Ask Dr. Wang
By Dr. Kevin Wang Looking good for you Before I start my column, I'd like to remind everyone of a survey I'm conducting. I'm starting a research project in my program to increase awareness of [...]
Sports Complex: Bad Behavior: Is unsportsmanlike conduct a straight thing?
By Jim Provenzano A boatload of Minnesota Vikings has an impromptu orgy. High school wrestlers "teabag" a teammate in a strange hazing ritual. A male coach is caught molesting girls or secretly videotaping them. With [...]
Parting Glances: Pages from a book (Pt. 6)
My Lavender Time Capsule spins counterclockwise and lands with a hop, skip, and jump in the year 1955. The landscape is barren for gays and lesbians, who are hit on and worked over by shrinks, [...]
All Politics is Loco: Progress is queer
It is time the GLBT community unites behind a progressive agenda. No more piecemeal support for this issue or that issue. We need a manifesto for a queer progressive vision for Michigan, the United States [...]
Voices from an Urban Bush Sista! Affirmative action, women’s rights and images
By Imani Williams As I sit and wonder and ponder, I close my eyes, try and imagine what this world will be like for my daughters, 17 and 19, in 2007 and beyond. It is [...]
Art & Around for the period March 16-25
Art, Historical & Science Museums: Cranbrook Art Museum "Shoot the Family," contemporary photography and video exploring the undercurrents of domestic life. Through March 26. Free with $6 museum admission. Bloomfield Hills: 1-877-462-7262. http://www.cranbrook.edu. Detroit Historical [...]
Concert Connections
This Week: Donald Fagen Thurs. 3/16/06 Detroit Opera House Brian Vander Ark Fri. 3/17/06 Memphis Smoke, Royal Oak The Twilight Babies and DJ Jim Stone Sat. 3/18/06 The Buzz Bar, Detroit Ben Folds Sat. 3/18/06 [...]
Twilight Babies and DJ Jim Stone play Detroit
Detroit area trio The Twilight Babies will play The Buzz Bar in Detroit on Friday, March 18 with a special guest appearance by DJ Jim Stone. The Twilight Babies combine aspects of rock, electronica and [...]
Theater Events for the period March 16-25
Professional Theater/Opera: Adult Entertainment A Yale graduate helps a group of second rate porn stars set out to make artistic and profitable adult movies. Icarus Falling at Creole Gallery, Lansing. Fri.-Sat., March 24-April 1. $10. [...]
Crimes against humanity
Dear BTL, I enjoy D'Anne Witkowski's articles and her sense/understanding of equality. Although the Creep of the Week column is often discouraging, it is so necessary for our community. Last week's column concerning Welch, West [...]
What the world needs now
Dear BTL, Last week's Creep of the Week is just one example of the very powerful message that has been sent out to America that GLBT people are disposable people. What blows my mind is [...]
Book Marks
By Richard Labonte The Ash Gray Proclamation By Dennis Cooper. VSP Lazarus, 25 pages with 14-song CD, $15 paper Not long after 9/11, Dennis Cooper wrote "The Ash Gray Proclamation," drawing the title from a [...]
Documentary celebrates revolutionary twentieth-century dance troupe
London was ablaze with a Great War in 1938, but it wasn't the one involving a nasty little man with a mustache and his goose-stepping minions. Rather, it was the Great London Ballet Wars - [...]
Curtain Calls
Review: 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch' 'Hedwig' rocks at 1515 Broadway A funny thing happened in the late 1960s and early '70s. The rock-opera "Tommy" burst onto the scene and legions of young people took [...]
Lost and found
ANN ARBOR - There are dog people: people who like dogs, and then there are Dog People: people who dogs seek out, particularly dogs who are lost or in trouble. Author Ken Foster is a [...]
Curtain Calls ONLINE
Review: 'Three Mo' Tenors' The good times roll at the Fisher Theatre By Donald V. Calamia Like many of you, I suspect, I wasn't totally sure what to expect from "Three Mo' Tenors" at Detroit's [...]
Catching Jamie
ROYAL OAK - Everybody wants a story to tell, and for those who have seen Grammy-nominated jazz upstart Jamie Cullum live in concert, that story usually starts with, "I saw the most amazing show the [...]
Knitting store keeps idle hands out of trouble
ANN ARBOR - At 6 feet 4 inches tall, Kevin Bryant could be a quarterback. But he's not. He'd rather score some yarn to knit a pair of socks. And for that, Bryant chose Busy [...]
