PicturedJoan Garry of GLAAD. Photo by Rex Wockner
'You may not take any opportunities or use any confidential information for your benefit, or for the benefit of your immediate family members, that you discover or obtain through your employment with Wal-Mart. Immediate family members include ( whether by birth, adoption, marriage or Domestic Partnership or Civil Union, if recognized by your state or other local law ) your spouse, children, parents, siblings, mothers and fathers-in-law, sons and daughters-in-law and brothers and sisters-in-law.' — From Wal-Mart's new conflict-of-interest policy filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission Jan. 26.
'On the first anniversary of the Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction that shook the world, it's clear that just one was big enough to wreak havoc. The ensuing Washington indecency crusade has unleashed a wave of self-censorship on American television unrivaled since the McCarthy era, with everyone from the dying D-Day heroes in Saving Private Ryan to cuddly animated animals on daytime television getting the ax. Even NBC's presentation of the Olympics last summer, in which actors donned body suits to simulate 'nude' ancient Greek statues, is currently under federal investigation. Public television is now so fearful of crossing its government patrons that it is flirting with self-immolation. Having disowned lesbians in the children's show Postcards From Buster and stripped suspect language from Prime Suspect on Masterpiece Theater, PBS is editing its Feb. 23 broadcast of Dirty War, the HBO-BBC film about a terrorist attack, to remove a glimpse of female nudity in a scene depicting nuclear detoxification. Next thing you know they'll be snipping lascivious flesh out of a documentary about Auschwitz. This repressive cultural environment was officially ratified on Nov. 2, when Ms. Jackson's breast pulled off its greatest coup of all: the re-election of President Bush. Or so it was decreed by the media horde that retroactively declared 'moral values' the campaign's decisive issue and the Super Bowl the blue states' Waterloo. The political bosses of 'family' organizations, well aware that TV's collective wisdom becomes reality whether true or not, have been emboldened ever since. They are spending their political capital like drunken sailors, redoubling their demands that the Bush administration marginalize gay people, stamp out sex education and turn pop culture into a continuous loop of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.' — Columnist Frank Rich in the Feb. 6 New York Times.
'In his novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon was extrapolating from actual history when one of his heroes, a gay comic book artist, is hauled before Congress to testify about pairing up 'strapping young fellows in tight trousers' as superheroes. A Senate committee of the time did investigate the comics. Its guiding force was the psychiatrist Fredric Wertham's fear-mongering 1954 tome Seduction of the Innocent, which posited that Batman and Robin could corrupt children by inducing a 'wish dream of two homosexuals living together.' The decency cops of that day, exemplified by closeted gay right-wingers like J. Edgar Hoover and Roy Cohn, escalated a culture war into one with human costs by conflating homosexuality with the criminality of treason.' — Frank Rich.
'So why am I choosing to leave GLAAD? There's nothing cryptic or complicated about this. This job requires a lot of travel. I'd like to travel less and be at home a bit more. I'd like to be in town to see more of Sarah's school musicals, Ben's Little League games, Kit's gymnastics exhibitions. I'd like to go to the movies with my partner, Eileen, once in a while.' — Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Executive Director Joan Garry in an Jan. 28 e-mail. She will step down June 15.
'When activists such as Jewelle Gomez, Joan Nestle and Vito Russo started GLAAD in 1985 they intended it to be a rabble-rousing watchdog group that would rally community response to biased, explicitly anti-gay news reporting. Over the years, however, GLAAD evolved into a national organization operating annually on $7 million with a political agenda that is, at best, murky and, at worst, dangerous to free speech, artistic expression and the interests of LGBT people. Under [ Joan ] Garry's leadership, GLAAD has become far more involved in promoting and attacking 'good' and 'bad' images of queers in the entertainment industry. Given Garry's background, this shouldn't be a surprise. She was vice president of business operations for Showtime for seven years, managing the network's $300 million pay-per-view business. Before that she helped launch MTV; as director of business development for MTV Networks she established new channels and helped create the annual MTV Video Music Awards. Thanks to Garry's experience and vision, GLAAD is one of the most visible LGBT advocacy organizations in the country. So what's the problem? We can't expect grassroots groups from the mid-1980s to stay stuck in a 20-year-old political and economic mind-set. But GLAAD has done much more than simply grow. It's essentially become an arm of the entertainment industry. Sure, it's an arm that is 'promoting'—whatever that actually means—positive images of LGBT people, but it's removed itself from the outsider position of commenting on the media to an insider position of working with the people who produce those images.' — Michael Bronski writing in Bay Windows.
'Within the diocese of New Hampshire, I'm delighted to say that I'm not the gay bishop. I'm just the bishop. ... Once I cross the border, I become the gay bishop again. ... I would love to be old news, but for the moment I don't seem to be that yet.' —Gene Robinson, the only openly gay and noncelibate bishop in the U.S. Episcopal Church, speaking at Berkeley, California's Pacific School of Religion in late January.
