If you develop kidney problems, your healthcare provider may tell you to stop taking STRIBILD.. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any new symptoms after you start taking STRIBILD
Trang 1HOW MORMONS COULD SUDDENLY DO RIGHT BY LGBTS
APRIL/MAY 2014 ISSUE 1072
SINCE 1967
WELCOME TO SAN FRANCISCO
AIDS FREE
* Individual results may vary based
on ability to pay for treatment
Trang 2What is STRIBILD?
STRIBILD is a prescription medicine
used to treat HIV-1 in adults who
have never taken HIV-1 medicines
before It combines 4 medicines into
1 pill to be taken once a day with
food STRIBILD is a complete
single-tablet regimen and should not
be used with other HIV-1 medicines
STRIBILD does not cure HIV-1
infection or AIDS To control HIV-1
infection and decrease HIV-related
illnesses you must keep taking
STRIBILD Ask your healthcare
provider if you have questions about
how to reduce the risk of passing
HIV-1 to others Always practice
safer sex and use condoms to lower
the chance of sexual contact with
body fl uids Never reuse or share
needles or other items that have
body fl uids on them
IMPORTANT SAFETY
INFORMATION
What is the most important
information I should know
about STRIBILD?
STRIBILD can cause serious
side effects:
t Build-up of an acid in your
blood (lactic acidosis), which is
a serious medical emergency
Symptoms of lactic acidosis include
feeling very weak or tired, unusual
(not normal) muscle pain, trouble
breathing, stomach pain with
nausea or vomiting, feeling cold
especially in your arms and legs,
feeling dizzy or lightheaded, and/or
a fast or irregular heartbeat
t Serious liver problems The liver
may become large (hepatomegaly)
and fatty (steatosis) Symptoms of
liver problems include your skin or
the white part of your eyes turns
yellow (jaundice), dark “tea-colored”
urine, light-colored bowel movements
(stools), loss of appetite for several
days or longer, nausea, and/or
stomach pain
t You may be more likely to get
lactic acidosis or serious liver
problems if you are female, very
overweight (obese), or have been
taking STRIBILD for a long time In
some cases, these serious conditions
have led to death Call your healthcare
provider right away if you have any
symptoms of these conditions
t Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection If you also have HBV
and stop taking STRIBILD, your hepatitis may suddenly get worse
Do not stop taking STRIBILD without fi rst talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to monitor your health
STRIBILD is not approved for the treatment of HBV
Who should not take STRIBILD?
Do not take STRIBILD if you:
t Take a medicine that contains:
alfuzosin, dihydroergotamine, ergotamine, methylergonovine, cisapride, lovastatin, simvastatin, pimozide, sildenafi l when used for lung problems (Revatio®), triazolam, oral midazolam, rifampin or the herb
St John’s wort
t For a list of brand names for these medicines, please see the Brief
Summary on the following pages
t Take any other medicines to treat HIV-1 infection, or the
medicine adefovir (Hepsera®)
What are the other possible side effects of STRIBILD?
Serious side effects of STRIBILD may also include:
t New or worse kidney problems, including kidney failure Your
healthcare provider should do regular blood and urine tests to check your kidneys before and during treatment with STRIBILD
If you develop kidney problems, your healthcare provider may tell you to stop taking STRIBILD
t Bone problems, including bone
pain or bones getting soft or thin, which may lead to fractures Your healthcare provider may do tests to check your bones
t Changes in body fat can happen
in people taking HIV-1 medicines
t Changes in your immune system
Your immune system may get stronger and begin to fi ght infections Tell your healthcare provider if you have any new symptoms after you start taking STRIBILD
The most common side effects
of STRIBILD include nausea and diarrhea Tell your healthcare provider
if you have any side effects that bother you or don’t go away
What should I tell my healthcare provider before taking STRIBILD?
t All your health problems Be
sure to tell your healthcare provider
if you have or had any kidney, bone,
or liver problems, including hepatitis virus infection
t All the medicines you take,
including prescription and nonprescription medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements STRIBILD may affect the way other medicines work, and other medicines may affect how STRIBILD works Keep
a list of all your medicines and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist Do not start any new medicines while taking STRIBILD without fi rst talking with your healthcare provider
t If you take hormone-based birth control (pills, patches, rings,
shots, etc)
t If you take antacids Take
antacids at least 2 hours before or after you take STRIBILD
t If you are pregnant
or plan to become pregnant It is not known if STRIBILD can harm your unborn baby Tell your healthcare provider
if you become pregnant while taking STRIBILD
t If you are breastfeeding
(nursing) or plan to breastfeed Do not breastfeed HIV-1 can
be passed to the baby
in breast milk Also, some medicines in STRIBILD can pass into breast milk, and it
is not known if this can harm the baby
You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch,
Trang 3STRIBILD is a prescription medicine used as
a complete single-tablet regimen to treat HIV-1 in adults who have never taken HIV-1 medicines before STRIBILD does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS
I started my
personal revolution
Talk to your healthcare provider about starting treatment.
STRIBILD is a complete HIV-1
treatment in 1 pill, once a day.
Ask if it’s right for you.
Trang 4Patient Information
STRIBILDTM (STRY-bild)
(elvitegravir 150 mg/cobicistat 150 mg/emtricitabine 200 mg/
tenofovir disoproxil fumarate 300 mg) tablets
What is STRIBILD?
t STRIBILD is a prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in adults who
have never taken HIV-1 medicines before. 453*#*-%JTBDPNQMFUF
STRIBILD can cause serious side effects, including:
1 Build-up of lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis) -BDUJD
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provider right away if you get any of the following symptoms
which could be signs of lactic acidosis:
2 Severe liver problems 4FWFSFMJWFSQSPCMFNTDBOIBQQFOJO
provider right away if you get any of the following symptoms
You may be more likely to get lactic acidosis or severe liver
problems if you are female, very overweight (obese), or have
been taking STRIBILD for a long time.
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Who should not take STRIBILD?
Do not take STRIBILD if you also take a medicine that contains:
tChanges in your immune system *NNVOF3FDPOTUJUVUJPO
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Trang 5The most common side effects of STRIBILD include:
t/BVTFB
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Tell your healthcare provider if you have any side effect that
bothers you or that does not go away.
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t$BMMZPVSIFBMUIDBSFQSPWJEFSGPSNFEJDBMBEWJDFBCPVUTJEFFGGFDUT
:PVNBZSFQPSUTJEFFGGFDUTUP'%"BU'%"
What should I tell my healthcare provider before taking STRIBILD?
Tell your healthcare provider about all your medical conditions,
Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take,
including prescription and nonprescription medicines, vitamins,
and herbal supplements:
Keep STRIBILD and all medicines out of reach of children.
5IJT#SJFG4VNNBSZTVNNBSJ[FTUIFNPTUJNQPSUBOUJOGPSNBUJPO IFBMUIDBSFQSPWJEFS:PVDBOBMTPBTLZPVSIFBMUIDBSFQSPWJEFSPS QIBSNBDJTUGPSJOGPSNBUJPOBCPVU453*#*-%UIBUJTXSJUUFOGPSIFBMUI
*TTVFE"VHVTU
BSFUIFQSPQFSUZPGUIFJSSFTQFDUJWFPXOFST
Trang 6From the epicenter of the epidemic to the
world’s model for care, the city by the
bay is vying to claim the title of the first
AIDS-free city But how could that be
accomplished if the city does not help the
poor and marginalized?
