Gay Community

Welcome to Gay Matters, a new home for gay news and commentary at The Baltimore Sun. As website real estate, this blog is something new and perhaps long overdue. But we've been doing this work -- covering news relevant to the gay community -- for a very long time. I took a look back -- all the way back to microfilm -- and found the evidence. In 1955, for example, there were 162 men and women arrested on charges of disorderly conduct at the Pepper Hill Club on North Gay Street in "the largest night-club raid ever made in Baltimore," after male patrons among the club's largely gay clientele were seen kissing each other.

Consider this our encore applause for Macklemore's performance at Preakness. This weekend, the self-made Seattle rapper took the stage at the Triple Crown's second jewel and delivered a set that included his two most recognizable songs -- "Thrift Shop" and "Can't Hold Us" -- but also the song "Same Love," in which he stands up for same-sex marriage and gay rights in an unabashedly forward way. Here's a link to the song's video on YouTube....

BALTIMORE REALLY knows how to make you feel good about being gay. And you could feel the pride all around. During the city's gay-pride weekend festivities June 16-17, Fragrance, the cross-dressing host of the block party on Greene and Lexington streets, stepped on stage - in such neon makeup and bright plumes, he almost appeared radioactive - and screamed, "Hey Baltimore ... we've got to love each other!" To him, it didn't matter if you were gay, straight, black, white, old, young; if you were having a good time, you were welcome to the party.

"The New Normal" was supposed to be the new normal. After "Modern Family" brought two gay dads into the spotlight on ABC, NBC was bringing audiences a show that put a gay family at its center. "The New Normal" executive producer Ryan Murphy had already shown two gay teens' first sexual encounter on "Glee. " There was little concern his new show's central couple (Bryan and David) would be the chaste, sexless gay men generally seen on primetime television. I tuned in eagerly when the show premiered, elated to see a romantic gay duo given the amount of screen time generally reserved for straight sitcom leads.

Organizers of this year's Baltimore Pride celebration have chosen Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to serve as grand marshal in recognition of her support for the gay community. The GLBT Community Center of Baltimore and Central Maryland is hosting the annual parade and block party in Mount Vernon and the festival at Druid Hill Park - the largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender gathering in the state - on June 15 and 16. "Mayor Rawlings-Blake's commitment to the LGBT community has been undoubtedly one of the best records in Maryland and for the City of Baltimore," the center said Tuesday in a statement.

As Baltimore's primary campaign draws to a close, City Council President Mary Pat Clarke has begun a behind-the-scenes effort in the city's gay community to defeat an independent candidate for the City Council in the 2nd District, Peter Beilenson.Mrs. Clarke, whose political home base is the center-city 2nd District, has been making calls to leaders of gay and lesbian groups urging them to support her chosen candidates: incumbents Anthony J. Ambridge, Carl Stokes and challenger Paula Johnson Branch instead of Dr. Beilenson.

For gay men coming of age in the 1960s and 1970s, especially those growing up in rural areas or suburban enclaves, there were few gay role models. Television and film offered little beyond the stereotypes of hairdressers and designers. What positive role models did exist were writers who could be labeled as gay or whose work could be detected as gay-themed: Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, James Baldwin, Gore Vidal and William Burroughs are well-known examples. But while gay men were sometimes fully realized characters in their books and plays, they were still depicted as social outcasts, victims or doomed martyrs.

MIAMI -- As the national manhunt for the suspected killer of fashion designer Gianni Versace intensified yesterday, an air of unease hung over glitzy South Beach -- and particularly the gay community here.Police released little new information about Andrew Phillip Cunanan, the prime suspect and reported gay prostitute who has been linked to four other slyings around the country, most often of gay men he seemed to know.WPLG-TV, an ABC affiliate, reported last night that video from a surveillance camera at a hotel near the scene of Versace's death might further link Cunanan to the crime.

WASHINGTON - There was a time when Washington's robust and politicized gay community functioned under the same unspoken social rules that apply to other politically involved people in town. Heated battles waged during the day were left at the bar door at night. Barbs might fly over hot topics, but nothing got too personal. No more. The election-year fight over gay marriage has altered the gay scene here in ways that have left some in the community - most notably gay Republicans - stunned and even fearful.

"The New Normal" was supposed to be the new normal. After "Modern Family" brought two gay dads into the spotlight on ABC, NBC was bringing audiences a show that put a gay family at its center. "The New Normal" executive producer Ryan Murphy had already shown two gay teens' first sexual encounter on "Glee. " There was little concern his new show's central couple (Bryan and David) would be the chaste, sexless gay men generally seen on primetime television. I tuned in eagerly when the show premiered, elated to see a romantic gay duo given the amount of screen time generally reserved for straight sitcom leads.

