay esa parte de promoción y del ‘business’ pues entran un poquito mas fuertes. Y eso ya lo iremos viendo. Pero por el momento estoy corriendo bien con la producción y, como te dije, esperamos tener algo antes de fin de año ahí fuera. Y bien contenta y trabajando bien duro, Andrés, el disco va a quedar bien chulo, y pienso yo que será un sonido diferente totalmente pero espero sin perder la esencia de lo que yo soy.

Blabbeando: Se nota que estas en una etapa de tu vida en la cual estas muy a gusto y contenta…

Lisa M.: Si, estoy feliz. Tengo mi pareja que es una chica muy linda, me respeta muchísimo, me admira muchísimo, y eso también le ayuda a uno a uno enfocarse y a uno dedicarse y a uno tener las fuerzas suficientes como para uno decir pa’lante, vamos. Y mas si uno tiene una persona positiva a tu lado, eso te ayuda mucho, lo cual es lo que ha estado pasando en mi caso.

Y, si, viajando mucho. Pero ahora que regrese el 28 a Puerto Rico pues ¡Fijo! Bien de lleno en lo que sería el sencillo que tengo varias canciones y de ahí me imagino yo que me sentaré con otras personas para escuchar los temas y ponerles el sencillo. Y si, es un proceso, pero a la misma vez me lo estoy disfrutando. A veces a lo mejor me puedo sentir agotada pero es una etapa en la que estoy mucho mas tranquila y mas en paz con migo misma.

Blabbeando: Por ultimo, hay algo que no te pregunté que quieras compartir con los lectores de Blabbeando?

Lisa M.: Bueno, agradezco la entrevista y lo que mas deseo es realmente contar con el apoyo del publico, con el apoyo de los medios, que cuando salga con mi proyecto yo se que así será. Porque gracias a Dios, me he ganado ese sitio y ese espacio que me pertenece. Tenga quien tenga, yo dentro de lo que hago soy la pionera, entiendes, y gracias a Dios ese respeto el publico me lo ha dado toda la vida a través de mi trayectoria y espero que cuando salga lo nuevo tener el mismo o un poco más de apoyo porque la gente que son mis fans de antes y después están. Pero los de ahora… ¿Eh, entiendes?... están los nuevos de ahora que realmente no saben de mi… sus papas son los que saben de mi, tíos, primos, pero la nueva generación – los de ahora – esa generación es de la que de verdad espero recibir el apoyo que yo se que si porque musicalmente estamos bien. Estamos bien porque trabajo con un grupo de músicos profesionales y productores y yo se que estamos al nivel de la nueva generación. En eso estamos bien.

Blabbeando: Pues, Lisa, con eso cerramos la entrevista. Te agradezco mil.

Lisa M.: Seguro Andrés. Mil gracias por la entrevista, por la oportunidad, por pensar en mi. Y lo que hacemos es que cuando yo tenga lo del sencillo pues te lo envío para que me des tu critica y nos estamos comunicando.

Blabbeando: Bien. Un gran abraso y gracias!

The Tim Dax Interview

2011-09-13T15:46:00.000-04:00

And now for something different. Last month was this blog's 6th year anniversary. Over the course of those years I have written about a number of different topics and, for reasons that should become clear as you read this post, I'd been trying to set up an interview with actor Tim Dax for quite a while. Finally, on September 2nd, I was able to reach Tim at the Los Angeles home he shares with his fiancee Andrea Giacomi.

It's a wide-ranging interview. I hope you enjoy it. As we begin, I've already introduced myself and given Tim a run-down of the questions I'd like to ask. And then it's on...

Blabbeando: I know a few things about your work but myreaders don’t. You are living in Los Angeles and involved in a few currentprojects. What are they.

Tim Dax: Well, I’m Tim Dax and thank you Andrés for reachingout. So, yeah, Tim Dax, Los Angeles, my one-year anniversary coming up prettysoon after living in New York City for fifteen years. I’m pursuing my actingcareer and I’m just beating the pavement, man, pounding the ground, doing whatI gotta do out here to make it happen - and step by step things are happening.It’s all good.

What am I working on? I've been attending a few auditions, I’ve got a couple of movie scripts that are being written forme as the lead, I completed my first feature in which I starred in called “Mr. Bricks”. It’s being released on Troma this fall. I’ve got my second featurewith the same creators of “Mr. Bricks” called “Slaughter Daughter”. That’s inpost-production now so that should be coming out. It’s rolling, man…

Blabbeando: And you are doing some video work as well, Ibelieve you appeared - briefly - in Steven Tyler’s video for “Feels So Good” which debutedon American Idol this past season…

Tim Dax: Well, as an actor you have to take everything andat the very beginning it’s a lot of free work and you do anything andeverything and I don’t believe in restricting myself so I take advantage of these opportunities when it comes to being an actor. That’s a music video, that’stheatre, that’s acting in a haunted house if need be. Anything and everythingto get to the bigger picture, the bigger goal, which is movie acting. I see a very successful future as amovie actor and I can see eventually getting into creating, writing – I do alittle bit of writing now – and directing film aswell. I see a huge happy future in Hollywood. No Doubt.

Blabbeando: As you know, I've actually have written about you before and it just happens to bethe most popular blog post I have ever written in the six years since I launched Blabbeando...

Tim Dax: Awesome!

Blabbeando: In that post I described how we met and the particular commotion you caused on that day. It happened to be right in the middle of Manhattan's annual LGBT pride march...

Tim Dax: Yes! Gay pride, be pride, have pride,be proud!

Blabbeando: …and there you were as a straight guy and I don’t even know if youhad ever marched in a pride parade before…

Tim Dax: I had not. It was my first…

Blabbeando: …and so what were your thoughts earlier that morning anddid you actually plan what you were about to do?

Tim Dax: Well, first I want to address the issue of the word‘straight’ or the word ‘gay’, those are labels and when anybody asks me if I’mgay: “Hell yeah, I’m gay. Fucking shit, man, life is good! I lovebeing fucking gay. Shit! I’m queer. Look at me, man! I. Am. Queer. This is areal queer look on my face right now.” So whatever. Gay, straight, whatever.

Blabbeando: And do you remember that morning?

Tim Dax: Yes! Yes I do! Gay pride 2005. I remember it washot! It was hot and humid. I was sweating my ass off. That morning I didn’t know I was going to walk in a paradeuntil the last minute. I had an idea that I would, I thought I might, and thenthe morning came and a friend called and they said they were meeting and Isaid: “OK, what the hell am I going to wear?" - I am an exhibitionist, to start, so it’s gotta be minimal - "OK, shorts? Aaaah, so expected, shorts, Idon’t have any cool ones anyway. What else, what else, what else.” Well I got this hat – a stocking cap kinda thing – and Isaid “OK, I could put this on, and then I could keep it on with a cock-ring,and there you go! That’s my costume! OK, that’s it!’”

And I thought that up maybe an hour before I walked out thedoor. And I walked up to 52^nd Street and I already had the sock onand I was good to go! Just dropped my pants and…

Blabbeando: You were marching with a specific contingent orwas that accidental…

Tim Dax: Well, I was hanging out with The Eagle truckbecause I have some friends of that persuasion [laughs] and they invited me towalk with the whole journey.

Blabbeando: So, yeah, for the restof the day you marched totally nude except for a sock…

Tim Dax: Yeah! A hat which doubledas a sock that covered my cock [laughs at his own rhyme].

Blabbeando: And then you wore aleather flag in a particular place of your body. Whose idea was that?

Tim Dax: The flag? The flagstarted a few blocks down. I don’t remember exactly how it ended up there. Iactually might have been the one who put it there. It probably was me. Butwhat else do you do with a flag when you gotta march, like, two miles, dude,and I had to pose! I had to have my hands free! So what a better way to displayit! It was up the crack of my ass [laughs].

Blabbeando: And then I spotted you. Youwere walking down and posing. People were shocked, applauding. And then, rightin front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, there were all these fundamentalistreligious folk bunched all up in a police pen. They held all these signs sayingthe usual, “God hates fags”, “Fags cause AIDS”…

Tim Dax: Insanity! Confusedunhappy people.

Blabbeando: It was funny becauseit was just about everybody. The fundamentalist Muslims, the Christians, theOrthodox Jews…

Tim Dax: Yeah, there were a fewdifferent haters in there [laughs] but it’s all good. We just went there, weshowed them that we have good times no matter what, haters. I mean, that was2005, I mean 6 years ago? And my attitude probably would be a little bitdifferent now. I might not have thrown them the finger. I might just actuallyhave thrown them the peace sign. But I go with the flow and at the momentthat’s what it said and I think I did it with a smile, so that balanced it out…and my ass! And my ass-cheeks [laughs].

Blabbeando: I remember the disgustin their faces and that was great. I have marched in many pride marches and that remains one of my favoritepride march memories.

Tim Dax: Dude, it wasbrilliant. That whole event for me was brilliant. That was my first gay pride march. I had been to the paradein Washington a couple of times but never marched. And it’s been my last, unfortunately, not to say that itwill be my last. For sure, when the time is right, I want to be in New YorkCity and certainly take part in it again on a grander scale. Because at thattime maybe I’ll have a few movies out there and everybody’s gonna know Tim Daxso I’m gonna have a special Tim Dax float where everybody can come on and chillout and have a good time. Hell yeah!

Blabbeando: Now, Idon’t know if at that time you were working on “Rough Gods” or if it came alittle later…

Tim Dax: Later. Iworked for thirteen years in the interior design industry in New York City and2008 was about the time that “Rough Gods” came into my life and that was afterI left that thirteen-year job to pursue an acting career. I had just finishedmy facial tattoo which had taken about two years. It had been done for a fewmonths when I met Michael Alago. It was completely by chance and he asked if Iwanted to be photographed. As an actor, you do anything and everything to getyour face out so I said ‘Of course!’

Michael was one of thefirst photographers to take a picture of me after I left that serious job I hadfor so long and he was my influence and my inspiration to do a lot of things inthose beginning stages of experiencing a new challenge of a career; trying tomodel and get acting gigs and all that stuff.

Blabbeando: Did youfeel you were diving head first into a brand new life experience in terms ofmodeling and acting and all that stuff.

Tim Dax: Oh God,completely! Scary! When you leave a 9 to 5 after thirteen years that gave you agood salary and try to follow a dream? ‘HAHAHA!’ And to do what? You wanna bean actor looking like that? ‘HAHAHA!’ You’re gonna be a model? ‘HAHAHA!Nobody’s gonna ever hire you! You’ve painted yourself into a corner, man!HAHAHA!’