By Jeremy Lybarger 46
(Safe) Sexual Imagery
Visual imagery has always been one
of the most effective tools in the fight against HIV We examine some of the most successful and how the imagery has
changed since the beginning 52
46
Whatever Happened to the Mighty GMHC?
The organization that once led the battle against AIDS has experienced troubles with leadership, expensive real estate, and dropping contributions Will the GMHC
be able to right its course for the sake
of its clients in need?
By Tim Murphy 56
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Trang 8Bucking the Trend
Executive orders were the starting
point for past civil rights actions
Why not for employment? 19
Study Guide: Iran
A new president cannot change the
regime’s anti-LGBT policies 22
Civil Survey: Going Blonde
Our survey of attendees to a tribute to
Carol Channing on who has more fun,
matchmaking, and Nixon 29
Britney, One More Time
We love to love Britne y Spears
But are we just absolving our guilt at
what fame has cost her? 32
By the Numbers:
The Catholic Church
Will it change and survive? The data
show it’s in dire straits 34
r e l i g i o n & c u l t u r e
Ghost of Future Present
Derek Jarman’s legacy has been
burnished since his death Justin
Torres seeks the iconoclastic 67
The O-Factor
Diane Anderson-Minshall on the
life-changing voyage on an Olivia cruise 70
His and His and His
When three is not a crowd Mikel
Wadewitz writes a love letter
to both of the men he loves 74
Marry, Me?
Michael Musto is feeling the pressure
to pair off, even from his TV set 76
A List: Chris O’Dowd
Brandon Voss catches up with Irish hearthrob about mous-taches, smooching, and his Broadway debut 80
s p e c t a t o r
Mormons, God, and Gays
The Mormon church could change course on LGBT acceptance like no other global religion So what if God suddenly said gay is OK?
The Indestructable Man
Knowing your first steps when you test positive can make all the difference 37
42
Trang 9K EY WEST BIG PINE KEY & THE LOWER KEYS MA R A
T H ON
ISL
AMOR
A
K
Trang 108 THE ADVOCATE april / may 2014
to prevent gays and lesbians from marrying in California; and even Britney Spears, unde-
niably a gay icon I imagine that we’re going to get a lot of
correspondence calling our good sense and provenance
into question
Much of what we do in LGBT media and activism is
taking on fights, but still, I’m girding my loins for this
first one in particular It’s a look at whether Britney
Spears should be considered a gay icon in the classic
sense The answer, in short, is no—not yet (Hold your
righteous outrage until you’ve read the piece starting
on page 32) Spears can churn out a pop hit, and she’s an
extremely hard worker—neither point seems refutable
She even seems like a pretty nice person But whenever
I see her perform I can’t help thinking that it looks like
she’d rather be doing something else I see in her my own
desire to take a nice, long vacation I can just read it on
her face But her devotees are legion After the premiere
of Spears’ Vegas residency, one acquaintance of mine
who posted dozens of his own snapshots and videos of
her performance in many posts on Facebook, was
chal-lenged to give it a rest, and yet stood his ground: He’d
rather have you unfriend him than temper his
admira-tion for Britney even the tiniest bit I, for one, can’t wait
to see what she gets up to when it’s really up to her Even
if that’s retirement
In “Whatever Happened to the Mighty GMHC,”
(page 56) contributor Tim Murphy looks at the
proto-type organization that began when writer Larry
Kramer and 80 other men met in Kramer’s apartment to
respond to the “gay cancer” plaguing New York City and
San Francisco GMHC sponsored the first major AIDS
fundraising event in 1983 (interestingly, a Ringling Bros
and Barnum & Bailey Circus performance), and the
organization was sought by the CDC in planning public
conferences on AIDS the following year—all before the
discovery of the HIV virus They’ve had some rather
public missteps in recent years as detailed in Murphy’s
reporting, but the thing that jumps right out of the piece
is the analysis that the original donor base of mostly
white, mostly gay men, has dropped the funding ball
rather dramatically Have they decided that HIV/AIDS
isn’t a crisis any longer, that it’s a chronic yet manageable
disease? Or did they give all their money to marriage
fights? Or could it be because the disease now
dispropor-tionately affects men and women of color If the latter is the case, and we cannot see beyond our own proverbial front steps and acknowledge how the disease affects others, I worry for the both the health of the organiza-tion and our future as a multifaceted community
Also in this issue I posit a theory about how ism, given its unique structure, could suddenly become the world’s first truly 21st century religion, and embrace LGBTs (page 42) Ever since the stunning overturn-ing of the Utah state constitution’s marriage ban, I’ve been turning over in my head how to frame the issue of equality in my home state A high school friend tipped
Mormon-me off that she was working on the legal challenge to the ban, and it’s to my own discredit that I didn’t follow up, thinking, as many others did, that progress cannot be made there, it will have to be imposed externally That was a mistake to be sure In that court decision and other moves I see opportunity for a new openness in the dominant religious and political force in Utah
The successes of the past few years have beaten some cynicism out me It’s a good time to take on the giants
Matthew Breen, editor in chief
Editor’s Letter
Trang 12SUBSCRIBER SERVICES For new subscriptions, renewals, bill payments, and address changes, go to
HereMediaMagazines.com, email us at subscriptions@out.com, or write to:
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CIRCULATION
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A D V O C A T E 2 0
Frank Lowe is @GayAtHomeDad
on Twitter, but he’s the resident
contributor on all things parenting
on Advocate.com/Parenting, “I’m
a thirty-something gay parent of a
beautiful 4-year old boy who joined
our family through adoption,” he
writes, and he’s married to his
partner of 16 years Lowe and his
family live in rural Connecticut
a d v o c at e c o m
Parker Marie Molloy, who tweets
@ParkerMolloy, is a
Chicago-based transgender author who will
be offering up stories and sharp
commentary each day on issues
facing transgender people at
10 THE ADVOCATE april / may 2014
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Trang 1412 THE ADVOCATE april / may 2014
I had about the sexual minori- ties in Russia, but confirmed also a supposition, that queer folk have not escaped the condemna- tion of the church and, in fact, once the supposedly atheistic USSR collapsed, the Russian Orthodox authorities have been a major force in the passage
of homophobic laws Putin knows his Seneca and is the beneficiary of both the working class gullibility and his own unhesitating use of dogma to wield power.”
Reader Jeffrey Kassel emailed this letter: “Your article on Russia advocated the West sitting back and leaving Russian gays alone This is a dangerous proposition When
I first went to the Soviet Union
in 1975, I was told by a sian friend that Russians were taught that all homosexuals were former prisoners who had no choice but to be that way… homosexuals needed to
Rus-be feared Rus-because, as paroled prisoners, they were violent
Of course, nonsense, but that
is what they were taught The writer of the article goes on to say that there is no history of a civil rights movement in Rus-
LOVE IN PUTIN’S RUSSIA
Contributor Chadwick Moore
spent time in Russia on
assign-ment, assessing what daily life
is like for gay Muscovites under
the antigay Putin regime
Several readers referred to it
in terms like “Eye-opening,”
and “educational.” And a few
more sent simple messages of
compassion, presumably to the
subjects of the article: “May
they all be safe from harm,”
and “xxoo.” Reader David
Ladabouche shared his own
memories of his time in the
U.S.S.R.: “I was in
the Soviet Union
before it broke up
and gay people
couldn’t let straight
friends or relatives
know for fear of
prison and being
thrown out of state
owned apartments
and loss of
employ-ment Putin was in
the powerful KGB
then and is bringing all this
back to the modern day Russia
I feel sorry for the everyday
citizens that they have lost
much of their freedom and
are pretty much powerless
to do anything about it.” He
continues with his belief that
American conservatives are
supporting Putin’s ideas on
these shores, and elsewhere:
“Unfortunately they have,
through their religious beliefs
and small mindedness, fought
to do what Putin is doing now
when it comes to LGBT and
women’s rights, even going as
far as siding with Putin and
sending delegations to African
nations to help craft legislation
to criminalize LGBT citizens
of those countries They have
influenced anti gay laws now in
two African countries!”
