Rare gay rights march in India

Andy of Towleroad alerted me to a gay rights march in an eastern state of India this week. Patna Daily covered the protest. I'm always interested in international LGBT rights stories, and particular the state of gay rights in India, especially since we saw no evidence of gay life during our recent trip to India.

Venus Loses Nailbiter to Jankovic

Argh! Venus Williams just lost an incredibly close clay court match against Jelena Jankovic at the semifinals of the Tier 1 Family Circle Cup Championships at Charleston, South Carolina 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(5).

Venus won the first set after coming back from down a break at 2-3 and won 5 games in a row to take the first set and the first game of the second set. Then a rash of double faults started to rain from her racquet and the string of games won against the server continued. At 3-2 Venus started serving a bit better, getting to 30-0 but then got broken again. Jankokic finally held serve for the first time in five tries to take the lead 4-3 and thanks to more double faults was able to break Venus again and easily serve out the second set 6-3.

The third set was also very close, until Venus double faulted on break point at 3-3 to go down 4-3. However she broke back at love and the inevitable tie break decided the match. After going up 2-1 in the tiebreak with a mini-break Venus inexplicably lost her next two service points on unforced errors and was down a mini-break 2-3. Players changed ends at Jankovic serving 4-2 and Venus, appearing angry hit a service return winner and hit two good first serves to go eventually be up 4-5. Despite playing a good point, she lost it and the score was tied 5-5. On match point, 5-6 (Venus serving) the players played an incredibly long point with many rallies which ended with a Jankovic down the line which BARELY touched the line, requiring the umpire to come down from her chair and make the call that would decide the match. She called it good (I agree) and the match was over.

Interracial marriages increase

USA Today has an article about the surge in interracial marriages in the United States.

Since that landmark Loving v. Virginia ruling [June 12, 1967], the number of interracial marriages has soared; for example, black-white marriages increased from 65,000 in 1970 to 422,000 in 2005, according to Census Bureau figures. Factoring in all racial combinations, Stanford University sociologist Michael Rosenfeld calculates that more than 7% of America's 59 million married couples in 2005 were interracial, compared to less than 2% in 1970.

The article discusses the practical problems faced by interracial couples and their biracial kids. In fact, it contains useful information such as the fact there are 6.8 million multiiracial Americans, 2.4% of the U.S. population. It also their chances of a breakup within 10 years are 41%, compared to 31% for a couple of the same race.

Gee, I guess The Jeffersons was pretty accurate, after all, huh?

Washington State Legislature Passes DP Bill

Last year in late July the Washington State Supreme Court ruled by a 5-4 vote that the state's marriage laws did not impermissibly discriminate against same-sex couples.

On Tuesday, the Washington state senate passed Senate Bill 5336 by a vote of 63-35, sending the legislation to Governor Christine Gregoire who last year signed a non-discrimination bill inclusive of sexual orientation and indicated she would sign SB 5336. The bill would enact a domestic partnership registry and assign numerous rights and responsibilities to registered same-sex couples who share a home, are unmarried or not in another domestic partnership and at least 18 years old. SB 5336 is similar to California's Assembly Bill 205 which in 2003 became the nation's most comprehensive domestic partnership legislation.

Interestingly, the Washington State legislature now contains 5 openly gay or lesbian elected officials: State Senator Ed Murray and State Representatives James Moeller, Jamie Pedersen, Joseph McDermott and David Upthegrove.

Passage of a domestic partnership bill by such significant margins may be a precursor to enacting a marriage equality bill.

Venus Advances; Serena Withdraws

(AP Photo/Mary Ann Chastain)

At the Family Circle Cup in Charleston, SC Serena Williams withdrew from her second round match against trailing 3-5 with an injured groin muscle.

Venus Williams won her second round match in 49 minutes by defeating Vasilisa Bardina 6-2, 6-1. The two sisters would have clashed in the third round if they had both advanced. Instead, Venus will now play China's Chan Yung-Jan.

UPDATE: CA Marriage Equality bill, Larkin's Restaurant

HOMOPHOBES GRIMACE
Mark Leno's AB 34, California's marriage equalty bill was indeed debated in the Assembly Judiciary Committee yesterday and passed on a 7-3 vote. It moves next to Appropriations (which Leno chairs) and after that the Assembly floor.

