Welcome To The South, Where It's Once Again Hot and Humid and 1963

There’s an old saying that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it and, in the wake of the recent church shooting down in Charleston, we are seeing a repeat of a very ugly and hateful time in our collective history.

Church burnings. Now, these aren’t new; in fact, they go as far back as the Civil War years, though the most famous case was the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama by a group of white supremacists.

The burning of Black churches is especially heinous because the churches were, and are, are targeted for their role in the Black community, as a gathering place, a safe place, a place of worship.

In the week after those nine people were murdered at Emanuel AME Church six churches, with predominately black congregations, all across the South have been burned, and three of those fires are being investigated as suspicious.

And for anyone who doesn’t think that these burnings are racially motivated, what was the big discussion after the shootings in Charleston? The Confederate flag; the removal of that flag. That flag that has for the last one-hundred-fifty years signified hate and racism in the South, and once it became clear that most Southerners want those flags removed — though not forgotten because it is a part of history — Black churches began to burn again in the South.

The first fire was June 21, when someone set bales of hay on fire outside the College Hill Seventh Day Adventist in Knoxville, Tennessee; the church sustained minor damage.

Then on June 23, God’s Power Church of Christ in Macon, Georgia caught fire, and when firefighters arrived on scene they found the front doors wired shut. That fire was ruled arson, but was not classified as a hate crime, perhaps because it was just the second such church burning.

The very next day, June 24, Charlotte, North Carolina’s Briar Creek Road Baptist Church was burned; the building sustained $250,000 worth of damage with the main building demolished by the blaze. It has also been ruled as arson.

On June 26, the Glover Grove Baptist Church in Warrenville, South Carolina burned down and there is no reason, or cause, for the blaze.

There were two other church fires — Fruitland Presbyterian in Tennessee and Greater Miracle Temple Apostolic Holiness Church in Florida — but authorities believe those fires were caused by lightning or electrical wires, though they are still investigating.

We have come so far in this country — just last week gay and lesbian Americans gained a huge foothold in being equal in this country — and yet we have also taken a huge step back with these church burnings and the pro-Confederate flag rallies, as under-attended as they may be.

There is one way, and, for me, one way only to fight racism in this country: knock it off. Stop it when you hear it. When someone makes an idiotic joke, remind them that a lunatic in Charleston might have also laughed at the joke before he killed nine people; when people say ‘they’ or ‘them,’ or even worse, ‘those people,’ remind them that we are all Americans and we don’t have the time or the need or the desire, to take a step back.

The best way to stop racism, and stop church burnings, and hopefully, stop lunatics with guns, is to say something, with your voice, your actions and your vote.

Say something. Do something.

Washington Post

Photo credit: Todd BennettAugusta Chronicle via WaPo

Random Musings

I love a good book, and I love a little bit of history, and I love some Hollywood drama and gossip.

So, I was thrilled to start reading William J. Mann’s new book, Tinseltown, about Hollywood in the 1920s, and the scandals, and the religious right trying to control the movies, and the murder — long unsolved until, maybe, now — of William Desmond Taylor.

If you like those kinds of stories, this is a great book, and really takes you into Hollywood and how it started and what it was like.

Sidenote: Mann is the author of one of my all-time favorite books, Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines, Hollywood’s First Openly Gay Star.

Great reads.

Last Sunday we finally had some decent weather — no rain, and not numbingly cold — so Carlos and I attacked the front yard.

Leaf duty. The driveway was blown free of leaves and then we started in on the front yard. Four hours later, and seventeen, yes, seventeen, 55-gallon leaf bags later … we’d finished about a quarter of the yard.

Why oh why did we buy a house with so many trees!

This could be good …

It seems that CBS has cast transgender actress, and LGBT icon, Laverne Cox in its new legal drama pilot Doubt. The Orange is the New Black actress will play a transgender Ivy League-educated attorney, described as “competitive as she is compassionate. She’s fierce, funny and the fact that she’s experienced injustice first hand makes her fight all the harder for her clients.”

The really great news is that even before the casting of Cox in the part, the role was written for a transgender character.

Times do change.

So, a while back we had a free HBO weekend, and I noticed that the first season of The Knick was on. So, the DVR was set and recently Carlos and I have started watching. It’s really pretty good—a hospital drama set at the turn of the last century in New York—but some of the surgery scenes are a little graphic.

So, naturally I focus on the man candy: like, clockwise from the top, André Holland as Dr. Algernon Edwards, Michael Angarano as Dr Bertie Chickering Jr., and Eric Johnson as Dr Everett Gallinger. All hotties, all the times.

Interesting side note: Michael Angarano is perhaps best known for playing Elliot, Jack McFarland’s son on Will & Grace. He grew up hot — though he wears a full beard on The Knick.

Well well well, it seems Beck has had the last laugh after Kanye’s lunacy at the Grammys.

Beck’s album ‘Morning Phase’ — the surprise winner at the show when West rudely declared Beck “should have given his award to Beyoncé” — has become a huge seller this week, shooting to Number 1 on iTunes ahead of Sam Smith and Taylor Swift; plus, Spotify said the number of streams for “Morning Phase” was up a whopping 2,169% by Monday evening.

Beck a true artist and a gentleman, took Kanye’s comments in stride saying, “I still love him and think he’s genius.”

Not so thrilled with West was Garbage singer Shirley Manson who told West online: “You are making yourself look like a complete tw - t.”

Winning!

Oh you Southerners. You all pretend to be good Christians, and conservative Republicans, and arbiters of all that is holy and scared, and then you turn around and scoop up all the tickets to the upcoming 50 Shades of Grey.

