NEWS: Theater, Theocracy, And The Final Frontier

 You know who's been enjoying the hell out of Pride Month? New York's Neo-Futurists, who've been performing Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind since 1988, and who, for June, have taken to performing Too Much Pride Makes The Baby Go Gay. (Incidentally, the Neo-Futurists are not all gay.) Watch 'em get their pride on AFTER THE JUMP ...

 The closet monster hall of shame! Featuring Roy Cohn, George Rekers, and more ...

 Magnum photos of summerlove.

 Each of these portraits is made from a single thread.

 Sandusky Victim #6, in the courtroom:

He is 25 now, lean and broad shouldered with short brown hair and big dark eyes. For years, he struggled with the fact that Sandusky, a local football hero, crossed the line with him in a locker room shower in 1998.

No. 6 was the only one of the accusers, the so-called "Sandusky 8," to come to court for the verdicts. He chewed gum with intensity, his jaws clenching and releasing as Sandusky, looking wan and bent in a brown sports jacket, lumbered into the courtroom shortly before 10 p.m.

The jurors took their seats, looking tired and sad. One woman appeared to be crying.

The young man's mother locked fingers with him with one hand, placed the other over his forearm and her head on his shoulder. She started to cry. Soon, they would hear whether there would be justice.

 Vatican hires a journalist to handle PR. Guess where from?

The Vatican will be getting some (much needed) PR help after hiring a Fox News correspondent as a senior communications adviser for the Church's top administrative office, the Associated Press reported on Saturday.

The Fox News staffer, Greg Burke, is also a member of the conservative Catholic Opus Dei group. He will leave his job at Fox, where he is a Rome-based reporter. Before working for Fox, Burke was a Rome-based journalist for Time.

 Can religion justify bullying children?

 What universal coverage meant to Obama, and how he's bracing for its possible repeal:

... Mr. Obama did not relent. He had an economic rationale for stabilizing a dysfunctional health system, but he also “saw what Teddy called the moral issue,” Victoria Reggie Kennedy, Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s widow, said in an interview, referring to her husband. For those who wondered what Mr. Obama really believed in, universal health coverage seemed to be the answer.

As the brutal fight continued, the president sacrificed more and more in its name: an overhaul of energy and environmental laws, greater focus on economic issues, some of his own popularity and that of House Democrats, who eventually lost their hard-won majority. “Michelle and I are perfectly comfortable if we’re only here one term if we feel like we really accomplished something,” he told aides.

That declaration sounds different today. Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, uses “Obamacare” as an epithet and applause line, promising outright repeal if he wins. A few years ago, the health care law seemed a reason for Mr. Obama to risk losing re-election, former aides said. Now, it is a reason he feels he must win re-election.

 What we talk about when we talk about the solar system:

... an accurate model of the solar system is literally impossible to visualize. Most of its constituent parts are so far from each other, and so tiny relative to the distances involved, that the human eye cannot see them at once. Even if you were to reduce the sun to the size of a tennis ball, and reduce the sizes of and distances between other solar objects by a commensurate amount, even a keen-eyed human standing beside the sun would be unable to locate our system’s planets without a telescope.

Let’s say the sun really was the size of a tennis ball. If you like, picture it sitting in the turf, smack in the middle of the 50-yard-line at a football stadium. The nearest planet is Mercury, and you can’t see it. It’s less than half the diameter of the period ending this sentence, and it’s lost in the grass, ten feet from our tennis ball sun ...

 Americans place a lot of faith in the church, the military, and the police, but very little in judges and journalists.

Is Josh Weed A Reparative Therapist, Or What?

Last weekend I wrote about Josh Weed, the relationship therapist, Mormon, and father of two who came out on his blog as 1) a gay man who is 2) happily married to a woman. There has since been a lot of chatter about Weed in the gay blogosphere, mostly centered around the man's profession. Is Josh Weed, apparent nice guy, a "reparative therapist"? 

Weed works with a group called LifeSTAR Washington, which deals primarily with issues of sex addiction. In his professional bio, Weed writes:

As a therapist, Josh works with many people struggling with difficult life issues, but focuses his efforts mainly on adolescent and adult sexual addiction issues, with an emphasis on youth treatment. His work is dedicated to helping people combat patterns and beliefs that cause feelings of shame, hopelessness and despair. Josh also works helping those with sexual identity issues and unwanted sexual attractions and/or behaviors. Before transitioning to private practice, his clinical work revolved around his role at Kent Youth and Family Services, where he still performs Drug and Alcohol assessments. Josh particularly enjoys working with youth; helping them feel hope as they face many life challenges.

... which sounds a lot like it could have to do with the un-gaying of young people. But on Friday, Weed told Gay.com that he's most definitely not a reparative therapist:

Over the phone Weed said, "I don't believe that a gay person can or even should change their sexual attraction." Then Weed responded via e-mail with this:

I do not practice, nor do I believe in, reparative therapy or change therapy. Quite the opposite, my therapeutic stance is one that favors (but does not depend on) the idea that sexual orientation is immutable.