TRISKADEKAPHOBES REJOICE
Larkin's Joint apparently will not open this Friday April 13th to the public after all, but may open next week or the week after. If you want to attend a weekend tasting event like I did a few months ago, contact me and I will give you the information on how to make reservations for the prix fixe dinner and brunch seatings.

Circumcision Controversy Continues

Andrés over at Blabbeando and commenters over at Joe.My.God do a good job of following the "furor over foreskin" that Mad Professah has been blogging about for awhile now. Blabbeando links to a cool article at Vivir Latino which has a statement (via 20 Minutos) from Mariángela Simao, a technical advisor in the Health Ministry in Brazil (a country which probably has the world's largest supply of uncircumcized penises, and some would argue also the largest supply of world's largest uncircumcized penises) declaring that Brazil will not be considering circumcision as an HIV prevention tool anytime soon and lambasting the idea.

"I find the recommendations of the WHO and U.N. HIV/AIDS program a little surprising and even frightening," Simao told Agencia Brasil.

...This proposal gives a message of "false protection" because men might think that being circumcized means that they can have sex without condoms without any risk, which "is untrue", she said.

(English translation by Vivir Latino)

The always excellent Andrés has a copy of a Dear Community Member letter (and a link to the scanned-in full text by LifeLube) from often-controversial NYC Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden which was circulated to HIV/AIDS community leaders in New York City yesterday where he disputes statements attributed to him in the New York Times on April 5, 2007.

Dear Community Member:

Recent media reports misrepresent the Health Department’s response to recent studies showing that circumcision significantly reduces HIV transmission in some contexts. We do not yet know what impact circumcision could have on HIV transmission in New York City, and we have not suggested or planned any initiative or campaign. Quite to the contrary, I indicated in an interview with the New York Times (the source of the misrepresentation) that I very much doubted that even 1% of men at high risk in NYC would undergo the procedure.

As a result of rigorous studies, we now know that circumcision reduces risk of female-to-male spread of HIV by about 60%. There is some evidence, but no proof, that circumcision may reduce male-to-female transmission. There is also some evidence, but again no proof, that it may protect men who engage in insertive anal sex from male-to-male transmission.

[...]

The plot thickens!

California marriage equality bill before Assembly committee

Tuesday history will be made again in a legislative hearing on Mark Leno's AB 43 (Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act) tomorrow by the California Assembly Judiciary Committee. A previous version of the bill (AB 19) made history by becoming the first bill ever passed by a state legislature in the United States but was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger September 29, 2005.

Previously the Governor refused to take a position on the pending "gender neutral marriage" bill prior to vetoing it but this year he has already announced that he intends to veto the Leno marriage bill.

The Californian posted an article on its website titled "Veto likely again for gay marriage bill" which says:

In his veto message in 2005, Schwarzenegger said the Leno bill violated Proposition 22, the anti-gay marriage initiative approved by California voters in 2000, and that any attempt to legalize same-sex weddings also should go on the ballot.

[...]

A Field Poll released last month found that 43 percent of those questioned said they supported gay marriage, up from 38 percent in 1997 and 30 percent in 1985. The Public Policy Institute of California found a similar trend in its polling.

Despite those numbers, Leno said civil rights shouldn't be determined at the ballot box.

"The governor's civil rights, as well as my own civil rights, shouldn't be placed before the voters," he said. "That's not how we make decisions regarding equal protection under the law for all citizens."

Mad Professah heartily agrees with that last quote from Assemblymember Leno. Civil rights are not a popularity contest and should not be subject to a vote of the people.

REVIEW: Larkin's Restaurant (Eagle Rock)

The Los Angeles Times had another article claiming that Eagle Rock is the new Silver Lake last November. One sign of this is the opening of Larkin's (1496 Colorado Blvd., (323) 254-0934), a high-end soul food restaurant by an interracial, gay couple this Friday April 13th. Using old family recipes, Larkin's will offer fried chicken, mac 'n' cheese, smothered pork chops, along with cobblers.

