Mary Cheney's Total $$ to Gay Marriage Foes?

(Mary and Heather, back row left, listen as Dubya delivers his 2004 reelection victory speech.)

Color me as not surprised carpetbagging GOP candidate for U.S. Senator from Wyoming Liz Cheney is against gay marriage. Her comments yesterday on Fox News Sunday upset her lesbian sister Mary's wife Heather Poe, who smacked down her sister-in-law's position on her Facebook page:

[I] was very disappointed to hear her say "I do believe in the traditional definition of marriage." Liz has been a guest in our home, has spent time and shared holidays with our children, and when Mary and I got married in 2012 - she didn't hesitate to tell us how happy she was for us.

To have her now say she doesn't support our right to marry is offensive to say the least I can't help but wonder how Liz would feel if as she moved from state to state, she discovered that her family was protected in one but not the other. I always thought freedom meant freedom for EVERYONE.

Poe, up to now, has been the silent partner and then wife used in a few photo-ops with her in-laws and at Republican conventions where acceptance of gays and marriage, oh, and freedom for everyone, were in very short supply. Mary Cheney and Heather Poe have been together since 1992 and I believe this is the most substantive comment she has ever made about the politics of her family and gays.

Why the silence from Poe all these years while the LGBT community has been politically pummeled and demonized and denied a whole bunch of civil and legal rights? The same silence as her wife has donated money to several politicians who hold the same anti-gay marriage views as her sister-in-law?

Here's the list of pols and campaigns opposed to same-sexers getting hitched that got checks from Mary Cheney and amount to each, according to the PoliticalMoneyLine:

Bush/Cheney '04 Inc
2003: $850

Keith Fimian for Congress
2008: $500

Rob Portman for U.S. Senate
2009: $1,000
(Donation made before his son came out as gay and he became pro-gay marriage.)

Friends of Kelly Ayotte for U.S. Senate
2010: $500

National Republican Congressional Committee
2010: $1,000

Reelect Tim Griffin to U.S. Congress
2011: $250

Marco Rubio for U.S. Senate
2011: $500

Ilario Pantano for U.S. Congress
2011: $500

George Allen for U.S. Senate
2011: $500

Romney for President
2012: $2,500

Add it all up and the amount she's given to opponents of gay marriage comes to $8,050. Nice chunk of change.

On the flip side, in May she donated $1,000 to Richard Hanna for U.S. Congress Reelection Committee, and he's pro gay marriage.

Seems apparent to my eyes that Mary Cheney does not use gay marriage as the top criteria for supporting a candidate or who gets a check from her. She had no problem giving to ten pols or PACs that didn't embrace her wedding with Poe, so why has she not given to her sister to become a senator from, um, the Equality State?

Look at what Pantano said on Aug. 4, 2010:

Today, Proposition 8 in California was overturned by Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in a landmark decision. [...] Our courts are not meant to undermine the will of the people, and activist judges have become increasingly dangerous to the Constitutional separation of powers. It is for that reason, as well as my own personal conviction that marriage is meant to be between one man and one woman, that I denounce Judge Walker's ruling. 

That same month is when Rep. Griffiin affirmed his opposition to same-sex marriage and each a year later received a check from Heather Poe's wife. How bad was George Allen before Mary Cheney gave him money? This bad:

As Governor, he signed Virginia’s state defense of marriage law in 1997. Allen campaigned for the 2006 state constitutional amendment that banned all state recognition of same-sex unions. He co-sponsored the “Federal Marriage Amendment.” He continues to reaffirm his support for both the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act and a federal constitutional amendment.

On her Facebook page, Mary Cheney was terse about the dustup between her sister and her wife:

[T]his isn't just an issue on which we disagree - you're just wrong - and on the wrong side of history.

Well, you know what? Not only is Liz Cheney on the wrong side of history but so were the ten candidates and committees at the time she gave them donations. Why the heck didn't Heather Poe open her mouth about those donations and her wife's strong support of gay marriage foes?

