It was with great sadness that I read of the passing of civil rights leaders and Christian moral leader Rev. William Sloane Coffin April 12.
I had the honor of getting to know this truly great man while he was a visiting professor at Lawrence University in Appleton ten years ago.
Gay activists nationally will remember that Rev. Coffin marched in New York City's Stonewall 25 parade back in 1994. We in Wisconsin will also remember his principled response to the late Reggie White following the Packer hall of famer's notorious speech to the Wisconsin Assembly at the request of Congressional candidate John Gard: the one where White in a few sentences managed to insultingly stereotype Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans and gay people.
At the time he wrote that response, Rev. Sloane Coffin had been active the civil rights movement for nearly four decades. In 1962, he was a Freedom Rider in the black civil rights movement in the South. As chaplain at Harvard, he provided sanctuary to draft-resistors to the Vietnam war. In 1979, he was one of four clergy permitted to minister to the Americans held hostage in the U. S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran. Rev. Throughout the 1990's and until his death, Rev. Coffin had been active in the gay civil rights movement, marching with his wife and at times with his (straight) children in numerous Gay Pride parades in New York and other cities.
Rev. Coffin's words are worth re-reading as we continue to battle the ban of same sex marriage and civil unions here:
ONE MINISTER TO ANOTHER: AN OPEN LETTER TO REGGIE WHITE
Dear Reggie White,
I've only heard good things about you, and nobody for a moment doubts your greatness as an athlete. But if your words to the (Wisconsin) legislature this week were accurately reported, I'm troubled, and in particular about what you said about homosexuality.
I write to you as one ordained minister to another. As the Bible is the founding document of every Christian church in the world, it can't be taken seriously enough. But if you take the Bible seriously, you can't take it literally - not all of it.
For instance, in the book of Leviticus, it is a "toevah" - an abomination - not only to eat bacon, sausage and ribs, it is sinful even to touch the skin of a dead pig. If you thought that insight valid today, would you be playing football?
Homosexuality is not a big issue for Biblical writers. In the 66 books of Scripture (71 if you're Roman Catholic), only seven verses refer to homosexual behavior. Some time ago, I picked up a pamphlet entitled "What did Jesus say about homosexuality?" Opening it, I came across two blank pages. Closing it, I read on the back, "That's right, nothing."
St. Paul thought all men were straight. He assumed all homosexual activity was done by heterosexuals.
This assumption is true as well of Old Testament writers, which means that all the Biblical passages used to flay gays and lesbians have really nothing whatsoever to say about constitutionally gay people in genuinely loving relationships.
As Christians, we don't honor the higher truth we find in Christ by ignoring truths found elsewhere. I'm impressed that the American Psychological Association does not consider homosexuality an illness, and that natural scientists have discovered homosexuality in mammals, birds and insects. Clearly, God is more comfortable with diversity than we are!
In my experience, a lot of people talk in the abstract about homosexuality being a sin, but without first-hand knowledge of gays and lesbians. Wouldn't it be better to talk with rather than about homosexuals?
I write you all this in large part because today the "gay agenda" has replaced the "communist threat" as the battering ram of reactionary politics. It grieves me to see you put your considerable muscle behind such a blunt instrument of prejudice.
We live in a land of great prejudice and you as an African American and I as a white man have had to overcome the differences we have invented about one another. It is urgent that men and women, gays and straights, do the same, for as James Baldwin described us, "Each of us, helplessly and forever contains the other - We are a part of each other."
--Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Lawrence University
It's interesting to note that in his final year and a half of his life, Reggie White rejected the anti-gay tenets of Christian fundamentalists as well as the fawning born-again types who were drawn by his celebrity not his Christianity.
Also, compare Rev. Coffin's take on the Bible with the Dominionist thinking of Julaine Appling in her Holy Week Wisconsin Family Connection screed:
"We aren't interested in constitutional amendments for purely social and political reasons. We're engaged in this campaign for nobler and higher reasons. We're motivated by a Sovereign Who some 2000 years ago devoted His sacred Head on our behalf, as undeserving as we are. Surely the least we can do is to stand up for Him and His Truth. "
Of course Ms. Appling is telling a bald faced lie. Julaine's goal - like fellow Dominionist Rantin' Ralph Ovadal's - is re-shaping laws and Constitutions to mimic their twisted view of "Biblical principles," one that creates a more perfect union by banishing (or worse) those pesky homosexuals and anyone who takes the Golden Rule literally.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Saturday, December 03, 2005
The Editorial You Didn't Get To See...