And then, of course,my heart tells me ‘No, they’re wrong, they’re wrong’ because what I’ve got isunique and when I show everybody how I use it they will see and it will becomebig and popular and in demand and I have a good message behind all so that willall be heard. So, yes, going back to it, [I was] scared shitless [laughs].

Blabbeando: So howmuch attention did it "Rough Gods" bring you? Did you experience…

Tim Dax: Tons! Firstof all, on a daily level, it’s funny because I have people from time to timewho might say ‘Hey! Aren’t you one of those --- aren’t you a ‘Rough God’?”“Yes, yes!” Out of the blue, crazy. Everybody remembers.

On a deeper level, ona bigger level, all of my acting headshots, all my good ones are all MichaelAlago, they are all “Rough Gods” and those are the only ones I use becauseMichael captures ‘a man’s man’ and he’s just got an eye for it and it’sbrilliant and he does it unlike anyone else I’ve worked with. He’s got it likethat.

Blabbeando: What about your tattoos? When I first saw you, you had a few. I think you had somefacial work, not as much as you do today…

Tim Dax: I might havehad my chin started at that time…

Blabbeando: Yeah. Haveyou relied on one specific tattoo artist for your tattoos all this time or havedifferent people worked on them? And, at this point, are you done or are thereplans for more tattoo work.

Tim Dax: As far as mytattoos, I’ve used about, maybe four people so far. Maybe five. But they arenever by chance. Tattoos are a very spiritual thing if your heart is in theright place when you get them. And there are no chance meetings, for me,anyway, with that stuff. And each artist that has done work on me has done veryunique and very special work and served a purpose for that period of time. I’vehad good relationships with all of them.

One guy did my entirehead. I would never start something with someone with the intentions to maybenot finishing with them. I follow through and I like relationships. I wish Icould have had one tattoo artist for all of my body but for whatever reasoneach person is meant to be in our lives for a certain amount of time andsometimes we part ways but I like consistency and I am loyal so therefore Ilike having solid relationships that last forever. But this is reality andthat’s not always possible.

I am finished for themoment but there are some plans for some snakes on my hands that’ll lookWICKED. And then some snakes on my feet, which will look WICKED. And then fromthere I don’t know. They all come to me as visions and they stay with me andwhen the time is right I’ll find the right person and I’ll have the money topay for it and everything will work out because that’s the way my life goes[laughs].

Blabbeando: And it hasevolved into a sorta ‘Gladiator’ type of look. Was it intentional?

Tim Dax: It’s funnythat I say that it wasn’t intentional, it just came out that way, and that’skinda the truth. I didn’t start out to say “I want to be a WARRIOR” or “I wannalook like a GLADIATOR”, no.

I started with myforearms. That was supposed to be just like a two-inch band on my wrists and itturned into my full forearms. And then from there, I just started poppingideas, just coming to me. Visions of the other designs and they all just laidout, ordained organically, one after the other. And this is what they looklike.

So it wasn’tpreconceived, it just came out that way. My head even. My head started as aMohawk, which I did not like the way it looked. So, what else do you do? I justkept making it bigger. For a year and a half, I just kept making it bigger andit slowly crept down my face one hour at a time.

Blabbeando: Because itdoes make you a striking figure. It also might pigeonhole you into a specifictype of character-actor of or model. But from the stuff I’ve seen about you, Iknow you have a range. You are pretty goofy sometimes. You can do comedy,horror.

Tim Dax: hell yeah!You know what? It’ll be ‘quote-unquote’ pigeonholing at first. All they see at first is a tattoo andthey say “Oh, my God! What are you gonna do with it!” And then all of a suddenwhen they give themselves a minute to see what’s beyond the tattoo, what comesfrom the person who is wearing the tattoo, which is dramatic, which isintellectual, which is comedic at times, which is whatever it wants to be,there’ll be great value in that.

And then thing will bemade for a guy like me. Why can’t there be a sitcom where there’s now gaypeople, have a sitcom with a gay couple and the tattooed-head guy who is theneighbor, who is a gardener, I don’t know!

It’s possible! We havea black president right now. Hello! 20 years ago who was even thinking that waspossible, huh? Anything is possible. If he can be the president, then why can’t I be a leading manin Hollywood. Of course I can.

Blabbeando: Finally,any regrets leaving New York City? And what awaits you in the future.

Tim Dax: My future ishome-base L.A. because I believe the rest of my future has to do with makingmovies, making entertainment, and it all starts in Hollywood. So here is homebase. No regrets. I absolutely adore it here, love it here, this is where I’mmeant to be right now. I own an apartment inNew York City, down in Chelsea, so that’s gonna be the retreat back eventuallyso I can be ‘Bi’…’-coastal’.

Blabbeando: [Laughs] Alright,Tim, so thank you so much for the interview and good luck in Hollywood.

Tim Dax: Thank you somuch, Andrés. God bless.

All things Tim Dax:

Tim Dax website here
Tim Dax on Twitter here
Tim Dax on YouTube here
Tim Dax on Facebook here

Previously:

Nude Avenger, unmasked (March 19, 2009)
Nude Avenger, protecting the boys (August 12, 2005)

Related:

Tim Dax: "There is no pinnacle, we keep rising up" (Couch Cutter, April 11, 2011)

In wake of scandalous resignation, Puerto Rican Senator Roberto Arango's homophobic legacy lives on

2011-08-29T12:00:00.009-04:00

[NOTE: A version of this entry has been cross-posted at The New Civil Rights Movement]

IMPORTANT UPDATE ON THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST ON HOMOPHOBIA IN THE PUERTO RICAN SENATE EVEN AFTER SENATOR ARANGO'S RESIGNATION.

Last week Republican Puerto Rican Senator Roberto Arango became embroiled in a public scandal when images of a shirtless man who appeared to be him were leaked to the press.

The images were from the gay dating phone app Grindr, which was a tad curious considering Arango's public image was that of a divorced heterosexual man who was raising a daughter. The Senator was also known for voting in favor of several anti-gay bills.

Initially, Arango scoffed at suggestions that he was the man in the images. Then he admitted he often took photos of himself shirtless to document a weight-loss regimen but didn’t remember taking those specific images. When more explicit images leaked out, the Senator stopped talking to media altogether.

Yesterday, he resigned from the Senate.

Our favorite Latino gossip site Guanabee, broke the news in the United States. Since then, several people have asked me if I have documentation of the Senator's homophobia. It’s been surprisingly tough to find articles and reports because most of it is offline. But, going through my files, I managed to find a few tidbits.

Senator Arango and civil unions / marriage rights for same-sex couples:

In early 2007 reports emerged that a legislative commission studying changes to Puerto Rico’s Civil Code was considering allowing civil unions for all couples regardless of sexual orientation. Conservative religious organizations were outraged and warned that civil unions would weaken marriage and change the family structure. They mounted a campaign against the measure and Senator Arango served as their messenger in the legislature.

From “La Católica contra unions de hecho / The Catholic leadership against civil unions” (El Vocero, March 27, 2007 - No online link):

From his seat in the Senate chamber, Senator Roberto Arango of the New Progressive Party spoke about the recent mandates from the Catholic Church regarding the governing body and announced he would present thousands of signatures against changes to the book of law.
According to his statements, the signatures were given to him on Saturday during a rosary ceremony organized by the Catholic Church on the vicinity of the Capitol building. The signers want to put a stop to the proposed changes to the Civil Code that have received sustained opposition from the more conservative organizations.
“We have received 150,000 petitions signed by people of all orientations in favor of maintaining the current Civil Code,” said Arango during yesterday’s senate session. “We will hand them over to the Secretary of the Senate so they take into consideration the massive support of the people.”

The pressure from conservative groups led the legislative commission to shelve debate on changes to the Civil Code.

Emboldened by their success, religious organizations went a step further and called for an amendment to the state constitution banning legal recognition of any relationship other than marriages between a man and a woman.

A bill was quickly introduced and, on November 7th of 2007, it passed in the Senate by a vote of 20 to 2 and 1 abstention. Senator Arango voted in favor (a tally of those voting in favor can be found in a blog post by leading Puerto Rican LGBT rights advocate Pedro Julio Serrano titled “The New Progressive Party and the LGBT community”).

"Resolución 99", as the constitutional amendment bill is known in Puerto Rico, was blocked in the House of Representatives that same year and proponents have dropped efforts to re-introduce it for now.

Senator Arango and adoption rights for same-sex couples:

In September of 2009, Senator Kimmey Raschke managed to sneak in a bill banning adoption rights for gays by keeping the language of the bill under wraps until the last day of the legislative session. Arango, a close ally of Raschke, defended the secrecy behind the bill and assured reporters that it would be brought to the Senate floor. From “La adopción en el menú del dia / Adoption on the day’s menu” (El Nuevo Dia, September 25, 2009) :

“You will see the bill. I already spoke with Tommy [Puerto Rican Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz]”, said Arango, who stated that he had yet to see the amendments despite being a member of the conference committee created to iron out the [bill language] differences between the legislative bodies.

Arango would go on to vote in favor of the adoption ban and the bill. It eventually passed both houses and is currently the law in Puerto Rico.

Senator Arango and the word “pato”:

The allegation that had been the toughest to confirm over the weekend were reports Arango had held a rubber duck at a public rally during his first electon campaign and used it to mock an opponent’s sexuality by making quaking noises and calling him a “pato” [“Pato”, the Spanish word for “duck”, is used in the island as a pejorative word for gays, akin to calling someone a “faggot” in English].

Lucky for us, today’s print issue Primera Hora includes it in a chronology of the Senator’s career and even provides a photo.

The chronology says that Arango’s political career began in 2004 when he led the Bush – Cheney presidential re-election campaign in Puerto Rico. It was then that Arango decided to run for office and became a strong ally of San Juan mayoral candidate Jorge Santini. And it was at a Santini campaign event that Arango called Santini’s opponent a ‘pato’.

From the chronology:

On October of 2004, at the closing of the San Juan mayoral campaign, rumors of [Eduardo] Bhatia’s homosexuality spread through the New Progressive Party’s rally and its leaders as they danced to a song with a chorus duck quacks. A featherless rubber chicken was thrown at the stage and rescued by Arango who referred to it as a ‘rubber duckie’

A photo caption reads Arango was overheard talking about Bhatia to someone else on the stage and saying "No le vamos a dar donde le gusta… sino hasta dentro del pelo". It's a difficult phrase to translate but could be interpreted to mean “We won’t give it where he likes it… instead we’ll drill it deep inside him.”

