Out gay State Senator Scott Dibble of Minneapolis.

BY PAUL SCHINDLER | “Today we have the power, the awesome power to make dreams come true,” said out gay Senator Scott Dibble, a Minneapolis Democrat, just moments before the Minnesota Legislature concluded its debate on a marriage equality bill on May 13. Later in his speech, he added, “Vote yes for love.”

The measure passed by a 37-30 vote, four days after the House of Representatives approved the same bill on a 75-59 vote.

A day after the Senate action, Governor Mark Dayton, a Democrat, signed the bill on the steps of the Capitol in St. Paul on May 14. “Love is the law,” the governor told a crowd that the Duluth Tribune News estimated at 6,000.

Karen Clark, an out lesbian Democrat from Minneapolis who led the push to pass the legislation in the House, emphasized the importance of backing those who voted yes when they face reelection next year. In response, the crowd chanted, “We’ve got your back,” the newspaper reported.

Upper Midwest state becomes the twelfth to offer same-sex couples equality

It was only in November that Minnesota voters narrowly defeated an effort to write a provision into the State Constitution barring same-sex couples from marrying.

Minnesota becomes the 12^th state to allow same-sex couples to marry, and only the second one in the Midwest. Marriage equality became law in neighboring Iowa in 2009, following a unanimous ruling by the State Supreme Court.

Minnesota becomes the third state in as many weeks to legalize gay marriage –– following Rhode Island and Delaware. In addition to Rhode Island, all five of the other New England states –– Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine –– also allow same-sex couples to marry. New York approved gay marriage in June 2011.

Voters in Maryland and Washington State last November affirmed marriage equality enactments by their state legislatures earlier in 2012. Marriage equality is also the law in Washington, DC.

In Illinois, which also borders Iowa, the State Senate approved a marriage equality bill on February 14 by a 34-21 vote. Advocates continue to work on identifying a majority in the State House, where Democrats hold a veto-proof majority. Governor Pat Quinn, a Democrat, is committed to signing the law if it is placed before him.

The US Supreme Court, before the end of June, is expected to resolve a constitutional challenge to California’s Proposition 8, a 2008 voter initiative that ended the right to marry that gay and lesbian couples there had enjoyed as a result of a State Supreme Court ruling earlier that year.

The high court is also considering a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act’s bar on federal recognition of valid same-sex marriages.

One Minnesota senator speaking in support of the gay marriage law reminded his colleagues of a speech “the greatest Minnesotan, Hubert Humphrey” made at the 1948 Democratic National Convention. The late vice president, who was then mayor of Minneapolis, speaking in favor of a civil rights plank in the party platform, declared, “The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.”

The post Minnesota Enacts Marriage Equality appeared first on gaycitynews.com.

Kevin Atkins and Nick Porto following their assault on May 5. | FACEBOOK

BY JOSEPH EHRMAN-DUPRE AND PAUL SCHINDLER | Port Authority police made two arrests in a May 10 assault on a gay couple outside a PATH station entrance at 33rd Street and Ninth Avenue.

The attack came five days after two other gay men, Nick Porto and Kevin Atkins, were pushed to the ground and punched in the face just a block away, allegedly by a group of men wearing Knicks jerseys. That attack came shortly after the team lost to the Indiana Pacers at nearby Madison Square Garden.

Person of interest wearing Knicks jersey sought in first attack

In the May 10 assaults, Asllan Berisha and Brian Ramirez, both 21 and from Manhattan, who were with a group of three other men, were arrested at the scene on charges of misdemeanor assault and harassment, according to the Daily News. The Port Authority did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether the assaults were being investigated as hate crimes. Berisha was released on $1,500 bail but it is not known if Ramirez has yet posted bail.

The victims, whom Port Authority police did not identify beyond their ages –– 27 and 37 –– were taken to Bellevue Hospital, where one of them required surgery on his eye. A source told the Daily News that one of the victims said the assailants “came after us and fought us because we’re homosexual.”

In the May 5 case, Porto and Atkins were walking arm in arm on Eighth Avenue between 34^th and 35^th Street when they were attacked by an undetermined number of men. Surveillance video that surfaced several days after the assault shows a group of eight, several garbed in Knicks jerseys, walking together shortly before the incident.

A person of interest in the May 5 assault on Nick Porto and Kevin Atkins. | NYPD

Police have circulated a photo of one of the men, whom they have identified as a person of interest in the investigation. The NYPD describes the man as Hispanic and in his 20s, approximately six foot, with brown hair and a tattoo on his left forearm. The man was wearing a white Knicks jersey with the number 7 on it, a cap, blue jeans, and white sneakers.

Three other Hispanic men in their 20s are also being sought.

Porto posted a photo to Facebook of himself and Atkins, which shows dried blood under his nose and Atkins’ wrist and lower forearm covered by a cast.

“A group of men wearing Knicks jerseys just got out of the game at Madison Square Garden,” he wrote. “We were verbally accosted by two of them… It was then that I realized we were surrounded. They broke my nose and his wrist… they called us fags and told us to not bother fighting.” Both Porto and Atkins were treated at Bellevue. The bag the couple was carrying was also damaged, destroying an iPad and cell phone.

According to DNAinfo, Porto expressed regret that his effort to resist the assailants when they were verbally harassing him and Atkins led to Atkins being assaulted. “It’s my fault –– I spoke back to them — that Kevin was hit,” he said. “He didn’t deserve it whatsoever. I was that idiot that should have just walked away.”

In his Facebook posting –– made prior to the police release of the footage –– Porto voiced doubts about whether the assailants would be apprehended.

“This event happened just outside [McDonalds] where they were caught on tape and several by-standers had their cameras out taking video,” he wrote. “Despite this, police have informed us that they couldn’t promise anything as there were a ton of fans in the city at that moment.”

Porto raised a larger question of concern for many LGBT New Yorkers.

“This happened in Midtown, during the day, with a ton of people around, just across the street from the New Yorker,” he wrote. “When are we safe?”

Anyone with information regarding the attack on Porto and Atkins is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477). The public can also submit tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at NYPDCrimeStoppers.com or by texting 274637 (CRIMES) and then entering TIP577.