Final point. Poe's father-in-law, Dick Cheney, has said he backs freedom for everyone but he's a war criminal responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of deaths of people in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention thousands of deaths of American soldiers. Freedom does not mean a thing to those killed because of Dick Cheney's lust for oil and war.

The entire Cheney family makes me nauseous.

Cost of NY Public Library's AIDS Activism Exhibit 'Why We Fight'?

(Entrance to the exhibition. Credit: Benjamin Shepard.)

On the last day of my visit back East in October, I caught the HIV-related exhibit at the main branch of the New York Public Library titled "Why We Fight: Remembering AIDS Activism" and experienced a vivid flashback moment.

Included is a newsletter from the Lavender Hill Mob, pictured, of which I was a member, about a zap the late Marty Robinson and I carried out in 1987 in Washington, DC, against then-Secretary of Education Bill Bennett.

The afternoon we zapped him was hot and muggy. We went to his lecture at Georgetown University with our Lavender Hill Mob banner and barely ten minutes into his speech interrupted him, to demand AIDS prevention education and condom distribution in public schools before security hustled us out of the assembly hall.

Unable to contain my surprise and happiness seeing my activism with Marty and Mob in the exhibit, I blurted out, "I'm in this show with my friend!" Standing near me was a young furry white guy and a black woman my age, and since the guy had two cameras around his neck I asked him to take photos of me because my camera wasn't working.

As he snapped away, I told him about the Bennett zap and said AIDS activism was far from over. Every day a person living with AIDS swallows a cocktail, or a teenager picks up a condom at her school, or ACT UP/New York pickets a hospital demanding post-exposure prophylaxis, or an activist demands inclusion of PWAs at a scientific conference is a day with AIDS activism.

The woman spoke up to remind the photographer to practice safer sex and that HIV is still with us, commented on the choice of latex or polyurethane condoms. Our impromptu discussion, overheard by others in the exhibit space, was another form of activism.

Being in the show aside, I was impressed with the power of the black and white photos, paper newsletters and various relics on display, not to mention hearing the voices of deceased friends and loved ones from the videos. I recommend that folks catch the show, even though I have issues with the assumption that AIDS activism is behind us.

(Credit: Benjamin Shepard.)

My cohorts in ACT UP/New York had similar concerns when the exhibit opened and they staged a protest and die-in at the library to express themselves, pictured. More contemporary activism!

Curious about the cost of the show, I emailed Jonathan Pace, the senior press rep for the library, for dollar figures. He replied:

Once again I just want to say that I am thrilled you enjoyed the exhibition. I agree with you that it really is very special and deeply moving. The donor situation is simply NYPL policy (and it is pretty common at institutions like ours). 

While we obviously want to thank the people who donated funds to us (because that is so important and we so appreciate it) we don't give out exactly what was donated - it's a confidential arrangement. It's like sharing their personal finances. There are instances in which they give permission, of course, but generally speaking, we don't share exact dollar amounts. 

As for the total cost of the exhibition, the funding came from our exhibitions budget plus any private donations. I can look into this further (I don't actually know the total cost) but again, this is generally something that we don't share.

Echoes of AIDS drug companies withholding research and development costs in these words. Not satisfied with such evasiveness, I contacted out gay Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer's office because he sits on the council's libraries committee and asked him to poke around for hard numbers. His chief of staff Matthew Wallace shared this reply:

I have inquired with the NYPL about the total funding costs of the Why We Fight exhibition. Please let me know any additional questions you may have. 

Keeping my fingers crossed Van Bramer's office is about to bring transparency to the price-tag of the show. Catch the exhibition before it closes in April 2014.

Nervous Gay Couple Living With AIDS Get Letter from the Landlord

My latest medical troubles are of a combined ear, nose and throat nature so I had appointment with Dr. Dale Tipton yesterday. He's my ENT guy and together we're getting my problems resolved.

