Council Candidates Get FIERCE
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AMERICA’S LARGEST CIRCULATION GAY AND LESBIAN NEWSPAPER! NEWSTM YOUR FREE LGBT NEWSPAPER SEPTEMBER 3-16, 2009 VOLUME EIGHT, ISSUE 18 SERVINGGay GAY, LESBIAN, BI AND TRANSGENDERED City NEW YORK • WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM ■ LEGAL ■ REMEMBRANCE NY High Court Passionate Gay Revisiting Rights Voice Co-Parent Stilled Custody BY PAUL SCHINDLER BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD n July 12, 1996, the US House of Representatives, caught up The New York Court of Appeals, the O in a sudden nationwide frenzy state’s highest bench, announced on about the prospect that the Hawaii state September 1 that it was granting Lamb- courts might be moving toward legaliza- da Legal’s petition to challenge the deni- tion of marriage by same-sex couples, al of a lesbian co-parent’s right to bring passed the Defense of Marriage Act in a a suit seeking joint custody or visitation 342-67 vote. On September 10, the Sen- with a child she had been raising with ate followed suit, in an 85-14 vote, and her former Vermont civil union partner. eleven days later, President Bill Clinton The action, regarding a ruling ear- signed the measure into law. lier this year by the state Appellate Divi- Among the 14 senators, all Demo- sion in Manhattan, gives the LGBT legal crats, who stood against the prevailing advocacy group the opportunity to try to political gale was an old Massachusetts persuade the high court to overrule its sailing aficionado, Ted Kennedy, the controversial 1991 decision in a similar state’s senior senator. case, also brought by Lambda. On October 3, the Empire State Pride In the case now headed to the Court Agenda (ESPA), New York’s LGBT lob- GAY CITY NEWS CITY GAY of Appeals, titled Debra H. v. Janice R., MARIA PASSANNANTE-DERR, YETTA KURLAND AT AUGUST 28 FIERCE FRIDAY FORUM bying organization, held its fifth annual the plaintiff co-parent claims that the fall dinner at Manhattan’s Grand Hyatt couple planned together to have a child, Hotel. The scheduled speakers were who was born about a month after they Mayor Rudy Giuliani and George Steph- entered into a civil union in Vermont Council Candidates anopoulos, who was then the president’s and two months after they registered communications director. as domestic partners in New York City. KENNEDY P. 26 Debra “served as a loving and caring Get FIERCE parental figure during the first 2-1/2 years of the child’s life,” according to the BY PAUL SCHINDLER attend, citing a scheduling conflict. CO-PARENT P. 9 FIERCE, the Fabulous Independent n an August 28 Friday Forum Educated Radicals for Community In this issue: hosted by FIERCE, a Chelsea- Empowerment, focused the discus- ■ ENDORSEMENTS I based advocacy group for LGBTQ sion on its ongoing efforts to preserve City Council, Manhattan youth of color, District 3 City Coun- and enhance the West Village and the cil candidate Yetta Kurland repeat- Hudson River piers in Lower Manhat- DA, Comptroller, Public edly signaled her personal identifica- tan as safe havens for LGBTQ youth, Advocate tion with the struggles those young many of whom travel from other parts ■ 12 people face. One of her opponents, of the city and region to socialize open- ————————————————— Maria Passannante-Derr, who has at ly with their peers. The questions, ■ times clashed with the group in her posed by FIERCE members Elegost BACKSTAGE AT EDEN role on Community Board 2, voiced Rosado and Chris Baez, probed the In “Big Gay Musical,” 2 gays her respect for FIERCE’s goals, even candidates’ views on tensions between as she challenged them to aggressively youth, on one side, and neighborhood play 2 gays playing 2 gays seize opportunities already available residents and police, on the other, and ■ 16 to impact policy debates. on recurring debates about expanding ————————————————— The third candidate in the race, City the hours, access, and services avail- ■ CAN ON THE RUN Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who able for young people on the piers. has served the district, which runs An out lesbian who mentioned she is Just what incarnation is from the West Village north to Chelsea 41, Kurland, a civil rights attorney, estab- this for Tom Judson? HUBBY NOT CHUBBY and Hell’s Kitchen, since 1999, did not ■ 21 4 FIERCE P. 28 © GAY CITY NEWS 2009 • COMMUNITY MEDIA, LLC, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 3 - 16 SEP 2009 2/ History When the Clothes Came Off Jeffrey Escoffier looks at beefcake, porn, and society’s changing homo-sex mores BY DOUG IRELAND BIGGER THAN LIFE The History of the Gay Porn Industry hy would a noted gay from Beefcake to Hardcore intellectual devote By Jeffrey Escoffier W his time to a history Perseus Books/Running Press of the queer porn industry? $24.95; 367 pages Because, as Jeffrey Escoffier demonstrates in his fascinat- ing account of this billion dollar 1977, he helped to found the business, same-sex pornogra- San