Reader Max Erickson
com-mented, “This is by far the
best article on the topic
around!” James M Martin
commented, “I got my Advocate
by mail today and devoured
Chadwick Moore’s
Jordan Rogers wrote, “Just
proves that gay people come in all stripes, even crazy paranoid stripes.”
Tawny Bradley was
sym-pathetic to the notion: “My
wife and I aren’t full out preppers, but do have some prepper tendencies and our own stockpiles Whoever submitted for this article should start a page and invite me.” Steven Publicover won most likes for his com-ment “I bet the bunkers are
to die for!”
WAS NORMAL ROCKWELL GAY? That’s the question asked by Jerry Portwood in his review
of Deborah Solomon’s book
American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell Reader
Jennifer Schwab asked, “Who
cares whether or not he was gay? He was a great artist And if he was closeted in life,
do you really think he’d want
to be outed after death? I don’t understand the need to dig into his privacy.” Jordan Krueger
replied: “If one of America’s
most cherished artists is a homosexual, it’s not only another example how gays contributed to American history, but it also casts a new light on his work.” X
sia This is not correct Andrei Sakharov, for instance led a civil & human rights movement that ultimately resulted in the collapse of the Soviet Union
Also, a very important civil rights movement was the cause
of Soviet Jews who wished to live free of anti-Semitism It was the pressure from the West that resulted in the further-ance of Jewish rights, including emigration The gay movement
in Russia has a lesson to be learned from these previous civil rights struggles They can-not go-it alone We are all in this together.”
Commentor Jen Doe wrote,
“OMG, I’m from Russia and I can’t follow the link! It says
‘forbidden in your country’!
Please post elsewhere.” “I sent you a message with a pdf
of the article Cheers!”
respond-ed reader Prespond-edro Carvalho
(Thanks for the assist Pedro!)WHAT HAPPENS WHEN GAYS JOIN RIGHT-WING SURVIVALISTS?
Contributor Jeremy Lybarger reported on LGBT “preppers.”
Richard Reed declared the proposition, “Weird beyond belief!” A few readers were skeptical survivalists, includ-ing Sabella Quey who wrote,
“Anyone ‘hunkering down’ in
a shelter somewhere thinking the world is going to come to an
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Trang 17april / may 2014 THE ADVOCATE 19
The only thing as stunning as the
rever-sal of fortune for marriage equality
from 2004-2014 is the way in which
workplace fairness for LGBT Americans
has languished at the federal level True,
the Senate made an impressive push to
pass employment protections last year, but
the House of Representatives remains a
sizeable hurdle to their final passage
The juxtaposition is particularly
inter-esting if you compare the progression of
the gay rights movement to that of the civil
rights movement of the 20th century—a
model LGBT leaders and historians have
often looked to for benchmarks and
inspi-ration The civil rights movement moved from integration of the armed forces (1948) to the desegregation of schools (1954) to prohibitions on discrimination
in public accommodations, the workplace, and voting (1964–1965), and finally to the eradication of the anti-miscegenation laws that banned interracial marriage (1967)
President Barack Obama, a keen student
of civil rights history, reminded me of this order when I interviewed him on the cam-paign trail in 2008
At the time, I was pushing him on his stance on civil unions “Is it fair for the LGBT community to ask for leadership
[on marriage equality]?” I asked him at his Chicago-based campaign headquarters in April 2008 “In 1963, President Kennedy made civil rights a moral issue for the country,” I continued, referring to JFK’s historic address to the nation
Then-Senator Obama pushed back with
a strategy argument “But he didn’t turn anti-miscegenation Right?” he asked
over-“I’m the product of a mixed marriage that would have been illegal in 12 states when I was born,” he explained “That doesn’t mean that had I been an adviser to
Dr King back then, I would have told him
to lead with repealing an
anti-miscege-BUCKING
THE TREND
The civil rights movement of the 20th Century has been a good template for LGBT rights—
except on employment Why? We’re still missing
a key executive order of the kind that helped level the playing field for racial minorities.
BY KERRY ELEVELD
ADVANCE
Trang 1820 THE ADVOCATE april / may 2014
nation law, because it just might not have
been the best strategy in terms of moving
broader equality forward.”
But six years later, the march toward
marriage equality has hit the fast track,
while federal employment protections—
a critical advancement for the civil rights
movement—have practically stalled
Indeed, at the time of this writing, the
number of marriage equality states has
now caught up to the number of states
that prohibit discrimination against LGBT
employees: 17 (This does not include
pend-ing marriage cases in Utah and Oklahoma.)