Those of you who saw my anti-Wisconsin Marriage Amendment editorial in the Green Bay Press Gazette November 30 got to see a second, significantly revised version the piece (if you have trouble loading the page - I have on several occasions - you can also get the Campbell's Condensed Soup version over at Action Wisconsin's "No On The Amendment" blog).
Josh Freker, Action Wisconsin's Energizer Bunny of a Communications Director, literally spent months trying to persuade the GBPG's editors to run an OpEd on the amendment. He worked with me to coordinate the column and made a valid criticism of the original piece. I listed the opposition's arguments in a way that would allow a casual reader skimming the piece to pick up their side's view much easier than the opinion I was arguing.
However, the original was a little less personal and (I feel) hit the other side arguments harder with factoids I could not include in the revised piece due to space limitations. It also better countered the Camille Solberg editorial that appeared a day earlier.
(Aside #1: I believe those who told me it was ghosted by the FRI. The rhetoric was classically Appling-esque.)
(Aside #2: Can you imagine if the forces of bigotry and discrimination's "let the people decide" argument had prevailed over the last century or so? Camille probably would be spending her time trying to win the vote for women and equal civil rights for Latinos or other people of color, rather than serving as a diversity shill for the overwhelming white, upper class forces supporting this amendment initiative.)
So I'm sharing the original draft here for my loyal and entry-starved blog readers. I've added a little formatting that obviously would not have been in the original submission, had it been printed in the paper. Here goes:
About this time next year, if the Republican-controlled legislature gets its way, Wisconsin citizens will have the opportunity to vote to adopt or reject what its supporters call the "Wisconsin Marriage Amendment" to our state's Constitution.
The amendment reads as follows: "Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state."
Now that you've read the language of the amendment, I want you to take a little quiz. Answer "true" or "false" to the following statements, all of which have been used to promote the amendment:
1. This amendment is necessary to make gay marriage illegal in Wisconsin.
2. This amendment will protect traditional marriages.
3. This amendment was introduced to uphold traditional values in our state.
All the above statements are false. Allow me to explain.
This amendment is necessary to make gay marriage illegal in Wisconsin.
The statement is false because same-sex marriage is already illegal in Wisconsin. Should this referendum be on the ballot and fail, Wisconsin's heterosexual "husband and wife" definition of marriage statute remains intact. Gay and lesbian couples will continue to be prohibited from marrying in our state.
However, the broad, vague language prohibiting "any legal status... for unmarried individuals" likely will hurt hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin's unmarried heterosexual couples impacted by that second sentence. In states that have passed amendments with such similar language - Ohio and Michigan to name two - domestic violence laws have been ruled inapplicable and private sector domestic partner benefits have been called into question for unmarried straight couples.
Given that a 2004 Business Week survey showed that 49.6% of all adults in the United States live in unmarried relationships, the impact could be significant. The vague language of the proposed amendment simply goes too far.
This amendment will protect traditional marriages.
That statement is not only false but illogical. Denying same sex couples any legal recognition of their unions will do absolutely nothing to stop the 50% divorce rate that currently plagues the so-called traditional marriages. I find it ironic that nondenominational evangelical Christians and Baptists - the two religious groups most strongly opposed to gay marriage equality - have the #1 and #2 highest divorce rates, according to fellow evangelical George Barna's exhaustive research study.
I won't name that irony as hypocritical. I'll let Jesus do it for me. Read Matthew, Chapter 7 - all of it.
On the subject of hypocrisy, let's talk about the third statement: This amendment was introduced to uphold traditional values in our state. If the value argument were true, this issue could have been resolved nine months ago, during the Spring 2005 elections.
Assembly Speaker and 8th District Republican Congressional candidate John Gard made his intentions clear in his June 2, 2005 letter to Wisconsin's lead supporter of the marriage amendment, Julaine Appling of the Family Research Institute of Wisconsin. In his letter Gard wrote: "the best time to bring this issue before the voters is when we have the potential for high voter turnout," noting the November, 2006 election would be the next such vote.
Political junkies have been quick to note the November, 2006 election also will determine who will be the next governor in Wisconsin and who will go to Washington to represent the 8th Congressional District in an open race for that seat.
All the stained-glass rhetoric about traditional marriage professed by the amendment's supporters masks the true perversion that will occur if this amendment becomes part of our state's Constitution: the writing of discrimination against all unmarried couples, gay or straight, into a document that currently defines our rights as citizens of Wisconsin.
Several thousand same-sex in the Green Bay Press Gazette's readership area volunteered to report their unions in the 2000 US Census. Tens of thousands more unmarried heterosexual couples live here as well. Tens of thousands more dependent children live with these couples.