Francisco Lesbian and Gay phy has not only been a win- History Project, and during the dow on changing sexual styles ’80s he was the executive edi- and identities but has helped to tor of Socialist Review, a smart, shape them. non-sectarian New Left journal, As Escoffier writes in “Bigger run by a San Francisco-based Than Life,” just published, “The collective, that first brought to sexual revolution of the sixties national prominence a raff of and seventies would never have notable queer writers and artists taken place without a series of like the historian Alan Berube extended legal and political bat- (author of the groundbreaking tles over obscenity and pornog- “Coming Out Under Fire: The raphy.” Escoffier chronicles how History of Gay Men and Women a series of “struggles over free in World War II”), the lesbian speech and the First Amend- feminist Amber Hollibaugh (who ment that were also business went on to become senior strat- ventures… helped to create a egist at the National Gay and public space where it was per- Lesbian Task Force and is today missible not only to discuss a leading authority on the prob- patterns of sexual behavior but lems facing LGBT seniors), and also to portray sexuality honest- Debra Chasnoff (the Academy ly and bluntly in fiction, on the Award-winning filmmaker of Joe Dallasandro, in Paul Morrissey’s Warhol film “Flesh.” stage, and in movies.” “It’s Elementary” and other gay- Escoffier has been both a themed documentaries). which I regularly recommend to “education of desire.” We must gay films were the “beefcake” product of that sexual revolu- Escoffier went on to found budding gay activists, remains not forget that until 1962, as magazines and film loops pio- tion and a significant intellec- Out/Look, the national lesbian an important theoretical work Escoffier notes, “homosexual neered from the late ’40s on by tual force within it. As the first and gay quarterly, and while to this day. materials, even those without the likes of Bob Mizer and his president of Philadelphia’s Gay there he launched the Out- Now, with “Bigger Than Life,” any sexual content, were con- American Models Guild, whose Activists Alliance in 1970, he Write Lesbian and Gay Writers Escoffier shows how “pornogra- sidered obscene by definition. photographs showed well-oiled co-founded and edited The Gay Conferences, held throughout phy created space for increased The emergence of gay hardcore muscular youths wearing dis- Alternative, a pioneering jour- the ‘90s, which were undoubt- experimentation with a whole films provided explicit represen- creet posing straps over their nal of gay culture and politics edly the largest gatherings of range of sexualities not orga- tations of gay sexual behavior genitals in various homoerotic and one of the skein of influen- LGBT writers in history. Of his nized around procreation not otherwise available… and attitudes. (Thom Fitzgerald’s tial, early queer publications five previous books, his seminal and reproduction.” For gays, the availability of such images 1999 docudrama “Beefcake,” that helped mold and spread 1998 work “American Homo: film pornography contributed helped to affirm the nascent gay which airs regularly on the gay liberation’s first wave. When Community and Perversity” mightily to what the film critic identity.” he moved to San Francisco in (University of California Press), Richard Dyer has labeled the The precursors of hardcore ᭤ PORN, continued on p.3 Find it in the © 114 Christopher St. A Village Landmark archives Serving The Community Btw Bleecker & Hudson St. For Over 35 Years 212-741-9641 [email protected] www.GAYCITYNEWS.com Happy Hour Monday - Friday 2 - 8 http://josephlogiudice.com 2nd Tuesday of the Month is Fireflag/EMS Night 6-1am 50/50 Raffle / BEAR NITE Every Thursday WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 3 – 16 SEP 2009 3 ᭤ PORN, from p.2 panions reacted to the dreary, unerotic company, “Boys in the Sand” was pre- cal” movie exploring his fascination with plot by laughing or falling asleep as the viewed by Variety and became the first sadism and starring himself. Entitled Here! cable TV network, brings wit to the soundtrack blared an orchestrated ren- gay hardcore film permitted to advertise “L.A. Plays Itself,” Halsted’s film intro- story of Mizer and those not altogether dition of ‘June is Busting Out All Over’ in the New York Times. Poole’s film was duced “fisting” to the American public as innocent early days of male nudity.) from the musical ‘Carousel.’” a smash hit with critics and viewers, and a form of sexual play, was a huge com- When Clark Pollak, the editor of the Poole — a former dancer with the Bal- stayed on Variety’s list of the top 50 best- mercial and critical success, and was beefcake magazine Drum, was arrest- lets Russes who’d choreographed Broad- grossing films for three months, making selected by New York’s Museum of Mod- ed on an obscenity charge in 1966 for way musicals for the likes of Noel Cow- Donovan the first gay porn superstar.