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Finding your personal image
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‘Notes on a ScandaV
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Tops for the Grammys
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Noted . Notable . Noteworthy. LGBT News & Views
Volume 21 . Number 18 www.q-notes.com January 13.2007
GLAAD announces worst anti-gay
offenders of *06
From James Dobson to
Anne Coulter, ’06 was rife with
anti-gay pundits
by Marc McCarthy
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Gay &
Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
(GLAAD) has identified several of the worst
media and anti-gay voices specific to a series
of egregious acts of defamation against the
LGBT community in 2006.
GLAAD’s President Neil Giuliano has put
the media on notice to stop all anti-gay rheto
ric that has fed a climate of hatred and preju
dice against LGBT Americans.
“Every day, LGBT people are viciously
attacked and slandered by those who create
and or profit from anti-gay messages,” said
Giuliano. “Such expressions of intolerance
clearly have an impact on how people treat
members of our community’
When these acts occur, GLAAD works
with reporters, editors and bookers and pro
ducers to ensure their stories are fair and
accurate, and speaks out publicly as an
authoritative voice of anti-defamation of the
LGBT community.
“The amazing and unprecedented visibil
ity of our lives and the issues we face every
day makes it imperative that GLAAD
respond decisively to such blatant bigotry,”
said Giuliano. “Every day, we are on the front
lines of the fight to change hearts and
minds, in sometimes easy, sometimes heart
breaking circumstances. The media has a
responsibility to make certain our voices are
heard and our community is visible. This
will be achieved when we convince those
around us that our lives and our relation
ships deserve nothing less than full equality
and respect.”
2006 Anti-Gay Defamation Offenders:
• Time publishes misleading claims about
gay & lesbian families
Following widespread media coverage of
the announcement that Mary Cheney, daugh
ter of Vice President Dick Cheney, is pregnant.
Time magazine made the unusual misstep of
inviting anti-gay fundamentalist James
Dobson (Focus on the Family) to contribute a
column that, unsurprisingly, contained signifi
cant misrepresentations. Dobson’s column
“Two Mommies Is One Too Many” can be read
at Time.com.
• New York Post
publishes two
anti-gay
cartoons
■ New York Post
cartoonist Sean
Delonas published
two defamatory edi
torial cartoons in
October 2006. The
first depicted a man
carrying a sheep
wearing a bridal veil
to a “New Jersey
Marriage Licenses”
window and the
second featured for
mer New Jersey Gov.
Jim McGreevey
“comforting” former
Rep. Mark Foley.
• Imus and Chris
Matthews air
juvenile homo
phobia
On the
iJ,
Ugly, Ugly, Ugly: Right wingnut Ann Coulter
took advantage of an interview on MSNBC to
call former Vice President Al Gore a ‘total fag.’
Wednesday, Jan. 18 edition of “Imus in the
Morning” on MSNBC, host Don Imus and guest
Chris Matthews (host of MSNBC’s “Hardball
with Chris Matthews” and NBC News’“The
Chris Matthews Show”) used an exchange
about “Brokeback Mountain” to engage in a
sophomoric display of homophobia.
• Anne Coulter spews homophobic slur on
MSNBC’s'‘Hardball”
Host Chris Matthews gave a free pass to
guest Anne Coulter’s use of a defamatory anti
gay slur, the second time in the past year that
the NBC News commentator has tacidy offered
an on-air embrace of anti-gay prejudice. In an
interview with Coulter, Matthews prodded his
guest to revisit her previous comments on
CNBC claiming that former President Bill
Clinton is gay. Coulter told Matthews, “He may
not be gay, but Al Gore, total fag. No, I’m just
kidding.” Rather than confront his guest’s use of
the word “fag,” Matthews continued to ask his
guest whether she thought Clinton and Gore
were gay. It took a responsible audience mem
ber to do what Matthews, in his pursuit of ever -
more outrageous soundbites from his guest,
failed to do. The audience member said; “I’m
just wondering how you can call yourself a
Christian or even look at yourself in the mir
ror in the morning and use words
;r«'
SwcnK
like the one you just
used to describe Al
Gore. Just curious.”
She added, “I think'
pure hatred, spew
ing hateful rhetoric
violates a lot of
Biblical com
mands.”
• St. Maarten
newspaper’s
. embrace of
gay bashing
GLAAD urges
U.S. media cover
ing the brutal
anti-gay attack on
two CBS News
employees in St.
Maarten to turn a
spotlight on a
local newspaper
editorial that glo
rified gay bashing,
trivialized the
assaults, and
called gay people “faggots” and “homos.”
• MSNBC host Tucker Carlson chooses
defamation over education
On “The Situation with Tucker Carlson,”
MSNBC host Tucker Carlson made defamato
ry comments about Lily McBeth, a transgen
der New Jersey substitute teacher. In reporting
on McBeth’s story Carlson said, “I’m pretty tol
erant of whatever people want to do, very tol
erant, in their private lives. If men want to
dress up like women that’s fine. I think it’s
dorky, but you know, it doesn’t hurt me. If a
person voluntarily undergoes castration, that
is totally different. That is an act of a crazy
person. That’s like setting your hair on fire or
blinding yourself. You are unstable if you vol
untarily castrate yourself simply because you
feel uncomfortable in your own sex and I don’t
want a person that unstable teaching my kids.”
• Stop the presses! Defamatory column
not okay
Reno’s El Sol de Nevada newspaper ran a col
umn claiming that gays and lesbians get married
to have access to heterosexual rights and to be
less “tempted” to engage in pedophilia. Written
by a psychologist, the column further described
gays and lesbians as suffering from symptoms of
neurosis, a direct result of neurotic relationships
with family members, i
Charlotte gay
center woes
Financial problems could lead
to closing
by David Moore . Q-Notes staff
Everything seemed rosy when Charlotte’s
Lesbian and Gay Community Center opened
in 2002. One gets the impression things went,
pretty smoothly for the first year under the
guidance of original Executive Director Dan
Kirsch, who had successfully brought along
financial supporters from his work with the
- now defunct OutCharlotte Festival.
Early board members left operations and
instructions behind to guide a successful
Center, but it
appears nobody
bothered to crack
open the pages.
Now — two
executive directors
and countless
board members
later — the Center is in serious financial trou
ble with a tight budget that’s resulted in hours
cut back for both the Center and staff.
With a small amount of funding currently
see charlotte on 5
Remembering
Stokley Bailey
Original co-founder of Charlotte’s
PFLAG chapter dies at 90
by Donald Miller
Longtime LGBT residents of Charlotte will
remember Stokley
Bailey. Along with his
wife Nila Bailey, the
two founded
Charlotte’s chapter of
PFLAG in 1986. They
wqre also instrumen
tal in bringing the
Metropolitan
Community Church
(MCC) to Charlotte
and helped start
Time Out Youth.
Nila and Stokley
Bailey
Nila Bailey proceeded her husband in death
when she passed away at 80 in 1998. Stokley
see remembering on 5