Arg! Rum!
By Ed Sikov Cocktail Chatter Onboard the Neue Weimar, queen of the Deutche-America line: I write this column on the second day of the honeymoon Dan and I never had the chance to take before. [...]
Book Marks: Through the Door of Life, Gypsy Boy, The Infernal Republic
by Richard Labonte "Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey Through Genders," by Joy Ladin. University of Wisconsin Press, 272 pages, $26.95 hardcover. Poet Ladin brings elegance and eloquence to this memoir, by turn [...]
’21 Jump Street’ makes queer cool
Using "21 Jump Street," the cinematic spinoff loosely based on the guilty-pleasure TV drama, as a progress-meter for the gay community is probably a bit ridiculous, but you have to give it up to the [...]
Out Night returns to Ann Arbor Film Festival
Out Night returns to the 50th Ann Arbor Film Festival, North America's longest-running independent and experimental film festival, in the Michigan Theater's main auditorium at 9:30 p.m. March 28. This year's Out Night - the [...]
Kristine W sets you straight
What happens in Vegas doesn't always stay there. For instance, Kristine W - the chart-topping dance-music powerhouse adored by the gays - is heading to Detroit, where the Sin City-based singer will perform at 10 [...]
Be alert, Cancer!
By Jack Fertig Q Scopes The Sun moving into Aries passes Mercury, retrograding into Pisces, and then goes on to conjoin Uranus. Egotistical ideas and smug certainty will be punctured. Let it go and laugh. [...]
Rachel Has Two Daddies
Across 1 With 32-Across, portrayer of one of Rachel's dads 5 Take down a peg 10 Bone of the leg 14 Trucker's rod 15 Runway walker 16 Go in only partway, at the beach 17 [...]
It’s all happening at the ‘Zoo’
By John Quinn The first line of "At Home at the Zoo" is "We should talk." That's deliberately misleading. There's a lot of talk; what we have here is the oft-quoted "failure to communicate," but [...]
Drama ‘drives’ its point home at The Box
Young people today might find it hard to believe, but life in America in the 1940s and '50s wasn't quite the way it was depicted in the legendary television comedies "Leave It To Beaver" and [...]
Lovers tango and tangle in ‘Fiction’
By Michael H. Margolin Shakespeare invented the convention that unites two lovers who carp and growl and insult one another, yet we know are in love. Think of Beatrice and Benedict and, of course, Petruchio [...]
A spring bouquet of laughs brightens Meadow Brook Theatre
By John Quinn Critics, by nature, are not a creative lot. Thus we go poking through theater programs and press releases looking for information we can crib, like lazy school kids, and turn into useful [...]
Intersecting identities
By Desiree Cooper Rosemary Linares is a bubbly 29-year-old with a master's degree from New York University, a supportive husband and an adorable stepson. From the outside, it looks like she has it all--including what [...]
Cesar Chavez GSA: A place to ‘laugh or cry’
By Crystal Proxmire DETROIT - When tenth grader Francisca Ibarra told her father she was joining the Cesar Chavez Academy High School GSA, he was not exactly thrilled. "My father was mad. He thought that [...]
Third petition approved in recall effort of Troy mayor
On March 15 the Oakland County Election Commission approved a third petition submitted by the Recall Janice Daniels group during a clarity hearing at the Oakland County Probate Court in Pontiac. This followed a decision [...]
Muskegon: Right political climate for ordinance
By Jim Larkin What a difference 30 miles - and a different political climate - makes! Nine months after Holland, its Lake Michigan shoreline neighbor to the south, rejected a proposal to include sexual orientation [...]
Killer of gay man convicted
On March 14 it only took the jury two hours to convict 20-year-old Andrew Terrell Clark of murder in the November 2010 fatal stabbing of a gay man targeted through an online dating service. Robert [...]
DOW Chemical employee’s quest for LGBT rights
MIDLAND - "In conservative states, like Michigan, we have more protections when we're working on DOW Chemical property than we do when we step outside the gates to go home." That's one of the reasons [...]