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Peter Staley at the May 9 town hall. | DONNA ACETO

BY DUNCAN OSBORNE | Hundreds turned out for a town hall meeting on AIDS and aging that was convened in response to the death of a leading member of ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power.

“A kind of bubble had burst,” said Peter Staley, a longtime gay rights and AIDS activist, referring to the death late last year of Spencer Cox. “What did this say about us?”

Cox, 44, a founder of the Treatment Action Group (TAG) in 1992 and the Medius Institute for Gay Men’s Health in 2005, was among those who fought hardest for anti-HIV drugs in the late 80s and early 90s.

Friends and ACT UP members questioned why Cox, who well understood the need to comply with the sometimes difficult drug regimens, had died. Some wondered if he had succumbed to the depression or risk-taking behavior that the institute had earlier studied among gay men. Online and in person, there were discussions among those who lived through the early years of the AIDS epidemic asking if Cox’s death indicated a broader trend of unresolved problems related to that earlier time.

The May 9 town hall was meant to start a conversation on that topic.

Spencer Cox’s 2012 death “burst” a “bubble” among the AIDS generation

Whether the AIDS generation is confronting post-traumatic stress disorder or contending with some other ill is unknown. TAG is working with a researcher at Columbia University to assess the health and well-being of some 200 AIDS activists. Certainly, ACT UP, whose typically young members were on the front lines of AIDS, never came to terms with the deaths many saw around them.

“We had no activist way to deal with all that loss,” Jim Eigo, a longtime AIDS activist, told the crowd of roughly 600 that gathered at Mason Hall at Baruch College in Manhattan.

It could also be that the AIDS generation is showing a normal human response to the death and struggles that were a large part of the early epidemic. Or it could be that this generation is just getting older.

Activist Jim Eigo. | DONNA ACETO

“At around the age of 45, the body begins to reveal its wear and tear,” said Dr. L. Jeannine Bookhardt-Murray, the chief medical officer at Harlem United, an AIDS service group, at the town hall. “It seems that the longer we live, the more we need to grapple with.”

In a community with many single members, the push for marriage rights notwithstanding, it could be that those individuals are entering middle age with their families of choice decimated by AIDS.

“I have friends who tell me if they don’t go out to bars, they don’t see anyone,” said Joe Jervis, who blogs at joemygod.blogspot.com.

It is true that people with HIV confront challenges in addition to the virus as they age. A long-term study on aging and HIV in a 1,000-person cohort found that more than half reported they experienced depression, with two thirds of that group reporting moderate to severe depression, according to Mark Brennan-Ing, the director for research and evaluation at the AIDS Community Research Initiative of America (ACRIA), the group that completed the study.

The study also found high levels of loneliness and stigma, but also significant resilience in this population, in particular among those study participants who were religious, Brennan-Ing said at the meeting.

In his opening remarks, Staley noted that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released a study showing significant increases in suicide among older men in the US. While there have been recent suicides of some noted gay men, there is no data that show increases in suicides among gay men of any age.

“It’s too early in this process to say these are our community,” Staley said of the CDC data.

One theme that was consistent throughout the three-hour meeting was that gay groups had largely abandoned the HIV and AIDS cause.

“Gay, Inc.,” as Staley called the leading lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender groups, has “turned its back on us,” he said.

Several panelists also expressed concern about the rising rates of new HIV infections among young gay men, with the increases being particularly pronounced among young African-American men. The audience was overwhelmingly older and white. During the question and answer session, one young man said of those HIV infection rates, “This is a gay rights issue. This is the most important issue and yet no one is talking about it.”

Jesus Aguais, the founder and executive director of Aid for AIDS International was also a panelist. The moderator was Perry N. Halkitis, a psychology professor and the director of the Center for Health, Identity, Behavior & Prevention Studies at New York University.

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ILLUSTRATION BY MICHAEL SHIREY

BY PAUL SCHINDLER | “I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay.”

So began Jason Collins’ cover essay in the May 6 issue of Sports Illustrated, in which he became the first player in what are considered the four major North American male professional leagues — the National Basketball Association, the National Football League, Major League Baseball, and the National Hockey League — to come out as gay while still an active player.

An All-American in his days at Stanford University, Collins, since 2001, has played professional ball for the Nets, while they were still in New Jersey, the Memphis Grizzlies, the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Atlanta Hawks, the Boston Celtics, and the Washington Wizards.

The Impact of Jason Collins Coming Out

But, he is also currently a free agent, with his future in the NBA uncertain. He’s had a career lasting more than a decade in the league — and made more than $30 million in the process — but has never been a star, averaging less than seven points a game in every season, and just a fraction of that in the past half-dozen. At seven feet, Collins is, according to USA Today sportswriter Jeff Zillgitt, a tall player “in a league short on big men,” whose “defense has allowed him to stick around.”

With plenty of stories about his coming out beginning with some variation on the line, “Who is Jason Collins?,” a fair question to ask is how much impact his example will have on the image of gays in professional sports.

At the other end of the spectrum, some have questioned why Collins’ action has generated so much attention after decades of other athletes — like swimmer Greg Louganis and boxer Orlando Cruz in individual sports and women such as tennis legend Billie Jean King and three-time WNBA most valuable player Sheryl Swoopes — doing exactly the same thing.

The May 6 cover of Sports Illustrated.

Neither of those questions, however, diminishes the overwhelmingly positive media sensation Collins created by going public in Sports Illustrated. As with the early years of the debate about gays in the military, discussions of team athletes coming out have often devolved into snickering about how teammates would feel about sharing a shower room with them. The Wizards quickly put that to rest.

“We are extremely proud of Jason and support his decision to live his life proudly and openly,” Ernie Grunfeld, the team’s president, said in a written statement. “He has been a leader on and off the court and an outstanding teammate throughout his NBA career. Those qualities will continue to serve him both as a player and as a positive role model for others of all sexual orientations.”

His teammates took to the Twittersphere to add their support. Bradley Beal, a 19-year-old rookie drafted third overall in last year’s NBA draft, wrote, “Proud of @jasoncollins34 for expressing his feelings! Great teammate, mentor and better person !!”

Jan Vesely, picked sixth in the 2011 draft by the Wizards, tweeted, “I appreciate you for coming out. I am sure it takes a lot of courage to do so. I am proud of you. Great teammate!”