How many people will be denied full equality so a political party can make a short-term gain? The so-called Wisconsin Marriage Amendment protects no one and has the potential to hurt thousands of your friends and neighbors. No matter what your views about gay marriage, if you oppose discrimination, you should oppose the so-called Wisconsin Marriage Amendment.
Josh Freker, Action Wisconsin's Energizer Bunny of a Communications Director, literally spent months trying to persuade the GBPG's editors to run an OpEd on the amendment. He worked with me to coordinate the column and made a valid criticism of the original piece. I listed the opposition's arguments in a way that would allow a casual reader skimming the piece to pick up their side's view much easier than the opinion I was arguing.
However, the original was a little less personal and (I feel) hit the other side arguments harder with factoids I could not include in the revised piece due to space limitations. It also better countered the Camille Solberg editorial that appeared a day earlier.
(Aside #1: I believe those who told me it was ghosted by the FRI. The rhetoric was classically Appling-esque.)
(Aside #2: Can you imagine if the forces of bigotry and discrimination's "let the people decide" argument had prevailed over the last century or so? Camille probably would be spending her time trying to win the vote for women and equal civil rights for Latinos or other people of color, rather than serving as a diversity shill for the overwhelming white, upper class forces supporting this amendment initiative.)
So I'm sharing the original draft here for my loyal and entry-starved blog readers. I've added a little formatting that obviously would not have been in the original submission, had it been printed in the paper. Here goes:
About this time next year, if the Republican-controlled legislature gets its way, Wisconsin citizens will have the opportunity to vote to adopt or reject what its supporters call the "Wisconsin Marriage Amendment" to our state's Constitution.
The amendment reads as follows: "Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state."
Now that you've read the language of the amendment, I want you to take a little quiz. Answer "true" or "false" to the following statements, all of which have been used to promote the amendment:
1. This amendment is necessary to make gay marriage illegal in Wisconsin.
2. This amendment will protect traditional marriages.
3. This amendment was introduced to uphold traditional values in our state.
All the above statements are false. Allow me to explain.
This amendment is necessary to make gay marriage illegal in Wisconsin.
The statement is false because same-sex marriage is already illegal in Wisconsin. Should this referendum be on the ballot and fail, Wisconsin's heterosexual "husband and wife" definition of marriage statute remains intact. Gay and lesbian couples will continue to be prohibited from marrying in our state.
However, the broad, vague language prohibiting "any legal status... for unmarried individuals" likely will hurt hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin's unmarried heterosexual couples impacted by that second sentence. In states that have passed amendments with such similar language - Ohio and Michigan to name two - domestic violence laws have been ruled inapplicable and private sector domestic partner benefits have been called into question for unmarried straight couples.
Given that a 2004 Business Week survey showed that 49.6% of all adults in the United States live in unmarried relationships, the impact could be significant. The vague language of the proposed amendment simply goes too far.
This amendment will protect traditional marriages.
That statement is not only false but illogical. Denying same sex couples any legal recognition of their unions will do absolutely nothing to stop the 50% divorce rate that currently plagues the so-called traditional marriages. I find it ironic that nondenominational evangelical Christians and Baptists - the two religious groups most strongly opposed to gay marriage equality - have the #1 and #2 highest divorce rates, according to fellow evangelical George Barna's exhaustive research study.
I won't name that irony as hypocritical. I'll let Jesus do it for me. Read Matthew, Chapter 7 - all of it.
On the subject of hypocrisy, let's talk about the third statement: This amendment was introduced to uphold traditional values in our state. If the value argument were true, this issue could have been resolved nine months ago, during the Spring 2005 elections.
Assembly Speaker and 8th District Republican Congressional candidate John Gard made his intentions clear in his June 2, 2005 letter to Wisconsin's lead supporter of the marriage amendment, Julaine Appling of the Family Research Institute of Wisconsin. In his letter Gard wrote: "the best time to bring this issue before the voters is when we have the potential for high voter turnout," noting the November, 2006 election would be the next such vote.
Political junkies have been quick to note the November, 2006 election also will determine who will be the next governor in Wisconsin and who will go to Washington to represent the 8th Congressional District in an open race for that seat.
All the stained-glass rhetoric about traditional marriage professed by the amendment's supporters masks the true perversion that will occur if this amendment becomes part of our state's Constitution: the writing of discrimination against all unmarried couples, gay or straight, into a document that currently defines our rights as citizens of Wisconsin.
Several thousand same-sex in the Green Bay Press Gazette's readership area volunteered to report their unions in the 2000 US Census. Tens of thousands more unmarried heterosexual couples live here as well. Tens of thousands more dependent children live with these couples.
