Media coverage: how are we seen?

[BayCityJohn]

There's a historic gay bar in Laguna Beach, California, called the Boom Boom Room, that people are trying to save from being torn down.  You know how it goes -- big business wants to build a resort.

Anyway, two supporters behind the project are -- get ready for this! -- Brad Pitt and George Clooney.  Here's a link to a blog about Saving the Boom and the film made about it.  Enjoy the Garden pictures    and then scroll down to the July 17th entry.

Tell you what

I know where the Boom Boom Room is.

I've been there a couple of times. Had a lot of fun.

[Bubo]

Oh yeah.

[jack]

I know where the Boom Boom Room is.

I've been there a couple of times. Had a lot of fun.

 

[BayCityJohn]

State Supreme Court says doctors must treat gays and lesbians

Doctors in California must treat gays and lesbians the same as any other patient, regardless of religious objections, the state Supreme Court ruled today.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/18/BA2212D6H4.DTL&tsp=1

[michaelflanagansf]

State Supreme Court says doctors must treat gays and lesbians
Doctors in California must treat gays and lesbians the same as any other patient, regardless of religious objections, the state Supreme Court ruled today.

Does this mean I can get a tubal ligation now?

[BayCityJohn]

State Supreme Court says doctors must treat gays and lesbians
Doctors in California must treat gays and lesbians the same as any other patient, regardless of religious objections, the state Supreme Court ruled today.

Does this mean I can get a tubal ligation now?

That's precisely what it means. I'm getting mine done right away. I've already made my appointment. I don't want to take the chance that the voters will pass an amendment.

[CellarDweller115]

Does this mean I can get a tubal ligation now?

[jack]

at first glance this went right over my head, but i guess it does speak volumes.

ellen and portia get the cover of people magazine, and no snark.



somehow, this not terribly funny stand up comic has become a watershed in her own right.

go figure.

[Bubo]

ellen and portia get the cover of people magazine, and no snark.

And then for contrast, CNN's website:

'marries' as if it's not real, and misspelling De Rossi’s name.


Btw, thanks for posting that picture, Jack.  They look so lovely!

[jack]

i had seen the cnn coverage, hence the "no snark" comment.  even after they pulled the quotes, the attitude remained.

i don't know what happened to cnn, but it is only a hair better than fox now.

[tfferg]

 From the Melbourne Age

A win for Australia - and for gay athletes everywhere

•   Ryan Heath
•   August 25, 2008

IS THE sexuality of newly crowned Olympic champion Matthew Mitcham newsworthy? That is a question newsrooms and media consumers have had to ask themselves since the 20-year tumbled into our hearts at the weekend. Haven't we moved past worried about homosexuality as a public threat? What has being gay got to do with back somersaults and twists from a 10-metre high platform?

The answers to those questions are irrelevant. Mitcham's sexuality is news so long as he remains the only openly gay man on the Australian team, and quite possibly, the only one among the nearly 7000 men competing in Beijing.

Consider that. Mitcham is hardly the first gay man - closeted or open - to win an Olympic medal. Millions will still remember Greg Louganis' diving heroics over three Olympics from 1976 to 1988. But can you name another openly gay Australian sportsperson? The answer, probably, is no.

Mitcham's sexuality does not need to be related to his athletic heroism - it is simply an interesting subject in its own right.

Many disagree, such as former US Judo star Lauren Meece. Having come out after her Sydney Olympic appearance, Meece wrote in a gay publication this week , that gay activists should "shut up" and "let gay athletes deal with gay issues off of the podium".

Shutting up is part of the problem. The reason we can't name many gay sports stars isn't because the media are bored with them. Nor is it because gay people can't compete at the highest level: the outsports.com website reports that six of the 11 openly homosexual athletes at the 2008 Games have won medals . It's because there are hardly any coming out stories to report.
…

… it is surely unrealistic to think that just 0.1% of Olympic athletes are gay. Somewhere along the way, several hundred gay athletes went into hiding.

Mitcham's dignified public appearances with his partner, Lachlan, encourage us to ask where and why the others went missing. One reason you are more likely to hear about homosexual liaisons in books published long after a sports career is over, is that sponsors and management like to keep it that way.

There is continuing homophobia in sports arenas and in belief that toxic corporate effects follow homosexuality like a bad smell. The evidence is littered everywhere…

The men aren't real men and the women aren't pretty and feminine is what the stereotypes boil down to.