The league itself also acted quickly to support Collins, with David Stern, the commissioner, issuing a statement saying, “Jason has been a widely respected player and teammate throughout his career and we are proud he has assumed the leadership mantle on this very important issue.”

And some of the NBA’s biggest stars, as well, rallied to Collins’ side. Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers shooting guard, tweeted, “Proud of @jasoncollins34. Don’t suffocate who u r because of the ignorance of others #courage #support.”

Nike, with whom Collins has an endorsement deal, challenged a longstanding assumption that a gay player would have problems with corporate sponsorship. “Jason is a Nike athlete,” it said in a release. “We are a company committed to diversity and inclusion.”

Politicians got in on the act, too. President Barack Obama phoned him hours after the Sports Illustrated story went live online. The White House said the president wanted to “express his support” and tell Collins “he was impressed by his courage.” Former President Bill Clinton, whose daughter Chelsea was at Stanford with Collins, tweeted, “I’m proud to call Jason Collins a friend. http://wjcf.co/154piCi.”

In his Sports Illustrated essay, Collins wrote that when he came out last year to his twin Jarron, who also played in the NBA, his brother was “astounded,” but quickly adjusted to the news. Jarron, also writing in the magazine, said, “I’ve never been more proud of him.”

To be sure, not all of the reaction was positive. Chris Broussard, a commentator on ESPN, took out after Collins for his expression of Christian faith in the Sports Illustrated piece — even as he sat across from with his out gay ESPN colleague LZ Granderson. “Personally I don’t believe that you can live an openly homosexual lifestyle or an openly premarital sex between heterosexuals,” Broussard said. ”If you’re openly living that type of lifestyle, the Bible says you know them by their fruits, it says that’s a sin… I would not characterize that person as a Christian because I don’t think the Bible would characterize them as a Christian.”

The sports world, however, has in recent years become a less hospitable place for open expressions of homophobia. When cornerback Chris Culliver said that if any of his teammates were gay “they gotta get up outta here” in the days leading up to his San Francisco 49ers playing in this year’s Super Bowl, he was immediately forced to backtrack. “The derogatory comments I made yesterday were a reflection of thoughts in my head, but they are not how I feel,” Culliver said.

Straight pro football players Chris Kluwe of the Minnesota Vikings and Brendon Ayanbadejo of the Baltimore Ravens snagged a good deal of favorable comment over the past year for their outspoken support for the LGBT community and the right of same-sex couples to marry — even if both now hint that their advocacy led to their post-season release by their respective teams.

The sense that professional sports could for some time have been pushed to allow more space for players to be themselves has led some in the gay community to question how laudatory Collins’ move was.

“Did Collins have to wait until his career might be over?,” asked Josh Barro, writing on Bloomberg View. Noting that Collins’ career playing basketball goes back two decades to his time in high school, Barro argued he squandered his chance to have greater and earlier impact — and that other bigger names who remain in the closet simply aren’t stepping up as they should.  “A main reason professional sports (especially male team sports) have remained a bastion of homophobia is that gay players have failed to show leadership by coming out and insisting on acceptance,” he wrote. “By coming out, Collins is fulfilling an obligation to lead — belatedly.”

Ayanbadejo made headlines earlier this year when he said that four NFL players are preparing to come out — a prediction he has since pulled back from. Responding to Ayanbadejo’s flip flop, Wade Davis, an out gay former NFL player who now works at New York’s Hetrick-Martin Institute serving LGBT youth, told OutSports.com, “The problem is that you have straight people speaking on the behalf of these closeted gay athletes, instead of letting the gay athletes speak for themselves.”

Dating back nearly four decades, some LGBT athletes have been speaking for themselves. In was in 1977 that Dr. Renée Richards won a ruling from New York’s highest court enabling her to play tennis as a woman in the US Open two years after undergoing gender reassignment surgery. A 1981 palimony suit forced tennis great Billie Jean King to acknowledge that she is a lesbian. That was the same year that a younger tennis star, Martina Navratilova, also came out. A host of WNBA players have come out — most famously, Sheryl Swoopes of the Houston Comets in 2005, and most recently, Phoenix Mercury rookie Brittney Griner.

Star male athletes coming out have been few and far between, though in a sport that is arguably the most imbued with macho overtones, Orlando Cruz, a Puerto Rican boxer who is currently ranked number four among featherweights by the World Boxing Organization, made headlines late last year. Most who have come out did so after retiring — including the NFL’s Dave Kopay, baseball’s Billy Bean, and the NBA’s John Amaechi. Retired Olympic swimming star Greg Louganis caught uninformed flak when he came out, not for acknowedging he is gay but rather for not earlier disclosing his HIV-positive status to competitors who shared a pool with him.

Given the kind of money involved with the big four men’s sports leagues — in terms of salaries and television rights — and the stereotype that gay men do not make for good athletes (a prejudice lesbians have never faced), it is hardly surprising that Collins’ story has made a big splash. In Sports Illustrated, Navratilova acknowledged as much, writing of Collins, “He is the proverbial ‘game-changer.’ One of the last bastions of homophobia has been challenged. How many LGBT kids, once closeted, are now more likely to pursue a team sport and won’t be scared away by a straight culture?”

Jon Wertheim, one of the Sports Illustrated reporters who sat down with Collins, addressed how the Wizard player neatly fits the jock stereotype, writing, “He’s been a bruising player, an enforcer who’s laid out players, dispensed his share of trash talk, drawn technicals — in short, whose style splinters every shabby stereotype of gay men being soft.” Wertheim, in fact, asked Collins whether his aggressive style of play represented some form of overcompensation, to which the player smiled and said “he’ll get back to us on that one.”

But while challenging homophobia and shattering stereotypes win cheers in the gay community, such actions can also cause uneasiness. J. Bryan Lowder, a gay writer on Slate.com, was not among those who hailed Collins as a hero for coming out. “Collins makes the classic maneuver of exempting himself from the dreaded gay ‘LABEL’ (I’m never sure what that means) and then spends multiple paragraphs telling us how butch and eager to foul he is,” Lowder wrote. “At this point, I’m waiting for it, and Collins delivers: ‘I go against the gay stereotype, which is why I think a lot of players will be shocked: That guy is gay?’”