When I came home and saw a letter on my desk with the distinctive logo of our landlord's management company, a wave of stress washed over me. Thinking it was a dreaded eviction notice, I was ready to call my longtime friend and super fierce housing rights advocate Tommi Avicolli Mecca for advice, if the letter was about attempting to evict Mike and I.

As I read it and learned the management company on behalf of our apartment building's owner wanted to know about tobacco smoking in our unit, Mike gave me a hug to relieve my obvious worry. He too, when seeing the envelope with the company's logo on it, grew concerned wondering why we're receiving a notice from them in mid November.

We usually hear from the managers early in the new year, with a letter explaining the latest increase in rent, so Mike opened the envelope with trepidation.

For gay men and people with AIDS in our age cohort in San Francisco, it used to be we feared every sneeze or sniffle could be the onset of a major opportunistic infection and death. OK, we still have such fears occasionally.

But now, we also live with the stress of receiving a snail-mail notice to vacate our rental units in the midst of housing boom for rich tech folks and gentrification displacing too many folks across the human spectrum of San Francisco residents.

The eviction epidemic hanging over the City is harmful and stressful to all renters, and has reached a crisis stage where local and state hot-air politicians are talking about addressing the problem. Nice to have them looking at the epidemic, I just wish I saw clear and unquestionable urgency from our electeds.

Portuguese & Italian Films Play the Bay Area this Weekend

My cineaste gene is twitching with excitement over two film series unspooling this weekend on both sides of the Bay Bridge.

First up is the San Francisco Film Society's annual New Italian Cinema series at the Clay Theater, on now and concluding on Sunday night. Click here for the full list of what's playing and when. Three films are of keen interest.

There's the three-hour-plus historical costume drama "We Believed" and it is full of political and philosophical intrigue about Italy's path to independence. It screens on Saturday, November 16 at 12:15 pm.

Italy's submission for the best foreign language Oscar, directed by a rising star on the international film scene, Paolo Sorrentino, "The Great Beauty", pictured. I saw Sorrentino's previous film starring Sean Penn, "This Must Be The Place", and while he delivered an enjoyable performance and the director's talent was fully on display, it was a narrative mess in the second half but well worth my time.

"The Great Beauty" plays on Sunday, November 17 at 6:00 pm, and the program note details some of the pleasures in store for viewers:

"I wanted to be the king of the high life,” says Roman writer Jep Gambardella, and he’s mostly succeeded. [...] But after 65 years, he finds himself looking for more meaning than “la dolce vita” supplies. Considering old loves while embarking on new affairs, Jep is the viewer’s world-weary guide to the Dionysian offerings of Rome. Employing elegant cinematography and a brilliantly wide-ranging score, director Paolo Sorrentino has created a phantasmagoric feast for the senses, a tribute to the Eternal City that will surely have a long life of its own.                 
After that film, Sorrentino's first film "One Man Up" plays at 9:30 pm on Sunday. What's it about?

"[An] aging crooner, cokehead and lothario, frequently bedding women younger than his daughter. When he’s caught with an underage girl, his career hits the skids. In a parallel plotline, another man with the same name (unrelated and ten years younger) finds his soccer career squashed by an untimely injury."

Across the bay, the Pacific Film Archive continues its New Portuguese Cinema survey over the weekend, and I hope to catch the two films playing on Saturday, starting with Miguel Gomes' 2012 film "Tabu" at 6:00 pm. From the PFA calendar:

This mysterious work shifts from modern-day Lisbon to a Portuguese colony in Africa in the 1960s, from life lived to life remembered. “One of the most original and inventive—as well as trenchantly political and painfully romantic—movies of recent years” (Richard Brody, The New Yorker).

Then at 8:30 pm "The Last Time I Saw Macao" screens. Co-directed by out gay filmmaker João Pedro Rodrigues and João Rui Guerra da Mata who refer to their collaboration thus:

[A] genre-shifting tribute to both multicultural Macao and Josef von Sternberg’s 1952 film Macao as “an investigation disguised as a film noir.” Guerra da Mata’s childhood memories of growing up in the former Portuguese colony intersect with Rodrigues’s recollections of the East drawn from cinematic and literary references, resulting in a stunning essay film.