In part, this progression reflects a
dis-tinctive difference between the
adversi-ties faced by LGBT Americans and black
Americans Gays did not need to be
eman-cipated, granted citizenship, or given the
right to vote Generally speaking, LGBT
citizens have not needed to be “let in”
because they already existed in every
cor-ner of American life, though often without
detection What they have really needed is
to be seen and counted by the federal
gov-ernment (a major failing during the onset
of the AIDS crisis) and then given the
nec-essary protections from being expelled once they were known The clearest form
of government-sponsored discrimination against lesbians and gays was “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and it was the first to go But employment protections were perhaps prioritized early on by civil rights leaders because people of color often faced being shut out of gainful employment altogether, while LGBT workers have typically been at greater risk of being harassed or fired once they were discovered
In fact, in the run up to United States’s involvement in World War II, A Philip Randolph and other black leaders demanded a presidential executive order that would prohibit race-based discrimi-nation by federal defense contractors, which were quickly becoming the nation’s economic engine After the leaders threat-ened to march on Washington, Franklin D
Roosevelt signed the order in 1941, a major milestone for the civil rights movement
That order was subsequently enhanced
by Republican and Democratic presidents alike until Lyndon Johnson signed Execu-tive Order 11246 in 1965 requiring all fed-
eral contractors to ensure fair ment practices regardless of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin Congress also followed the early lead of the execu-tive branch by enacting federal workplace protections through Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
LGBT advocates have long sought a similar executive order that would pro-hibit federal contractors from discriminat-ing against gay, bisexual, and transgender employees Such an order would provide binding legal protections for some 28 mil-lion workers, of which more than 6% are likely to be gay or transgender, based on workforce estimates from the Williams Institute As the Human Rights Campaign noted in a 2008 transition document pre-pared for the incoming Obama administra-tion, “When the federal government hires private companies to perform government functions with public funds, it can and should expect the contractors to adhere to the same civil rights standards as the gov-ernment would if it were doing the work.” Meanwhile, the Defense of Marriage Act has effectively been gutted and we
May 17, 1954 The SCOTUS decision
in Brown v Board of Education
declares laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional
March 6, 1961 President John F Kennedy signs Executive Order 10925, requiring government contractors to “take affirmative action” to ensure that applicants and employees are treated equally without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin
July 2, 1964 The Civil Rights Act
of 1964 outlawed major forms of discrimination against racial, ethnic, national and religious minorities, and women, in public accommodations and the workplace
August 6, 1965 The Voting Rights Act
of 1965 prohibits discrimination in voting
September 24, 1965
President Lyndon B
Johnson signs Executive Order 11246 requiring all federal contractors to ensure fair employment practices regardless of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin
June 12, 1967 The SCOTUS decision
in Loving v Virginia
in-validates laws prohibiting interracial marriage
Executive Orders First? A Timeline
Trang 19are fast approaching the day when the
Supreme Court will hear a second case
arguing that same-sex marriage is a
funda-mental constitutional right
It’s a curious turn of events In politics,
as in journalism, you go where the energy
is, and there are many reasons why
work-place fairness still hasn’t caught the fire
that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal and
marriage equality have But at least one
of them is executive influence President
Obama famously inserted 32 words into
his 2010 State of the Union address that
started the clock ticking on the gay ban
He also took to the airwaves in 2012 to
announce his change of heart on same-sex
marriage While neither of these actions
definitively altered the trajectory of either
issue, they most certainly catapulted them
forward at an accelerated pace
But had I asked him in 2008 whether he
anticipated that marriage equality would
start to sweep the nation before basic
employment protections were extended
to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and
queer Americans, I suspect he would have
said, “No.” X
October 28, 2009
President Barack Obama signs
the Matthew Shepard and James
Byrd, Jr Hate Crimes Prevention
Act, which extends federal
hate-crime law to hate-crimes motivated by
gender, sexual orientation, gender
identity, or disability
September 20, 2011
The legislative repeal
of “don’t ask, don’t
tell,” which prohibits
openly gay, lesbian, or
bisexuals from serving
in the United States
Armed Forces, goes
into effect
June 26, 2013
The SCOTUS decision in
United States v
Windsor declares
that restricting U.S federal interpretations
of “marriage”
and “spouse”
to apply only to heterosexual unions is unconstitutional
Such an order would provide binding legal protections for some
28 million workers, of which more than 6%
are likely
to be gay or transgender.”
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Trang 2022 THE ADVOCATE april / may 2014
With the election last June of Hassan Rouhani
as Iran’s president, there were hopes for a
Per-sian Spring that would improve human rights
for the country’s struggling LGBT community Those
hopes have not been borne out
Two new studies addressing the plight of the LGBT
community in the Islamic Republic—and a detailed
letter from human rights organizations to Rouhani—
mandate an alarming conclusion: Iran’s
authoritar-ian regime continues to enforce anti-LGBT
repres-sion, and sanctions that reflect lethal homophobia
remain codified in law
Rouhani declared prior to his election victory: “All
Iranian people should feel there is justice” and “Long
live citizen rights!” His rhetoric proved to be empty
The United Nations special rapporteur on the
situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic
of Iran, Dr Ahmed Shaheed, published a scathing
indictment of violence against LGBT Iranians last
October Under the section headed “Other Forms
of Cruel and Inhuman Punishment,” Shaheed
chas-tised Iran’s authorities for meting out the penalty of
flogging for “illicit relationships and nonpenetrative
homosexual acts.”
Shaheed, widely considered one of the world’s
top human rights experts, noted in his report that
Iran’s effort to revise its Islamic Penal Code failed
to expunge “homosexual acts” from the list of
capi-tal offenses
Shari’a—what is commonly referred to as Islamic
law—plays a critical role in the application of
pun-ishment, particularly the death penalty, under
Iranian law Shari’a law codifies punishments
called hudud, which are applied to a defined set of
crimes, including acts of sodomy Separately, there
is a form of punishment labeled ta’zir, to be meted
out at a judge’s discretion; this usually includes
“other homosexual acts.”
Iranian Islamic law differentiates between passive
and active sodomy convictions A convicted passive
partner faces the death penalty, whereas an active
partner, if unmarried, may receive 100 lashes A ried active partner faces execution
mar-The regime vehemently rejects Shaheed’s report
In January, Mullah Mostafa Pour Mohammadi, Rouhani’s justice minister, called Shaheed a “cor-rupt person.” As deputy intelligence minister, Pour Mohammadi was one of a circle of top officials responsible for the slaughter of thousands of politi-cal prisoners in 1988
All this helps explain the bleak outlook for the realization of Rouhani’s promises of reform “Noth-ing essential has changed The structure is still the same It’s a play, a comic and ugly performance They’re relying on the naiveté of people to be able to succeed,” the gay Iranian poet Payam Feili said about Rouhani’s administration Feili’s poetry cannot be published because he is on a blacklist
A second report, entitled “Denied Identity: Human
NO PERSIAN
THAW
Two reports indicate that despite
a new president’s overtures to the
contrary, Iran will remain a deadly
place for LGBTs.
BY BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
There is no indication that the situation of Iran’s LGBT persons will change, in law or in practice, in the near future.”
Trang 21Rights Abuses Against Iran’s LGBT Community,”
was published in November by the Iran Human
Rights Documentation Center In contrast to
Sha-heed’s report, which covers ethnic, sexual, and
religious minorities, the New Haven-based center
devoted the entirety of its 60-page study to Iran’s
LGBT community, and conducted scores of
inter-views with gay, lesbian, and transgender Iranians
In testimony, Maryam Ahmadi, described what
took place after a prison surveillance camera filmed
her kissing her girlfriend, Sara, as they were
await-ing trial for hostawait-ing a party “celebratawait-ing their union”:
“I don’t know if [guards] actually struck us 50 times
or however many times it was I fainted When I
gained consciousness, I noticed they’d placed me
next to a small garden and splashed water on me I
don’t know if they continued to strike the 100 lashes
I was to receive while unconscious.”
The center’s disturbing conclusion: “There is no
indication that the situation of Iran’s LGBT persons
will change, in law or in practice, in the near future.”
The ongoing repression of LGBT Iranians
prompted four human rights organizations—
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch,
International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights
Com-mission, and Iranian Queer Organization—to write
Rouhani in late December, 2013 The groups called
for Iran to repeal its laws imposing anti-LGBT ishments “ranging from 100 lashes for consensual sexual relations between women to the death pen-alty for consensual intercourse between men.”The Islamic Penal Code criminalizes same-sex touching and intimate kissing, which are punish-able by up to 74 lashes
pun-The letter detailed a bill of particulars of violence against LGBT Iranians, including the storming of a birthday party with mostly LGBT-identified guests
in the city of Kermanshah, in western Iran, by 50 members of the Nabi Akram Brigade of the Revolu-tionary Guards in October “Armed members of the security forces verbally abused, assaulted, and beat many of the 80 or so people attending the party, as well as waiters and other staff.”