What Lowder’s comments and those from partisans of King, the WNBA, and featherweight boxing, as well, prove, as much as anything else, is that despite the widespread praise Collins has won, even the LGBT community is not unified in its reaction. In fact, some may even agree with that unrivaled arbiter of contrarian views, Stephen Colbert, who was biting in his observation that Sports Illustrated had buried the lead in its Collins story.

“That’s right: He came out as black and gay,” Colbert told his Nation. “Even more shocking, he came out as a player for the Washington Wizards. You gotta wonder how his parents took it.”

The post In the Game? appeared first on gaycitynews.com.

Immigration Equality’s Rachel Tiven speaks at a rally outside Senator Chuck Schumer’s Midtown office on May 8.

BY PAUL SCHINDLER | As debate over immigration reform moves center stage in the US Senate — with the Judiciary Committee beginning mark-up this week of a comprehensive bill developed by a bipartisan group dubbed the Gang of Eight — advocates for couples in which one member is not an American citizen remain concerned they could be left out of the legislation as it moves forward.

More than 50 binational same-sex families descended on Capitol Hill the last week of April for visits with 150 members of Congress, and in the wake of that lobbying one top advocate voiced strong concern.

“I was troubled to hear some Democrats sound hesitant about LGBT inclusion,” said Rachel Tiven, the executive director of Immigration Equality, which works on issues facing LGBT and HIV-affected immigrants. “I think we have to ask a question of the Democrats who have been — especially of Democrats, who have been tripping over each other to espouse their support for marriage equality. When actual legislation is on the table, are they abandoning LGBT families?”

Binational couple seeking relief focus on reluctant Democrats, stage demo at Schumer’s Midtown office

The Gang of Eight’s bill as crafted in advance of the Judiciary Committee hearings failed to incorporate the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), which would allow American citizens to bring their same-sex partners into the US on the same-terms that enable opposite-sex married spouses to gain permanent residency and citizenship. That legislation was originated by West Side Democratic Congressman Jerrold Nadler and is sponsored in the Senate by Judiciary Chair Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, after having initially been introduced by New York Senator Chuck Schumer.

Nadler has consistently pressed for UAFA to be part of immigration legislation — and has the support of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on that point. When it became clear it would not be in the legislation coming out of the Gang of Eight, he said Leahy’s support for UAFA as Judiciary chair provided a firewall against efforts to exclude same-sex couples. On May 7 — the deadline for filing amendments to be considered by the committee — Leahy offered one incorporating UAFA’s language into the Gang of Eight bill.

Still, advocates remain nervous about the success of Leahy’s effort.

For Tiven, the situation confronts Democrats — who hold a 10-8 majority on the Judiciary Committee — with the challenge of proving that their unanimous endorsement of equal rights for same-sex couples is not merely “lip service.” Voicing support for gay and lesbian couples, she said, “is hollow if when push comes to shove you are not going to push for legislation.”

Despite the fact that Schumer, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, claims credit for originating UAFA in the Senate, he is one of the key players Immigration Equality and others worry about.

Ticking off senators she is watching carefully, Tiven said, “I am likewise concerned about Senator Schumer. Chuck Schumer has looked LGBT families in the eye and said he is committed to seeing Uniting American Families as part of the bill. He has asked for patience and he has gotten it. They want to know that he is with them and they don’t want to hear that his support is shaky. He has told families that Chairman Leahy will offer the amendment and he will support it.”

Emphasizing that advocates reject the notion that adding UAFA to the immigration bill would weaken it politically, she added, about Schumer, “We want him to say to his colleagues on both sides of the aisle what we believe to be true — that including LGBT families will strengthen immigration reform.”

As he has done consistently since January, Schumer reiterated his commitment to UAFA in April 26 comments to Gay City News.

“I believe strongly in UAFA and I’m going to do everything I can to get it into the bill,” he said.

Schumer declined to speculate on how that might be accomplished and, specifically, if an amendment in committee was the right way to go. He made no promise or prediction of success for those pushing UAFA.

In comments to reporters on May 8, the New York Democrat did not say whether he

Schumer was among the Gang of Eight, and UAFA was missing from its efforts from its first legislative outline released late in January. When President Barack Obama issued his own priorities for immigration reform a day later and included relief for same-sex binational couples, Arizona Senator John McCain, another Gang of Eight member, immediately responded that incorporating UAFA raised a “red flag.” His fellow Republican Gang member, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, was so put off by the president’s proposal that he struggled to make a coherent critique, saying, “Why don’t we just put legalized abortion in there and round it all out?”

This week McCain and Graham remained hostile to efforts for including same-sex couples in immigration reform. According to Politico.com, the Arizona Republican, on May 6, told reporters, “I’ll do everything in my power to see that it’s not there,” though he did not say definitively he would withdraw support for the reform bill if UAFA were added. Graham, however, said flatly, “It’ll kill the bill.”

Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican and a key member of the Gang of Eight in shaping the reform package, has been signaling for weeks his concern that GOP members of the House will push back against even the version of reform he, McCain, and Graham have endorsed. Such talk is widely seen as part of an effort to scare off any Democratic thought about liberalizing the bill in the Judiciary Committee. It is not clear that Democrats are yet ready — or will ever be — to call the GOP’s bluff.

Another Judiciary Committee Democrat whom Tiven had raised concerns about — California’s Dianne Feinstein — this week signaled she is prepared to support relief for same-sex couples, even if not UAFA itself. Feinstein, who is the lead sponsor of the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) — the 1996 law that stands in the way of equal treatment of immigrant same-sex partners — has never signed on to UAFA, even as a stand-alone measure.

When queried by Gay City News several weeks ago, her office did not respond, but in comments May 6, according to Politico, Feinstein explained she was not comfortable with what she sees as UAFA’s loose definition of who would qualify as a permanent same-sex partner of an American citizen. She endorsed an alternative amendment to Leahy’s preferred option, requiring any binational couple seeking permanent residency for an immigrant partner to travel to one of the 11 states where they can legally marry. Leahy filed that amendment on May 7, as well.