My therapeutic approach is to meet clients where they are--wherever that might be--and then help them to analyze the goals and aspirations that they have for their own life.

Given my background, I feel especially adept at helping clients who feel that their attractions are "unwanted" because of cultural or religious contexts. I work with them to help them accept their sexual orientation for what it is, so that they can move forward into the decision making part of their life.

I help them get to the point where the question becomes something like, "This part of me is real, and I am totally okay. Now what?" I then help them as they navigate the difficult waters of decision.

My clients make extremely varied choices for their lives and futures. My role is to help them do so in a way that is authentic and true to what they want for themselves, and not to appease outside sources of pressure (like family, church or culture at large).

... all of which strikes this reader as a little fluffy. It seems to suggest that if a guy comes in to Weed's practice and says he's happily partnered up in a gay relationship but has trouble with compulsive infidelity, then Weed accepts the gayness and tries to help with the cheating. But if somebody comes in and says he's gay and wants to live heterosexually, Weed tries to help with that, too.

Does that count as "reparative therapy"? If not, does Marcus Bachmann count as a reparative therapist? 

'Old School' Italian Dad Gets Tattoo To Support Bisexual Son: VIDEO

Description of a YouTube video:

So: my brother came out that he was Bisexual last year and it was one of the hardest things he's ever had to do and one of the most courageous. He was most nervous about coming out to my old school Italian father who can be a bit of a hardass but mush at heart. So my brother decided to get born this way tattooed on his wrist in gagas handwriting after he met her, for obvious reasons, and it meant and still does a lot to him. My dad yesterday before Dylan came home for spring break got born this way in Italian tattooed on his wrist to show his acceptance and deep love for his only son who he is so proud of every day. I love my family.

"Pro-family" -- this is what it looks like. Watch the young man in question getting a first glimpse of dad's new tattoo, AFTER THE JUMP ...

Sheriff Babeu Says He Is Gay, Isn't A Criminal, And Isn't Working For Romney Anymore

The sad story of anti-immigrant Sheriff Babeu and his possibly-undocumented beau Jose went viral yesterday, and Sheriff Babeau had some stuff to say about it. From the Phoenix New Times:

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu ... announced at a press conference that he is a gay man and that he is no longer a part of presidential candidate Mitt Romney's campaign.

"I called the Romney campaign, and I told him I'm going to step away from the campaign," Babeu told a crowd of reporters. He says the campaign told him: "We support your decision, sheriff."

Babeu was serving as the Arizona co-chair of the Mitt Romney for President campaign.

... The sheriff and congressional candidate said his personal life was none of anyone's business, and said a couple times during the press conference that it was "almost a relief" for his orientation to be out in the open.

Sheriff Babeau still denies the central charge made by his former lover, Jose, in the New Times story: That he threatened to have Jose deported if Jose didn't sign an agreement to never reveal the nature of his relationship with the sheriff.

LGBT Rights Pioneer Axel Axgil Dies

The gay rights pioneer who became known as "Axel Axgil" came out of the closet in Denmark, 1948. The next day he lost his job. This weekend, he died of "complications from a fall." He was 96 years old. According to The Washington Post:

Axgil, born Axel Lundahl-Madsen, was among the founding members of the organization — one of the oldest gay rights groups in Europe — in 1948.

On Oct. 1, 1989, he and his partner Eigil were among 11 couples to exchange vows as Denmark became the first country to allow gays to enter civil unions, with nearly the same rights as heterosexual couples. Eigil Axgil died in 1995.

In the 1950s, both were sentenced on pornography charges to short prison terms for running a gay modeling agency that issued pictures of naked men. The men melded their first names into a new surname, Axgil, and used it in a public show of defiance.

The journalist Rex Wockner was in Copenhagen in '89, when Axel and Eigil exchanged vows. He took the picture at top. (Axel's the fellow on the left.) See some of Wockner's other pictures from the occasion AFTER THE JUMP ...

Georgia State Representative Rashad Taylor: 'I'm Gay'

Georgia State Representative Rashad Taylor, a Democrat, came out as gay yesterday in response to an email written by the former partner of Taylor's current boyfriend that has been circulating around offices of the state capitol.

Said Taylor:

"Although this is not the time or the way that I wanted to come out, I feel actually very lucky, thanks to all the support that I've received from those people who are closest to me...As a black man, it can be a struggle to find acceptance within the community and at times with myself as well. But I'm proud of the man my mother has raised, and I make no apologies for who I am. There may be those who want to paint those in political terms. They'll say that this is a political liability to me. To me it's actually a gift form God.Through his grace and examples of thousands of members of the LGBT community who have come out often to great personal and professional risk, I have been blessed. It's your bravery and example that makes it possible for me to publicly and say to you, 'this is who I am and I have nothing to be ashamed of.'"

The email makes note of that fact that Taylor is gay and accuses him of using his position as a lawmaker to trade sex for state funds and other gifts. Taylor has denied the allegations and the man who wrote the email, Jermaine Callahan, admits he does not have proof to back up his claims.

Watch the press conference of his announcement, which took place at the offices of Georgia Equality, AFTER THE JUMP.