Kermanshah Province’s Basij Forces—a sponsored gang of thugs—issued a statement saying their aim was to end a “homosexual and Satan-wor-shiping network with dozens of [members].”While the major world powers are understand-ably focused on stopping Iran’s drive toward nuclear weapons, the wretched condition of LGBT Iranians
state-is not a front-and-center concern In January, Berlin
LGBT magazine Siegessäule asked why the LGBT
community in the West remains “silent” about their counterparts in the Islamic Republic X
UGANDA
Ugandan President Museveni demanded
“scientific evidence”
that gays are abnormal before he will sign draconian Anti-Homosexuality bill passed by Parliament in 2013
NIGERIA
Arrests have been made in the states
of Anambra, Enugu, Imo, and Oyo since President Goodluck Jonathan signed the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act into law which punishes offenders by up to 14 years in prison
perpertrators often
go unconvicted South Africa is the “rape capital of the world”
with over 500,000 rapes each year
RUSSIA
Prior to the Sochi Olympic Games the Kremlin-orchestrated Gay Propaganda prohibition has been cited in the persecution of artists, the imprisonment
of activists, and the arrest of journalists
AROUND THE WORLD
Demonstrations against LGBT rights abuses in Iran at the Berlin Pride Celebration
april / may 2014 THE ADVOCATE 23
Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani
Trang 23april / may 2014 THE ADVOCATE 29
CIVIL SURVEY:
GOING BLONDE EDITION
Canvassing attitudes on retirement, hair color, and
matchmaking at Gentlemen
Prefer Blondes.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GABRIELA LANDAZURI
Trang 2430 THE ADVOCATE april / may 2014
of Hello Dolly! The event, produced in January at New
York’s Town Hall by gay nightlife fixture Daniel Nardicio, was
called Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: An Intimate Evening with
Carol Channing and Justin Vivian Bond, and attendees spoke
out on the important issues
Before age 55 4%
Age 56–65 19% (“and eat ramen”)
Age 65–70 12%
After 70 8%
I won’t retire, I’ll keep working
42% (“I love my job”)
I’m already retired 8%
I don’t work 8% (“I don’t have her energy”)
Other 8% (“Let’s see where life takes us”)
Carol Channing was a member of the Lowell Forensic Society, the nation’s oldest high school debate team, but she often plays a dizzy blonde Have you ever faked being less intelligent than you are?
my hair
31%
In Hello Dolly! Channing plays
a brassy matchmaker Have you ever let someone else arrange a date for you?
Did it, but will never do it again 38%
Many times, but it’s always
is mutual
19%
I’ve got lots of enemies, but I’d never let them know I think that about them
8%
I’ve got enemies, and they all know exactly how I feel about them
8%
Tonight’s show is called
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Have you ever been blonde?
I’m naturally blonde
A few people get under
my skin, but I don’t have any real enemies
Trang 25HIV & STI Testing New Client Intake Meals Program & Food Pantry Nutrition Education
Wellness Services Coordinated Care/Health Homes Mental Health & Substance Use Counseling HIV Prevention for Men, Women & Youth Legal Services
Advocacy & Benefits Workforce Development Client Financial Services Action Center
HIV/AIDS Hotline
Please help feed and support our clients.
For more information on GMHC and our programs,
or to make a donation, please visit gmhc.org,
call (212) 367-1000 or e-mail info@gmhc.org.
GMHC OFFERS LIFE-SUSTAINING SERVICES FOR PEOPLE AFFECTED BY HIV AND AIDS
Trang 2632 THE ADVOCATE april / may 2014
How many times has Britney Spears
been declared a gay icon? In the last
year alone, both the Village Voice and
the Guardian did so, and those were just
in response to her “Work Bitch” single, in
which Spears exhorts the listener: “You
want a hot body? / You want a Bugatti? / You
want a Maserati? / You better work bitch.”
Six songwriters are credited on that track
As to the quality of the singing, it’s
hard to say “Work Bitch” doesn’t actually
involve much And not once in the
two-hour E! documentary I Am Britney Jean,
an extended infomercial for her new
two-year Las Vegas residency, does Spears sing
on camera, warm up her voice, or rehearse
any new arrangements
Her dancing, at least since “Toxic,” has
seemed on the order of a fembot—sexy
but wooden, ultimately joyless So much
BRITNEY
ONE MORE
TIME
Her singing is meh, and the
dancing’s not much better
But ask almost anyone—
Britney Spears is a gay icon
What draws us to her, and
why can’t we just leave
Britney alone?
BY MATTHEW BREEN
emphasis is placed on her dancing in the documentary’s lead-up to her Vegas show that the result should approach the hype I haven’t seen the live show, but the past few years of Britney watching don’t indicate that the dancing will thrill Besides, is she enjoying any of it?
My purpose isn’t to bash Brit, but to examine the turn-on Pop stars needn’t always be great technicians in singing or dancing, and I don’t dispute the fact that
she churns out massive hits, hits that get dance floors thumping and people wail-ing along to the choruses—me included
So if it’s not the sheer quality of her formance, what makes her so beloved by so many (but certainly not all) gay men? What constitutes her gay icon status, and is it deserved?
per-Britney talks about us “Work Bitch” is the song she claims that she included on
Britney Jean, her “most personal album”
ILLUSTRATION BY JUSTIN MILLER
Trang 27april / may 2014 THE ADVOCATE 33
yet, in honor of her gay fans She says it’s
this one, the one that samples RuPaul’s
“Supermodel (You Better Work),” that is
her homage to gays, rather than “Alien,” the
song about feeling like an outsider and not
fitting in A missed opportunity to strike a
literal and figurative chord with her gay
fans, perhaps, but maybe she’ll strike it
when “Alien” is released as a single
In a recent radio interview on San
Fran-cisco’s 99.7 FM she described her affection
this way: “A lot of my hair stylists and my
beauty team that I work with are gay, so
I hang out with gays a lot and I just think
they’re adorable and hilarious.” The same
could be said of puppies
In 2009 when Carrie Prejean, then Miss
California, essentially said that if it were up
to her there would be no marriage
equal-ity, Britney tweeted, “Love is love! People
should be able to do whatever makes them
happy!” Not exactly an endorsement of the
merits of equality under the law, but it’s a
platitude that may have been truly felt, and
it’s nice that she did it
This is all to say she doesn’t always nail
it when she’s talking about us She doesn’t
lead marches and give speeches, like Lady
Gaga did over “don’t’ ask, don’t tell.” She
doesn’t adopt aspects of our culture and
wind it up with a knowing wink in power
pop, like Madonna did in “Vogue” (and
“Erotica,” “Secret,” “Human Nature,” and
“Girl Gone Wild”) She’s not slyly aware,
like Cher, when noting that her
break-downs constitute some of her bona fides as
a gay icon—“Judy Garland’s got nothing on
me,” Cher recently told a London crowd
Britney will instead say her gay fans are
“somewhat girls,” in a ham-fisted way It’s
not malicious, just a little tone deaf
There are classic gay icon elements to
Britney’s life, notably the fact that she’s
been down—way down—and come back
She’s had scandals and embarrassments,
quickie marriages, no-panties pictures,
and problems that landed her in rehab,
even if just for a day She’s on an upswing
now, looking healthy and fit, but all her
comebacks haven’t gone as smoothly Her
2007 performance at the VMAs following
her divorce from Kevin Federline yielded
a leaden, spacey performance, which was
quickly followed by challenges to her
cus-tody of her kids, endless legal battles, and
missed court dates that led to her father’s
conservatorship of her affairs That
Guardian article noted that she’s been
described as the “first official train wreck
of the 21st century”; she shaved her head and went on a rampage with an umbrella, with cameras flashing
Now it seems we know why she seems
so inscrutable She’s on lockdown She doesn’t have control of her life for at least another two years; her father controls her career, her finances, and her personal life
She’s been a money-making machine for
at least the last 20 years, since she was a Disney child drone It’s been widely specu-lated since 2008 that Spears is bipolar, and reports say she’s had manic episodes for years It appears she’s joking when in the documentary she says her onstage and off-stage personas are wildly different: “I turn into this different person seriously, bipo-lar disorder.” Seriously, that’s not what it is