Even with a pro-marriage equality majority on the Judiciary Committee and two alternative amendments that would provide relief for same-sex couples eligible for its consideration, advocates are taking nothing for granted. At a May 8 rally, Immigration Equality was joined by Santiago Ortiz and Pablo Garcia, a US-Venezuelan couple living in New York, and other binational gay and lesbian partners in a demonstration outside Schumer’s Midtown office. The Human Rights Campaign, meanwhile, is focusing its fire on McCain, Graham, and the other two Gang of Eight Republicans, warning that if they block same-sex inclusion in reform, “they should just own it and call it what it is: homophobia.”

Mark-up on the bill begins formally on May 9, and Leahy’s office has indicated votes on amendments will likely be taken on May 14, 16, and 20. With Congress in recess the week that begins on May 27, Memorial Day, the Judiciary Committee is aiming to complete action on the legislation no later than May 24.

Victory on the Senate side in providing relief for same-sex couples, of course, is likely less than half the battle. As Florida’s Rubio has warned, it is not yet clear whether the Republican-controlled House is on board for immigration reform, UAFA-inclusive or otherwise.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will rule by the end of June on Edie Windsor’s challenge to DOMA. Though many observers are optimistic the court will strike down the 1996 law, a victory for Windsor could be a narrow one. If the court were to issue a thoroughgoing decision, however, that would likely achieve the aim of Feinstein’s favored amendment.

Privately, advocates worry that Senate Democrats are counting on the Supreme Court to relieve them of the heavy lifting UAFA requires of them.

Given that 39 states still do not recognize same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court throwing out DOMA would grant nationwide relief for gay and lesbian binational couples as long as its ruling provides for federal recognition based on where a couple marries, not where they live. Even then, many couples would face the burden of traveling out of state in order to gain access to rights available under US law.

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Fiction winner Trebor Healey. | SETH J. BOOKEY

BY SETH J. BOOKEY | At a ceremony April 25 at the New School’s Tishman Auditorium, the Publishing Triangle Awards, which recognize LGBT writers and writing, celebrated their 25th anniversary. Trent Duffy, the group’s treasurer, recalled that the Publishing Triangle was created when a handful of motivated lesbians and gay men in publishing met in the winter of 1989. “One way to be publicly out there was to give awards,” he said. Within a few months, the group bestowed its first honors.

John D’Emilio, who won the Bill Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award this year, is an historian and pioneer in the field of gay and lesbian studies. “History is the story of change,” said D’Emilio, the author or editor of more than half a dozen books, including “Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States” and “His Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin.”

“Forty years ago, it was unimaginable to me and everyone I knew that [the LGBT community] would provide a body of work that would lead to this award,” he said. “Thirty years ago, it was still possible to write notes on gay history and still have time to go to the beach.”

Publishing Triangle Awards celebrate quarter century of achievement

D’Emilio, who teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said that many of his students are unaware, before entering his classroom, of the AIDS epidemic or that gay pride parades “commemorate a rebellion.” However, students “of all genders and sexual identities and backgrounds,” he said, “are eager to consume stories about the past.”

Award-winning novelist and essayist Edmund White, on hand to introduce the finalists for the Publishing Triangle’s debut fiction award named in his honor, reminisced about Bill Whitehead, a pioneering editor of gay and lesbian books who died of AIDS in 1987. The Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction went to Lysley Tenorio for “Monstress,” a collection of stories exploring the experiences of Filipinos/as in a variety of cultural settings around the world.

Poetry honoree Rachel Rose. | SETH J. BOOKEY

Ira Silverberg, a long-time agent to LGBT authors and currently the  director of literature at the National Endowment for the Arts, was awarded the Publishing Triangle’s Leadership Award. Back in the 1980s, he noted, gay and lesbian literature was a newly “discovered” segment of literature. “Now, we’re part of the dominant culture, which is funny because people out there still hate us,” he said. Explaining that new technologies and social networking allow authors “to build things now we couldn’t before,” Silverberg said it is a “hopeful time for publishing.”

Lesbian author and cartoonist Alison Bechdel won a second Judy Grahn Award for Non-Fiction for her graphic memoir “Are You My Mother?” In a written statement, she said her mother’s “crisp editorial voice was in my head” while working on the book.

The Randy Shilts Award for Non-Fiction was given to novelist Christopher Bram for his nonfiction “Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America,” a chronicle that looks back 70 years and celebrates the power of books and the written word generally.

The Ferro-Grumley Award for Fiction went to Trebor Healey, whose novel “A Horse Called Sorrow” explores the lives of gay men in San Francisco in the 1980s and 1990s at the height of the AIDS crisis.

Lesbian and gay poets were also recognized, with the Audre Lorde Award going to Rachel Rose for “Song and Spectacle” and the Thom Gunn Award presented to Richard Blanco for “Looking for the Gulf Motel.”

A full list of finalists in each category appears at publishingtriangle.org. Seth J. Bookey is a member of the Publishing Triangle’s steering committee.

The post Going for the Silver appeared first on gaycitynews.com.

Miguel Zapata.

BY MIGUEL ZAPATA | I’m a 20-year-old young man of color living on the Lower East Side. I was raised by my mother who is from the Dominican Republic. I’ve worked in retail sales of trendy clothes since I was 17. I am trying to get back to college and I think I want to become a social worker. I like helping people and listening to them and maybe making a difference in their lives.

I came out at the age of 16 and have been sexually active since the age of 14. I’m single, enjoying the single life and the New York City nightlife. I like going out to parties and I’m looking forward to my 21st birthday in two weeks. It’ll be exciting to be in bars and mingle with people and being able to have a drink without being carded.

Before this week when my mentor brought up the meningitis outbreak, I had never heard of such a thing and never believed that I could be at risk.

Today I visited the New York City Department of Health webpage and I was shocked by the statistics and how at risk I am. I was shocked to learn that gay men are most at risk and that the Department of Health is now recommending that sexually active gay and bisexual men statewide should get vaccinated. I’m traveling to Los Angeles this weekend to see a friend and I am saddened and surprised to learn that a few weeks ago, a 33-year-old man from West Hollywood died from meningitis four days after being diagnosed.

What he f—?

Why haven’t my peers and friends and I heard of this outbreak? Why isn’t there more information on the subject?  My friends and I are all sexually active and most of them aren’t practicing safe sex. This is a big issue in my community, especially with gay men of color because there aren’t messages about these types of things or even about safe sex for us.