Reaction from Puerto Rican LGBT-rights leader Pedro Julio Serrano:

In researching these articles, I reached out to my friend Pedro Julio Serrano, founder of the leading LGBT-rights organization Puerto Rico Para Todos. He sent me this excerpt from a press release he released to Puerto Rican media yesterday (a full Spanish-language statement is available at Pedro Julio's blog):

This isn't a moment to kick someone when he's down, but I have to denounce senator Roberto Arango's complicity with a fundamentalist agenda that promotes the exclusion and marginalization of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. His votes in favor of Resolution 99 which would have amended Puerto Rico's constitution to ban the recognition of the freedom to marry for same-sex couples, his homophobic acts such as using a rubber duck to make fun of an opponent because in Puerto Rico the word duck means 'faggot,' and violating his constitutional duty to guarantee equality for all should be the real reasons for his resignation.

Senator Arango's homophobic legacy is still in full effect:

In the meantime, Arango might be gone from the Senate but his legacy remains.

Yesterday’s Primera Hora reports that the legislature seems ready to re-open debate of changes to the Civil Code --- except for parts of the draft that address civil unions or partnership rights for same-sex couples (“Family topic postponed in Civil Code debate”).

That sole part of the draft caused so much public controversy that it swallowed the rest of the work that had been done and there was no expectation that we’d get back to it,” said Jennifer Gonzalez, President of the Puerto Rican House of Representatives, “So what did we do? We looked at all the [Civil Code] books and we took out those issues that might generate public controversy and that might block passage of the other books, and we will start with those four.

Allegedly, once there is legislative agreement on the 'non-controversial' areas, they will come back to address whether the gays deserve human rights. In other words, Arango’s homophobic spirit lives on in the Puerto Rican congress.

UPDATE: This is my exact point ---

Not one hour after I posted this entry a friend on Twitter alerted me to an article from today's El Vocero ("Rivera Schatz: Bhatia and Garcia Padilla are the ones who should talk the least").

While Arango has yet to speak to press about his resignation, it was a close ally, Senate Presdent Thomas Rivera-Schatz who yesterday told reporters he had received the resignation letter from Arango. Today, in an audio interview posted in El Vocero, Rivera-Schatz goes after Arango's past political opponents and tells them to watch their words.

So, get this: Arango quacked like a duck when making fun of then mayoral candidate Eduardo Bhadia all those years ago in 2004. Today, now that he has resigned, we get this from the Senate President:

People are tired of "the bla, bla, bla of the PPD President and the 'quack', 'quack', 'quak' from Bhadia"

So there you have it. The Puerto Rican Senate President calling Bhadia a fag just today. INCREDIBLE.

Pedro Julio has replied ("Rivera Shatz reckless and recurring homophobia condemned". He states, in part, "It's not the first time that Rivera Shatz has recklessly used sexist and homophobic comments, as he has called us 'mentally ill, deviant and criminal."

Pedro Julio calls for Rivera Shatz to keep his homophobia in check or resign.

Related:

Arango surrenders Senate post (Puerto Rico Daily Sun)
The Six Worst Excuses by Anti-Gay Public Figures Caught Doing - Allegedly - Gay Things (New York Magazine)
VIDEO: The Worst Persons of the World (Countdown with Keith Olbermann)
Roberto Arango (Wikipedia)
Senator Roberto Arango's photo, as used above, is a photo capture from a video of an interview conducted by Juan Manuel Benitez on his political show "Pura Politica" on Time Warner Cable (NYC). The interview, in Spanish, can be seen here.
Opinion: Arango discovers his ass? (Spanish-language)

The Michael Musto Interview

2011-08-26T23:05:00.006-04:00

PHOTOS: Above: The great Michael Musto at an ACT UP Times Square rally against "Don't Ask, Don't Tell'. Below: Former NJ Governor Jim McGreevey and I at the same rally.

I have lived in New York City for approximately a third of my life and I truly don't know anyone who has been as brilliant at capturing the city's queer nightlife and LGBT revolution quite as successful as Michael Musto. Michael is usually described as a gossip maven, which might be quite alright, but I just think he is so much more than that. We run in a few common social circles but I had never really gotten the chance to interview him. I am glad to say I finally had an opportunity to do so. One caveat: I was just as nervous as when I interviewed JLo and might have tried to cram too many questions into the interview.

Other than that, enjoy, plus or minus a tape-recorder snafu:

Blabbeando: It took a while for it to come out but it’s finally here. I know you have a new book. What’s it called, when is it out and what’s in it.

Musto: Well, it first was supposed to come out last year on Alyson but, then I don’t know – you can read the gossip columnists for what happened there. But now it’s coming out on Vantage Point Books and it’s currently available on Amazon and the official pub date is September 1st.

It’s called “Fork on the Left, Knife in the Back” and to me the title hopefully show the way I like to throw the bourgeoisie cultural standards against the wall and to shatter everything and say ‘I may have the fork in the proper place but I’ll definitely be using the knife to stab you in the back’.

Though of course I have gotten stabbed myself sometimes. It’s a collection of some of my best columns over the years. I’ve been doing The Village Voice column now for over 26 years.

Blabbeando: Are there some new essays as well?

Musto: There are. The introduction is new and I have a new essay about social media, a new one about what’s so appealing about blind items, I have one about the celebrity closet and I have one about why I finally started blogging and what that experience has been like.

Blabbeando: It’s not your first book but this one seems to have a specific focus on the 1990’s and the so-called noughties. I know a lot of things have changed since the days of Michael Alig days and kids voguing at the West Side Piers. I wanted to find out what you felt has changed for the better and what’s changed for the worse.

Musto: Well, in the mid-90’s the club kid scene imploded and this kind of ‘Sex and the City’ mentality started taking over – a very kind of affluent, little black dress, bottle service, Meat Packing District kind of lifestyle. And it seemed like the clubs were fading from view in favor of bottle-service lounges and it was all based on credit cards and just using your expense account as a weapon.

Blabbeando: So in some ways the 80’s are coming back and people spending all that money on drinks and all the other stuff…

Musto: Well, as tacky as it is, I hope it’s coming back in some ways because it would mean that there is some money being pumped back into the scene - but nightlife is usually not about money, it’s usually about the disenfranchised people. The people who own the clubs can have money but the people who go there should be the oppressed underprivileged people who come together to create family and to celebrate and to misbehave in interesting ways so that’s what I long for.

It’s like the Meat Packing District was the enemy that was destroying the nightlife but now it’s all come together on the same plane because every Tuesday and every Thursday all the club kids go there. You know, Le Bain is the roof top place there, so it’s almost like we’ve all have found each other on the same plane.

Similarly, I used to be against people like Jim McGreevey and I thought he came out for sleazy reasons - that he had a lawsuit for sexual harassment – but now we are all on the same level because I run into him at all the same activist events so we are all fighting for the same thing - and we all end up on the same level. That’s the great thing about New York.

Blabbeando: Well Jim McGreevey is always at the ACT UP rallies…

Musto: Yeah, you know what I mean? And some of the columns in this book are me sorta screaming about Ellen DeGeneres who believe it or not wasn’t out at one point? And there was a big debate about whether she should come out and even whether her fictional character on her sitcom should come out and I wrote a piece about the absurdity of how we were debating whether a fictional character should come out of the closet. But now Ellen gets all the props for being not only openly gay but really having done so in a very fierce out open way. And Rosie, same thing.

I mean so much has changed. It’s a whole different landscape from when I started out in the 80’s. Back then there were just a handful of people who were out. I think I was the only out gossip columnist and that, of course, was pre-internet – and that changed everything. Information became available and accessible to everybody and the proliferation of cable channels changed everything because everything became visible, drag queens and a whole variety of gay representation. So this is the world I dreamed of, in a way. But there is still so much more to fight for.

But you are right about Broadway; a lot of these super-liberal Broadway shows were leading the parade for gay equality.

[In setting up the interview I had mentioned Broadway Impact and their role in the marriage equality fight in New York State]

Blabbeando: I might be wrong, but I’ve been reading your columns since the mid-80’s and I think for a while there you wrote a lot about how bad your sex life was…

Musto: [Laughs]

Blabbeando: But then something happened recently, within the last five years, and you started writing about how it’s getting better. Does get better?

Musto: Yeah, it’s weird because I am past the age when you’d see anything happening. It’s probably because I dropped down my wall. I always had a wall around myself. If someone approached me I would do anything possible to scare them away.

Blabbeando: Well, I don’t know if you mom is alive, but did she react?

Musto: [Pauses....] To me getting fucked!?

Blabbeando: Well…

Musto: [Busts out laughing]

Blabbeando: …to you writing about all the sex you’re having.

Musto: Well, you know, I don’t really tell my family that much of anything. The less you let them know the better. Thank God they don’t read my column or if they did they’d have a heart attack.

Blabbeando: Going back to marriage equality and all that other stuff: I know there is talk about a new gay metropolis hotel with a huge gay dance club and we might have a lesbian mayor in Christine Quinn and all the gays are getting married and, you know, isn’t it a little bit much?

Musto: [Laughs] Well, I would never complain about it because it’s the world I fought for and dreamed of but as gay becomes more and more common-place there is a risk of it being a little bit banal. I think thanks to Lady Gaga and “Glee” and all that stuff ‘gay’ is kinda, you now…

[OMG, I know this makes me a Luddite dork but the cassette tape stopped at this point. Yes. Cassette tape. Don’t ask. Michael and I began discussing ways in which there are a plethora of issues that have yet to be tackled before achieving full equality, including transgender rights and the alarming issue of homeless LGBT youth. So, in other words, ‘we join this interview while already in progress’ as they say in the news biznez]

Musto: We are never going to be able to say ‘Oh, we’re there, we’ve arrived, we have a place at the table’. No way. To this day gay marriage is a huge issue, Christine O’Donnell just walked off Piers Morgan’s show because he asked her about it. So it’s absurd that we have to fight for the right to be human. It’s like we are living these incredible lives, we are doing all the things that we want and yet there are still people who think we have to prove our right to be American citizens? It’s so ludicrous.

Blabbeando: For a while there, all these channels - VH1, The E! Channel – everybody was rushing to do these talking head gossip shows and I know you were invited to be part of some of them but sometimes you’d get booked and then be dropped. What was that experience like and do you get recognized more out on the street for being on those shows.

Musto: I’m still all over TV. Just in the last month alone I was on talking head shows on Current TV, TV Guide Network and Biography Channel and then I pop up on Theater Talk, and I was on Keith Olbermann, so I’m still getting massive recognition from being on TV.

The funny thing is none of these things pay so you are basically a free unpaid whore and you have no rights. They can cancel you at any moment. Or you can do a two-hour interview where they grill you about every aspect of - let’s say Lindsey Lohan’s career - and then they’ll just use one sound-bite that you could have done in your sleep or you could phone it in. But ultimately it’s worth it because it is kinda intoxicating to see yourself on TV and people respond to it in a way that they don’t necessarily respond in print. You know what I mean? When they see you and they recognize you from TV they really wet themselves. And it’s nice for me, I get a nice feeling about it because I have low self esteem [laughs].