How many people will be denied full equality so a political party can make a short-term gain? The so-called Wisconsin Marriage Amendment protects no one and has the potential to hurt thousands of your friends and neighbors. No matter what your views about gay marriage, if you oppose discrimination, you should oppose the so-called Wisconsin Marriage Amendment.
Friday, December 02, 2005
It's alive!
Just a quick note to those who keep asking me why there have been no recent entries...
The Reality Blog will arise from its moribund state shortly... The real fight has begun on the so-called Wisconsin Marriage Amendment...
It's not like I'm not pounding out readable stuff at the keyboard... Just check the Quest website, or more recently the Green Bay Press-Gazette...
The Reality Blog will arise from its moribund state shortly... The real fight has begun on the so-called Wisconsin Marriage Amendment...
It's not like I'm not pounding out readable stuff at the keyboard... Just check the Quest website, or more recently the Green Bay Press-Gazette...
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
John Gard & The "God Hates Fags" Gang - The Secret Behind The Assembly's Rebuke
June 20 has come and gone in Antigo without incident. Slain Marine Lance Corporal John Mattek Jr. was laid to rest before over a thousand mourners with tributes attesting to his genuine goodness and zest for life.
Absent among the crowd: members of the Westboro "God Hates Fags" Baptist Church who had caused a minor media stir by announcing last week that they would picket the funeral. While those who mourned Lt. Mallek were certainly relieved, the no-show was not a surprise. Those who actually follow the antics of this bigoted bunch know they show up about one of three events they announce plans for - and that appears to be largely based on the amount of local reaction and media attention their press releases draw in advance of the scheduled event.
In other words, the "God Hates Fags" gang craves media coverage just like any fading, former Hollywood superstar looking for a comeback would. Yes folks, Fred Phelps is the Norma Desmond of the Radical Right and his gang are always ready for their close-ups. The mission is not to proclaim the truth but to catch as many unsuspecting eyes as possible.
Another of the groups tactics, again from Phelps-watching experts, is the tendency to regularly revisit the scenes of previous successes. The group landed in Wausau two years ago when a local college campus decided to mount a production of "The Laramie Project," a play about the community response to the murder of Matthew Shepard that gave a good chunk of stage time to the Baptist bigots. The counter-protest organized by the local Unitarians practically guaranteed a "if it bleeds it leads" kind of confrontation local TV news teams wet their panties over. Of course a gaggle of the gay haters showed up, and were outnumbered by more than 20-1, all covered by local camera crews and begetting a bevy of news teases to guarantee top viewership "at the 10."
Last week's news release barely caused a blip on the local news scene. Wisconsin Public Radio dutifully allowed a Westboro woman to blather that every major catastrophe from 9/11 and the Asian tsumani to the ever increasing American body count in Iraq was the Almighty's revenge on queer-loving America. But no visuals, no counter-protest was planned. The family and the officiating minister begged for calm and passive response to the planned protest. Even the state Assembly's passage of an official rebuke garnered only a couple of column inches.
So no media blow, no show. Typical.
However, from my vantage point, there may be more to the story of the Assembly rebuke. On June 17, the Wisconsin Assembly unanimously passed at 10 PM in the evening a bipartisan bill introduced by several central Wisconsin lawmakers formally rebuking the Topeka-based Baptists for their plans to disrupt a straight soldier's funeral to push their anti-gay message. Among those who apparently voted "aye" was Majority Leader, Assembly Speaker and announced Congressional candidate John Gard.
Why would Gard, who has openly collaborated with the state's rabidly right-wing Family Research Center of Wisconsin on the timing of the anti-gay Constitutional ban support such a "pro-gay" resolution? Why, for that matter would the Republican-controlled Assembly - who three days earlier had passed a bill allowing medical professionals to follow their personally chosen religious beliefs rather than the Hippocratic oath on the job and just the day before passed another bill cutting off post-exposure birth control for college women across the state to "stem promiscuity" - want to pass a measure that would seem antithetical to their moralistic mindset?
I can think of two reasons. First the Assembly rebuke was what is known as a "sense of the Assembly" resolution. It is an opinion which carries no weight other than the fact the Assembly took time to say it. The Assembly passes these sorts of bills regularly, honoring special local and regional events, anniversaries of organizations and individual years of service to one community or another. The "rebuke" in essence was worth about as much as the ink and paper used to print it. The classic "big whup."
The second reason is as sinister as it is savvy. Bill Clinton savvy even. Remember how the conservatives used to scream about Clinton's ability to triangulate his way to the political center? The Assembly rebuke is a similar stab at positioning. After weeks of passing legislation that poses real harm to real people, the Assembly decided to point out how extreme it wasn't. Taking aim at the Westboro Gang was the Assembly's way of saying "Lookee there! Now that's what wild-eyed extremists look like."