In the midst of the 2008 meltdown, she was every paparazzo’s main target While
we may have laughed at the messenger, many of us empathized with blogger Chris Crocker’s “Leave Britney alone!” wailing plea in the midst of her public crisis It’s
a shame she’s unlikely to ever really talk
about it—wouldn’t be good for business, I
imagine her managers thinking
In that crisis lies the thing that draws so many of us to her, I believe: her essential underdog quality She’s the direct object in the grammar of her public life, not the sub-ject of it More than the aspirational, hey-I-could-do-that quality of her talents, more than her arguably camp nạveté, more than her strength in determining her own des-tiny (a gay icon trait she hasn’t displayed),
we want to save Britney
Our wish for Britney to get her life together, to be more than the apparent puppet she’s been for 20-some years, is potent The desire to defend the woman who has been beaten down by the press is strong It’s no wonder we feel the impulse
to save her from the nefarious people—mostly men, in the form of paparazzi, shady managers, Federline, her father—who have been variously running her life
or leading her astray We wish for her to
be more than merely a marionette and to really do what she wants to do, to truly express herself, after a lifetime of working
at the bidding of others
In the meantime we can assuage our own guilt that we had any part in her oppres-sion, in consuming the photos and tabloid stories that may have been a tipping point
to a meltdown We may have wanted her to
be fierce, at the expense of being real But
we aren’t like those other men We want to support and buoy Britney, show that we’ll
be there through thick and thin
Spears is poised to be the ultimate gay icon, the woman who lost control then wrested her life back from the brink But though she’s incredibly hardworking, we’ve yet to see her exhibit real control, real self-awareness For now she is still a woman on the brink When she’s truly, legally able to be her own woman, perhaps we’ll be able to see something different—something honest And if she decides, as she says, that she’s “particularly not really made for this industry” and leaves it, we’ll have to accept that decision and value the strength of character it takes to make it X
More than the aspirational, hey-I-could-do-that quality of her talents, more than her arguably camp nạveté, more than her strength in determining her own destiny (a gay icon trait she hasn’t displayed),
we want to save Britney.”
Trang 2834 THE ADVOCATE april / may 2014
1 About 1 in 3 Americans who say they were raised
Catholic no longer identify as Catholic Ten percent of
Americans are former Catholics
5 The Church’s own members are breaking rank
Women are now entering the priesthood without the
10 The American Catholic Church
accounts for nearly 60% of the Church’s global wealth.
11 Last year, JPMorgan Chase closed a Vatican bank account after it was “unable to
respond” to questions about shady money transfers The ex-president of the Vatican
bank was later detained for questioning
12 Donations from parishioners has declined an estimated 20%
6 Even the Pope quit
Pope Benedict only got a
40% approval rating from Americans by 2010—that’s Gerald Ford post-pardoning Nixon territory
7 It is estimated that the
Church employs over 1 million people That’s half the number
employed by Walmart
2 Less than a quarter of Catholics attend weekly Mass,
while 38% of Protestants say they go to church weekly
CATHOLICS PROTESTANTS
3 About a quarter (27%) of American Catholics
described themselves as “strong” Catholics in 2012,
down more than 15 points since the mid-1980s At 54%,
“strong” Protestants make up twice that share
4 In England and Wales, the church ordained only
16 clergy members in all of 2009.
NUMBER CRUNCH:
A CHURCH IN CRISIS
An impulse to compassion may not be Pope Francis’s only
reason for backing off the socially repressive and tone-deaf
elements of Catholicism (including the antigay rhetoric) that
disenchant parishioners; the shrinking church badly needs to
invigorate the flock and raise some funds or risk going the way
of the dodo A new papal attitude might be the answer.
CATHOLIC CHURCH EMPLOYEES
Trang 30Armando & Anthony photographed by Exterface Studio, Paris
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Trang 31april / may 2014 THE ADVOCATE 37
I nev er w ent to the doctor I never got sick At age 45 I
still had a body that turned heads I was indestructible
After ignoring flu symptoms for weeks, I finally got
checked out Since I was at the doctor’s anyway, I agreed
to a battery of tests, including a screening for HIV Why
not? I always played safe; I only had sex with people who were
negative, and, after all, I was indestructible
A few days later, the doctor called and asked me to come back
in I will never forget the kindness and sadness I saw when he
looked directly into my eyes and said, “I’m very sorry to tell you
that you have AIDS.” Shock and amazement, followed by anger,
filled my mind I was furious with myself Somewhere along the
way I had screwed up
My diagnosis was not good To be considered permanently
disabled, your CD4 cell count must be under 200 My count was
21 I should have been dead I quickly diminished from a
mus-cled, 155-pound gym body to a skinny, 116-pound skeleton
I am an educated man Why had I not been tested before? I
now recognize a horrible trend: People just don’t want to know
The thinking goes something like, If I don’t know I have HIV, I
don’t have HIV But knowing can save your life.
One out of every six people who have HIV don’t know it, and
over 20,000 people die yearly in North America from related
complications How many of these deaths could have been
avoided by early detection? Antiretroviral (AVR) medications
help stop the progression of the disease and dramatically prevent
most poor health outcomes if HIV is discovered early With
qual-ity care, HIV can be a chronic, manageable condition like high
blood pressure, and new studies indicate that AVR treatment
while CD4 cell count is above 350 can result in a life expectancy
equal to or exceeding a person who is not HIV-positive
The Affordable Care Act has breathed new life in the fight
against HIV and AIDS Only 17% of people with HIV had
pri-vate health insurance prior to the bill’s passing ACA will help
an estimated 1.2 million people living with HIV, greatly ing access to lifesaving care and treatment
improv-It’s important to remember that you must ask for an HIV test from your health care provider and continue to get tested at least every six months HIV tests are also available over the counter and can be sent discreetly to your home via the Internet
So what happens if you find out that you are HIV-positive? Don’t panic! There are vast resources available and you’re not alone AIDS.gov’s Services Locator is a helpful online tool that finds every organization in your area that provides testing and services Your local community center can also direct you to organizations that can help My own organization, HIVHero.org, is designed to help those who are newly diagnosed Make sure you have a doctor in your network who has the knowledge to properly treat you If you do not have insurance, you can get it now with a preexisting condition If you can’t afford insurance, the ACA will get you covered Go to Health-care.gov or your state exchange website and sign up
And don’t neglect your metal state For most gay men, sure of HIV status can be as difficult as coming out Remember, you don’t have to disclose your status to anyone until you are ready But talking about it helps In my case I went to a group for the newly diagnosed at a community center Individual coun-seling is also available Sharing your feelings, knowledge, and resources can be one of the most important things you ever do for yourself and others
disclo-The stigma surrounding HIV and AIDS is changing Having HIV is not the end of your life—it just changes it You are impor-tant You matter Trust me: You have been loved, you are loved, and you will continue to find love X
Michael Cavnaugh is the founder and president of HIV Experience Resources Organization, a 501 (c) (3) charitable organization that operates HERONews.org and HIVHero.org.
[ HIV AND TESTING ]
When You Know
What you do—and when you find out—can make all the difference.