Blabbeando: OK, you now this is coming and I am going to ask for a reaction. I’m going to read something that Anderson Cooper read out loud live on TV sometime last week. He was reading a Tweet about himself and he said:

Watching Anderson Cooper giggle is like watching a unicorn fart rainbows.

Did he come out?

Musto: He said that?

Blabbeando: Well, Is he now officially out? --- or not?

Musto: Well, he giggles like a schoolgirl every New Years when he’s on with Kathy Griffith…

Blabbeando: Or like a hamster…

Musto: Or, like a gerbil, maybe, I don’t know, but he's in what I call a glass closet. In other words, he lives a gay lifestyle but he won’t say on the record that he’s out and I’ve always had a problem with it. And I think Don Lemon coming out kinda showed, obviously, you can be a CNN anchor and be out. You can do it.

Blabbeando: Well, I just felt that going out live on his show and mentioning ‘unicorns farting rainbows’ was pretty close to saying "Yes, I am".

Musto: That pretty much, yeah, that says it all. That’s basically his coming out. I thought the giggling itself was his coming out but the unicorn remark just confirms it.

Blabbeando: And, finally, I know you’ve taken to blogging and also to Twitter and I wondered if you had any advice for newbies who wanted to start.

Musto:: I would say first of all, to really find your voice and you can only do that by doing it, by writing. The more you write the more you’ll be able to find your particular tone as a writer. And also don’t just write about anything. If you don’t have any passion for a subject don’t even address it. I mean, I’m not gonna write about the Superbowl. I don’t even know when it is. I may write about the half-time show. But people can tell if you are faking it or if you are just doing some kind of rote, routine blog or Tweet. So just send out stuff you care about. And don’t blog or Tweet every time you go to the bathroom - unless it’s a really major bowel movement.

Blabbeando: And do you have any favorite bloggers that you read?

Musto: I try to follow as many celebrities on Twitter as I can. I just love reading Paris Hilton, Jane Fonda, Roseanne, anybody famous. And I think in a way Facebook took away from blogs, like it’s kind of a new blog. People that in the past would have had a blog or a website now just put their brainfarts on Facebook all day. So that’s where I find myself drawn. I post my blog posts all day there and it’s fun to see the conversations that you start when you throw an idea out there into the blogosphere.

Blabbeando: Yeah, and once you start blogging then there is something new, there’s Twitter and then there’s Tumblr, and whatever comes next.

Musto: I know! And my fingers are like in agony. All that linking!

Blabbeando: So anyway, thanks a lot for the interview, Michael.

Musto: Thank you so much.

Related:

Michael Musto's column at The Village Voice here
Michael Musto on Facebook here
Michael Musto on Twitter here

Warning: This banner might induce transgender threesomes (UPDATED)

2011-08-22T07:54:00.008-04:00

UPDATE: La Prensa reports that a number of unknown individuals identified themselves as members of the Free Expression Foundation to get past security and removed the banner overnight on August 22nd of 2011. The matter is under investigation by university authorities.

In January of this year United States president Barack Obama took the highly unusual step of publicly calling on the Honduran government to step up its investigations of a series of brutal murders committed in recent months against the LGBT community - and particularly against transgender women. The statement was quickly followed by Honduran press reports that the U.S. Department of State, under Hillary Clinton, had committed to send trained personnel to investigate the murders.

I am not aware of additional information on efforts by the United States to assist Honduras in the investigate these crimes but a week ago members of the Honduran LGBT community staged a protest outside the Honduran Congress in Tegucigalpa once again calling for justice.

In such an environment you might think a campaign calling for respect for diverse communities might be welcome with open arms. Instead, a pro-diversity campaign organized by students at the National Autonomous University of Honduras has drawn the ire of some parents and faculty members who allege that a prominently placed banner promotes immoral behavior.

"I want the authorities in charge of making the banner visible to university youth to remove it for the sake of the mental health of the students - it does nothing more than to promote homosexuality among students" said María Antonia Cruz, identified by La Tribuna as the mother of two students attending their first semester at the university.

Editors at La Prensa, covering the story in yesterday's paper, stated rather matter-of-factly "This banner invites men to have relations with men, women with women and there is even an image of a threesome, which shows a man dressed like a woman grabbing the hands of two men."

Responding to the outrage and irresponsible press coverage, a representative of the non-profit student organization that developed the campaign said it only was meant to promote tolerance and that, while the focus of attention had been placed on a banner that alluded to sexual diversity, it was one of five different banners, including one promoting racial tolerance and another promoting and end to violence in sport events.

"Students are deeply engaged in their campaign because it's about tolerance, respect," said Angela Valladares of the Free Expression Foundation as quoted in Tiempo, "Young people have raised their voice [in favor of] tolerance, choice and respect".

The banner in the middle of the controversy shows a lesbian couple and a gay couple holding each other with a transgender woman in the middle holding the hands of a man and a woman. A legend on the top of the banner reads "Freedom starts with the respect of differences; you decide if you want to free." It hangs prominently from the side of a university building.

The banner promoting racial and religious tolerance shows five young women each holding a heart in their hands. The legend reads "It's not the skin that makes you different, but what you hold inside; we are more than 7 ethnicities and 2 religions - we are what we can do with our minds."

Interviewed by La Tribuna on the decision to leave the banners up despite the protests, the university's director defended the student-led campaign.

"In this country I think we sometimes lack profundity in the analysis, and institutional functions are debated and misunderstood because the role of the church is one thing and that of the University is another" said Julieta Castellanos.

Castellanos said the University did not function as the church nor did it exist to preach the gospel.

Related:

Free Expression Foundation Facebook page

Musica: Doctor Rosen Rosen's Girls, Vol. 1

2011-08-19T12:20:00.010-04:00

Los Angeles-based music producer/remixer/writer Doctor Rosen Rosen is not necessarily a household name but I have been keeping an eye on his talents since he released a semi-authorized re-rub of UK singer Lily Allen's 2009 album "Allright, Still". He used Lily's original vocal tracks but built up a brand new aural soundscape around them delivering a pretty stunning companion piece to the original album. If you haven't done so yet, you can download all twelve tracks for free here.

If you love the original album and have yet to hear this companion piece, download it here and It still stands as a great companion album to the original.

The Doctor has also taken stabs at remixing tracks from other artists, some by commission and some not, including Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Kanye West, La Roux, M.I.A. and Phoenix (you can download some of those tracks here).

GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS!: This week, though, brought the release of Doctor Rosen Rosen's first proper original artist album in the form of a 4-track EP called "Girls, Vol. 1". And, let me tell you, it's a great blast of sugary summertime pop.

On his website, the Doctor explains that this is the first of several EP's he'll be releasing in the next few months and that each track will feature a different female vocalist.

For this release, the tracks are:

"Five O'Clock" (feat. Jessie & The Boy Toys)": A rollicking kiss-off track that starts with the tic-toc of a clock and, at times, sounds like a modern version of "Rock Lobster" from the B-52's.

"Poison" (feat. Meg Myers): Over at Arjan's blog, Rosen says he drew inspiration for this track from The Cure's "Lullaby" but, to me, it sounds a bit more like late 80's Siouxie infused with some M.I.A./Basement Jaxx swagger over a Nirvana-ish grunge guitar background.

"Hot" (feat. Kay): A slowed-down ragga-infused deep-bass party track. "All my party people are you feeling the bass yet?" Kay sings. Oh, yes.

"Sex-Ed" (feat. Anjulie): This is just pure NYC summer fun, circa 1985, probably the best song of the lot. Then again, I've always loved a bouncy, cheeky, blippy track you can blast while driving a jeep. And I don't even have a jeep.

Really, it's a great EP and I love the fact that it gives four different up and coming female performers a chance to shine. Go download it now and let me know what you think about it.

LISTEN TO ALL FOUR TRACKS HERE:

ON TWITER:

Amazing transgender rights campaign ad from Argentina

2011-08-17T17:35:00.012-04:00

On the early morning of July 15 of 2010, Argentina became the first country in Latin America to grant full marriage rights to same-sex couples. Such a tremendous human rights victory did not take place in a vacuum: It counted with the support of the government of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and it was the culmination of a long and effective marriage equality campaigned led by the Argentinean LGBT Federation (FALGBT), a coalition of LGBT organizations throughout the country.

Even then, as they pulled efforts and resources towards the marriage equality fight, the FALGBT never lost focus on what they said would be their next battle: The push for a law which would allow transgender individuals to change their name on their ID's and birth certificates.

Several bills have been introduced in the Argentinean legislature and the day has come for debate on the law. From xQsi Magazine:

On Thursday, August 18, 2011, the Argentinian Congress will begin the debate on a proposed gender identity law. If passed, this law would allow anyone to correct hir name, gender and image registration in all public records through a quick and simple procedure.

Currently, trans people who wish to obtain a government ID with their true gender and name must wait years for a judges ruling, often being denied and forced to go through a lengthy and costly appeals process.

In preparation, the Argentinian Federation of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans people (FALGBT) and the ATTTA (Asociación de Trasvetis, Transexuales y Transgéneros de Argentina) launched earlier last week, the campaign “Identidad: Derecho a ser” (“Identity: The right to be” in English).

As part of the campaign, ATTTA and the FALGBT contracted Director Juan Pablo Felix and producer Matías Romero to come up with the first video for the transgender rights campaign. It's amazing. Take a look:

If you recognize somebody from the video it's because you have seen him on this blog before. On December of 2010, Alejandro Iglesias shocked viewers of the Argentinean version of the Big Brother reality show by disclosing he was a transgender man and had entered the house seeking funding for gender-reassignment surgery. Once in the house, Alejandro found some allies and revealed his identity to his house-mates as well. The revelation quickly became common knowledge around the house, bringing with it a subtle and not-so-subtle rejection from some of the male house members, and a few outright transphobic questionning of his identy - particularly from a gay house member. Alejandro would eventually leave the house without making it to the final.

The most interesting part, for me, was watching Alejandro not only become a national sensation, but see his blossoming activist awareness. Challenged by ATTTA and the FALGBT to help them raise awareness about the gender identity bills now in play, after leaving the house, Alejandro kept his promise and became a visible partner of both organizations. In April, with their help, Alejandro became one of the few transgender individuals to receive a new ID card when he went to the courts to ask for it. The new law, if passed, would facilitate the process without having to go through a court battle.

In the meantime, as an aside and going back to marriage equality: The banner above is what you see when you go to Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's re-election campaign YouTube Site. It includes a video that celebrates diversity and the moment she signed the marriage equality bill into law.