And in one small way the Assembly was right. Fred Phelps and his followers, just like Wisconsin's own Rantin' Ralph Ovadal, are truly wild-eyed extremists. But they're on the same fringe as the folks who wear tin foil antennas on their heads to get better reception of those secret messages from outer space.
The truly dangerous extremists are those who hold power equal to the extremity of their beliefs. John Gard leads an Assembly full of them. The Assembly rebuke of the "God Hates Fags" gang diverted the public eye from scrutinizing the dangerous legislation that body has proposed and passed. And that's why the Republicans joined in on an unanimous vote to for a fleeting second late on a Friday night to support the LGBT community.
With faint friends like that you can see why most queers consider them enemies.
Absent among the crowd: members of the Westboro "God Hates Fags" Baptist Church who had caused a minor media stir by announcing last week that they would picket the funeral. While those who mourned Lt. Mallek were certainly relieved, the no-show was not a surprise. Those who actually follow the antics of this bigoted bunch know they show up about one of three events they announce plans for - and that appears to be largely based on the amount of local reaction and media attention their press releases draw in advance of the scheduled event.
In other words, the "God Hates Fags" gang craves media coverage just like any fading, former Hollywood superstar looking for a comeback would. Yes folks, Fred Phelps is the Norma Desmond of the Radical Right and his gang are always ready for their close-ups. The mission is not to proclaim the truth but to catch as many unsuspecting eyes as possible.
Another of the groups tactics, again from Phelps-watching experts, is the tendency to regularly revisit the scenes of previous successes. The group landed in Wausau two years ago when a local college campus decided to mount a production of "The Laramie Project," a play about the community response to the murder of Matthew Shepard that gave a good chunk of stage time to the Baptist bigots. The counter-protest organized by the local Unitarians practically guaranteed a "if it bleeds it leads" kind of confrontation local TV news teams wet their panties over. Of course a gaggle of the gay haters showed up, and were outnumbered by more than 20-1, all covered by local camera crews and begetting a bevy of news teases to guarantee top viewership "at the 10."
Last week's news release barely caused a blip on the local news scene. Wisconsin Public Radio dutifully allowed a Westboro woman to blather that every major catastrophe from 9/11 and the Asian tsumani to the ever increasing American body count in Iraq was the Almighty's revenge on queer-loving America. But no visuals, no counter-protest was planned. The family and the officiating minister begged for calm and passive response to the planned protest. Even the state Assembly's passage of an official rebuke garnered only a couple of column inches.
So no media blow, no show. Typical.
However, from my vantage point, there may be more to the story of the Assembly rebuke. On June 17, the Wisconsin Assembly unanimously passed at 10 PM in the evening a bipartisan bill introduced by several central Wisconsin lawmakers formally rebuking the Topeka-based Baptists for their plans to disrupt a straight soldier's funeral to push their anti-gay message. Among those who apparently voted "aye" was Majority Leader, Assembly Speaker and announced Congressional candidate John Gard.
Why would Gard, who has openly collaborated with the state's rabidly right-wing Family Research Center of Wisconsin on the timing of the anti-gay Constitutional ban support such a "pro-gay" resolution? Why, for that matter would the Republican-controlled Assembly - who three days earlier had passed a bill allowing medical professionals to follow their personally chosen religious beliefs rather than the Hippocratic oath on the job and just the day before passed another bill cutting off post-exposure birth control for college women across the state to "stem promiscuity" - want to pass a measure that would seem antithetical to their moralistic mindset?
I can think of two reasons. First the Assembly rebuke was what is known as a "sense of the Assembly" resolution. It is an opinion which carries no weight other than the fact the Assembly took time to say it. The Assembly passes these sorts of bills regularly, honoring special local and regional events, anniversaries of organizations and individual years of service to one community or another. The "rebuke" in essence was worth about as much as the ink and paper used to print it. The classic "big whup."
The second reason is as sinister as it is savvy. Bill Clinton savvy even. Remember how the conservatives used to scream about Clinton's ability to triangulate his way to the political center? The Assembly rebuke is a similar stab at positioning. After weeks of passing legislation that poses real harm to real people, the Assembly decided to point out how extreme it wasn't. Taking aim at the Westboro Gang was the Assembly's way of saying "Lookee there! Now that's what wild-eyed extremists look like."
And in one small way the Assembly was right. Fred Phelps and his followers, just like Wisconsin's own Rantin' Ralph Ovadal, are truly wild-eyed extremists. But they're on the same fringe as the folks who wear tin foil antennas on their heads to get better reception of those secret messages from outer space.
