This Week Was SO Gay!

Dear Friend and Reader,

I know Thursday was Thanksgiving, but this week was gay as Christmas. No, scratch that, it’s as gay as David Hasselhoff in this video.

Prop 8 news, an adoption win, Boy George, Harvey Milk and gay penguins: it could be that some of this stemmed from the Pallas Athene trine Chiron conjunction on Sunday, setting the stage for justice. She’s also been in Gemini since Aug. 4, so this week could have been brewing for a while. Gemini, as Genevieve explained to me, are the twins, symbolic of the same-sex and duality; so this combination of Gemini and justice sounds pretty gay to me, but I’m not quite satisfied that it’sВ Hasselhoff gay.

Shanna has added her two cents on the astrology of gay this week. She says:

“Uranus turning direct is terribly unpredictable, and because Uranus is associated with eccentricity and individuality, many in the gay community have claimed this planet as their own. So there’s that. Then there’s this T-Square going on between Uranus/Saturn opposition (But Uranus is pulling away from the confinment of Saturn) and they’re both squaring Pallas in Gemini, (keyphrase: patterns of duality). But there’s more! The resolution point (opposite of Pallas) is Cupido and Photographica in Saggitarius. Enthusiastic pictures of people we want to associate with…square the urge to individuate in our unique ways and (possibly) needing new structures? Getting loads of pictures about the flip side of partnership? (Sagg might answer a lot of that Hasselhoff question.)”

Whether attributed to astrology or not, we were here and queer this past few days. Proposition 8 protests have continued, and over 100,000 people have pledged “toВ carry petitions for a new ballot measure, which could come as early as the 2010 election,” according to Geoff Kors, head of Equality California. The strengthening of the opposition has also entwined with a weakening of Prop 8 supporters, which is the more interesting part of the story. Since the proposition passed, the media has picked up the issue for what it is: a civil rights struggle. And you know what the public thinks of people who are against a civil rights movement.

In an attempt to downgrade their status from Giant Assholes to Those Guys Are Jerks, the Prop 8 team is shaving off their more radical supporters, passing court orders that prevent the biggest bigots from getting involved in the coming court hearings.

Andrew Pugno, general counsel for the Yes on Prop. 8 campaign “persuaded the Supreme Court last week to bar the Campaign for California Families from intervening in the court case over the validity of Prop. 8 and the same-sex marriage ban. ‘That organization represents the extreme fringe and is not representative of the coalition that got it passed,’ Pugno said. ‘They didn’t even support Prop. 8 until sometime in the summer,'” The San Francisco Gate reports.

This is all a publicity attempt to seem more moderate, and they’re doing this by reiterating that they don’t have any problem with gays, that the issue is the “preservation” of marriage. Maybe Genevieve should send them a jam recipe: cinnamon, gooseberry and marriage preserves, anyone? Sounds delicious! Now it’ll keep forever.

Tuesday had its high and low notes: the peak was when Florida overturned its ban on gay adoption afterВ Judge Cindy S. Lederman ruled in favor of Martin Gill. Gill and his partner had been fostering two half-brothers, ages four and eight, since 2004 and is finally able to adopt them. The ban on gay adoption in Florida was instituted 31 years ago. With their Nov. 4 vote to ban gay marriage, the state seems to be doing the two-step with its LGBT community. I think it goes something like left foot: forward, right foot: two steps back.

Harvey Milk in his supervisor office in California, 1978. Photo by Crawford Barton.

Boy George (George Alan O’Dowd) balanced the gay community out early in the week with some bad news. He had his day in court Tuesday for being off his rocker: on April 28, he chained a rent boy to his bedroom wall and beat him. The former-Culture Club musician was found guilty of false imprisonment. All I have to say, George, is hearing about this really did make me want to hurt you.

As you may have read from Fe on Thursday, the 30th anniversary of Harvey Milk’s death was on Thanksgiving. Milk is a major hero in the gay community: he was the first openly gay public official in the US, serving on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. There is a high school named after him, formed in 1987, that serves as a safe space for LGBT students to go to school in New York City. It became a fully-accredited public school in 2002.

Harvey was known for his charisma, his passion for the issues and his ability to bridge the political divide. He, and Mayor George Moscone were shot in their offices by Dan White, a city supervisor who had resigned and wanted his job back. For a biographical account of Harvey Milk’s life, but with more neck-veins popping, Sean Penn is playing the icon in Milk, currently in theaters, though a very limited release. I guess I’ll have to drag myself down to the city this weekend.

Also, New York State officially ruled to recognize same-sex marriages for the purpose of insurance and health-related benefits. I’m having deja vu reporting this to you, because I could have sworn Gov. Paterson made an official statement on this earlier in the year. I suppose its now official state law, but I’m open to correction if there are any experts out there that can explain what’s changed. 365 Gay, a GLBT news source, explains “The New York State overseerer of insurance companies has told companies they must treat legally married same-sex couples the same as they treat opposite-sex married pairs.”

Finally, one of my favorite topics also came up this week. Yes, it’s gay penguins (does anyone remember Samantha Bee’s special on them when she first started at The Daily Show? I’d love a clip if anyone can find it…) A gay male penguin couple in China tried to steal a straight couple’s egg, replacing it with a rock before they waddled away. The straight couple figured it out and took the egg back, and the gay pair have been ostracized ever since. They’re being separated from the community during hatching season to avoid further disruption.

Yours & truly on a Sunday,

Rachel Asher