It's not hard to miss, but that's Alex Freyre kissing his husband José Maria Di Bello right to the left of the president --- and this is on President Kirchner's general re-election YouTube campaign page!

Alex and José are, of course, the first gay couple to marry in Latin America. Alex tells me that it's not only the first time that a presidential campaign has used the image of a gay couple so prominently.

Related:

Argentina's big step towards true sexual equality (The Guardian, Sept. 2, 2011)
Same-sex marriage legal, Argentineans ready to fight for full equality (Global Post, Oct. 19, 2011)

Reactions:

Latin America is leading the way on trans issues (TransGriot)
Argentina to debate gender identity law (xQsi Magazine)
On the Matter of Identification (The Daily KOS)
Argentine legislature debates trans rights (The Bilerico Project)
In Argentina, "going for more equality" with gender equality legislation (AMERICAbloggay)
Trans rights campaign ad (Joe.My.God.)
Argentine Ad Vividly Demonstrates Need for New Transgender Law (GLAAD)
Argentina: Campaign For Transgender Rights (Instinct Magazine)
The American Trans-Rights Movement Could Learn A Lot From This Argentinian Ad (Queerty)
Morning Meme (After Elton)
Argentina's trans rights campaign (Care2)
Dowód osobisty i prawo do bycia sobą w Argentynie (Innastrona)

Was Reverend Ruben Diaz Sr.'s homophobic boycott against NY's 'El Diario La Prensa' effective?

2011-07-31T18:52:00.017-04:00

Photo: El Diario La Prensa CEO and Chief Editor Rossana Rosado on New York 1 en Español's "Pura Politica".

I've been on such a light blogging schedule as of late that I haven't even written about passage of the marriage equality law in New York State last month or the legal marriages between same-sex couples that began last week. I have no doubt, though, that readers of this blog caught wind of the developments elsewhere.

But there remain some interesting angles that haven't been covered or have gone under-reported in English language media and the following story is one of them.

Last April, as foes of marriage equality in New York ramped up efforts to convince state legislators not to bring a marriage equality bill up for a debate, news filtered out that New York State Senator and Reverend Ruben Diaz, Sr. (D-Bronx) would be headlining a rally in his home borough in opposition of the bill. The rally, which I attended on May 15th, wasn't the first or last rally Diaz would lead on the issue, but something new emerged: A call to boycott the leading Spanish language newspaper in New York City, El Diario La Prensa, over their long-standing editorial support for marriage equality.

News of the boycott first surfaced in a Spanish-language Dominican Republic newspaper in which the Reverend promised that it would lead to a single-day newspaper stand sale drop o 20,000 copies. Here is what Diaz said about the boycott at the Bronx rally...

Diaz implied to the crowd that it was God who ordered the boycott (at the :54 second mark):

Our God has indicated to me to ask you to send a message to El Diario La Prensa. The fifty cents that you spend in buying the newspaper - with those fifty cents you are contributing to the promotion and the promulgation of marriage between a man with a man and a woman with a woman and abortion. And you are a son of God... You are a daughter of God... You are child of God. Starting tomorrow Monday, I am calling on all of you not to dare give fifty more cents to El Diario La Prensa. Kick them out! It's out they go! Out! Out! Out!

I must be jaded and gotten used to all the other homophobic religious nuttery that took place that day because the call to censure the press in the name of God was one of the most chilling things I heard on that day. Days earlier, Diaz - true to his disregard of the separation of church and state - posted a diatribe against El Diario on his Senate website in which he directly quoted the Bible ("He who is not with us, is against us - Luke 9:50"). On May 28th, Diaz also appeared on New York 1 en Español's weekly political show "Pura Política" defending his attack on freedom of expression to the show's host Juan Manuel Benitez (at the 4:23 minute mark):

JUAN MANUEL BENITEZ: This freedom of expression, to say what you want to say, you don't extend it to El Diario La Prensa? You've been organizing a boycott based on the editorial content of El Diario La Prensa because they back same-sex marriage...
SEN. RUBEN DIAZ, SR.: And abortion, and abortion, because...
JMB: So you want to silence El Diario La Prensa's freedom of expression.
DIAZ: No, I want to be granted equality. I want to be granted equality.
JMB: And what is equality. Which is the equality.
DIAZ.: Equality means that El Diario La Prensa doesn't cover any of our activities. They don't cover our children's parades...
JMB: They did cover your rally from a couple of weeks back...
DIAZ: Nooooo, oh, man, it was just miniscule coverage. They don't cover the Day of the Pastor, they don't cover religious activities, they don't cover a thing. They only cover...
JMB: Perhaps they only cover what they consider to be newsworthy...
DIAZ: So us... the Evangelical people don't have the right... We don't have to spend fifty cents to buy it. That doesn't... that doesn't... we are in America!
JMB: You are taking away their freedom of expression.
DIAZ: Ah! So is it an attack... for... for... for us to inhibit our right to express our position. Give me equality, and let's say we'll be on even keel. I'm not saying 'Do not write about that'. What I'm saying is: Why is it that you write only about that side... and don't write about this side. Journalism should be impartial. Which is what I just told you about Blabbeando.

Yes, Diaz plugged this blog as an example of the 'fair and balanced' coverage he should get at El Diario. Sigh.

Diaz, of course, lost big time when it came to blocking the recognition of marriage equality in New York State. Question is, having pulled out all his forces to hurt the sales of El Diario La Prensa, did his supposedly God-mandated boycott work?

For an answer let's go back to Friday's edition of "Pura Politica" in which El Diario La Prensa's long-time Chief Operating Officer and Editor Rossana Rosado sat down to publicly address the issue for the first time. I have a feeling you might be surprised...

In the clip Rosado discusses the Diaz boycott somewhat reluctantly and seemingly hesitant to give it more publicity than it's worth. She explains why they chose not to address it directly initially and also reveals, for the first time in a public venue, why passage of the marriage equality law in New York State hit so close to home. Here is the full transcript (I've highlighted key passages):

JUAN MANUEL BENITEZ: An elderly couple made history on Sunday when they became New York City's first gay marriage. Phyllis Siegel, a 77 year old retired librarian, and her wife Connie Kopelov, an 84 year old retired activist and labor leader, sealed their 23-year old relationship by getting married - legally. Hundreds of same-sex couples did the same and have continued doing so all week long. This historic event and the debate that preceded and led to it was followed closely by the oldest Spanish-language publication in the city, EL DIARIO LA PRENSA. With us, today, is their Editor and Executive Director ROSSANA ROSADO, many thanks for being with us [RS: Thank you for the invitation]. ROSSANA, why this issue and the way it was covered by EL DIARIO and, in particular - to get started - how did you experience the news at EL DIARIO LA PRENSA once it became a reality on Sunday...

RS: It's not the first time. People seemed to take it as something unique but at EL DIARIO we have spent years backing gay marriage. It wasn't something new. We have always been in favor of civil rights - and that aspect of the debate - and I think it became news because EL DIARIO's stand became so widely known. But we - as Latinos and New Yorkers - have always have always backed marriage rights for gays.

JMB: But you must know that there is the perception - in this country and in this city - that the Hispanic community is very conservative, very religious, and is not in favor of homosexual marriage. How is the experience at an institution such as EL DIARIO LA PRENSA - which has existed for almost a century - that goes against the grain of what people think the Hispanic community is like.

RR: Well, nevertheless, we have always been a very inclusive community. If someone says that they are against gay marriage based on their religious beliefs they more than likely have a gay son, brother or cousin who opposes [their view]. In other words, as a community we are a little more complex than that. Conservative? Perhaps. But we always have... - for example - the gays have always marched at at the Puerto Rican Parade. We never had the issues, for example, that have existed with the St. Patrick's Parade. And... look, we have never seen any backlash from our readers or public as a reaction to our editorial position or the support we gave it on this occasion.

JMB: And what many people have been asking: Did you sit down at the editorial room in EL DIARIO LA PRENSA and said "We'll go along... we will choose this path... we will support homosexual marriage openly and will we do it in such and such a way"? In other words, was there such a meeting? Was it decided that this would be the editorial line?

RR: Well, as I said, our editorial line isn't something new. We have always had it. I believe our editorial line is consistent with our support for civil rights, immigration rights, social justice, so it's part of our trajectory of fighting for rights we believe to be civil rights. So it's not only a religious debate. If one believes certain rights are civil rights, how can you be opposed to marriage rights... that doesn't make sense. And for me, this is consistent with the trajectory we have set; what could be described as a progressive policy.

JMB: Sunday, June 26th, was a very special day for you professionally and personally. Two days earlier, Governor Cuomo had signed the marriage equality law for which your newspaper fought so hard and in an editorial you titled "Because in the End, It's Love that Counts", you finally broke your silence and wrote, in part: "This newspaper was the target of a boycott based on our support for what we consider to be an issue of civil rights, but the end result of the matter were the calls of support from our family and activists throughout the tri-state area; many of them don't know how to speak or read Spanish and, despite this, they wanted to subscribe to EL DIARIO to insure and protect our editorial independence."
As a business woman, separate from your role as a journalist, what was your experience with this boycott over the editorial stand in favor of gay marriage?

RR: EL DIARIO is what we call in English a 'single-copy' newspaper: It's a newspaper that is sold every day - during ninety-eight years - every day, on the newspaper stand. In other words, we do not offer a subscription rate. So for me it's like a daily survey, whether people will buy it or won't buy it. Therefore we didn't feel the boycott in an economic way. Nevertheless, those who called for a boycott brought a lot of attention to EL DIARIO and, as a result, we seem to have new fans who didn't know us before - who also thought it was something new, that it was a novelty - our support for gay marriage - which it wasn't. And it was also an overwhelming reaction, for them to call us and say 'We don't read in Spanish but we want to subscribe so this boycott won't have an impact on EL DIARIO or do any damage to EL DIARIO; so we gained - through Facebook and Twitter - we gained more.

JMB: But before you received the show of support, I imagine you as a business woman, as the leader of an organization that provides employment to many families, deep inside you must have been worried. You might have said 'Well, we might have to rethink this issue, this stand, this editorial line...'

RR: Neither I nor Erica Gonzalez who is the Editor... we never worried about an economic impact or... we understood and always felt we were on the right side and... I never worried at any moment. What could they do? Stop buying EL DIARIO? We cannot do the work we do - in terms of our causes and the support we provide - we cannot do it on the basis of public surveys. We cannot do it on the basis of threats or the fear-mongering of losing our advertisers. We wouldn't do it on other issues and we won't do it for this issue. So we didn't feel fear, we just said "OK, let's see what happens...'. The strategy was to ignore it and, if there was an impact, to address it later. And there wasn't.

