LGBT good news, bad news: Vermont, Iraq, Susan Stanton
By David Warner, CL Editor/ PoHo contributor
Sometimes the headlines can make your LGBT head spin. Take the front page of today’s New York Times print edition, where there were two major stories about gay issues, both above the fold. The good news: the Vermont state legislature’s override of Gov. Jim Douglas’ gay marriage veto. The bad: Openly gay Iraqis are being murdered with the tacit and sometimes overt approval of police and families.
Locally, there was good news for Susan Stanton. Fired in 2007 from her position as Largo City Manager after announcing, as Steve Stanton, that she would be undergoing a change of gender, she has finally found another city manager position after two years of searching all over the country — and she found it in Florida, no less. And meanwhile, here at Creative Loafing, Eric Snider’s Devil’s Advocate feature right here on The Daily Loaf is treating us to the enlightened views of evangelist Bill “I don’t hate gays, they just disgust me” [my paraphrase] Keller, and even better (or worse), the comments of his supporters.
On SiriusOutQ, the LGBT satellite radio station I only recently discovered and can now not live without, the news roundups each hour offer the same head-spinning mix. One day you hear the news that national “pro-family” groups plan to combat the Day of Silence — the anti-bullying initiative famously criticized by Brian Blair — by keeping kids home that day if their school is observing it. And then you hear that, for the first time, gay and lesbian parents are being invited to the White House Easter Egg roll.
It’s a contradictory, confusing, exhilarating time to be gay. We’re welcomed, we’re condemned, we’re cheered, we’re murdered. The progress we have made cannot be denied, but the reminders are there every day that the haters refuse to be denied either. Stay vigilant.
