The Political Whore

Another TV news personality has been urged not to have children. The twist is that this time it is a male anchor, not a woman.

For those not enamored of following Florida media insider baseball, you can bail out now. But for the rest of us media whores, there is a wonderful story that has been playing out for a week or so in Miami, where the ABC affiliate WPLG has fired one of its anchors who now claims it is because he is (gasp!) gay.

Charles Perez has fought back, with a sexual orientation discrimination complaint (which he claims triggered the firing) and a blog post in the Daily Beast in which he details his claims that station management was afraid of his increasing gay profile and urged him not to have children with his male partner. (The station, in written statements, denies Perez’s allegations.)

Perez writes: Read the rest of this entry »

By Lorna Bracewell
PoHo contributor

This just in from Securing Our Children’s Rights (SOCR), a Tampa-based lobbying group organized to secure, protect and preserve equal rights for children of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender parents in Florida:

Securing Our Children’s Rights, Inc. (SOCR), is pleased to announce HB 3 – Adoption, for the 2010 legislative session, introduced by Representative Mary Brandenburg, D-West Palm Beach, that is a full repeal of Florida’s ban on adoption by its gay and lesbian citizens. Senator Nan Rich has a companion bill in drafting at this date.

Governor Crist has declared Wednesday, July 22, 2009 as Explore Adoption Day and we must contact Governor Crist and the legislature to Explore Adoption by repealing the ban.

WHEN: Wednesday, July 22, 2009
WHO: Governor Charlie Crist (850) 488-7146 or email to Charlie.Crist@myflorida.com

House Speaker Larry Cretul 850-488-1450 or 352-873-6564 or email to Larry.Cretul@myfloridahouse.gov

Senate President Jeff Atwater 850-487-5100 or 561-625-5101 or email to atwater.jeff.web@flsenate.gov

Your Florida Representative – www.myfloridahouse.gov

Your Florida Senator – www.flsenate.gov

THE ASK:
Please ask the Governor to support the repeal of the adoption ban on gay Floridians and ask him to encourage the legislative leadership to pass the repeal.

Please ask the House Speaker and the Senate President to support the repeal and encourage Committee hearings for the bills.

Please ask your representative and senator to support the repeal, and to become a co-sponsor.

Here are your fun facts and talking points, courtesy of SOCR:

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David Simanoff was a reporter at the Tampa Tribune for a decade before leaving just as massive layoffs and contraction began at the daily newspaper. He was pretty high profile and a business writer, showing up on News Channel 8 segments often. He is also a gay man.

Now, on his blog, Daily Dave 3.0, he writes about his mixed feelings about whether to join yesterday’s protest of his former employer, Media General, for broadcasting the anti-gay Speechless: Silencing Christians hour-long paid television show on the same evening as St. Pete Pride.

He ultimately decided not to join the Red Flag Rally, but most interesting are his recollections about how his former employer treated GLBT issues. Here’s what he wrote, using the acronym MFE for “my former employer”:

Read the rest of this entry »

By Joe Bardi
Cross-posted from The Daily Loaf

For more news and reviews of the summer’s biggest movies, check out the CL Movies & Television site.

Screening information: Outrage is screening exactly once, Wed., July 15 at 7 p.m. at Tampa Pitcher Show, 14416 N. Dale Mabry, Tampa, 813-963-0578. The film carries no MPAA rating.

If there’s a central message to Kirby Dick’s Outrage, it’s that living life denying one’s sexual orientation is an awful existence. Not only is the closeted person lying to their family and friends — often at great emotional cost to everyone involved — they are lying to themselves. There’s a lot of self-hatred hanging in the closet, and it’s an old saw that the most homophobic folks are the most in denial. Still, a person’s choice to keep their preference private is their own. But what about politicians living in the closet who work to advance anti-gay-rights legislation? Don’t they deserve to be exposed?
Read the rest of this entry »

By Lorna Bracewell
PoHo contributor

On Saturday, June 27, thousands of people gathered in the streets of St. Petersburg, FL for the city’s annual Gay Pride parade and festival. While we were celebrating and honoring the legacy of the LGBT civil rights movement, our local NBC affiliate (WFLA-Ch. 8) was airing Speechless: Silencing the Christians, an hour long special paid for by the conservative American Family Association (AFA) that makes a series of specious and demeaning claims about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Watch a clip from the program after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Lorna Bracewell
PoHo contributor

Hooray for Florida’s very own  Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen! On Wednesday, along with a bipartisan coalition of 100 House members led by Rep. Barney Frank, she introduced a revised (read: trans inclusive) version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). When passed, ENDA will extend existing Federal protections against employment discrimination to also protect gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

A version of ENDA that did not include protections for transgender people passed the house in 2007 but died in the Senate. In a recent interview with the Washington Blade, Frank was cautiously hopeful about the bill’s prospects in 2009: “Things have gotten better. The transgender community is lobbying hard.  I just need to remind people that when we have trouble doing something in New York, Maryland and Massachusetts, it doesn’t get easier when you have South Carolina, Utah and Nebraska.”

By Lorna Bracewell
PoHo contributor

Confronted with a news story involving lesbian penguins at a German zoo, you would think that evil geniuses Bill O’Reilly and Dennis Miller could muster at least one decent lesbian joke.

Watch their pathetic attempts after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Lorna Bracewell
PoHo contributor

In a recent blog posting, Nadine Smith, Equality Florida’s executive director, issued a formidable challenge to GLBT people everywhere: If you want equality, sacrifice for it. With the bus boycotts and lunch counter sit-ins of the black civil rights movement as her inspiration, Smith asks “What can we (GLBT people) do that demonstrates not only the rhetoric of equality but the personal sacrifice that will awaken the conscience of a nation?”

Smith answers this question with a simple suggestion:

Read the rest of this entry »

By Lorna Bracewell
PoHo contributor

In a presidential proclamation issued on Monday, President Barack Obama officially recognized the month of June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month.

LGBT Americans have made, and continue to make, great and lasting contributions that continue to strengthen the fabric of American society. During LGBT Pride Month, I call upon the LGBT community, the Congress, and the American people to work together to promote equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

The president’s call for equality and his acknowledgment of the many contributions LGBT people have made to America’s culture, society and politics despite being culturally, socially and politically marginalized are truly moving. However, I can’t help feeling slightly ambivalent about the whole thing. Here’s why:

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By Heidi Lux
Daily Loaf contributor

Cross-posted from the Daily Loaf blog.

I have a secret I can no longer keep. It burns my soul and pains my conscience. I had an affair. I loved a man powerful in Florida politics, and he loved me back. I cannot reveal his name. My honor and his lawyers do not permit me. I will refer to him only as C. He currently seeks more power, and I know that rumors will begin to fly, so I submit my story publicly to save us both, and our love, from the public’s harsh scrutiny.

It all began in the winter of 2008. I was a 19-year-old USF student, wandering through my studies with no real direction, still trying to find myself among the textbooks and study halls. My life did not live up to my name – Destiny St. Clair – and my bright red hair spoke of an excitement I could not claim. I was, I must say, average in every way, certainly not the type you might soon expect to be sipping champagne on yachts with the most powerful man in the state.

I can remember the exact moment my life changed forever. Jan. 30, 2008, the day John McCain won the Florida Republican primaries. “That man is such a silver fox,” my older sister, Fate, said as we watched the announcement on TV. C. was standing at a podium behind John McCain, looking pleased as they announced the elderly senator’s victory. “How is that man even still a bachelor.”

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