Rodrigues will be present for a conversation with local movie critic Johnny Ray Huston. And what's on your film-going card this weekend?

Petition Demands Castro Supervisor 'Stay Away' from Milk Vigil

A reader tipped me off to a petition and image on Change.org, pictured, that should be of interest to all of us fed up with the polarizing and demonizing City Hall tenure of the Castro district's member of the Board of Supervisors.

As someone who was put through eight months of grinding-down by the sheriff, the police and the district attorney as they pulled levers of the criminal justice system because I took a photo of the Supervisor at a sink in a public bathroom, I know full well the lengths he will go to and exact a vendetta. Sure hope someone runs against the guy when he's up for reelection next year.

I have no clue who is behind SF GAG, but wish they had called on the Harvey Milk Democratic Club, organizer of the annual memorial and whose membership in 2011 unanimously passed a resolution demanding the public flagpole at the municipal Harvey Milk Plaza be controlled by the LGBT community and not just the Supervisor and his buddies in MUMC, to properly honor Harvey Milk and George Moscone by lowering the rainbow flag for one day.

Why? Because it is standard practice around the globe to lower flags in honor of beloved deceased community leaders and that November 27, 2013, is the 35th anniversary of the murders of Milk and Moscone. You can be damn sure neither man would have put up with the privatization of the historical plaza and the iconic public flagpole and rainbow flag.

Let's show respect for the lives and legacies of Milk and Moscone and for one 24-hour period, and use the plaza's flagpole to mourn their losses with a simple flag-lowering.

Here's the petition:

Tell Supervisor [redacted] to STAY AWAY from the 35th Annual Candlelight Memorial Honoring Harvey Milk 

Harvey Milk’s most resonate message was “we’ve got to give them hope”. Harvey was known for advocating on behalf of the disenfranchised and displaced. The current elected sitting in the seat once graced by Harvey does not understand Harvey’s message or care about his ideals and therefore cannot and does not respect them. 

The District Eight Supervisor has no business selling out the memorial for Harvey to further his own political agenda while generating yet more media attention for himself. He should not be speaking to the crowd and has no rightful place at a memorial organized by and for the people who wish to celebrate and honor Harvey’s memory and legacy. 

Join the members of the San Francisco Group for Accountable Government (SFGAG) and tell Supervisor [redacted] to STAY AWAY from the candlelight memorial honoring the great Harvey Milk to be held at the Pride Flag on 11.27.13 at 7pm.

What Ever Happened to Joe Solmonese of HRC?

(The heavily air-brushed official Gavin/Solmonese headshot of the firm's Managing Director & Founding Partner Practice Leader – Corporate Engagement & Public Affairs.) 

When I last thought about the Democratic Party hack who served for seven years as the president of the Human Rights Campaign, Joe Solmonese, it was back in February 2012. He had announced he would retire from HRC by the end of March last year and would be joining the Obama reelection campaign as one of 35 national co-chairs. Not more than a dime's worth of difference between his HRC and Obama duties, really.

The other day I learned that he went on to start a Washington-based corporate consulting firm and I wasn't surprised, given how much he sucked up to corporations and financial institutions for sponsorship of HRC dinners and lobbying efforts. A puff-piece that reads as if it came from Solmonese and his business partner, from Stuart P. Papavassiliou in the July 2012 issue of the ABF Journal, provides the background on Solmonese's  new endeavor:

Last April, the commercial finance industry learned that the venerable turnaround firm of NHB Advisors had been acquired by a newly formed corporate consulting firm bearing the name Gavin/Solmonese. While acquisitions of turnaround firms either in whole or in part have made industry headlines regularly this year [...] this announcement was a bit unique. 