I haven’t heard about this from anyone until now. I haven’t heard anything in Spanish. I haven’t heard anything from anyone that looks like me. This is a big problem. The Department of Health needs to get it together and inform more people in our community about this outbreak ad how to practice safe sex.

I don’t know how to create a pubic health campaign, but this is what people like me need to know: We need to be informed about meningitis and how it’s contracted.

This is something serious happening in my community, among gay and bisexual men who are sexually active. Prevention and information about this needs to be spread and talked about more so that it gets out and reaches everyone in our community, and doesn’t leave out young gay men of color who are at real risk, like me.

This is an outrage.

The post WTF? Meningitis Message Missing Young Gay Men of Color appeared first on gaycitynews.com.

Ryan Spahn and Michael Urie, a couple on and off-screen. | GRAVITAS VENTURES

BY GARY M. KRAMER | Is indie film actress Halley Feiffer (“The Squid and the Whale,” and daughter of renowned cartoonist and satirist Jules Feiffer) playing a fictionalized version of herself in “He’s Way More Famous Than You”? Does it matter? This funny, observant, but often cringe-inducing film about celebrity culture — featuring cameos from Ben Stiller, Natasha Lyonne, and Jesse Eisenberg, among others — will prompt viewers to laugh at the rude and unruly Halley as much as they laugh with her.

Director Michel Urie’s inside-Hollywood comedy showcases Feiffer’s daring-teetering-on-shrill performance as a freckly, blonde drama queen, who happens to be named Halley Feiffer. An extended scene, in which the self-absorbed actress imitates her idol Ralph Macchio’s performance as Johnny in “The Outsiders” in a crowded restaurant, may cause eyes to roll, but her deadpan delivery of the line, “I’m going to the bathroom to change my tampon and maybe wash my hands” is as hilarious as her barbed retort to a cab driver.

“He’s Way More Famous Than You” stars Feiffer as an unemployed indie film actress grappling with her lack of celebrity through massive alcohol consumption, uninhibited behavior, and a need to constantly video-record herself. When Halley’s boyfriend Michael (Michael Chernus) leaves her, she turns her to her gay brother Ryan (Ryan Spahn, Feiffer’s co-writer but not her real brother) to make “The Untitled Greenlight Halley Feiffer Vehicle Promo Trailer Project” in which they play lovers. Ryan was Halley’s second choice; she wanted Macchio for the part.

Michael Urie calls in favors for edgy comedy about celebrity obsession

Ryan’s boyfriend, Michael Urie (aka the gay guy on “Ugly Betty”) winces when Halley is in the apartment, but he reluctantly agrees to direct his boyfriend’s film. Urie, currently appearing in the one-man Off-Broadway show “Buyer and Cellar,” spoke with “Gay City News” about making “He’s Way More Famous Than You.”

GARY M. KRAMER: Halley is a handful in the film. How did you handle her on set?
MICHAEL URIE: I encouraged her to go further. She was always asking if things were too much. I wanted her to go there.

GMK: The film’s humor is awkward, uncomfortable, and often very funny. How do you describe your sense of humor, and what comic bits did you play up in the film?
MU: We wanted to set up the audience to think one thing was going to happen but then have something else happen. We didn’t want anyone’s expectations to be fulfilled… I like the screwball aspect of the film. I love the idea that the celebrities walk on almost by accident. It’s like we almost did not tell Vanessa Williams or Ben Stiller they were on a set.

GMK: Speaking of Williams and Stiller, one gets the sense this film was a bunch of friends calling in favors and making a movie…
MU: To an extent it was calling in favors, but every instance, the script was tailored to each person, each actor. We’d figure out how to make the “character” for Mamie Gummer or Ralph Macchio, and they all jumped on board because they read and liked the script. Jesse Eisenberg said yes based on the script.

GMK: Your character has a line that it takes heart, not celebrity, to make a movie great. Do you believe that?  Where is the heart in this film?
MU: The heart lies with Halley’s relationship with her brother Ryan, and the two of them doing something together. It is a story about alcoholism and ambition and we wanted to strike a true chord. The audience should either be laughing, crying, or horrified.

GMK: I definitely laughed at the public embarrassment, the jokes about incest and anal sex. Do you feel you crossed any lines?
MU: We did not want to be afraid of the extreme. We wanted to make the outrageous not outrageous — go all the way and not be afraid to find the funny in the extreme. People say they were uncomfortable. Halley and Ryan aimed to go there. The normal characters were very normal, very in the real world. Halley and Ryan’s shenanigans were the comic centerpieces.

GMK: How did you come to know Halley?
MU: [Laughs.] Well, I knew her through Ryan, who is my actual partner. They were friends and started writing together, and I got to know her. In real life I love her, but in movie life I don’t. I’m attached to her through Ryan. You learn a lot about Halley in the film by seeing how other people such as Michael Chernus and Ben Stiller react to her.

GMK: Halley films herself constantly. What do you think your film says about our obsession with celebrity and filming ourselves?
MU: Why are people posting crazy things on YouTube and Facebook? Ryan says it’s like starring in your own movie — and for folks not in acting or not in the public eye, it is a release to show yourself to everyone you know. Halley in the movie is not finding the outlets she needs as an actor, which is why she’s obsessed with filming and being famous. She’s a narcissist. It’s not true of all actors. We wanted to comment on celebrity, fame-obsessed culture, and the “me” culture of filming yourself and putting it out there. A lot of people are into that. We chose show business because it’s so easy to show that self-obsession.

GMK: How do you think a film so inside Hollywood will play to viewers outside the industry.
MU: I saw it recently in Dallas and it was a room full of people who I knew growing up, but not showbiz people. There were a couple of jokes that didn’t get a laugh — like my favorite bit with Austin Pendelton, where he mouths along with his lines. They didn’t know who he was. But it will play well because the characters Halley and Ryan play are not inside Hollywood. It’s like “Buyer and Cellar.” There are a million references to Barbra Streisand, but because the jokes are so well crafted you get why it’s funny, even if you don’t get the references.