The truly dangerous extremists are those who hold power equal to the extremity of their beliefs. John Gard leads an Assembly full of them. The Assembly rebuke of the "God Hates Fags" gang diverted the public eye from scrutinizing the dangerous legislation that body has proposed and passed. And that's why the Republicans joined in on an unanimous vote to for a fleeting second late on a Friday night to support the LGBT community.
With faint friends like that you can see why most queers consider them enemies.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Wisconsin Media War? Pish Posh! (updated 6/6)
I laughed out loud when I checked in with Bill Attewell's Wisconsin Gay News this morning. His top story asked if there was a start of a newspaper war and then touted that Quest editor/publisher Mark Mariucci "Crowns Himself With Top State Gay Media Tiara." Bill well knows that if anyone can get those glass hats at a discount, it's Mariucci, who is also the owner of the Wisconsin USofA pageant system!
The actual story that supposedly is causing all the "ruckus" between Bill's ears is really nothing more than what could have been an eye-drooping statistical report enlivened with a smidgen of publisher puffery. And the questions Mariucci asked do deserve answers from his competitors.
Before I go further a little reality check is in order (hmmm, where have I heard that phrase before?):
There is no "newspaper war." That would be Bill "stirring the pot" as he is regularly wont to do. Stirring the pot, whether it be about Outbound's Milwaukee publishers, Milwaukee Alder Mike McGee or this year's Milwaukee Gay Pride Parade, creates a lot of heat but very little light. So let's enlighten this "war" broadside with a few facts. First of all,
1. For the most part none of the papers are actually competing head-to-head editorially at this time. Edge has the show performer, drag queen market almost all to itself. Ditto for Outbound's hold on the gay bar marketplace. The closest competitors on the surface might be the Milwaukee monthlies Queer Life and Outbound News, but a peek at the editorial content shows the former heavy on softball features and opinions with a little dated local news coverage thrown in, and the latter a hodgepodge of national news clippings and opinion but all but absent on state and local news. With its bi-weekly schedule, primarily focused on breaking national and state news mixed with leather and free personal ads, Quest for better or worse is the only paper making a conscious effort to be a real "gay newspaper" in the term's classic definition, or in the legacies of dearly-departed Out, Wisconsin INStep and Wisconsin Light.
That said, there certainly is fierce competition for ad dollars. The discounting is akin to the kind of haggling found in New York's garment district, a Middle East bazaar or a used car lot after three days of heavy rain. Deep discounting is the order of the day. The only advertisers paying actual "rate card" rates are professionals who often consider their business card ads as much a public duty to the LGBT community as a source of referrals, and straight advertisers who are probably pretty clueless of what gay media choices actually are out there.
Moreover, the rate competition tends to evaporate when formats and distribution patterns are factored into the equation. Edge and Outbound are pocket-sized glossies and are, for the most part, limited in distribution to their advertisers' venues. Queer Life and Outbound News are color-laden newsprint with disproportional Milwaukee distribution. Queer Life also has the advantage of better distribution in non-gay, non-"adult," progressive locations than any of the other four.
Quest, with its odd, super-sized pocket edition and flat finished paper, is truly the platypus of the Wisconsin gay periodical animal kingdom. In Quest's favor, however, is its truly statewide - though heavily gar bar dependent - distribution.
If there's any real head-to-head competition, it might seem to be between Attewell's Wisconsin Gay News and QNU, Quest's daily news update page, which I dutifully upload anew every morning before going to my day job. Again a closer look sees more compliment than competition.
While there's some overlap, QNU has a lot more original written material, drawn from the print edition, and a well-delineated set of news topics that cover world, national, state, health, entertainment and offbeat news. There's also random photo coverage of gay events, serious and lighthearted and links to the online-only Wisconsin Whispers column. It's outsized design needs work and it is meant to be an update page as part of the larger Quest site rather than a portal.
On the plus side, Wiscosnin Gay News is sharply designed and has a nice toolbar of drop-down resources at the top of the page. Though WGN started out with more original news last Fall, most of the fresh material now shows up more typically in Bill's Blog, Attewell's well-penned, always sassy, sometimes infuriating but addictively readable contribution to the blogosphere. On the down side, WGN has an inconsistently updated set of state stories followed by a series of links to gay "reads," at least one of which can lead surfers by accident or design into the gay porn world with its Trojan and spyware-laden pop-up ads. (June 6 update - Billy obviously had time on his hands yesterday, site has been polished up nicely since this blog initially went up - in all seriousness, a genuine coincidence most likely.) Also recently, the mix in the top stories section appears to be a better indicator of what piqued Attewell's interests on any given day rather than a conscious attempt to create a consistent news update.