The other half and Mad Professah were able to get into a weekend tasting event at Larkin's a few weeks ago and sampled some of these specialties while the owners waited for permits from the city which delayed the opening by a few months.

Here are some pictures of our visit to Larkin's in Eagle Rock

The house salad, with braised sweet pralines.	The infamous three cheese mac 'n' cheese
Pan fried chicken with mashed potatoes.	Fried catfish with tartar sauce and greens.

The food was excellent, especially the fried chicken and the greens. The salad was particularly tasty. The "famous" mac 'n' cheese has a non-traditionally viscuous texture which I didn't appreciate, although it is impressively cheesy. The desserts were quite delicious, especially the cobbler. The decor is tasteful and the atmosphere is quite pleasant. I intend to become a repeat customer of Larkin's very soon.

GRADE: A-.

It's Not TV. It's HBO.

Ordered HBO again this weekend from the apparently not very evil Time Warner Cable because the new season of Entourage was starting. I heard something about some other HBO series having a premiere also, but maybe I was mistaken. Whatever. Fuhgeddaboutit.

Entourage is fun, especially for people who live in Los Angeles because it's full of inside references that only people who live in L.A. get, and it's full of even more inside jokes that only people who work in the L.A.'s entertainment business get.

Jeremy Piven does amazing (Emmy award-winning) work as the agent Ari Gold, and Adrian Grenier (The Devil Wears Prada) stars as Ari's former (and future?) movie star client Vincent Chase who hangs out with his entourage of Turle (Jerry Ferrara), Drama (Kevin Dillon, Matt Dillon's brother, playing the brother of Vincent Chase) and Eric (Kevin Connolly), his childhood buddies who have tagged along as Vince has made it big in Hollywwod.

Amusingly, Entourage is executive produced by Mark Wahlberg who claims the series is (very looesly) based upon his early years in Hollywood himself.

Mad Professah on the court

Mad Professah has been busy this weekend playing in the Los Angeles Open III with my friend and doubles partner Delmar Thomas. We entered the C singles and doubles divisions.
On Friday, I was on court for nearly 6 hours in 3 different matches. I won my first match in 2 hours, 20 minutes (4-6, 6-1, 6-4) and my second match in 1 hour, 45 minutes (7-5, 6-0). Then Delmar and I played doubles and (as usual) won the hard way, by losing the first set and winning the next two: 1-6, 6-4, 6-2. Last year, we won the D division doubles title and were hoping to repeat this year.

On Saturday, unfortunately it rained and instead of 3 tie break sets, singles matches became one pro-set (first to 8 games with lead by two, tiebreaker at 7-7). I lost my proset 8-5 (1 hour, 15 minutes) while Delmar won his and then demolished my previous opponent in the quarterfinals 8-2 (I think I tired him out in our close match). Afterwards we played our quarterfinals doubles match versus the #1 seeds and again lost the first set, this time 2-6. Happily we were able to come back and win the second set 6-3. Unfortunately, despite being up a service break, we lost that break and were broken again to lose our first match ever as a doubles team: 2-6, 6-3, 6-2. The match took nearly two hours and was closer than the score indicates (I'm starting to learn most tennis matches are!) and we acquitted ourselves well. Mad Professah was very sore after 9 hours of tennis in 36 hours.

Today, Delmar continued to the semifinal match and in a relatively close match beat the #1 seed 6-4, 7-5 (despite being down 3-5 in the second set and eventually saving 4 set points). The finals match was a mismatch, with Delmar winning easily 6-2, 6-2 (27 winners, 31 unforced errors).

We amusingly called ourselves the Williams sisters, and I'm happy that one of us had to make it to the semi-finals and eventually win the tournament without one of those ugly Venus-Serena matches we had to sit through in the early years. Congratulations, "Serena"!

Out Magazine's Power Top 50 List Revealed

As Pam Spaulding over at The Blend pointed out recently, Out magazine has named the "50 Most Powerful Gay Men and Women in America."