GMK: This is the second film you directed. Are you transitioning your career to direct more films?
MU: I have no interest in stopping acting. But I love directing, and I’m dying to do it again. I agree that gay actors should be making their own opportunities until a mainstream studio makes a movie with gay characters in center roles played by gay actors. I don’t doubt that time is coming. Even before I was out, I was playing fabulous gay characters. And I don’t regret playing different ones — if I hadn’t done that I wouldn’t work and I like to work — but before this was the path, I always wanted to direct and produce my own projects. It’s sort of out of necessity, but I work better doing what I know.

HE’S WAY MORE FAMOUS THAN YOU | Directed by Michael Urie | Gravitas Ventures | Opens May 10 | AMC Village 7 | 66 Third Ave. at 11^th St. | amctheatres.com‎

The post Hollywood Insiders Spoof Hollywood’s Insides appeared first on gaycitynews.com.

Carlos Valencia and Oscar Hernandez in Eduardo Machado’s Eduardo Machado’s “Mariquitas” runs through May 19 at Theater for the New City. | SION FULLANA

BY DAVID KENNERLEY | When you go see a play about Cuban hustlers, chances are you expect a certain amount of swarthy macho studs, furtive sex, and self-deception. In Eduardo Machado’s richly ambitious new work, “Mariquitas,” you get plenty of that and much more. And I’m not just talking about full-frontal nudity.

Set in a gay-friendly guesthouse in Old Havana circa 2008, “Mariquitas” (derogatory slang for homosexuals) is an impassioned study of complex contemporary Cuban life and ideology inspired by a trip the New-York based playwright took to Cuba, where he was born.

The drama features Cubans from disparate social classes playing each other to get what they need. Not just food, shelter, money, and sex, but a sense of belonging and of being loved. We meet conniving Cuban hustlers, their affluent European papis who visit for weeks at a time, well connected, artistic progressives, and a charismatic gay rights activist who happens to be the daughter of President Raúl Castro.

Cuban hustlers seek true love

The ensemble is quite strong, ensuring there’s not a stale stereotype in the bunch. José María (Oscar Hernandez), “at death’s door” from lung cancer, has come to spend his final days with the love of his life, Tito (a brooding, tattooed Carlos Valencia). Ramón (Omar Chagall), the guesthouse owner and a renowned theater director, is madly in love with long-term partner Ricardo (Liam Torres), who has decided to go straight. Jacinto (Ed Trucco) is a controlling client from Spain who has bought himself the title of playwright.

Ricardo Dávila and Matthew d’Amato manage to add nuance to their boytoy roles. Even the maid, as played by Ana Valle, has surprising dimension.

On one level, “Mariquitas” is a bold, fascinating psychosexual study of a hidden subculture where gay-for-pay, double lives, and sweaty three-ways with friends — breathlessly documented on smartphones — are business as usual. In this sphere sexuality is refreshingly fluid; many of the men have wives and children and might consider themselves bisexual if they accepted labels at all.

Under the sensitive direction of Michael Domitrovich, “Mariquitas” is the rare gay play that dares to merge eye-popping drama with intricate, substantive sociopolitical themes. But I’m afraid this strength may also be a liability. By attempting to cram so many vital ideas, multiple subplots, and titillating sexual scenarios, the emotional impact is blunted. The overlong play runs about two-and-one-half hours.

While we might normally think of Cuba as a Communist state oppressed by a dictatorship blind to individual rights –– the play reminds us that under Fidel Castro, gays were rounded up and sent to work camps — the unblinking “Mariquitas” paints a picture of change.

The scene of Fidel’s niece, Mariela Castro Espín (eloquently portrayed by Begonya Plaza), speaking at a gay pride rally where men hold hands and kiss while the chief of police looks on, is especially moving. Her words were lifted verbatim from actual speeches.

I plead ignorance here — I had no clue there was a burgeoning LGBT community in Havana. Just last week, the activist made headlines when the State Department allowed her to accept an award from the Equality Forum in Philadelphia, where she visited the Liberty Bell.

MARIQUITAS | Theater for the New City | 155 First Ave., btwn. Ninth & Tenth Sts. | Through May 19 | Thu.-Sat. at 8 p.m.; Sun. at 7 p.m. | $15 at theaterforthenewcity.net or 212-254-1109

The post Papi Dearest appeared first on gaycitynews.com.

State Senator Brad Hoylman said his thinking on conversion therapy was shaped by input from a constituent, Dean Dafis (pictured), who suffered through it as a teenager.

BY ANDY HUMM | While California’s 2012 first-in-the-nation law to ban therapists from trying to turn gay minors into heterosexuals is being challenged in federal court, similar legislation was just introduced in the New York State Legislature — though without the backing of a strong coalition of LGBT and mental health groups. Its prospects in Albany are uncertain, sponsors said, but they wanted to get the ball rolling.

The bill, introduced by two West Side Democrats — out lesbian Assemblywoman Deborah Glick on April 29 and out gay Senator Brad Hoylman on May 1 — prohibits “mental health professionals from engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with a patient under the age of eighteen years.”

If found to have engaged in what the bill defines as “professional misconduct,” therapists in violation could lose their licenses.

Local gay activist who suffered electroshock treatments was an impetus to action in NYS

Glick heads the Higher Education Committee, to which her bill was referred, and said, “I have a relatively good feeling about it getting out of committee,” though it might have to go next to the Codes Committee “since it deals with a sanction.” She added ruefully, “Lots of things go to Codes to die.”

Glick said she was motivated by the plight of homeless gay youth who are expelled by their families.

“We want to ensure that young people aren’t given negative messages that undermine their self-esteem,” she explained.

The justification section of the bill says that “being lesbian, gay, or bisexual is not a disease, disorder, illness, deficiency, or shortcoming” and that the mental health establishment has “recognized this fact for nearly forty years.” It cites the many professional associations that have condemned “reparative” or “conversion” therapies as “dangerous” treatments.

The Empire State Pride Agenda did not have this bill on its list of priorities at its annual lobby day on April 30 in Albany, but Hoylman said he spoke about it in his speech to activists gathered there that day. George Simpson, ESPA’s communications manager, did not make anyone from the group available to discuss the legislation and whether they will get behind it, but wrote in an email, “We support efforts to ban the abuse of minors under the fraudulent promise of ‘curing’ them.”

The bill was not introduced with a press conference or gathering of LGBT and mental health profession backers.