As it can sometimes happen, a chance meeting can be the first of a series of events that significantly impacts what comes later. In this case, attendance at a political fundraiser set Gavin/Solmonese’s formation in motion. Ted Gavin, principal at NHB Advisors and his wife were introduced to the work of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) [...] In time, Gavin met Joe Solmonese, the then president of HRC at a fundraising event in Washington D.C. [...] That was in 2009. 

For both Gavin and Solmonese, the conversations stepped up in January 2012, when the two began thinking about creating an opportunity to work together. The question became: how would the two achieve that goal? [...] 

Solmonese, who at the beginning of June of this year left his post at HRC and today heads the corporate public affairs strategies practice for the new firm. [...]

Solmonese says, “Certainly our mission was straightforward as an advocacy organization fighting for LGBT equality, but one of the strategies we put in place — and I think it was quite brilliant although many people may not know about it — was to use institutional settings to accomplish the change we set out to accomplish. If we couldn’t change the laws, we could go into schools, hospitals, religious organizations and, of course, corporate America. [...] 

Solmonese shares his partner’s excitement. He sums it up neatly: “At the end of the day, whether it’s having companies survive the economic downturn or getting corporations to provide a greater degree of equity for some segment of its workforce, or having that corporation take that practice and influence the external public policy conversation, it all comes back to the bottom line … and for us, that’s about helping corporations to be better, to do better and to be more profitable as a result.” 

Is it too cynical of me to say that three years before he left HRC, Solmonese was laying the groundwork for his next career move - a move that was an extension of his tenure at the gay advocacy organization - to increase the profits of Corporate America by commodifying the LGBT community?

Check out all the high-price bankruptcy, crisis-management and other big league financial and political services Gavin/Solmonese offers. Solmonese never pretended to give a damn about the 99% and his new gig offers fresh evidence of his membership card in the 1%.

SF AIDS Inc: No Praise for Gays 50-Plus Surviving a Plague

There has never been a social marketing campaign praising gay men, HIV positive and negative, from the very well-financed institutions that comprise AIDS Inc, for living through the plague years and all the amazingly great advocacy work we've engaged in over the past thirty-plus years.

While we have endured endless deficit-assumption based campaigns accusing us of not talking about AIDS or not giving a fuck or not getting enough HIV tests or not doing a seemingly endless list of activities AIDS service organizations and the Department of Public Health decided in their ivory towers should be done, I can't think of a single ad effort congratulating us for all the terrific actions we've taken in three decades.

The ad above from the San Francisco AIDS Foundation ran in the Bay Area Reporter of October 2000, about an alleged skyrocketing of HIV transmissions, and questioned whether gays give a fuck about transmission and a lot of other issues. Foundation leaders said they wanted to spark a discussion about gay male health. Great way to start a conversation about one's health. Accuse the target audience with not caring and curse at them.

The assumption of every AIDS campaign is that gays are doing something, usually many things, wrong and only AIDS Inc can tell us how to take care of ourselves. This ad campaign was funded by the San Francisco Department of Public Health in 2005 and is typical of the finger-wagging approach beloved by HIV prevention professionals.

As gay men living with HIV and AIDS have grappled with myriad medical visits, blood draws, frightening test results, battling opportunistic infections, the side effects of drug cocktails, paying for the meds and healthcare, maintaining an income, staying alive and creating ways of thriving, we've not given praise and love for surviving.

On top of those medical matters, we've had to process and counter the stigma heaped upon us as gay men and PWAs by religious leaders, ambitious politicians, ratings-hungry TV giants and other media and too much societal hatred, while being accused of not giving a fuck by AIDS organizations.

Many of the AIDS service groups and their executives owes gays and PWAs, especially those in ACT UP chapters, for demonstrating and demanding more money for them and still there is no gratitude from AIDS Inc.

When not bombarding us with HIV-specific social marketing campaigns, the SF DPH has targeted us with inflammatory messages about sexually transmitted diseases and drug use. This ad from the STD Control Unit of DPH ran in the BAR in 1999 and gained infamy for equating gay men with syphilis as walking and ticking time bombs about to explode. Have I mentioned how these campaign have burdened us with outrageous stigma and hysteria?