1. David Geffen
2. Anderson Cooper
3. Ellen DeGeneres
4. Tim Gill
5. Barney Frank
6. Rosie O’Donnell
7. The New York Times Gay Mafia: Richard Berke, Ben Brantley, Frank Bruni, Stuart Elliott, Adam Nagourney, Stefano Tonchi, and Eric Wilson
8. Marc Jacobs
9. Andrew Tobias
10. Brian Graden
11. Jann Wenner
12. Andrew Sullivan
13. Suze Orman
14. Joe Solmonese
15. Fred Hochberg
16. Christine Quinn
17. Perez Hilton
18. Scott Rudin
19. John Aravosis
20. Sheila Kuehl
21. James B. Stewart
22. Nick Denton
23. Tom Ford
24. Nate Berkus
25. Adam Moss
26. Jim Nelson
27. Lorri L. Jean
28. Adam Rose
29. Annie Leibovitz
30. Simon Halls and Stephen Huvane
31. Bryan Lourd
32. Bryan Singer
33. Jonathan Burnham
34. Brian Swardstrom
35. Robert Greenblatt
36. Chi Chi LaRue
37. Dan Mathews
38. Neil Meron and Craig Zadan
39. Ingrid Sischy
40. Marc Cherry
41. Carolyn Strauss
42. Irshad Manji
43. Jodie Foster
44. Christine Vachon
45. André Leon Talley
46. Hilary Rosen
47. Matthew Marks
48. Benny Medina
49. Mitchell Gold
50. David Kuhn

My first thought at seeing the list was to ask "Why is David Geffen at #1?" Just because he's a billionaire, does that make him the most powerful? If so, then aren't there other super-rich people on the list besides Tim Gill and Andrew Tobias who should be there? What is the criteria for appearance on the list?

Mad Professah is going to do some researching on the people on this list for a future post on this topic.

Whitney Houston Divorces Bobby Brown

Thursday's Los Angeles Times has an article in the California section about the 10-minute hearing before Orange County Superior Court judge Franz Miller in which Whitney Houston was granted a divorce (effective April 24, 2o07) from Bobby Brown as well as sole custody of their 14-year old daughter, Bobbi Christina. The couple were married in 1992 and Whitney filed for divorce in late 2006.

New York City Seeks To Promote Circumcision Among Gay Men

Following up on a story Mad Professah discussed last week and recommendations from the World Health Organization about the beneficial prevention effects of adult male cicumcision, controversial New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden announced today that he is interested in his department promoting the practice, the New York Times reported.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg and others called for caution in endorsing the measure. The current Mayor (and possible 2008 Presidential candidate?) was quoted saying:

“Whether it’s something that the government should be involved in, or just giving advice and making sure that people get educated, education in the end is the real tool to stop the spread of AIDS in our society. That may or may not be true elsewheres."

Founder of Treatment Action Group, AIDS activist Peter Staley said “Should we proceed when we don’t have hard data yet on the population here?” he asked. “On the other hand, if we wait the three years it would take to answer that question, how many will be infected in the meantime?”

Staley also pointed out the obvious cultural implications of several, predominantly white officials telling black and brown gay men that they should have surgery on their genitals. “I’m white, Frieden’s white,” he said. “It’s going to sound like white guys telling black and Hispanic guys to do something that would affect their manhood.”

Tokes Osubu, executive director of Gay Men of African Descent, agreed and declared that circumcision is "not the answer to our problems" and doubted that it would reduce alarmingly high HIV infection rates among gay men of color in New York City, currently estimated at at least 20%.

Yes, Congressperson, There Are Gay People in YOUR District

Thanks to Terrance at Republic of T, I checked out this amusingly titled blog "How To Learn Swedish in 1,000 Difficult Lessons" and found a link to this article in the Washington Blade reporting this interesting little fact gleaned from an analysis of census data by the Williams Institute's Gary Gates: There are at least 6500 lesbian or gay individuals in each Congressional district.

2007 Hugo Award Nominees Announced

SciFi Weekly reported April 2 that the nominees for the 2007 Hugo Award, the highest awards in Science Fiction Achievement, were announced:

Novel: Eifelheim by Michael Flynn, His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik, Glasshouse by Charles Stross, Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge, Blindsight by Peter Watts

Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Children of Men, Pan's Labyrinth, The Prestige, A Scanner Darkly, V for Vendetta

Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: Battlestar Galactica, "Downloaded"; Doctor Who, "Army of Ghosts" and "Doomsday"; Doctor Who, "Girl in the Fireplace"; Doctor Who, "School Reunion"; Stargate SG-1, "200"

The winners will be decided at the World Science Fiction convention, WorldCon LXV in Yokohama, Japan this summer.