Mark your calendar for Transgender events
The boards of Transgender Detroit and Transgender Michigan are busy getting ready for the springtime events that attract transgender people and allies from all across the region. Michelle Fox-Phillips of Transgender Detroit and Rachel Crandall [...]
Esteemed social worker to present findings on LGBT youth wellness and families March 30
FERNDALE - Dr. Caitlin Ryan, founder and director of the Family Acceptance Project team at San Francisco State University is discussing practical implications and concrete strategies for rethinking approaches to supporting the health and well-being [...]
Robo calls attack Romney’s pro-gay record
By Lisa Keen Keen News Service There was no surprise in Tuesday's Republican presidential primary results: The field's most conservative candidate, Rick Santorum, won primaries in two of the nation's most conservative states. The candidate [...]
Creep of Week: Rush Limbaugh
Creep of the Week Poor Rush Limbaugh. Can't a guy even call a girl a slut on the radio these days without people getting all mad? It's not like he called a private citizen a [...]
What do you think of the Rutger’s trial verdict and Dharun Ravi’s conviction?
Heard on Facebook Very sad. Two lives have been ruined by a senseless act. -Michael Petroni How can anyone say they "like" this? A young man is dead and another misguided young man will have [...]
Parting Glances: Pages past tense #4
Detroit's imposing, massive, block-wide Masonic Temple, now virtually empty, was built in 1922, or, cornerstone dated 5022, following the Hebraic custom of noting esoteric history. At one time in the 1960s every major dance company [...]
Dharun Ravi’s conviction
Compiled by Howard Israel S/he Said "The fundamental question in this trial was whether or not Dharun Ravi would have similarly invaded the privacy of a roommate having intimate relations with someone of the opposite [...]
Claiming a bi-place
By Emily Dievendorf Eye on Equality The first time I was called "greedy" it was by a drag queen at the Michigan Pride Festival. She wasn't talking to me directly. She was calling out audience [...]
NH House rejects marriage equality repeal
By Lisa Keen State Rep. David Bates, R-Windham, talks about his amendment on on a bill to repeal New Hampshire's gay marriage with a civil union law instead and putting the question on the ballot [...]
Bill seeks to amend Elliott-Larsen law to include LGBT protections
LANSING - In her second attempt to amend The Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act of 1976, Sen. Rebekah Warren (D-Ann Arbor) announced Thursday new legislation that would prohibit employers, landlords, and others in Michigan from discriminating [...]
Ferndale gets Oakland County’s first Planned Parenthood
FERNDALE - On April 2 Planned Parenthood Mid and South Michigan (PPMSM) will open a new health center in Ferndale. Located at 23338 Woodward, the new facility is Planned Parenthood's first in Oakland County. "We [...]
Remarks by US AIDS director draw mixed reviews
Dr. Grant Colfax was appointed by the White House on March 14. AINN report With a president who has declared the end of AIDS is in reach, Dr. Grant Colfax has a massive job [...]
Proposed revisions to U.S. customs forms would recognize LGBT households
Washington DC - The Family Equality Council and Immigration Equality praised the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Treasury March 26 for supporting a proposal to allow all families - including those headed by [...]
EXCLUSIVE: ‘Bully’ director, lesbian teen talk controversial documentary
Editor's note: After this story was posted, The Weinstein Company (TWC), aided by the guidance and consultation from attorneys David Boies and Ted Olson, announced late April 5 that the MPAA has lowered the R [...]
Bullied Michigan student’s online petition creates rating change
BY BTL Staff The Weinstein Company announced March 26, that "Bully," the award-winning documentary about the epidemic of school bullying in the U.S., will open in theaters on March 30 as "unrated" after nearly 500,000 [...]
Same-sex Wedding Expo returns to Livonia Marriott
Get $5 off admission at the door with this Gaypon deal. Enter to win free tickets to the Expo. Contest ends April 6. LIVONIA - Pride Source Media Group, publishers of Between The Lines and [...]
EXCLUSIVE: Jason Mraz On ‘Open’ Sexuality, Threesomes and What He Really Meant In Instinct
How cool is Jason Mraz? For one, his unwavering fight for equal rights led him to shoot a Human Rights Campaign video recently; he's also waiting to wed until everyone can and, not long ago, [...]