I'm not saying that HIV, STDs and drug use among gay men in San Francisco shouldn't be of concern or addressed with social marketing. What I object to is the pathological basis for the campaigns that NEVER find a damn positive thing to say about gay men, our collective wellness and all the incredible survival and work we've accomplished.

We constantly are beat with a stick and never does AIDS Inc find a way to offer a carrot as an incentive.

I forget when this obnoxious San Francisco AIDS Foundation ad effort was launched, but the basic message was for gays not to trust whatever sex partners said about their HIV status or really anything about their health. The point of "How do you know, what you know?" was for gays to be suspicious of each other. Decades of such messaging have done much social, sexual and psychological harms to gay men regardless of HIV status or age.

The latest insulting campaign from SF DPH and the Kaiser Family Foundation is the Greater Than AIDS effort. Ignoring pleas to give us a break from the supposed silence or whispering about AIDS here. Follow the link and read how it's another provocative campaign with a damn positive thing to say about gays: "An overarching theme of the cross-platform campaign is to encourage more open communication about HIV in relationships, with health care providers and within the community generally."

Again, we have the social campaigners telling we are not doing enough talking. I wonder how the, ahem, fuck they measure whether open communication is up or down about HIV in our interactions with each other, our healthcare professionals and when we're just hanging out with friends and family and they ask how we're doing.

I'm closing this post with a composite quote from the late gay male health advocate Eric Rofes, about what is so terrible about these ads:

I think more than anything we need a few years of “time out” from directive AIDS prevention work for gay men. We need to get away from all the messaging, all the marketing, all the “crises of the week” used to terrify gay men into sexual sterility [...] Frankly, many of us have forged our own “time out” from all of the violence sent down to us by AIDS prevention. Many gay men do their very best to avoid the messaging, avoid the social marketing, avoid getting caught up in the drama of crisis about our sex [...] What effects does the colonization of bodies and desires have on a people when it is allowed to go on for 25 years? [...] The use of social marketing as the primary tool in HIV education and prevention has been a disaster with consequences we never imagined.

It is time for AIDS Inc in San Francisco to design and launch a few social marketing campaigns that clearly and unquestionably praise gay men over 50, especially longterm AIDS survivors, for living through the plague years and the amazing changes we brought about while surviving and thriving.

Russian Gays Bring Hope & Solidarity to SF's Castro District

[Permission granted for free use of the images, as long as credit is given to Bill Wilson of Gays Without Borders.]

As part of the U.S. State Department's public diplomacy program assisting gay activists around the world in developing and strengthening skills to protect their human rights and personal safety, five Russian gays visited San Francisco this week. They were accompanied by two translators and met with activists from our group Gays Without Borders, staffers at LGBT and HIV/AIDS nonprofits and also sat down for an interview with the Bay Area Reporter.

Because of threats made against them from homophobes in Russia, I am using only the first names of the visitors to protect their personal safety when they return home.

The photo above shows Gleb, right, standing with Robbie Sweeny of the Facebook group Boycott4Russia with the majestic Castro Theater marquee behind them. Robbie will stay in touch with the Russians via his group so please bookmark it and like it.

A handful of activists with Gays Without Borders staged a photo-op in historic Harvey Milk Plaza, to create images of hope and solidarity and to also say we engaged in a bit of street activism with one of the Russians. Gleb is in the middle with the Castro Theater marquee directly over his head.

Here's Gleb holding a sign in Russian that translates as "Equality and Justice for All in Russia!" He's standing under the rainbow flag at Harvey Milk Plaza with Robbie next to him.

Striking handsome poses, enjoying the warm autumn weather and smiling in the plaza are,  from the left, Yury, Andrew and Alexandr.

The Russians were given a tour of the Castro district by Kathy Amendola, a local lesbian historian who showed the visitors the exterior of the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, a public grammar school. From left to right: Alexandr, Gleb, Kathy, Evgeny, Andrew and Yury.