According to Fandango Grey has accounted for nearly 60% of its ticket sales this week, and will the fastest selling R-rated film to date, in Southern states.

That’s right; Mississippi, Arkansas, and West Virginia saw the sharpest uptick of pre-release ticket sales followed closely by Kentucky, Alabama, Louisiana, and Tennessee.

Funny; those conservatives in all those states really wanna see Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson get their freak on!

I loves me some NPH and I loves me some Oscars, so I am really looking forward to the show.

But … but … NPH is on the cover of this week’s Entertainment Weekly looking like a gold statue … or, as I thought, kind of a creepy mash-up of C3PO and The Wiz.

Just sayin’

Keep The Promise March On The South

This past weekend Carlos and I took part in the Keep The Promise March on HIV/AIDS in Atlanta. Why Atlanta, you may ask? Is it because the ATL has a thriving gay community, many of whom could be at risk for HIV/AIDS?

Kind of, but then again.

The good news is that HIV/AIDS infection rates are falling all across the United States, but they are, in fact, rising rather dramatically in the southern US. And while deaths from AIDS complications either fell or held steady in other parts of the country from 2001 to 2006--the last year complete figures were available--they rose by more than 10% in the South.

An update to a 2002 report that identified the disproportionate impact of HIV and AIDS in the South--defined as Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.--found that:

• Although those Southern states are home to only 36% of the nation’s population, some 50% of all US AIDS deaths in 2005 were in the South, and more than half of all Americans with HIV lived in the region in 2006.
• Nine of the 15 states with the highest HIV diagnosis rates are in the South.
• More than 40% of all new infections are in the South.
• Of the 20 metropolitan areas with the highest rates of AIDS cases in 2006, 16 were in the South.
• African-American women are 83% of all [new] cases in the South, and the new epidemic is young people between 22 and 24.

AIDS specialists cite some of the reasons for the rise in new HIV/AIDS cases:

• Unequal government funding of anti-AIDS programs; for years a majority of the funding has gone to major metropolitan areas, and now that those areas are seeing a decline in new HIV/AIDS cases, the funding hasn't shifted to areas in need.
• Economics; the South is home to a great many low income people who cannot afford testing or treatment
•  Cultural; many parents in the South are in denial that their children are having sex;  religion also plays a part, in the notion that "good Christians" do not have sex outside, or before, marriage, and many churches refuse to even acknowledge the issue exists
• Transportation issues; many Southerners live in very rural areas without direct access to hospitals or medical facilities
• Translation; there is an increase of Hispanics in the South, and the language barrier makes education and treatment difficult., lack of access to proper health care
• Education plays a particularly important role in fighting HIV in rural communities where there is a strong “It can’t happen to me" factor.
• And even though the numbers show that HIV/AIDS numbers are on the rise in the South, there has been no increase in funding for the Southern states.

There is a call for more “age-appropriate, science-driven education for prevention of all sexually transmitted diseases,” along with increased federal funding for “prevention, treatment and care."

Fear seems to be the most prevalent reason for the spread of HIV/AIDS from what Carlos has found as an HIV outreach Counselor. People live in fear that they may have "it" so they refuse to get tested. The stigma of being HIV+ is huge in rural communities, religious communities, the Black community, making it hard for people to want to get tested or to seek treatment.

All in all, this crisis, which seems to be abating in other parts of the country, in on the rise in the South, and people here could die because they are afraid of a simple test. There is treatment, there is care, and there is prevention, but we need education and we need funding.

Keep the Promise.

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The 'Mo's Are Coming, The 'Mo's Are Coming, And They've Got Children!

I've talked a lot about how surprising it was to move to South Carolina, of all places, and to Smallville, a town of just 8,000, of all places, and feel completely welcomed as a gay man, and a gay couple. I'll admit to having my reservations because where you worship, and what you believe, is one of the first questions asked when you arrive.

But we did arrive. We rented a small house in town for the first six months until we decided where we wanted to buy, and all of our neighbors were quite welcoming. We'd walk the block and people would say hello and come off their porches to talk; they'd wave as you drove up the street.

And both of us were completely welcomed in our jobs, and completely out from the get-go. And as I started to work, I didn't have one single negative experience about being gay. I was shocked, to say the least. When we finally found the house we wanted, we were told by our realtor, in one of those real estate agent whispers, "There's another gay couple in the neighborhood."
But we didn't meet them right away. we did meet other neighbors and all were very sweet. One even came over with fresh flowers and strawberries from her garden to welcome us. I got the feeling that, although weren't in Kansas, er, Miami, any more, this would be just fine.

I always thought being gay in the South was a secret you kept top yourself, so  imagine my surprise when I read that the South is the new place for gay couples to raise children. According to the Census Bureau, child rearing among same-sex couples is more common in the South than in any other region of the country.
The South.
Now, I'll admit to being shocked, but then, when you stop and think--something many of us, yours truly included, sometimes forget to do--parents want to raise their children in a safe environment, in areas where there are other children. Now I know that them there big cities have lots of kids, but some parents want the wide open spaces where their kids can run and play outside, and gay and straight couples are finding that the South is just the place.
Who knew?
Now, while these parents feel the South is the better place to raise their children, they are also reminded on a daily basis that they are less than, that they, and their children, don't have the same government protections and privileges that their heterosexual counterparts enjoy.
But, wouldn't it be great, if this new influx of gay couples, and gay couples with children, into the South, spurred a dialogue about being gay, and helped to erase some of the stereotypes that exist here. Stereotypes that are deeply rooted in the churches here; stereotypes that are hard to eradicate because gay people might not be as open, might still, in fact be closeted.
I always say, the more we come out and just live our lives, the more the world, and our neighbors, see us as not so different than themselves.
Which is exactly the case.

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