Last year, thanks to a heads-up from Political Animal Kevin Drum, I was able to read most of the Best Novel nominees and discovered some new authors that I will try to read more of. I was very happy that the 2006 winner was Robert Charles Wilson's Spin, which the other half is currently reading right now and which I also thought was the best of last year's nominees. I DETESTED Charles Stross' Accelerando so I'm shocked to see him nominated twothree years in a row although he's clearly well-regarded by SF critics. I though Spin was great,but I did read another book by Wilson (The Chronoliths) which was not as good (not great, but not a waste of time, either). I'm currently slogging through The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks which had gotten quite good reviews 2 years ago and was nominated for the 2005 Hugos. I still need to get around to reading that year's winner Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke.

This year I'll also be paying attention to the Dramatic Presentation nominees, since I saw and reviewed all the nominees in the Long Form category, and have been watching some of the short form (not Doctor Who, I don't know why but I just can't get into it, though I gave up after the first season and I believe the third season is about to start). In the Long Form category my pick for the Hugo Award would be The Prestige.

Anyway, I look forward to spending part of the summer reading His Majesty's Dragon (Temeraire, Book 1) by Naomi Novik (which has been optioned by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson), Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge (whose Deepness in the Sky I loved and am still writinga review for the blog), Blindsight by Peter Watts (just sounds like the most interesting of this year's nominees) and possibly Eifelheim (great premise, shaky reviews) or Glasshouse (hated his last book!) before the winners are announced in late August.

Californians fear ferrets more than gay marriage

There's a new blog run by the largest statewide LGBT political group in the country, New York State's Empire State Pride Agenda (hat tip to Blabbeando) called The Agenda. I checked it out today and saw this cute little blurb about a poll on the legialization of marriage versus the legalization of ferret domestication from the Los Angeles Daily News:

As it turns out, gay marriage (43 percent) rates higher in California than legalizing those pointy-nosed polecat descendants (38 percent).

"Only 38 percent favor legalization. That's kind of absurd," said Pat Wright, who founded Ferrets Anonymous in 1993 and directed a fundraising campaign to pay the $6,000 for Field Research to conduct the poll. "I thought California was more of a live-and-let-live state. If we had proposed legalized gay marriage or marijuana, we would've gotten a higher number."

Good work, Pride Agenda (when I lived in New York years ago we used to call it ESPA). The blog looks like it will be a good spot to check out the latest goings on in the LGBT political universe. I wonder how long it will be before Equality California (EQCA) has a blog, too? Can't let those New Yorkers show up us Left Coasters! We invented the internet, after all...

But they, like every other state in the Union (except for California and Hawaii) can have ferrets as pets, so I guess we're even.

Supreme Court saves the world from global warming

The Supreme Court ruled today in a 5-4 decision written by Nixon appointee Justice John Paul Stevens that the Environmental Protection Administration does have the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.

First, the majority brushed aside the Bush administration’s assertion that the Clean Air Act does not treat carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases as “pollutants,” and thus does not give the E.P.A. the authority to regulate them.

Secondly, the five justices declared that contrary to the administration, Massachusetts and the other dozen or so states and other plaintiffs that sued the E.P.A. do indeed have legal standing to pursue their suit. In order to establish standing, a federal court plaintiff must show that there is an injury that can be traced to the defendant’s behavior, and that the injury will be relieved by the action the lawsuit seeks.

The majority depended upon the swing vote of Justice Anthony Kennedy, with Chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas all agreeing with the losing federal government's position.

Did anyone see last night's Discovery Channel's Planet Earth episode on "Ice Worlds" last night?

Al Gore is right.

REVIEW: The Namesake

Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake is one of my favorite novels. The weekend of March 9 an eponymous film adaptation directed by Indian Mira Nair and starring Kal Penn (Superman Returns, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle) opened on a limited number of screens around the country.