The top photo is of Andrew near the entrance to the academy and the bottom image show Evgeny in front of the academy exterior artwork created by the school kids, illustrated with a black-and-white painting of Harvey Milk with his moustache.

Prior to taking the tour of the Castro, the San Francisco LGBT Community Center hosted an informal brown-bag lunch chat. Starting on the left we see Evgeny, Andrew and Alexandr.

Please be sure to read Melanie Nathan excellent report on the chat at the center, and learn more about our activist friends from Russia and their important advocacy work.

An Update on Larry Kramer: 'Uncompromising as Ever'

(Kushner, left, chatting with Kramer in June. Credit: Howard Heyman, New York Historical Society, via Gay City News.)

My friend Dr. Larry Mass, a co-founder of the Gay Men's Health Crisis, among his many contributions to the well-being of LGBT people everywhere as well as the author of "We All Must Love One Another or Die: The Life and Legacy of Larry Kramer", shares an update on the cherished gay writer and angry prophet who changed the course of the AIDS epidemic.

After speaking with Dr. Tony Fauci at the Lancet's AIDS conference last week about my friend Larry Kramer from our ACT UP/NYC days together, I asked Larry Mass for some info on Larry Kramer and he's provided me with this report:

Many well-wishers have inquired about Larry's health. Here's what I know. Many details are missing. Larry had a liver transplant for liver failure from chronic active hepatitis approximately a decade ago. The transplant was a success, but in recent years there have been problems with fluid accumulation. 

Prior to his recent surgery, the last time Larry appeared in public was in June for a one-on-one interview with Tony Kushner at the New York Historical Society, the highlight event of NYHS's featured exhibit on the first five years of the epidemic. Although visibly weakened by his condition, for more than an hour Larry more than held his own. In fact, he was triumphant. 

During the summer, Larry underwent surgery and the next we heard about him was an announcement in the New York Times of his hospital-bed marriage to his long-term partner, David Webster. 

More recently, while still hospitalized, Larry was able to attend a PEN awards event honoring him. Larry continues to recuperate at a rehabilitation facility in New York where he is able to undergo daily physical therapy. 

My life partner, Arnie Kantrowitz, and I had the good fortune to visit with him there October 27. It gave us the opportunity to thank Larry in person for re-energizing Arnie's pursuit of a kidney transplant, which Arnie got 14 mos ago, and which has been successful. Exhausted by dialysis, Arnie's enthusiasm for resuming pursuit of a transplant had bottomed out. At my request, Larry sent him a critically timed email that jump-started Arnie's motivation to get back in touch with the transplant facility. 3 months later, Arnie got his transplant (he had been on the list for over 3 years)--one week before Hurricane Sandy blacked out his dialysis center and our apartment. 

Although he has lost a lot of weight and is visibly weak, Larry is discernibly brimming with positive energy and his recovery appears to be progressing well. I don't know if he ate the Lilac chocolates we brought him (Larry is a milk--not dark!--chocaholic), but hopefully so. He needs to gain weight. 

Apparently, he got the iPad he wanted because he just sent AIDS activist John-Manuel Andriote a note of encouragement re Andriote's latest Huffpost, Dear Mr. President, Please Stop Wasting HIV Prevention Funding and Start Saving Our Lives. 

 Around the time of the NYHS panel, I had an email exchange with Larry that was at once moving and telling. All these great things are happening to me now, he said, but it's hard to enjoy them. It was a poignant moment, but if there was any doubt about whether Larry Kramer was still Larry Kramer, there was a vintage expression of exasperation about how he had all these top fucking doctors, none of whom could figure out how to fix his fucking liver! 

Never one to accept any status quo, he knew that the surgery they were suggesting would be arduous and painful and he wasn't about to undergo it without challenging them at every level. Now on the other side of this latest of his life's many battles and however physically weakened, at the PEN event, he chastised writers for thinking too small. 

Clearly, Larry Kramer is still very much alive and with us, as outspoken, controversial and uncompromising as ever.