JMB: Because we haven't yet spoken about the person who called the boycott, but he was here a few weeks ago and this is what he said...
NYS SENATOR RUBEN DIAZ, SR.: I want them to grant me equality...
JMB: And what is equality; which equality...
RD.: Equality means that EL DIARIO LA PRENSA doesn't cover any of our activities. They don't cover our children's parades...
JMB: They did cover your rally from a couple of weeks back...
RD: Nooooo, oh, man, it was just miniscule coverage. They don't cover the Day of the Pastor, they don't cover religious activities, they don't cover a thing. They only cover...JMB: Perhaps they only cover what they consider to be newsworthy...RD.: So us... the Evangelical people don't have the right... We don't have to spend fifty cents to buy it. That doesn't... that doesn't... we are in America!
JMB: You are taking away their freedom of expression.RD: Ah! So is it an attack... for... for... for us to inhibit our right to express our position. Give me equality, and let's say we'll be on even keel. I'm not saying 'Do not write about that'. What I'm saying is: Why is it that you write only about that side... and don't write about this side.
JMB: Your reaction...

RR: OK, look. There are people in our community who not only dress like a cowboy but also act as such. They want everybody to do whatever they want them to do. They want to impose their morals. In Puerto Rico we say they preach morality in their underwear, in other words, they want to preach morality. I'll say that if that religious sector would like to 'protect marriage' why don't they attack divorce - because many of them are divorced. I got married 21 years ago, been with the same man, I've been loyal, and I'm in love with him and I believe in marriage. So I'm not about to deny someone else the right to marry. If they want to use the power of their religious congregations for the public well-being why won't they attack absent parents, those who do not pay child support; why won't they attack domestic violence. Why won't they use their alleged power to boycott those organizations, city and state agencies, or corporations that do so much damage to our families. Why won't they use that energy in that way. I believe that we - both in our community and our newspaper - we should celebrate love in all its forms.

JMB: With that response, it's obvious that you feel personally affected. As we said earlier, all these few weeks have also marked a very special moment for you...

RR: Yup. Because one of the first gay weddings will take place at my home... it will be between our friends Nelson and Juan who have spent 36 years together and who will get married - at last! - they'll have the right to do it in this state. We - my husband and I - are very happy that it will happen at our home.... and also because this year was the year in which my daughter revealed to us that she is gay - and she is 17 years of age. And for her and her generation - her friends, her cousins, our family - everyone has given her their full support. There has not been a single negative reaction. I think that's... that's the world we should pass on to our children so that they won't have to suffer, for example, through what Juan and Nelson or my uncles or my relatives went through.

[COMMERCIAL]

JMB: New York became the 6th state in the country to allow these unions. One thing is certain, these marriages do not enjoy legal recognition on the national level since they are not recognized by the federal government. Why? It's due on a law signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996 named "The Defense of Marriage Act". It defines marriage as the exclusive union between a man and a woman and allows the states to deny the legal recognition of homosexual unions if they wish to do so. Thanks to this law many bi-national marriages are in danger since foreigners married to U.S. citizens do not enjoy immigration benefits. President Barack Obama thinks this law is unconstitutional and has asked his team to stop defending it in the courts. On his part, the general attorney of the State of New York, Eric Schneiderman filed a petition of unconstitutionality this week which might provoke a chain-reaction leading to the law's revocation. ROSSANA, do you think this will take place soon. In other words, New York is the 6th state and not the 1st, but perhaps it has more visibility than perhaps all the other states that allow homosexual marriage in the country. Do you think there'll be a chain-reaction and that a great majority of the states will slowly begin to recognize homosexual marriages?

RR: Well, I think New York is decisive due to its size and, of course, because we as New Yorkers continue to believe we are the center of the world [laughs]. But New York does have a large representation of all groups and all ideologies so it does have a larger impact, particularly on what happens in Washington. So, yes, the fact that it happened in New York, the fact that we have people like Schneiderman and Cuomo who have [political] aspirations beyond New York is important as well and I believe that, yes, we will see it. And I hope so because I want to stop dealing with this issue and deal with others I believe are much more important in terms of day to day life: The economy, job creation and other issues that need to be resolved.

JMB: Because, on a deeper level, do you think it will take a long time for the community in general to get used to other family models? Because defenders of traditional marriage say that they defend the institution of marriage as that of a father, a mother and their children - but when it comes to the truth that model doesn't...

RR ...it's that it's been a long time since that model actually existed. I believe the figure is that more than 60% of today's families in the United States are not like that traditional family. My children - my daughter is 17 years old, my son is 20 years old - and from the time they were little, they were always in the minority as being from a family that had a father and a mother, in other words, a nuclear family. The topic of conversation during the school lunches was divorces, it was what other children did when they went to visit their [separated] parents. That [family] structure had already changed a decade ago, in other words, more than a decade ago. Sometimes when these debates come to the surface that's the focus and the people who talk about it do it as if this was something new. But take a look at research and the statistics: The concept of "family" already changed years ago. And what about children raised by grandparents? Extended families? We are in an era in which that nucleus already changed a long time ago.

In other words, just as Reverend Diaz' decades-long opposition to marriage equality in New York led to ultimate failure, his late-game call to boycott El Diario also seems to have failed miserably as well. Good job, Reverend Diaz! Please keep up on riling against El Diario since it worked so well for them!

And, by the way, if you've read this far, I also urge you to read Rossana Rosado's full OpEd piece on this issue by clicking here.

Guest post: An interview with Roland Palencia, pt. 2

2011-06-16T14:52:00.001-04:00

PHOTO [L to R]: Roland Palencia next to recently elected Equality California Board Members Dolores Huerta and Rabbi Steven Jacobs.

This is the second part of a two part interview my friend Gloria Nieto conducted a few days ago with incoming Equality California Executive Director Roland Palencia. In Part 1 (click here), Palencia discussed his Guatemalan background and the violence that marked his youth, his coming out experience as a college student, and his extraordinary history of activism in the Latino LGBT and HIV prevention community of California.

In this segment of the interview, Palencia discusses the role of Equality California in other progressive social justice issues. He also touches on President Barack Obama's "evolving" views on marriage equality and the pros and cons of challenging Proposition 8 in the immediate future.

We pick up where we last left off. Palencia is discussing Equality California's failed efforts to defeat Proposition 8 at the ballot and some of the "No on Prop. 8" campaign shortcomings...

GLORIA NIETO: Well this brings me to my next question. What can you do to heal what has happened between the campaign and Equality California? What are you going to do to heal this gigantic rift which I believe needs to be recognized? And how can you change the perception of others in the state who feel the same? Because you have a board where you have to pay to play. It is not representative. As much as I love Dolores Huerta, she is not my representative. To me there are problems in terms of communication and representation [Huerta, pictured above, is the co-founder of United Farm Workers of America and was recently nominated to the Equality California board of directors].

ROLAND PALENCIA: No, those are real issues. I think the fact that I have been involved in the community for so long [means] I understand some of the issues. I want to meet with people. I want to hear what people have to say. I want to have a conversation. How do we integrate activists more in to the organization and figure out a way so that is a part of what we do? The reality is that we don’t have a common conversation. We don’t have a language we can in some ways that we can converse around. You know what I am saying?

GN: Yes.

RP: So we are going to have create that, little by little or however it takes. There’s a question of access. Who has access. What kind of resources? What kind of decision making? I think that is going to be an issue that we really have to think about. The other thing is I really want to create a different framework in terms of how we approach our community engagement. By that I mean we need to take up issues that matter to all of our communities.

For instance, health care. I have been involved in health care. We have to expand our notion of what community issues are. I think marriage is definitely an important issue. It is a critical one. In addition to it being a civil rights issue, it is an economic issue. We know that families that are legally protected also have a better chance of being economically stable, especially those families with children. So we have to frame this as a civil rights issue but also as an economic justice issue.

We need to take up other issues that hugely impact our communities and I mean all our communities. Health care is definitely one. Access to affordable health care is a big issue in our community. We have an opportunity with health care reform to create alliances and to create coalitions that have one goal. That one goal is to create access to affordable health care. Right now the state of California got $10 billion to do a program over the next three years called Bridge to Reform.

GN: I am on the board of the Santa Cruz Women’s Health Center so I am really aware of that program.

RP: So you know that one of the goals is to enroll 500,000 people before 2014. I think we need to be part of those efforts. We need to demonstrate our competence in other areas that impact. That’s one approach that I think is going to help to definitely start creating coalitions. Health care will impact women, people of color, single gay men, married LGBT couples. I mean you name it. There are close to 7 million Californians who do not have health care. I mean that’s a huge number of people affected. This is rich with opportunities for coalition work and to provide palpable benefits to our communities.

Another one is education. There are issues I need to vet with the board. We know that education is the big equalizer or at least has the potential to be. We also know that having access to higher education is a seminal experience for LGBT people. Most of us came out in college where we were able to get away from our families a little bit, from our traditional settings, rural, urban, what have you. We started to find people like us, people we could relate to in a number of ways. So for many of us, we came out in college. Obviously, kids are coming out a lot earlier. Aside from the fact that it is an economic justice issue to have access to an affordable, quality education, it is also part of our movement. It is where we shape our identities as activists many times. So this whole thing that is going on with the community colleges, 400,000 fewer students are going to be able access community colleges in the fall of 2011. I think that is like a stake through the heart of our movement. That means 400,000 fewer students are not going to have access to an education. This will have an economic impact and I think this is an economic justice issue. But also in terms of activism, it really will deplete our troops. We have to start linking these things. We have to start looking at the fact that all these things are connected. All these things impact us in terms of civil rights and economic justice.

The other thing is I think, that and the reason why I am saying civil rights and economic justice we have to create a movement that is not only about civil rights. It is definitely about civil rights. But it is about economic justice. If we don’t take care of the economic justice part of it, we will have an incomplete civil rights movement. I think that one of the reasons why we still have a Latino underclass and an African American underclass and poor, white underclass is because we haven’t really dealt with the issues of economic justice. I think we need to go beyond the civil rights issues.

GN: You are making me cry. This is where so many of us live, having a commitment to full social justice. When the Arizona law first got passed,(SB 1070, anti-immigrant bill) I wrote something for Karen Ocamb’s blog (LGBT POV). I just got attacked with people saying immigration is not an LGBT issue. I am just wondering, what are you going to do? I don’t know that the organization is prepared.

RP: By the way, I don’t start the job until July 5th so I am just starting to figure these things out. But I know for a fact that they have a Beyond Borders outreach program. Part of that is to start educating the community on immigration issues, to start getting activists sharing with each other and to do coalition work. Equality California got a lot of flak for opposing the Arizona law. They got a lot of hate mail. I think that is a good sign. Immigration is a civil rights and economic justice issue. We have to frame in that way. It is a civil rights issue because the rights of people are being trampled upon. No human being is illegal. That is such a demeaning and dehumanizing term. But also it is an economic justice issue. Our economy depends a lot on that labor. We have a consumer society that loves cheap things, inexpensive things.