Now Playing
Just Out Aquamarine When best friends Claire (Emma Roberts) and Hailey (Joanna "JoJo" Levesque) discover a mermaid named Aquamarine (Sara Paxton) in their beach club's swimming pool, their destinies change forever. Hailey, soon to move [...]
Meet Jerry the BTL pet of the week
Jerry is a six-month-old German Shepherd mix who weighs 43 pounds. He came to the shelter as a stray and is patiently waiting to find his new home. Jerry hopes his new family gives him [...]
Creep of the Week: The Catholic Bishops of Massachusetts
If the Catholic Church has proven anything over the past few years, it's that their number one priority is protecting children. They're, like, really good at it - much in the same way Tommy, your [...]
National News Briefs
Compiled by Dawn Wolfe Gutterman Civil Rights Montana to ban homophobic bullying in schools HELENA - All Montana school districts must adopt policies against bullying, the Montana Board of Public Education has decided. The requirement, [...]
SHe Said March 16, 2005
"Karl Rove has reconstructed the [Republican] party so that its core membership is that of evangelical Christians who believe politics should be governed by religious principles. These people can brook no compromise on the abortion [...]
AFA renews call for Ford boycott
By Dawn Wolfe Gutterman TUPELO, Miss. - Undeterred by unsuccessful "boycott of the month" attempts against companies including Disney, Johnson and Johnson, Proctor and Gamble and Orbitz, the American Family Association, a self-styled Christian group [...]
Groups to present film honoring Audre Lorde, legal seminar
DETROIT - On Sunday, March 19, the ALORDE Collective will screen "A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde," a documentary on the life of lesbian poet and activist Audre Lorde. The [...]
Catholic group: no adoptions to gays
By Lisa Keen BOSTON - In yet another confrontation between religious organizations and laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, an organization of the archdiocese of Boston has decided to end its program of helping [...]
Triangle hosts Michigan’s largest comedy event
BTL Staff DEARBORN - On March 11 over 1,500 people attended the 10th Annual Michigan Lesbian & Gay ComedyFest hosted by Triangle Foundation. Not only is the ComedyFest Michigan's largest comedy event, but it is [...]
Episcopal Church reaches out to LGBTs with billboard
By BTL Staff FERNDALE - "All are welcome in the Episcopal Church" is the theme of 10 new billboards unveiled in metropolitan Detroit this month by the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan. The billboards, part of [...]
Equality Riders arrested at Falwell’s university
By Dawn Wolfe Gutterman LYNCHBURG, Va. - On March 10, 24 people were arrested on behalf of LGBT rights as they attempted to step onto the campus of Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. Twelve of the [...]
Human rights ordinance gets another chance in Ferndale
By Sharon Gittleman FERNDALE - Ferndale may soon join a handful of cities that have added gays and lesbians to the list of groups protected against discrimination in their communities. In a matter of weeks, [...]
Oak Park Reconstructionists embrace LGBT community
By Sharon Gittleman OAK PARK - For Reconstructionists, Judaism is a faith that evolves over time, with Jewish culture and community at its core. Gays, lesbians, transsexuals and bisexuals are welcome in that community - [...]
Michigan to host second annual benefit for NGLTF March 17
By Dawn Wolfe Gutterman DETROIT - On March 17, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force will be the focus of a fundraising reception at Detroit's Scarab Club. During the event, NGLTF Executive Director Matt [...]
Ann Arbor PFLAG to host state PFLAG conference March 25
By Dawn Wolfe Gutterman ANN ARBOR - On Saturday, March 25, PFLAG Ann Arbor will host the Michigan Circle, a day-long conference of PFLAG leaders, members and supporters across the state. Presentations and workshops offered [...]
Phelps group pickets funeral of Michigan soldier
By The Associated Press FLUSHING - A half-dozen protesters from Fred Phelps' church who picketed the funeral of a Michigan soldier were met by hundreds of people carrying signs defending the military and honoring the [...]
WRAP to move to new location
By Dawn Wolfe Gutterman ANN ARBOR - The Washtenaw Rainbow Action Project has announced plans to move into new office space April 1, allowing the resource center for Washtenaw County's LGBT residents to improve the [...]
Affirmations hosts first student art show
By Sharon Gittleman FERNDALE - When Courteney Payeur, 21, learned the Pittmann-Puckett Art Gallery had chosen her photographs for their first student show, she didn't hold back. "I was so excited I called my grandma [...]
Religious extremists a one-trick pony
Religious extremists may pose the greatest threat to civil rights in the United States since the Red Scares of the 1950s. And while they try to restrict the rights of all Americans, nowhere have they [...]