Praise the Goddess for that! Thanks, Larry Mass, for this update and glad you're partner Arnie is doing well. Here's wishing Larry Kramer all the best as he grapples with his health and life issues.

New Yorker's Socarides' Ethics Breach: Flak for Gerson Lehman Firm

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Richard Socarides

Head of Public Affairs - GLG (Gerson Lehrman Group)

Greater New York City Area

Management Consulting

Current	GLG - Gerson Lehrman Group,  The New Yorker
Previous	Brady Klein & Weissman,  New Line Cinema,  HBO
Education	Hofstra University School of Law

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The Wikipedia entry for the Gerson Lehman Group states that it's a "knowledge brokerage and primary research firm firm that operates an expert network platform of more than 500,000 subject matter experts who provide independent consulting services to companies around the world" and I'm sure their head of public affairs would love to reach a wide audience via a respectable magazine's site such as the New Yorker.

A gay friend and a longtime subscriber to the magazine, who wishes to remain anonymous, has called my attention to the latest ethics breach with Richard Socarides. Some history. In March, I blogged about Socarides' mentioning GLAAD on his New Yorker blog and omitting his connection to the group. When he wrote about NYC mayoral hopeful Christine Quinn in July and omitted his donations to her, I said New Yorker editor David Remnick owed readers a disclosure regarding Socarides fiscal support of Quinn. The disclosure never came.

Read what my friend has to say and keep it in mind whenever you read the ethically-challenged blog of Socarides at the New Yorker:

It is impossible to believe that Socarides, as a professional flak for the Gerson Lehrman Group is not completely encumbered with multiple conflicts of interest. He doesn't even mention his full-time job in his bio lines for his New Yorker blog when in fact readers are entitled to read about his firm's entire client list so that we can weigh what he's writing against that backdrop. And for someone who fancies himself a gay activist, it is disgraceful that in his own LinkedIn profile [excerpted above] he doesn't mention the gay word once.

Socarides was indeed the gay liaison in the White House for Bill Clinton who signed the worst anti-gay legislation of the 1990s. Socarides went to work for Clinton after he signed the 1993 Don't Ask, Don't Tell law, barring gays from open military service. When Clinton decided to sign the infamous Defense of Marriage Act, Socarides did not resign in protest.

Perhaps the greatest outrage is that The New Yorker, which has never been particularly sophisticated in its coverage of LGBT issues, has turned over space on their site and sometimes in print to this insider politico and friend to all in Gay, Inc. (the big, lumbering national LGBT groups) who is not the least bit objective about the operations of the movement.

He was a longtime supporter of Mayor Michael Bloomberg who twice vetoed major LGBT rights legislation during his tenure--one to require contractors to provide domestic partner benefits and the other an anti-bullying bill. Bloomberg also successfully appealed a court order in 2005 to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, citing Leviticus in the City's briefs.

Socarides still endorsed him for re-election because his real interest is in access to power--not the interests of the larger LGBT community. Have you ever seen him write about economic justice issues or the plague of homelessness among LGBT youth or the frightening rise in HIV infections among gay youth of color?

Socarides is also a member of the State University of New York board, a plum given to him by Governor Cuomo--another politician you can be sure Socarides will never criticize.

More conflicts? Socarides was an avid supporter of out lesbian Christine Quinn for mayor and missed the story of how she had alienated many progressive and LGBT voters and not only finished a poor third place, but actually lost the gay vote to de Blasio. Lest you think you can rely on Socarides for objective analysis of how the de Blasio administration is doing on LGBT and AIDS issues, forget it. As soon as Quinn lost, Socarides was one of the lead sponsors of a fundraiser for de Blasio. This man has no business in journalism.

It is shameful that The New Yorker is so unsophisticated and uncaring about how LGBT issues are covered in its pages. Instead of turning over an LGBT blog to a competent, hard hitting gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender journalist, they seem to have given it to someone with social connections to the editors who can be relied on not to upset the moneyed gay establishment or the political establishment.