We, in some ways, are conspirators to having undocumented labor. The only way the system can produce what consumers want is if we lower the wages of those people who produce those things whether it is here in the US or outside. And we are saying “Fine.” If all of us benefit from having less expensive food and clothing, from less expensive housing then you can go down the line and document what undocumented labor contributes to the economy. Then we need to take care of those individuals who create those benefits for us. It is a hard conversation to have but I think we need to have that conversation. I mean the same people who are putting the anti-gay propositions on the ballot are the same people who are anti-immigrant.
So if the gay movement becomes anti-immigrant we are basically strengthening our enemies. We need to be really watchful about that. We have what I would call a hypocrisy economy where we want the benefits of the hands of the labor, the undocumented labor where we want the hands but not the whole body.

GN: I have a question about the education bill that was moving in Sacramento [The FAIR Education Act]. I was wondering why there wasn’t more of an effort to educate us about what was going on in Sacramento? I think the effort was being done just through social networks. I hope you will address that because that is not an inclusive way of communicating. About the wins and the losses. I would like to see more of an effort to educate us and for us to go show and lobby. I would like to have diverse people show up.

RP: We have to figure that out and somehow work on creating a mechanism to have people more involved, more informed with the tool so we can create that movement that we are talking about. I think that will be a real challenge. How do we create that loop with communities and with individuals who want to be involved and make a difference. We have to look at the legislation. You were asking me about how to get more connected to the community. Of course there is a process. It will not happen overnight. I was giving you a framework and an approach.

Equality California has passed about 71 bills. We need to do an analysis in terms of what does this mean about localities. We need to see if these bills create partnerships with local activists to start implementing those at a local level so that it really has an impact on the quality of life in those communities. It is not going to be in every community but we have the ability to not take over but can be the nervous system, connecting the synergy with best practices. To share what does work, what doesn’t work. To find out what is unique about one place, to know what is not unique about one place. I really want to create that network, that nervous system, that backbone to connecting our California movement a little bit more.

GN: I don’t know that this is Equality California’s job but there seems to be a lot of functioning Latino LGBT organizations in southern California but there is nothing up in northern California. A friend of mine in San Francisco and I tried last year to start a Latino LGBT organization up here. We couldn’t get a fiscal sponsor. We couldn’t get anybody to do that. It just seems like in part of the conversations it seems like it would be a natural fit for you and the rest of the staff could be hooking up people from different parts of the state so we can be having conversations about how do we work, how are we more effective and how to work together to be more united. And if, oh gawd, we have to go back to the ballot in 2012, what are we going to do? For me, 2012 is too soon anyway.

RP: I have some thoughts. We are in a quandary. On one hand we have a Presidential election that gives us an opportunity to get a lot of progressive people out there to vote. Also, we had a bit of a generational shift because we had younger people, we had a number of Latinos become voters. We had a sizeable Latino generational shift. Then we have Obama saying that he is evolving on the issue of marriage equality. That’s an indication that he might actually come out for marriage equality. We don’t know that but it is putting everyone on notice. They are not challenging DOMA. They were really strong on DADT. This is the holy trinity of issues: marriage, military and DOMA. So this is the only missing piece in that triad of issues. So that’s the opportunity.

The challenge is that this election is 18 months from now. We are supposed to have a game plan. We are supposed to have a fund raising plan. We supposed to have our community united, including our allies. Ninety percent of our pro-equality votes are going to come from our allies. The unions are supportive. The faith based communities, the civil rights organizations. The elected officials, you name it, right? We want to know that those allies are going to be there with us. The unions have their own struggles going on. They are fighting for their lives. Not as much in California but certainly they are starting to feel the pressure.

Then we have to add this other piece – the lawsuit. Lots of resources have been shifted to that. They have raised millions and millions. Lots of the pro-equality money has already been invested in this lawsuit. They might not be as comfortable funding a ballot initiative in 2012. This is a very complicated situation where you have tremendous opportunities and tremendous challenges. I think that part of the town hall meetings is to get some of that information but also to have to go outside of our community as well. Like I said, we depend on the 90% or so that are not just coming from our community.

GN: Here, Santa Clara county went for Prop 22 way back when. We flipped this county by like 32 points. I will say because I was outside the campaign that I could run the campaign in a way that I knew was more effective.

RP: So you had your ear to the ground.

GN: Exactly. A lot of people don’t know this about Silicon Valley. But 64% of the population is either immigrant or children of immigrants. We have the largest population of Vietnamese outside of Vietnam. Obviously it was critical that we get things out in Vietnamese. We had people out there talking about it. That is one of the reasons we were able to change the vote here because of our relationships with the API [Asian Pacific Islander] community. Right now I am working with a group called Asian Americans for Community Involvement (AACI) to talk about immigration issues here in Silicon Valley. So I am the only non-Asian in the group. But I am doing outreach into the LGBT community, working collaboratively with the biggest Asian group here. So for me that is what it needs to look like – Latinos and Asians working collaboratively in the state of California.

RP: I have just a little more time left. I am just so glad that we connected. We shall continue our conversations.

GN: The last question I have for you, are you going to be moving up here?

RP: I am going to be based in Los Angeles. But I will be travelling throughout the state.

GN: So then the center of the gay universe will be in WeHo now?

RP: You could say that [laughing]. That is one of the things I am looking forward to. I am LA based. I looking forward to working with people around the state. I went to the Courage Campaign’s training in Fresno. We take so much for granted in LA. I was so moved by the courage and passion of people in the Central Valley. It was like going back to the 1950’s. I was just so impressed with the passion and commitment. That inspired me for months. Well even today. It was very touching. I was very touched.

GN: I am glad to hear that. I have really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you for your time.

RP: Thank you. I am sure we will talk again.

Previously:

Guest post: An interview with Roland Palencia, pt. 1

Guest post: An interview with Roland Palencia, pt. 1

2011-06-15T02:48:00.008-04:00

PHOTO: Roland Palencia (Copyright: Debra Evans)

Last month the board of directors of Equality California announced they had selected Roland Palencia as their new Executive Director. The announcement surprised many who had not heard his name before, despite an impressive track record in LGBT organizing, philanthropy and business management. Blogger and journalist Karen Ocamb covered all of this in an interview she posted on her blog last month ("First interview with Ronald Palencia") and Prop 8 Trial Tracker just featured an OpEd by Palencia a couple of days ago ("Marriage equality is an anchor for full social equality").

Today I bring you something a little different. My good friend Gloria Nieto interviewed Palencia a few days ago and focused on issues that are particularly relevant to the topics I cover on this blog. This is why I was thrilled when she asked me if she could post the interview on Blabbeando as a guest post.

I have chosen to split the interview into two parts. In this post Palencia discusses his Guatemalan background, the violence that marked his younger years in his country of birth and his extraordinary history of activism in the Latino LGBT and HIV prevention community of California. He also addresses possible mistakes that Equality California might have committed in their failed battle against Proposition 8 and the prospect of going back to the ballot boxes in 2012 to try to defeat the measure.

In the second part of the interview, Palencia goes into the role of Equality California on other progressive social justice issues such as the economy, education, health care and immigration. He also touches on President Barack Obama's "evolving" views on marriage equality. But all that will have to wait. For now, enjoy the first part of this extraordinary interview.

GLORIA NIETO: Tell me what your history is? I understand you are Guatemalan.

ROLAND PALENCIA: Yes, I was born and raised in Guatemala. My family was very politically involved. My father was one of those people, he was a small businessman and also a revolutionary. And he wanted to basically get rid of the military dictatorship that Guatemalans had been living with for many decades. So he was killed. I also had another cousin who was 18 when she was killed. My father remained disappeared for quite a while until we found his remains. You know? Many of my family members went into exile. Some went to Mexico City, Australia, Spain and Vancouver, Canada. Most of them are still there now. My mom was concerned about our safety. She came to the US and she eventually brought us here. The US was providing military aid to Guatemala at that time. So Central Americans were not really eligible for political asylum so when I came here I was almost 18, I was already an adult. I eventually went to UCLA. That is when I started to come out as a gay man. You know colleges and universities are the environment where many of us find ourselves. Also I got a sense of what being a Latino in the US was. Obviously I felt this sharp contrast with my family who were small businesses. We were not rich but we were somewhat prosperous. Basically here there is the sharp discrimination that many immigrants feel that kind of shaped my consciousness and that along that with the fact that I was coming out as gay Latino man really got me to really think about what I wanted to do. About the conversations that people have about both immigrants and LGBT people. So in 1982, I was one of the co-founders of Gay and Lesbian Latinos Unidos (GLLU). Which eventually created the leadership that helped to found Bienestar. I don’t know if you know Oscar De La O but he was the founder of Bienestar.

GN: Right

RP:A lot of that leadership came out of GLLU and of course, many of them are dead now. Many of them died of HIV and AIDS. I lost, I don’t know, seven out of 10 friends. It was a huge epidemic and it hit the activist community really hard. So it was unfortunate about that, aside from the human suffering, just the pain that the pain the community had. I can think of Jose Ramirez. He was Newyorican. He was one of those individuals who really involved in the civil rights movement. Many involved with the United Farm Workers. They really had a connection to the civil rights movement. I think that we lost that whole generation. And we lost the consciousness and the solidarity thinking that came along with that.

GN: You know I have also been of the opinion that men of that age - and I wouldn’t say my numbers were as high as what you are talking about - but definitely, I talk about men who I should be growing old with who are not here anymore. I also think because we all grew up with the feminist movement that there was a lot more solidarity with women.

RP: Absolutely

GN: and being able to operate from basic feminist principles of inclusion and equality, that losing so many of that generation, there was a loss of transferring that information, those principles and experience to younger men.

RP: So the hand off in terms of certain values, the basic tenets of the solidarity movement, that whole notion of interconnection and intersecting movements was lost, we lost a lot of that. I don’t think we have analyzed the huge impact that the loss of that generation has had on the movement and where we are now. I can think of Frank Mendiola who was a farm worker child. He was raised in the farms and he became a union activists. He was the one who organized the Gay and Lesbian Center. He was like 24 and he was organizing the biggest LGBT institution. So that is part of my history. In the late 80’s I founded VIVA along with other friends. That was basically and LGBT artists organization.

GN: And then you are a founder of HONOR PAC too?

RP: No, I am not a founder of HONOR PAC. I am on the advisory board.

GN: Oh OK.