Trang 3242 THE ADVOCATE april / may 2014
Henceforth
it is time to welcome your gay and lesbian brothers and sisters into the Church, that all may equally receive every blessing
of the gospel.
Trang 33MORMONS, GOD, AND
in times of necessity What would happen if God now said gay was OK? BY MATTHEW BREEN
april / may 2014 THE ADVOCATE 43
When the news broke that same-sex
couples in Utah were lining up at
the Salt Lake County courthouse
to marry, a collective “what?”
erupted from court watchers and pundits
Really? Utah? It’s the most Republican state,
having gone red in every presidential
elec-tion since 1968 Utah? Are you sure?
Though the overturning of the state’s
constitutional ban was the action of a
fed-eral judge and not the electorate,
neverthe-less it happened in a state where religion
influences politics to an outsized degree
Over 62% of Utah’s population is Mormon,
and in 2008 exit polls, 75% of voters in Utah
elections identified as Mormon What the
church says, covertly and overtly, often
determines the political course of the state
But Mormonism is unlike other, older
religions Its capacity for change has
res-cued it from collapse in the past, and it might
make Utah, the reddest of states, a uniquely
safe haven for gay and lesbian couples
Mormonism is a relatively conservative
faith that has been opaque to many
outsid-ers—many of whom still imagined
polyga-mist compounds—at least until Comedy
Central’s South Park, The Book of Mormon
on Broadway, HBO’s Big Love, and the
presi-dential candidacy of Mitt Romney Still, the
prevailing stereotype is one of blond,
all-American Pollyannas with big families who
don’t smoke, drink, or watch R-rated ies And it’s pretty widely known that they aren’t so cool with the gays
mov-Not so long ago, the Mormon Church excommunicated many members for self-identifying as gay or lesbian In recent years, the religion’s policy has been refined to be
of the “love the sinner, hate the sin” variety, with the view that same-sex attraction is aberrant, but one can be a good Mormon
if one never acts on that attraction The church has been outspoken in its oppo-sition to marriage equality for same-sex couples, and the state of Utah has followed
suit politically Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight
blog summarized Tim Chambless, a political science professor at the University of Utah,
as saying, “Today, a majority of Mormon ers in Utah have two nonnegotiable litmus tests… abortion and same-sex marriage.”
vot-The Mormon Church spent lots of money (approximately $20 million), time, and effort bussing church members to the doorsteps of California voters to convince them to vote in favor of Prop 8, effectively leading the charge against gay couples hav-ing the equal right to marry But public opin-ion was changing rapidly across the nation and the church experienced significant backlash, so much so that it has had to step back from its leadership role, one it shared with the Catholic Church, in battling mar-
riage equality 2012 Republican presidential candidate Fred Karger, a gay activist who has been exposing the church’s role in Prop
8, told Mother Jones magazine, “It seems like
the [Mormon] hierarchy has pulled the plug and is no longer taking the lead in the fight
to stop same-sex marriage The Mormon Church has lost so many members and suf-fered such a black eye because of all its anti-gay activities that they really had no choice
I am hopeful that the Catholic Church not be far behind.”
can-The criticism the church has felt isn’t entirely from outside the faith A minor revolution has been happening inside the Mormon Church LGBT Mormons who once faced excommunication or self-depor-tation from their communities are now coming out in greater numbers, embracing their sexual orientations while refusing to abandon Mormonism Utah is an exceed-ingly family-friendly place, and some fami-lies that were once pressured to throw their gay kids out of the house (though this still happens) have decided to embrace their children This more humane treatment of LGBTs, as both the families and neighbors
of Mormons, was demonstrated when 300 straight LDS members marched for the first time ever in support of LGBTs in the 2012 Utah Pride parade It was a show of solidar-ity that would have been unimaginable just
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a few short years ago
And though Utah poll figures
support-ing same-sex marriage have not historically
been as high as the national average, polling
since the overturn of the state’s marriage
ban show support for the right of same-sex
couples to wed to be at an all-time high of
48%—20% higher than just two years ago
Marriage equality will become the law
of the land, and antigay discrimination will
certainly fade Are Mormons seeing the
writing on the wall? Wouldn’t it behoove
the LDS church to get on the right side of
history now, while it can?
It could happen Mormonism is a unique
religion in its Americanness, in its flexibility,
and in its ability to alter its trajectory if the
conditions necessitate It has done so in the
past, with its relationship to polygamy and
the racial makeup of its leadership, and it
could move like no other conservative
reli-gion toward an embrace of LGBTs
Mormonism is a young faith, one
that began in 1830, when Joseph
Smith published the Book of
Mormon He described that book
as his translation of a set of golden plates
describing the lost Judeo-Christian history
of an ancient American civilization Several
books, including the Old and New
Testa-ments and the Book of Mormon, comprise
the religion’s scriptural canon, but so does
the word of the president of the church
On the contrary, Mormonism is less than
200 years old, and is reshaped by porary prophecy In that respect it is like
contem-a modern, econtem-arthqucontem-ake-resistcontem-ant edifice When the tectonic plates of modernity shift beneath it, its flexibility could allow the structure to absorb the impact Stand-ing side by side, the marble palace, however ornate and vaunted, will crack if the earth shears too much beneath it The modern building could withstand the shifts
Not long after the church was founded, the ability to change course became para-mount Polygamy began shortly after the religion was introduced, and it was an essen-tial element of Mormon life in the 1800s It was established as a practice that mirrored marriage in heaven, according to Smith, and church leaders encouraged men in good standing to restore the practice of biblical patriarchs and take a second, third, or addi-tional wives, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
A letter from Smith in 1831 points to a ble divine revelation establishing polygamy, but whatever the mechanism, polygamy became widespread among the faithful
possi-In 1852, not long after Mormons lished a theocratic state in the Utah Ter-ritory, they publicly declared that plural marriage was a central Mormon belief Other Americans considered the practice deviant and it angered the United States government, which waged a legal and occa-sionally violent military campaign against the settlers for nearly 40 years Between
estab-1857 and 1887, President James Buchanan sent U.S forces to Utah, Congress passed
a series of laws outlawing polygamy, the government froze the church’s assets, dis-enfranchised polygamists, and declared all children of polygamy to be illegitimate With the very survival of Mormonism on the line, church president Wilford Woodruff issued
a document now called the Woodruff festo in 1890, ending polygamy as a church policy The issuing of the manifesto, a result
Mani-of Woodruff’s revelatory experiences, got the government off the church’s back and was key to its survival
Similarly, revelation changed the course
of the religion in the late 1970s During the very early years of Mormonism, men of black African descent were included in the priesthood (what the church defines as the power and authority given to men by God) When Brigham Young took over the leader-ship of the LDS church on the occasion of Smith’s death in 1847, blacks were excluded from leadership, and were barred from the priesthood until 1978
In the 1970s, Mormonism expanded rapidly, and church president Spencer
Out with the old
(Smith was the first; Thomas S Monson
is the current president), who is a living prophet and is sanctioned to receive divine revelation Such revelation can clarify exist-ing doctrine, or it can establish new canon law Having a living prophet makes this church very unlike mainstream protestant sects, orthodox Christian faiths, and the Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church is the greatest of the Christian examples to which one might compare Mormonism There have been 21 ecumenical councils in 1,700 years, con-vened to determine church matters not explicitly laid out in the Bible (like “what
