RALEIGH
Couple’s garden on HGTV
page 21
ASHEVILLE
Going to the chapel
page 16
SOUTH CAROLINA r
Gay Dems victorious
page 12
Noted . Notable . Noteworthy . LGBT News & Views
Volume 23 . Number 04 www.q-notes.com June 28.2008
College project
hopes to curb
gay domestic
violence
UNCG’s Project Safe Love
currently seeking research study
participants
by Collier Rutledge
Contributing Writer
GREENSBORO — Researchers at the
University of North Carolina-Greensboro
(UNCG), aided by funds from the Guilford
Green Foundation, are working for a sec
ond year to develop resources to offer
those in the domestic violence service
field information on preventing, support
ing and rehabilitating victims and perpe
trators of same-sex domestic violence.
The ini
tiative, called
Project Safe
Love, incor
porates
counseling
services for
both victims and their abusers, training
for counselors and other professionals,
and educational resources.
UNCG is partnering with Family Service
of the Piedmont to test the training materi
als. “Not only can they benefit fixim the
material, but they can give us some feed
back,” said Dr. Keith Mobley, a clinical assis
tant professor who directs Safe Love along
with his colleague Dr. Christine Murray.
“Services delivered are generally very
heterocentric, but domestic violence is
always about issues of power,” said
Mobley. “This is an indirect way of
addressing issues of oppression in rela
tionships, which is a nationwide problem.”
see project on 12
PRIDE2008
MWX
www.%!Kit«sjaMrri/pridea^^
The tide turns in NX. politics
A look at the races for president,
governor and senator
by Matt Comer . Q-Notes staff
The general consensus among political pun
dits is that North Carolina is primed for its most
competitive elections for local, state and national
ofiSces in history. It very well could be that for the
first time since arch-conservative television com
mentator Jesse Helms took his seat in the U.S.
Senate, the Tar Heel state is truly up for grabs.
As an example, the Democratic Senatorial
Campaign Committee (DSCC) clearly thinks
the state is in play. They are in full swing
readying for a fight to oust Republican
Elizabeth Dole from her seat in the U.S.
Senate. Just a few months ago. Dole was gener
ally thought to have an easy road to reelection.
And what about the other major races?
Will North Carolina’s suddenly competitive
nature give Democratic Sen. Barack Obama a
boost over his GOP rival. Sen. John McCain?
Who will claim the governor’s mansion?
Q-Notes looked into each of these three key
races, read on to see what we found.
The sleeper race
In a recent email to supporters, the DSCC
asked Democrats across the country to donate
to a few, key “battleground” campaigns.
Surprisingly, North Carolina’s U.S. Senate race
was mentioned in the list, along with other
states like Virginia, Mississippi and Kentucky.
“Pundits called this one the sleeper race of
the cycle because
Sen. Dole wasn’t
supposed to be
vulnerable,” the
email said of the
race between
incumbent Dole
and Democratic
challenger Kay
Hagan. “The
DSCC’s job is to
I
Photo Credit: DSCC
The candidate
herself asserted
in the mailer, “It
is truly astonish
ing to me that
Senate
Republicans like
Elizabeth Dole
have worked
hand-in-glove
with George Bush
level the playing
field and give
Hagan everything
she needs to keep
fighting.”
A recent three-
page mailer from the Hagan campaign, obtained
by Raleigh’s News & Observer and its Under the
Dome blog, claimed that the DSCC would “spend
millions” on the fight against Dole.
Part of Hagan’s surge is attributable to
Dole’s relative closeness to what Democrats
and many independents (and even some
Republicans) see as a failed Bush White
House. According to the capital newspaper,
Hagan has effectively “tethered” Dole to Bush.
“Hagan writes that Dole has spent‘hundreds
of billions’ on a ‘mismanaged war,’ kept troops
‘deployed indefinitel/ and voted against veter
ans’ benefits,” the News & Observer recounted.
to force his agenda
on America.”
Dr. Charles
Prysby, a professor
of politick science
and expert on
Southern politics at the University of North
Carolina-Greensboro, told Q-Notes,‘Xsy Hagan
has a good shot at winning. She’s certainly still
the underdog, though.”
He added that there were lessons she could
learn from two-time Senate candidate and
current University of North Carolina System
President Erskine Bowles.
“Erskine Bowles, even though he lost, ran
pretty good races [against Dole and Sen.
Richard Burr],” Prys% said.“He talked about
how he’d be an independent Democrat and
see state on 10
in the Hole!
Carolina-raised author David
Sedaris releases new essay collection
by Lawrence Ferber
Contributing Writer
In David Sedaris’ latest
collection of humorous
essays, “When You Are
Engulfed in Flames” (Little,
Brown and Company), the
North Carolina-raised,
openly gay humorist shares
laugh- and cringe-inducing
experiences involving long
time boyfriend Hugh
Hamrick, sex-obsessed cab
drivers, airplane passenger
drama, quitting smoking in
Japan, run-ins with people
he despises and even a bizarre, brief
friendship with a neighborhood child
molester. Now living in France and
England, Sedaris returned
to the states for a book tour
and, during a stop in
Chicago, took time out for a
chat about his book, his
Gawker-alleged advances
towards male fans and
whether he’d put on an elf
suit again.
The last time I inter
viewed you a few years
back, you mentioned
that you had started an
essay on befriending a
neighborhood child
molester, but couldn’t
figure out a way to fin
ish it. That story appears in “Flames,”
so how did you find your way to
completing it?
Well, it helped that he died. I didn’t have to
worry about him being hurt by the story,
but even then it took me a few years to
write it. Someone was commenting, “Why is
it you have sympathy for a child molester
but you have no sympathy for a woman
who wants to swap seats with you on a
plane?” And I thought, well, the child
molester never did anything to me, he was
always nice to me. But I think often you
have to get a certain distance from a story
in order to write about it.
So you’re waiting for a lot of people
to die right now so you can finally
finish a bunch of uncompleted stories,
see sedaris on 15
Taking pride in our history makers
page 14
Gay millionaire might face jail
page 4
Pushed to the end of the world
page 21