Welcome to Gay Matters, a new home for gay news and commentary at The Baltimore Sun. As website real estate, this blog is something new and perhaps long overdue. But we've been doing this work -- covering news relevant to the gay community -- for a very long time. I took a look back -- all the way back to microfilm -- and found the evidence. In 1955, for example, there were 162 men and women arrested on charges of disorderly conduct at the Pepper Hill Club on North Gay Street in "the largest night-club raid ever made in Baltimore," after male patrons among the club's largely gay clientele were seen kissing each other.

Organizers of this year's Baltimore Pride celebration have chosen Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to serve as grand marshal in recognition of her support for the gay community. The GLBT Community Center of Baltimore and Central Maryland is hosting the annual parade and block party in Mount Vernon and the festival at Druid Hill Park - the largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender gathering in the state - on June 15 and 16. "Mayor Rawlings-Blake's commitment to the LGBT community has been undoubtedly one of the best records in Maryland and for the City of Baltimore," the center said Tuesday in a statement.

Baltimore police have charged a man in the Christmas Day beating of Kenni Shaw, though it was not announced for several days as the city's gay community remained on edge amid fears of violence. Shaw says he was attacked because he is gay, though police have not suggested a motive in the case. The beating, illustrated by images taken in the hospital of his badly swollen face, helped spur a rally Saturday in East Baltimore that included Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts. Records show Marcus Evans, 26, was picked up two days before the rally on a warrant filed Dec. 29. When asked about the case the day of the rally, police said it remained under investigation.

I was amazed and appalled that nowhere in your article on the rise in HIV infection among African-American women do you mention the need to use condoms to prevent the spread of the disease ("Black women in city infected with HIV at higher rate than national average," March 8). The idea that women should ensure their partners have been tested is good, but between the time of the test and intercourse, the individual could have been exposed. The idea of being "particular" about the type of man you date is nice but not safe.

A state delegate from Virginia recently wrote on this page that "Sexual orientation is not limited to same- or complementary-sex attractions but includes attractions to children, prostitutes, multiple wives (polygamy), dead persons (necrophilia), animals, inanimate objects and others that could not printed in the Baltimore Sun out of deference to readers. " Not only is this statement erroneous and misleading, it demonstrates a reckless disregard for the gay community. As licensed marriage and relationship therapists in practice with straight and gay couples for 23 years, my husband and I have seen firsthand the relationships of gay and lesbian couples.

It constantly amazes me what liberals find important. Unemployment is over 9 percent, the budget deficit is at a record high, states across the country are in fiscal disarray, gas prices have risen 75 percent since President Obama took office, and the Middle East is engulfed in political turmoil. Yet with all these nightmare scenarios, Martin O'Malley and the legislature want us to focus on gay marriage . Are they kidding? Less than a year ago, representatives of the so-called "gay" community sat down with the Maryland legislature to discuss "civil unions.

Angie Henle was just a spectator when she partied last year at the Baltimore Pride Block Party. But when the signature event of Baltimore Pride 2005 got going last night, Henle could say that, for a few moments at least, she was the life of the party. Henle, 20, who lives in Dundalk, beat out a legion of performers last month in an American Idol-like contest to earn the right to sing in front of thousands at the gay, lesbian and transsexual celebration in Mount Vernon. "This year I get to experience this at a whole 'nother level," Henle said.

WASHINGTON -- When David Catania heard that he had won a D.C. Council seat this week, the first thing he did was tell a crowd of supporters how thankful he was for Ken Baker, his companion of four years.The fact that Catania is the council's first openly gay council member is not the only reason why his victory is remarkable. He is also white in a majority-black city and a Republican in a town where there are 10 times as many Democrats as Republicans.Catania, a 29-year-old political neophyte with a doughy face and wire-rimmed glasses, surprised the establishment here in Tuesday's special election for the open at-large seat.

So now openly gay soldiers get to fight and die in neocon-imperialist wars too? David Brooks saw such ironic progressive victories coming. In his book "Bobos in Paradise," he wrote that everything "transgressive" gets "digested by the mainstream bourgeois order, and all the cultural weapons that once were used to undermine middle-class morality ... are drained of their subversive content. " Two decades ago, the gay left wanted to smash the bourgeois prisons of monogamy, capitalistic enterprise and patriotic values and bask in the warm sun of bohemian "free love" and avant-garde values.

Baltimore continues to lead major American cities in the percentage of gay men infected with HIV, according to a recently released report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 38 percent of men who have sex with men in Baltimore were infected — twice the overall percentage in the 21 cities studied by the CDC in 2008. More troubling, researchers said, was the number of those who were unaware of their infection. That was nearly three-quarters in Baltimore and rising, compared with about 44 percent nationwide.