More than one person has let out a muffled laugh when they hear I am a member of a gay swimming team. It is precisely those instinctive prejudices that hundreds of thousands of gay athletes at junior, masters or Olympic level are up against.
But the truth is that I swim much faster in my late 20s than I ever did as a competitive swimmer in my teens, doing five times the training workload. That is at least partly because I am able to focus on the lap or race at hand, instead of being consumed with the self-doubt and worry that comes with being in the closet.
…
One wonders how many Olympic medals and happy lives Australia has sacrificed because sports - so central to Australian life - are often unwelcoming toward openly gay men and women.

As Mitcham hugged Jessica Halloran, the journalist who sensitively broke the news of his sexuality earlier this year, in the moments after his triumph, it was clear how far he had come from the depressed teenager who quit his sport two years earlier. "Just being a happier person really radiates into other areas of your life," Mitcham told reporters.

Mitcham is right to want to be known for being a great Australian athlete rather than a gay one. His ambition would be much easier to realise if sports communities did more to reflect their grassroots membership and audiences.

"I'm happy with myself the way I am," our new star says. Cheers to that

Ryan Heath is a writer and Gay Games medallist in swimming


Complete article here:

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/a-win-for-australia--and-for-gay-athletes-everywhere-20080824-41au.html?page=-1

[Lyle (Mooska)]

From the Melbourne Age
A win for Australia - and for gay athletes everywhere
•   Ryan Heath
•   August 25, 2008
IS THE sexuality of newly crowned Olympic champion Matthew Mitcham newsworthy? That is a question newsrooms and media consumers have had to ask themselves since the 20-year tumbled into our hearts at the weekend. Haven't we moved past worried about homosexuality as a public threat? What has being gay got to do with back somersaults and twists from a 10-metre high platform?

The fact that reporters/news people/journalists have to ask themselves this
question in the first place means it is newsworthy.  The news has no problems
saying that so and so's girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever relative is in the
stands cheering them on.  I would expect nothing less to just mention that
Matthew Mitcham's boyfriend is in the stands.  That's all.  That simple.  And
it may be more newsworthy for other gay people to know, after all, it's a
reason I was following Matthew's progress--I'm over twice his age and this
is one of the few times I've ever been able to do that with an openly gay
athlete.

I was just hoping he would medal!  Congratulations Matthew!

[Marz]

ellen and portia get the cover of people magazine, and no snark.

And then for contrast, CNN's website:

'marries' as if it's not real, and misspelling De Rossi’s name.


Btw, thanks for posting that picture, Jack.  They look so lovely!

why would they do that 'marries' thats so mean, they love each other and they did get married so people need to grow up and step into the 21st century me thinks

[michaelflanagansf]

Many disagree, such as former US Judo star Lauren Meece. Having come out after her Sydney Olympic appearance, Meece wrote in a gay publication this week , that gay activists should "shut up" and "let gay athletes deal with gay issues off of the podium".

Shutting up is part of the problem. The reason we can't name many gay sports stars isn't because the media are bored with them. Nor is it because gay people can't compete at the highest level: the outsports.com website reports that six of the 11 openly homosexual athletes at the 2008 Games have won medals . It's because there are hardly any coming out stories to report.
…

… it is surely unrealistic to think that just 0.1% of Olympic athletes are gay. Somewhere along the way, several hundred gay athletes went into hiding.

Mitcham's dignified public appearances with his partner, Lachlan, encourage us to ask where and why the others went missing. One reason you are more likely to hear about homosexual liaisons in books published long after a sports career is over, is that sponsors and management like to keep it that way.

Exactly.  It gets talked about after the fact because it becomes marketable at that point.  Recently in the Gay History thread I posted links to many cites about gay sports figures.  What I found astounding was how many of them were 'outed' by other people (in figure skating this was practically a cottage industry - the 'straight' skaters writing years after the fact about the 'gay' skaters who came on to them.  And, of course, athletes who thought it was their own business when they were winning medals suddenly decide it's fine to talk about after they are no longer making money in their sports careers and want to sell a book.

Also, sadly, many people were only revealed as being gay after their deaths - particularly in the 80s and 90s.  And when people are freaking out about the possibility of HIV contagion, like they were with Greg Louganis.

What is particularly weird is that in the late 60s and early 70s a number of people came out in order to make people aware that just 'plain folks' were gay.  This was behind people like Howard Brown (a Doctor who was in the Lindsay administration in New York) coming out.

The problem with this is that not only are all athletes assumed to be heterosexual, but that it also further associates heterosexuality with health (and being in good shape, etc.) and by extension that homosexuality is unhealthy.

I'm all for it becoming so common that it is a non issue.  But in order for it to be common people have to be willing to talk about it.