This weekend I finally got around to seeing the film at the Arclight Theaters in Hollywood and was very impressed. Mira Nair's The Namesake is one of the rare film adaptations that is at least as compelling as the book it is based upon. (The canonical example is of course, the Lord of the Rings films, or earlier, The Godfather).

Lahiri's The Namesake is an engrossing novel about family, identity, guilt and assimilation. It is a brilliant characterization of the bicultural nature of the immigrant experience. In this case, the immigrants are from India, ethnic Bengalis but the themes resonate with anyone who has felt like an outsider.

There are subtle changes made by screenwriter Sooni Taraporevala (Mississippi Masala, Salaam Bombay!) to Lahiri's novel which I believe actually improve the emotional impact of the story. In the book, Ashoke and Ashima lived unhappily together in Cambridge, Massachusetts and later moved to the Boston suburbs. Keeping them and the family in New York makes the story slightly more streamlined. Also, in the book the fragile mental state of Ashima after the children are born is a more prominent aspect of the family. The role of the sister Sonia is a thankless one in the book and the movie doesn't improve things much, although the actress does a rather good job of impersonating a spoiled American teenager.

As usual, I don't want to give away too much of the plot of the film while reviewing it, but suffice it to say that there are some heart-rending plot developments which enhance the emotional impact of the film. However, as someone who has recently visited India the scenes in the movie which take place in India, particularly at the Taj Mahal are incredibly beautiful and meaningful.

The acting, especially by Kal Penn (Gogol Ganguli), Irrfan Khan (Ashoke Ganguli) and Tabu (Ashima Ganguli) is excellent, and Mira Nair's direction is noticeably effective, except for a peculiar sequence that appears whenever the principals are in the airport flying from the U.S. to India. Another captivating aspect of the movie is the music, supervised by Nitin Sawhney, which features some amazing traditional vocal stylings that both begins and ends the film.

GRADE: A.

Sony Ericsson Open: Women's Final REVIEW

Craig Hickman has more commentary and pictures on today's epic victory by Serena Williams 0-6, 7-5, 6-3 over Justine Henin in the final of the Sony Ericsson Open. Serena improved to 6-3 head-to-head versus the 5-time Grand Slam champion from Belgium, maintaining her winning streak on hard courts despite having only played in 3 tournaments this year. She now matches the World #1's tally of two titles and thirteen match wins in 2007.

The match was incredibly exciting. Serena started off not playing well but that may have been because Justine was playing amazingly well in the first set: hitting winners from all court positions, serving hard, returning deep and chasing down everything. Henin won the first set 6-0 in 26 minutes.

Serena didn't start the second set off well, getting broken in the first set but then broke back in the very next set and stayed close through most of the second set until the seventh game until she got broken again, which allowed to serve for the match at 5-4. However, at break point in that game after hitting a cross-court winner Justine lost her footing and fell on the court and then lost the next two points to lose that game and lost the next four points for Serena held her service game at love. Justine's service percentage noticeably declined as she served to take the second set to a tiebreaker but was broken on a backhand floating wide. The match was now even at 0-6, 7-5!

In the third set Serena's serve was much more effective and she also did an excellent job of returning Henin's serve into play. This lead her to taking a 3-0 lead (one break and 2 holds) in the final set. Serena had thus equaled Justine's feat of winning 6 games in a row, but evenly split between two sets. However, this lead Justine to fight back to even the score at 3-3. Serena held in the seventh game of the final set and after some long rallies on Justine's serve in the eighth game, Serena was able to earn the break which allowed her to serve for the match at 5-3. However, the drama was not over! Serena quickly fell behind 0-40 on her own serve as she served for the match but then was able to hit two backhand winners and a service winner to even the game score back to deuce. On match point, Serena missed her first serve but then blasted in a second serve right in the corner of the ad court which skidded off the line which Justine hit out and the match was over!

On clay I still believe that Justine has an advantage over Serena, but with her ranking all the way up to #11 it is very possible for Serena to be #1 before the end of the year and she has to be on the short list to win another Wimbledon or US Open title in 2007.