“I have learned that if you wait for the macro strategists on whether to proceed or not, nothing will happen,.” Hoylman said. “A lot of people said that Mary Bonauto [of the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders] should not have filed the marriage case” in Massachusetts that emerged victorious in 2003.

Asked about the pending court case in California and how it might impact the New York bill, Glick said, “We don’t sit on our hands waiting to see what happens somewhere else. If as a result of that case there is some language that would mitigate a negative response, we would look at it. I am not in the business of predicting failure.”

She said that she has “gotten some positive responses from different [mental health] associations,” but doesn’t have a timeline for getting the bill done. “We have to do some consciousness-raising,” Glick said.

Dr. Jack Drescher, a prominent New York out gay psychiatrist, told Gay City News he “wasn’t consulted” before the bill was introduced. While he has led efforts at the American Psychiatric Association to study and curb conversion therapy, he voiced misgivings about the California bill in comments to the newspaper in October.

“The law makes people feel good,” he wrote in an email at that time, “but doesn’t solve problems of unlicensed therapists who do this. And I’m not sure it is constitutional. If it gets overturned it will be a victory for anti-gay organizations. It will be a setback for the public in education about the harm of ‘conversion therapy.’”

When the California law was challenged in court, however, Drescher filed an amicus brief defending it and is testifying on May 15 before the New Jersey Assembly in favor a similar bill. (Massachusetts is the other state considering a ban.)

He continues to express some qualms about the potential for backlash. “Despite the problems, a decision by the court that the California law is unconstitutional would be a public relations debacle,” validating the therapy and emboldening its practitioners on the religious right, he said.

But Drescher is now persuaded that these laws can help. “If you’re a person looking into the therapy from a curious position, you’ll see it is outlawed and that could have an inhibitory effect,” he said.

He supports the effort Glick and Hoylman are waging in New York.

Dr. George Weinberg, author of the groundbreaking “Society and the Healthy Homosexual” in 1972, is a strong supporter of the ban on the practice. “I think of reparative therapists as social orthodontists,” he told Gay City News. “They want people to be all the same — straight, white, and interchangeable. The narrower their definition of health, the more needed they are.”

Hoylman said he got involved in the issue through “a constituent who had been subjected to conversion therapy and is now out and proud.”

That constituent, Dean Dafis, 43, an attorney and marriage equality activist in New York, referred Hoylman to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has been active in fighting the discredited therapy.

“When I came out to my family — from a pious Greek Orthodox culture — around age 12, they had a hard time with it and hoped it would go away,” Dafis told Gay City News. They sent him to a family counseling and Christian group in Philadelphia.

“This guy claimed he could convert homosexuals depending on where they fell on the spectrum of homosexuality, and after a few conversations he felt I was a good candidate,” Dafis recalled. “At times it was benign talk so he could get me to trust him, but at times it got harmful. Electroshock was part of it, and my family said they were willing to try it. It also consisted of how to act like a man, speak like one, and increase masculinity by working out, going to the gym more often, having a girlfriend. I didn’t even know what being gay meant at the time and I didn’t quite understand my sexual fantasies.”

Dafis was shown pornographic images of men and received shocks “when it was clear I was stimulated by the images,” he said, explaining, “The idea was to nurture my brain to associate this as a bad thing so that eventually I would suppress any such desires.”

The shocks, Dafis asserted, were not physically harmful, but he said, “I became emotionally and psychologically damaged for years after, very insecure not just about my sexuality or masculinity but generally very lost as to who I was or who I could be as a person in society. I even went to the great length several years later of getting married to a woman in order to deny my truth.”

Dafis said that when he went home crying from the electroshock treatment, “that part stopped,” but the overall therapy continued for two years “and eventually I said I wouldn’t go anymore. My family relationship deteriorated.” He left home at 14.

“I bummed around, spending a week here and a week there with friends,” he said. “I went home six months later and engaged in very self-destructive behavior, and I was very rebellious against everyone. My parents took me and my younger brother back to Greece.”

Dafis finished high school there and returned to the United States five or six years later, eventually becoming an attorney and gay activist with Marriage Equality New York (now Marriage Equality USA).

“Conversion therapy sounds innocuous,” Dafis said. “Embedded in it is the idea that you can change something that is not good. I was very fortunate. I was strong enough to get through it, but there were lots of moments where I considered suicide. I told the therapist, and he said that that was ‘drastic’ and asked, ‘Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?’ And I said, ‘Yes, stop this.’ I left at that point.”

Dafis thinks the legislation is “a no-brainer” and that conversion therapy should also be banned from being practiced on adults. But Hoylman said, “We feel that the age of consent is 18, and that seems like a natural point when people can make up their own minds” about whether to subject themselves to such treatment.

The California law, which has gotten contradictory rulings from two federal judges, was heard by a three-judge appeals panel of the Ninth Circuit on April 17 that weighed whether it was “an unjustified infringement on free speech or a valid effort to prevent therapeutic malpractice,” the New York Times reported.

Brad Dacus of the Pacific Justice Institute, which is challenging the law, told the Times their case is “about protecting the First Amendment rights of young people to get the counseling they feel they need, their parents feel they need, and that a licensed counselor may feel they need.” The group is also arguing that it violates their religious freedom.

But  lawyers from the California attorney general’s office told the court the law is “an unremarkable exercise of the state’s power to regulate professional conduct.”

US Judge Morgan Christen asked the challengers for evidence that conversion therapy works, and Kevin Snider, also of the Pacific Justice Institute, said, “We don’t have the burden of proving whether it’s effective or ineffective.”

Writing on Law.com, Scott Graham observed that that the appeals court judges “sounded ready” to uphold the law.

Libertarians Robert McNamara and Paul Sherman of the Institute for Justice, writing in the National Law Journal, however, argued, “Whatever one’s view of the merits or evils of ‘reparative’ talk therapy, it consists entirely of spoken communication. That is enough to bring it presumptively within the scope of the First Amendment’s protection.”

Hoylman said that he has “not received any pushback [on his bill] from civil libertarians.” Dafis said, “There is no First Amendment issue. It is just like the FDA coming out against a drug that has harmful side effects.”

The New York Civil Liberties Union did not return a call seeking comment on its view of the Glick-Hoylman bill.

The post Glick, Hoylman File Bill to Ban “Conversion Therapy” appeared first on gaycitynews.com.