is the holy spirit?”), and they’ve slowly shaped the religion Earlier councils deter-mined greater dogmatic matters, and more recent ones (like the First and Second Vati-can councils) have had less latitude and answered increasingly smaller questions If history is a guide, not much about Catholi-cism is likely to change in the next council
The Catholic Church is akin to a giant, sculpted marble temple It’s been shaped and carved and buttressed and calcified by 2,000 years of preaching, doctrine, and papacy But the earth upon which it rests doesn’t lie still
The tectonic plates of human experience are undulating beneath it, and the Catholic Church finds itself trying to repair cracks in its foundation caused by the geological move-ment of divorce, who gets excommunicated, contraception, who is a heretic, and so on
Mormon settlers in the Utah Territory in the 1860s
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to galvanize conservative Christian voters who might opt to stay home on Election Day, rather than pulling the lever for a Mormon Interestingly, the LDS church’s response was to demystify Mormonism The “I’m a Mormon” campaign, as seen on the official church website, attempts to enact a tactic proven to be successful before, most nota-bly by LGBT rights groups When you get
to know people in the flesh, rather than
as abstract notions, aspects of those viduals’ personal lives, including their reli-gion—or their partners’ genders—become less spooky The fact that this tactic was best demonstrated by post-Prop 8 equality groups in California and in other states with ballot measures supporting marriage equal-ity cannot be lost on Mormon leaders The Mormon Church is very interested
indi-in public opindi-inion and likeability; growth
of the church relies on making a positive impression on potential converts Ulti-mately, Romney and the Mormon Church were shown to be palatable enough for Romney to run as the Republican candidate for the presidency—the most visible any Mormon has ever been on the international stage It’s a lot closer to the White House than Rick Santorum or Michele Bachmann ever got, and though they’re both arguably
to the right of Romney politically, their Christianity, however frighteningly repres-sive, was never challenged
Another clue can be found in the church’s family-friendliness and its’ bring-ing LGBT kids back into the fold Why not LGBT parents? Salt Lake City has the high-est rate of same-sex households with chil-dren of any metro area in the country, at 26% Gay Mormon kids have significantly higher rates of suicide than gay non-Mor-mon kids Many are still thrown out of their homes when they come out to their parents, and Utah foster parents often won’t take in LGBT kids About 40% of Salt Lake City’s homeless young people are LGBT If Mor-mons were to support the right of gay par-ents with kids to marry, and support LGBT kids by not kicking them out or attempting
to make them straight, those would be mously family-friendly changes
enor-Many LGBT Mormons want to stay in the church, and their families and friends want to support them It is within the church’s power to become the world’s first truly 21st-century global religion, accepting
of same-sex marriage, and fully embracing
of LGBT members of that faith Will it listen for the word of God? X
W Kimball announced that new temples
would be built across the globe, including,
in March of 1975, in São Paulo, Brazil
Deter-mining eligibility for the priesthood, if men
of black African ancestry were excluded,
became problematic when considering
Bra-zil’s mutiethnic population, and the policy
became embarrassing for the church
During a prayer meeting of the church’s
highest leadership bodies, the First
Presi-dency and the Quorum of the Twelve
Apos-tles, “The Spirit of the Lord rested upon us
all,” wrote Bruce R McConkie, a member of
the Quorum “From the midst of eternity,
the voice of God, conveyed by the power of
the Spirit, spoke to his prophet The
mes-sage was that the time had now come to
offer the fullness of the everlasting gospel,
including celestial marriage, and the
priest-hood, and the blessings of the temple, to
all men, without reference to race or color,
solely on the basis of personal worthiness.”
In one significant meeting the church
reversed a discriminatory policy based on
race The revelation expanded the religion
to parts of the globe it hadn’t before been
able to reach And the church now claims more than 14 million members worldwide
But could gays and lesbians benefit
from church leadership listening again for the word of God? Clue that indicate the church might do so were seen in the candidacy of Mitt Romney Few things could have cemented the religion in the mainstream of American culture like having the world’s most prominent head of state be a Mormon His campaign was high-stakes for the church
Yet Romney shied away from ing his faith on the stump Mormonism was a high hurdle for many evangelicals to traverse in order to support the Republican nominee The religion happily accepts some
discuss-of the stereotypes about its members—that they live cleanly, are good-natured, and have large families—and those traits Romney was happy to showcase, with his clean-shaven, smiling sons and their families often sur-rounding him on the road to the general election Yet questions about whether Mor-monism is truly a Christian church (many
…and in with the new
Mormon supporters of LGBT rights march in the 2012 Utah Pride Parade, presidential candidate Mitt Romney,
the LDS temple in Salt Lake City
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THIS ALL BEGAN with a visit to Ward 86, the nation’s oldest HIV/
AIDS clinic Founded in 1983 at San Francisco General Hospital,
Ward 86 was, for many years, a death camp with a dreamy view
of palm trees and California sky In the early ’80s, the average
life expectancy of patients admitted there was 18 months—it was
where people went to die It was ground zero in America’s battle
with AIDS, and where so much of the epidemic’s early
iconogra-phy was crystallized: rag-and-bone bodies wasted from
pneumo-nia or encephalitis, catatopneumo-nia, seizures, bedside vigils It seemed
only appropriate to begin where the epidemic began Jeff Sheehy,
the ward’s communications director, is courteous but puzzled
“There’s really nothing much to see,” he says “It’s just a clinic.”
Sheehy’s response would have been unimaginable 20 or 25
years ago, but something epochal has happened both in modern
science and in the city of San Francisco While there is still no
cure for AIDS, and the rate of new HIV infections has remained
relatively stable, the city is redoubling its assault on the disease
that has claimed the lives of more than 19,000 of its residents
Inspired by Hillary Clinton’s 2011 speech at the National
Insti-tutes of Health, in which then-Secretary of State Clinton rallied
for “an AIDS-free generation,” and emboldened by recent
break-throughs including PrEP and antiretroviral therapy (ART), San
Francisco is committed to being the first city to reach zero—zero
new HIV transmissions and zero AIDS patients
There is fierce competition here, especially in the last decade
as AIDS researchers have glimpsed a kind of epidemiological zon A cure seems all but inevitable There’s the case of Timothy Ray Brown, the “Berlin patient” who was deemed functionally cured of HIV after receiving a 2006 stem cell transplant to treat leukemia (Brown has since relapsed and returned to ART, but the treatment nevertheless renewed investigations into cures) There’s the announcement, made at the 2012 International AIDS Conference, that 14 French HIV patients who started an ART regi-men months after infection subsequently quit taking the medi-cation with no surge in their viral loads In April 2013, London’s
hori-Daily Telegraph reported that a team in Denmark was
experiment-ing with strategies to rout HIV from human DNA for the purpose
of nuking it with immunotherapy These are all milestones, and cities across the country have positioned themselves as beneficia-ries—and, in some cases, architects—of the cure San Francisco is arguably the most determined
No one knows this better than Dr Diane Havlir She began her career at Ward 86 in the 1980s, a time she describes, somewhat demurely, as “extraordinarily formative years.” Today she is head
of the ward and one of the nation’s leading HIV/AIDS ers In 2012 she co-chaired the International AIDS Conference in
research-The city that was once the deadly AIDS epicenter of the world is now
striving to be AIDS-free What does that mean, and why is San Francisco
poised to achieve this goal the way no other American city could?