RP: The main thing about VIVA is that so many of our gay brothers were dying that we created that organization to make sure that we kept their art and memories alive. One of the impetus for that is that so many gay Latino men were dying we got Latinas and Latinos involved and to really promote our art and the expanded consciousness that comes along with that. So that went on for like four or five years. Then I went to work at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. I was the vice president and chief of operations. Between being a consultant and a full time employee, I was there about eight years. And then I went to La Clinica Monseñor Oscar Romero. I was the Executive Director there. I was the E.D. for four and a half years. After that I started my philanthropic work with the foundations. I became the senior program officer at the California Endowment. Now I have been appointed as the next Executive Director of Equality California.

GN: Well that is quite the story.

RP: It’s a lot.

GN: The Prop 8 campaign did not turn out the way we wanted it to. I am curious what you were able to do at that time. How were you able to help?

RP: I think I am one of those people who wish we had done more. I also know that there were a lot of blind spots. Things that campaign could have done a lot better. We all have learned a lot of lessons from that. I think that one of the lessons we learned was that we have to talk to the people. You know we can’t do these things in a vacuum. WE have to have these one to one conversations in all kinds of community and all kinds of languages. We also have to understand that our opponents are very organized and very powerful and they have a lot of money. They have basically built in infrastructure of churches that are not on our side that they can turn on and turn off. So I was one of those people who was not as involved.

I think it is important to acknowledge that. I gave some money and made some phone calls. I remember on election day I was educating voters. It was outside the voting booths within the legal limits. I was out there for about 10 hours. At the end of the day, they wanted to arrest me. I was definitely involved.

I was involved in the Obama campaign. I went to Nevada to knock on doors. I was involved in the Obama campaign a lot more than the Prop 8 campaign.

GN: Just in terms of my own experience, I have to say that this campaign definitely scarred me. I have to say this was because of the really bad treatment I got from Equality California - and I mean really bad treatment. Here I was running a hunk of the campaign here in San Jose, got talked to like I was a dog. Talked to incredibly disrespectfully, couldn’t get any resources. I would get resources from people in other counties. I would drive to Santa Cruz to get yard signs. You know that is now way to run a campaign. There was an evening when some of the labor folks had brought hotel maids to help with phone banking. We did not have a Spanish script. So they were reduced to emptying the garbage cans and cleaning up. I was crying and crying and crying that night. I still apologize to the union people for that. Then campaign staff person says that they have to check on any scripts to make sure they are culturally competent. Of course! My response in my head though was 'fuck you, fuck you for treating my folks like this'. I worked with Luis Lopez [currently a candidate for state Assembly] to get window signs in Spanish. We generated these signs and offered to folks in San Francisco. We also got them done in Vietnamese, too. We got them out all through San Jose. I offered them to San Francisco and never heard a word. Nothing.

RP: That should have never happened.

GN: No!!!

RP: Those are stories of things that should have never happened. By the way, my activism was with HONOR PAC, not necessarily with the bigger campaign.

GN: But why did HONOR PAC have an office in LA, the were the only ones with an office in LA?

RP: They got some space from Supervisor Gloria Molina.

GN: I know but I am just saying that the campaign never opened up anything in LA.

RP: Correct. There was a relationship. If we go back in 2012, which is going to be a daunting task, these things need to be in place.

* Gloria Nieto is a Latina lesbian blogger. She writes for the San Francisco Gate, in the Chronicle's blogger section, City Brights. Gloria lives in Northern California with her esposa, three dogs and three cats. She is looking forward to having a job before she is eligible for social security

About those threats against NYS State Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr...

2011-06-06T15:02:00.009-04:00

Photo: Vital shows the love she has for her girlfriend. The two got engaged on May 10, 2010.

Imagine loving someone so much you want to let her know by tattooing a message of love on yourself. Imagine wanting to spend your lifetime with that person and celebrating it by becoming engaged, hoping against hope that some day you'll be able to marry her.

Then imagine someone who has never even met you tell you that your relationship is "unnatural". That it is similar to bestiality. That it means that you have rejected Jesus. That you may very well go to Hell. Worst, imagine that person is in political office and has spent years trying his darnest to keep you from getting married.

I don't exactly remember when and why I started following Vital on Twitter. I just know that she comes off as savvy, funny, rough-around-the-edges and immensely protective of the love she has for her partner. But I do remember being on Twitter sometime in mid-May when I saw Vital send out a very specific Tweet.

I mention this now because, as of late, New York State Senator Ruben Diaz has been ratcheting up the allegations that he is being victimized and using Vital's tweet as a prime example. Case in point: On Wednesday, New York Daily News political reporter Celeste Katz brought it up in her online blog as follows (italics mine)

Diaz said he and his family have received death threats due to his vocal stance on keeping gay marriage unlawful in New York State. They were reported to the FBI and Albany police, he said. "We are in America; we are supposed to agree to disagree and respect each other's positions," the senator said. On May 10, tweets by opponents of Diaz's May 15 rally included one in which the sender expressed the desire to sexually assault Diaz's daughter.

"Sexually assault Diaz's daughter". Hm, is someone really on the look-out for Diaz' daughter? Does someone want to sexually assault her? Does it merit an investigation by the FBI or the Albany police?

While the tweet in question might be vulgar and is certainly open to interpretation, it never mentions the word assault or rape, nor does it portray intent. In other words, it doesn't say "I am going to do [this and that]...".

Here is the uncensored version: "Is it wrong that I wanna track down Ruben Diaz daughter and fuck the shit out of her on tape, then show it to him?"

Shocking. Yes. Unfortunate, yes. A threat. I differ with Diaz on that one. In any case, I thought I would reach out to Vital and talk to her about that specific tweet because I firmly believe she is unfairly being targeted. Here is our exchange:

Blabbeando: Hey Vital, thanks for allowing me to interview you. Let's start with that now infamous Tweet you sent on May 10th. Can you tell me what was going through your mind when you posted that tweet and if you meant as a threat to the Senator or anyone in his family?

Vital: Well when this tweet was posted, I was extremely upset about all the statements he was making against the gay community. As a woman in a relationship with another woman, everyday presents several obstacles to overcome. We have people pointing and staring at us out in the street, as well as people pre-judging our character based on stereotypes alone. The statement I said was not in anyway intended to be directed to Rev. Ruben Diaz. It was more a question to my Twitter followers.

I guess subconsciously I was really wondering what would Rev. Ruben Diaz do if it was his daughter that was engaging in sexual relations with another woman? Would he accept it? How about if she was attacked verbally by an outsider and her character was being questioned because of her sexual orientation?

And, to answer the last part of your question, as I previously said, that tweet was not specifically sent to Rev. Ruben Diaz. I did not send it to him to his Twitter account, his e-mail or his home addressl. I posted it on my Twitter timeline, for my followers. Sen. Diaz was not one of my followers and it is a misfortune that he did see it and thus took it as a personal threat.

Blabbeando: That day, Senator Diaz posted your Tweet on his Senate page as an example of a "vicious threat" against him and included your Twitter handle as well as that of one of your followers who re-twitted it. I know you had no idea how public your comment had become because I was the first one to alert you and, when I did, you told me you had no idea your messages could be seen by anyone else on Twitter but the people who followed your timeline. What was your initial reaction when you found out it had gone public? What do you think about it now, almost a month later?

Vital: WOW, I could never forget that day when you called me and told me about it. I was mortified. I was afraid and mostly I was embarrassed. Why? Because he made it seem like that one comment represents the whole LGBTQ community, when in fact it DOESN'T. That comment was nothing premeditated and was quickly said with out a thought. Unlike the statements Rev Ruben Diaz has made not worrying whose feelings were hurt or whose character he defamed. Now, a month later, I've definitely learned my lesson and, in fact, I have become very choosey with what I do say via Twitter.

Blabbeando: I know you were aware that Senator Diaz was organizing a rally against marriage equality in the Bronx and that you wanted to join some of us who went there to counter his opposition to our rights. But I also know that you couldn't make it for a very special reason. Can you tell more about the reason that you weren't able to join us?

Vital: Yes - I wanted to make that rally so bad! But I was launching the first ever event for a group I run that same weekend and I couldn't change the dates. My partner and I stayed out in the streets for 24 hours and went homeless as an effort to raise money for homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer New York City youth. It began on May 14th at 2pm and ended May 15th at 2pm. We were exhausted, soaked and dirty; however, it was a very humbling experience and I'm happy to have done it to raise awareness and money for a special homeless shelter!

Blabbeando: Your Tweet went out more than three weeks ago and yet, Senator Diaz continues to bring it up as an example of the threats he allegedly has been getting. Some national right-wing anti-gay organizations such as the National Organization for Marriage are just now picking up on it and are parroting whatever Senator Diaz is telling them about it. Should you be portrayed as the very face of intolerance and violence that the Senator and his allies are trying to pump up in an effort to portray themselves as victims?

Vital: I undoubtedly regret wording that Tweet as I did, and I obviously did not mean what I said, however, I wanted to put into perspective how Rev. Ruben Diaz would feel if his own child was involved in a homosexual act. I in no way meant that as a threat, but I did speak out of emotions rather than use my common sense- so for that I do apologize.

As for whether I should be the very face of intolerance? ABSOLUTELY NOT. I do not believe in violence, I believe that reason does not yell, and I believe that peaceful agreements go further than anything else. In any LGBTQ events that I have been a part of, it has been peaceful marches, as I stated prior, the homeless project, making and selling T-Shirts in an effort to raise money for homeless shelter for LGBTQ youth, so as you can see none of these are representative of "the face of intolerance and violence." In fact I am the complete opposite of what they are trying to portray, I am one to support and spread love to everyone, indiscriminately.

Blabbeando: Thanks so much, Vital, for letting me engage you in this conversation.

Last week, I spent time translating an interview Diaz did with Juan Manuel Benitez, host of "Pura Politica" on New York 1 Noticias in which the Senator said he was at a loss in understanding why he was the focus of so much resentment from the gay community. During one particular exchange, Benitez kept insisting that it shouldn't be surprising that if the Senator had made his opposition to LGBT rights the number one issue of his political career, members of the LGBT community might feel hurt by his comments and actions. The way Benitez put it to Diaz was "You can't throw a stone and then hide your hands".

Does this justify the language and tone that some use against Diaz? Not at all, but it is understandable. I just wish sometimes that people could hold their breath for a second before posting something and realize that their words can be used to Diaz' advantage.

In this specific case, I wanted to write about Vital because I knew she was speaking in anger and that she never meant her tweet as a threat. I also appreciate that she was willing to talk to me about it because it provides an example of how our rightful anger at Diaz, if expressed badly, can have consequences.

And if anyone from the FBI or the Albany police is reading this, you are welcome! I've done the groundwork for you on this one. Case closed.

Related:

Visit Vital's blog here