[tfferg]

Many disagree, such as former US Judo star Lauren Meece. Having come out after her Sydney Olympic appearance, Meece wrote in a gay publication this week , that gay activists should "shut up" and "let gay athletes deal with gay issues off of the podium".

Shutting up is part of the problem. The reason we can't name many gay sports stars isn't because the media are bored with them. Nor is it because gay people can't compete at the highest level: the outsports.com website reports that six of the 11 openly homosexual athletes at the 2008 Games have won medals . It's because there are hardly any coming out stories to report.
…

… it is surely unrealistic to think that just 0.1% of Olympic athletes are gay. Somewhere along the way, several hundred gay athletes went into hiding.

Mitcham's dignified public appearances with his partner, Lachlan, encourage us to ask where and why the others went missing. One reason you are more likely to hear about homosexual liaisons in books published long after a sports career is over, is that sponsors and management like to keep it that way.

Exactly.  It gets talked about after the fact because it becomes marketable at that point.  Recently in the Gay History thread I posted links to many cites about gay sports figures.  What I found astounding was how many of them were 'outed' by other people (in figure skating this was practically a cottage industry - the 'straight' skaters writing years after the fact about the 'gay' skaters who came on to them.  And, of course, athletes who thought it was their own business when they were winning medals suddenly decide it's fine to talk about after they are no longer making money in their sports careers and want to sell a book.

Also, sadly, many people were only revealed as being gay after their deaths - particularly in the 80s and 90s.  And when people are freaking out about the possibility of HIV contagion, like they were with Greg Louganis.

What is particularly weird is that in the late 60s and early 70s a number of people came out in order to make people aware that just 'plain folks' were gay.  This was behind people like Howard Brown (a Doctor who was in the Lindsay administration in New York) coming out.

The problem with this is that not only are all athletes assumed to be heterosexual, but that it also further associates heterosexuality with health (and being in good shape, etc.) and by extension that homosexuality is unhealthy.

I'm all for it becoming so common that it is a non issue.  But in order for it to be common people have to be willing to talk about it.

The Melbourne Age has a follow-up report by the journalist to whom Matthew Mitcham came out:

Out-and-out champion celebrates
Jessica Halloran | August 25, 2008

HE KISSED him briefly in the stands and gave him his Olympic bouquet. Later, outside the glowing blue Water Cube, Matthew Mitcham and his partner, Lachlan Fletcher, firmly embraced, both shedding tears. Next it was his mother Vivien's turn to hold her golden boy, and more tears fell...


Just as he has shown flipping around at 10 metres high, Mitcham has shown no fear about disclosing his sexuality. He was the first Australian athlete to go to an Olympics openly gay.

Carefully nursing Mitcham's Olympic bouquet, Fletcher spoke of the incredible journey that the diver had taken to the top. Fletcher has been the one constant over the past two years.

He was his rock when Mitcham retired in his late teenage years suffering anxiety and depression. He watched him become a stunt diver at the Sydney Royal Easter show, supported his fight back into the sport and now to win Olympic gold.

"It's been so up and down," Fletcher said. "When I first met him, he was pretty unhappy, he wasn't liking the diving in Brisbane at all, he didn't want to do it, wasn't happy being there.

"It took a lot for him to retire and stop doing it because it had been his life for so long. He wanted to try and be happy again. He took time to do normal things that people do.

"Then after five or six months he started to really miss it again and he had the opportunity to dive with Chava [Sobrino, his coach]. He started that and loved it ever since, every second of it, which is great to see him happy all the time."

Gay website Outsports.com said he was the only man among 10,500 Olympic athletes to publicly say he is gay. But his mother said while he has always been proud of his sexuality, Mitcham was initially concerned that coming out would affect him financially.

"He was only hesitant because he was worried about that factor of sponsorship," Vivien said. "It was a bit of a worry. But I think everybody has caught up now."

Fletcher said that Mitcham, 20, was concerned that his sexuality would overshadow his diving achievements. He has become a pin-up boy gracing the covers of national gay magazines here and overseas...

But the almost perfectly executed back two-and-a-half somersault with one-and-a-half twists and a 3.8 degree of difficulty, earning 112.10 points, made sure people would be talking about his final dive that gave him gold. The Chinese home crowd gasped as Mitcham nailed the breathtaking dive.

"The biggest thing he was worried about was people paying more attention to that than his actually diving," Fletcher said. "And I suppose that kind of did happen a little bit. Hopefully, now it won't be so much of an issue any more."

Link to complete article:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/diving/outandout-champion-celebrates/2008/08/24/1219516264750.html