Living Out Loud with Darian

Mississippi Department of Health doesn't apply for MSM funding; advocates say final straw -Housing Works





Mississippi AIDS advocates are outraged by revelations that State AIDS Director Craig Thompson knew about and failed to apply for CDC funding for HIV prevention for men who have sex with men (MSM). “It wasn’t applicable to us,” Thompson said at a Mississippi Prevention Planning Group for HIV Prevention meeting last Friday, which was tape-recorded by PPG member Mark Colomb(pictured above).


Valencia Robinson, field organizer of AIDS Action in Mississippi said that in a phone conversation with Thompson,Thompson said the reason Mississippi didn’t apply for the funding is because state legislators don’t care about gay men. “That’s homophobic,” Robinson said. “You can’t address the epidemic if you’re not addressing the people most affected by it.”


Listen to the audio here. Thompson's words are beyond shocking.


Prop. 8 rivals seek support in black churches -San Francisco Chronicle





At rallies Tuesday in Oakland, black clergy with the rival campaigns presented completely contradictory statements. A gay black minister spoke at Oakland City Hall about preserving the right to marry. At a rally in the Fruitvale district, another black minister said gay black people don't want to get married anyway.


"I am not trying to rail against gay people; we have gay people in our music department," Ray Williams, pastor of the First Morning Star Baptist Church in Oakland, said at the pro-Prop. 8 rally. "When you look at the people getting married in San Francisco, you didn't see very many blacks. It's not a distinct issue in the black community."


Mary J. Blige and Melissa Etheridge Raise $3.9 million for No on Prop 8 -Rod 2.0





Hip hop legend Mary J. Blige headlined a fundraiser with Melissa Etheridge that raised some $3.9 million for NoOnProp8 to mount "new and hard-hitting" television spots in the final weeks of The campaign. Last night's event was held at the Beverly Hills home of billionaire Democrat and supermarket magnet Ron Burkle.


Blige—an outspoken gay rights supporter—was "actually at the end of her tour and made a special effort" to attend the fundraiser. Other prominent guests included San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Rob & Michele Reiner, actor David Hyde Pierce, and, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who updated the outreach efforts to the Latino community.


"Noah's Arc" Actor Doug Spearman, Black Ministers Urge "NO" on Prop 8 -Rod 2.0





Doug Spearman, the handsome openly gay co-star of Noah's Arc and the upcoming feature film Noah's Arc Jumping the Broom, headlines a news conference with several Los Angeles ministers to urge the black community to vote NO on California's toxic Proposition 8.


Spearman, who is on the board of Equality California and the No on Prop 8 campaign says, "When the Supreme Court authored its opinion, it effectively wiped away not just discrimination against gays and lesbians. They wiped away discrimination in the state of California in a way that had never been addressed before. They did a brave and beautiful thing."


Republicans Against 8's new ad -"It's Backwards" -Pam's House Blend





Would you run backwards? Would you bike backwards? Then why take California backwards?
That's what Republicans Against 8 is asking California voters in its latest online ad, "Backwards," released yesterday.


"Backwards" urges voters from across the political spectrum to protect the California Dream for all families by voting No on Proposition 8-"It's unfair. It's unnecessary. It's Backwards.


A Full House -Bejata






Father, mother, children. The image of the perfect nuclear family. But images can be misleading.


Sometimes they are just an illusion, a complete fabrication designed to simulate the real thing. That is the primary purpose of the drag ball community, where young gay men, from different “houses”, walk the runway in competition with one another, in a range of various feminine and masculine guises through categories of simulated “realness.”


It is also the central premise behind Wig Out!, an engaging new Off Broadway play now showing at The Vineyard Theatre in New York.


Wig Out! tells the story of two rival houses on the eve of a ball and the interwoven lives of the people who inhabit them. These are houses less in the physical sense but more spaces where a house mother, father and “the children” gather to plan their ball performances, while doling out love, discipline, mutual support and more than a little “shade” and manipulation.


Watch the trailer here.