(Aside to Bill: your recent preoccupation with straight actresses in lesbian lip locks and Sapphic revelations seems to be way too "straight guy" to me. Were you abducted by Dobson's "Love Won Out" minions? Are you going through the change? Most importantly, does Jorge know?) Secondly,
2. There is internal dialogue amongst the media players. Though no one is talking to everyone equally, there is a lot of internal dialogue going on among the writers, publishers and editors at all the publications. Between Mark and I, we are in contact with at least one peer, usually more, at the other four papers. I'll let the others come forward and share their contacts if they so wish.
That doesn't mean there isn't occasional squabbling. The James Boys certainly have had no love loss with Bill Attewell. I hear from third parties that Queer Life's Don Hoffman doesn't like me, allegedly because of my toupee jokes and reporting his previously-published spotty history at MPS. Za has alternately ranted against and then played the Rodney King "can't we all get along" bit with a number of his print peers.
My shorts recently were in a bundle recently over Sura Faraj's civil unions piece, not because of any personal reason, but because of its obliviousness to the current Wisconsin political realities and its lack of straightforwardness. At least two of the interviewees were fellow employees of Queer Life. That's not good investigative journalism, that's reflecting the sophistry of water cooler sycophants. So big deal, occasional friction happens in close quarters. And finally,
3. It's all free and no one's getting rich. Assuming one can even get a copy, its not going to cost a reader anything more than the calories to pick any of Wisconsin's gay papers up. Looking at pick up patterns, the great majority either pick up everything or nothing.
The redundancy is even worse on the web. Want to check out LGBT news? There are literally hundreds of choices. Additionally websites exist that permit you to customize your news, so if you're hot for the latest on left-handed Lithuanian lesbians, MSN, AOL, Crayon.net and many more will look it up for you and plant it on your desktop for you to look over with your morning coffee.
Fiscally, the alternative press in general is not a lucrative undertaking. Print media are so 20th Century to begin with, as the ongoing consolidation of the mainstream press demonstrates. Quest has been around for 12 years, currently the Guinness record for uninterrupted Wisconsin gay media longevity, and that's because Mark physically prints his own paper.
So stir away, Bill. As you've said to me over and over, with the exception of a few dozen gay folks, no one really gives a hoot. And unless they're running the presses, those that do really need to get a life. Most of us in the gay media are doing this work not for the money and certainly not for the glory, but because we enjoy doing the work, and think its fun. Now you know why they call us queer.
And, oh yes, maybe - just maybe - the gay community in Wisconsin is a little better off for our efforts.
The actual story that supposedly is causing all the "ruckus" between Bill's ears is really nothing more than what could have been an eye-drooping statistical report enlivened with a smidgen of publisher puffery. And the questions Mariucci asked do deserve answers from his competitors.
Before I go further a little reality check is in order (hmmm, where have I heard that phrase before?):
There is no "newspaper war." That would be Bill "stirring the pot" as he is regularly wont to do. Stirring the pot, whether it be about Outbound's Milwaukee publishers, Milwaukee Alder Mike McGee or this year's Milwaukee Gay Pride Parade, creates a lot of heat but very little light. So let's enlighten this "war" broadside with a few facts. First of all,
1. For the most part none of the papers are actually competing head-to-head editorially at this time. Edge has the show performer, drag queen market almost all to itself. Ditto for Outbound's hold on the gay bar marketplace. The closest competitors on the surface might be the Milwaukee monthlies Queer Life and Outbound News, but a peek at the editorial content shows the former heavy on softball features and opinions with a little dated local news coverage thrown in, and the latter a hodgepodge of national news clippings and opinion but all but absent on state and local news. With its bi-weekly schedule, primarily focused on breaking national and state news mixed with leather and free personal ads, Quest for better or worse is the only paper making a conscious effort to be a real "gay newspaper" in the term's classic definition, or in the legacies of dearly-departed Out, Wisconsin INStep and Wisconsin Light.
That said, there certainly is fierce competition for ad dollars. The discounting is akin to the kind of haggling found in New York's garment district, a Middle East bazaar or a used car lot after three days of heavy rain. Deep discounting is the order of the day. The only advertisers paying actual "rate card" rates are professionals who often consider their business card ads as much a public duty to the LGBT community as a source of referrals, and straight advertisers who are probably pretty clueless of what gay media choices actually are out there.
Moreover, the rate competition tends to evaporate when formats and distribution patterns are factored into the equation. Edge and Outbound are pocket-sized glossies and are, for the most part, limited in distribution to their advertisers' venues. Queer Life and Outbound News are color-laden newsprint with disproportional Milwaukee distribution. Queer Life also has the advantage of better distribution in non-gay, non-"adult," progressive locations than any of the other four.
Quest, with its odd, super-sized pocket edition and flat finished paper, is truly the platypus of the Wisconsin gay periodical animal kingdom. In Quest's favor, however, is its truly statewide - though heavily gar bar dependent - distribution.
If there's any real head-to-head competition, it might seem to be between Attewell's Wisconsin Gay News and QNU, Quest's daily news update page, which I dutifully upload anew every morning before going to my day job. Again a closer look sees more compliment than competition.
While there's some overlap, QNU has a lot more original written material, drawn from the print edition, and a well-delineated set of news topics that cover world, national, state, health, entertainment and offbeat news. There's also random photo coverage of gay events, serious and lighthearted and links to the online-only Wisconsin Whispers column. It's outsized design needs work and it is meant to be an update page as part of the larger Quest site rather than a portal.
On the plus side, Wiscosnin Gay News is sharply designed and has a nice toolbar of drop-down resources at the top of the page. Though WGN started out with more original news last Fall, most of the fresh material now shows up more typically in Bill's Blog, Attewell's well-penned, always sassy, sometimes infuriating but addictively readable contribution to the blogosphere. On the down side, WGN has an inconsistently updated set of state stories followed by a series of links to gay "reads," at least one of which can lead surfers by accident or design into the gay porn world with its Trojan and spyware-laden pop-up ads. (June 6 update - Billy obviously had time on his hands yesterday, site has been polished up nicely since this blog initially went up - in all seriousness, a genuine coincidence most likely.) Also recently, the mix in the top stories section appears to be a better indicator of what piqued Attewell's interests on any given day rather than a conscious attempt to create a consistent news update.
(Aside to Bill: your recent preoccupation with straight actresses in lesbian lip locks and Sapphic revelations seems to be way too "straight guy" to me. Were you abducted by Dobson's "Love Won Out" minions? Are you going through the change? Most importantly, does Jorge know?) Secondly,
2. There is internal dialogue amongst the media players. Though no one is talking to everyone equally, there is a lot of internal dialogue going on among the writers, publishers and editors at all the publications. Between Mark and I, we are in contact with at least one peer, usually more, at the other four papers. I'll let the others come forward and share their contacts if they so wish.
That doesn't mean there isn't occasional squabbling. The James Boys certainly have had no love loss with Bill Attewell. I hear from third parties that Queer Life's Don Hoffman doesn't like me, allegedly because of my toupee jokes and reporting his previously-published spotty history at MPS. Za has alternately ranted against and then played the Rodney King "can't we all get along" bit with a number of his print peers.
My shorts recently were in a bundle recently over Sura Faraj's civil unions piece, not because of any personal reason, but because of its obliviousness to the current Wisconsin political realities and its lack of straightforwardness. At least two of the interviewees were fellow employees of Queer Life. That's not good investigative journalism, that's reflecting the sophistry of water cooler sycophants. So big deal, occasional friction happens in close quarters. And finally,
3. It's all free and no one's getting rich. Assuming one can even get a copy, its not going to cost a reader anything more than the calories to pick any of Wisconsin's gay papers up. Looking at pick up patterns, the great majority either pick up everything or nothing.
The redundancy is even worse on the web. Want to check out LGBT news? There are literally hundreds of choices. Additionally websites exist that permit you to customize your news, so if you're hot for the latest on left-handed Lithuanian lesbians, MSN, AOL, Crayon.net and many more will look it up for you and plant it on your desktop for you to look over with your morning coffee.
Fiscally, the alternative press in general is not a lucrative undertaking. Print media are so 20th Century to begin with, as the ongoing consolidation of the mainstream press demonstrates. Quest has been around for 12 years, currently the Guinness record for uninterrupted Wisconsin gay media longevity, and that's because Mark physically prints his own paper.
So stir away, Bill. As you've said to me over and over, with the exception of a few dozen gay folks, no one really gives a hoot. And unless they're running the presses, those that do really need to get a life. Most of us in the gay media are doing this work not for the money and certainly not for the glory, but because we enjoy doing the work, and think its fun. Now you know why they call us queer.
And, oh yes, maybe - just maybe - the gay community in Wisconsin is a little better off for our efforts.
Friday, May 27, 2005
Wisconsin Whispers - Fresh Dirt Now Dished!
When it comes to dishing, dodging and delusional Republicans, heaven-bound hellraisers, tap dancing drag dinosaurs, anal-retentive lesbian scribes, and disappearing Bible bigots, moi's gossip goblet overfloweth... Settle in dahlings, its gonna be a lovely, long, bumpy but absolutely yummy read! Read the latest dish at Wisconsin Whispers...
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