ACCESSline, The Heartland's LGBT+ Newspaper, June 2013 Issue, Volume 27 No 6 by ACCESSline

What’s the theme Minnesota Legalizes Clifton Murray behind your Pride? Same-Sex Marriage By Angela Geno-Stumme

June is Pride month and throughout the Midwest and the nation, people are getting together to celebrate Pride. But there’s a theme flowing through those Pride events, there’s inspiration driving everyone to celebrate. Some Pride Fests will take a theme and change it year to year, and some will be inspired by a permanent mission. What is your Pride’s theme? Individuals from Capital City Pride, Cedar Rapid Pride Fest, Heartland Pride, Iowa City Pride, and QC Pride have taken the time to share their inspiration or theme for Pride 2013. “It’s our 35th Annual Pride Festival and the theme was inspired by the beginning of Pride with 4 men walking to the capital—one of those 4 men is Mongo (Robert Eikelberry). From those 4 men walking to the capital, to us 35 years later with gay marriage legal in Iowa and many states following suit—that’s the focus behind the theme. What I hope people take away from this theme is

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by Angela Geno-Stumme

Interview by Arthur Breur Minneapolis, MN I35 Bridge On May 13th the Minnesota Senate voted to make samesex marriage legal with a vote of 37-30, this happened four days after the House passed the bill with a vote of 75-59. On May 14th Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton signed the Freedom to Marry bill on the Capitol steps. The law legalizes same-sex marriage and recognizes marriages of same-sex couples who’ve wed outside of the state, start-

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DignityUSA: You ACCESSline Celebrates Kyle’s Bed & Breakfast can be LGBT & Catholic interview by interview by Arthur Breur Angela Geno-Stumme

DignityUSA believes LGBT Catholics should have dignity within the Catholic Church. It is organized to unite gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Catholics, as well as their families, friends and loved ones in order to develop leadership, and be an instrument through which they may be heard by and promote reform in the Marianne Duddy-Burke Church. Executive Director Marianne Duddy-Burke talks about DignityUSA’s history, advocacy, public awareness, and her own beginnings with DignityUSA. How was DignityUSA started?

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Greg Fox is the author and artist for Kyle’s Bed & Breakfast, a serial comic strip about a number of people living in a bed and breakfast in Northport, New York. The characters of the strip are predominantly, but not exclusively, gay men, and their continuing storylines and creatively illustrated lives have graced the pages of The ACCESSline for 10 years, this month. In addition to being syndicated in LGBT publications across the country, Greg has published two books containing the strips and is working on compiling the third book now. Arthur Breur had the opportunity to talk with Greg about the concept and the execution of these engaging, imaginary—but all-too-real—characters and the world they live in. Where did the concept of Kyle’s Bed and Breakfast come from? I’d been playing around with the idea of doing a comic strip with gay characters, just because I was working in the comic book industry doing very mainstream kind of stuff before this. I had always in the back of my mind wanted to try something with gay characters. The one thing that triggered it for me is the baseball character. I was working

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What’s Inside:

Section 1: News & Politics

Letter to the Editor: LGBT Equality and Small Town Iowa 3 Advertising rates 3 FFBC Scholarships 4 From the Heartland by Donna Red Wing 5 Remarkables by Jonathan Wilson 5-6 Pride of the Bullied by Tony Dillon-Hansen 6 Shrink Rap by Loren A Olson MD 7 Be Proud, Be Aware, Be Yourself by Paul Whannel 8 Tom Joyner’s homophobic message by Rev. Monroe 8 Minor Details: Pride by Robert Minor 9 Just Sayin’ by Beau Fodor 10 Creep of the Week by D’Anne Witkowski 10

Section 2: Fun Guide

Entertainment Picks for the Month 11 Clifton Murray: Leads withHis Heart by Arthur Breur 11 Inside Out: My Tribe by Ellen Krug 12 Wired This Way by Rachel Eliason 13 How to Get Skinny: 13 Rules by Davey Wavey 13 Midwest Pride Events 15 Finding that Perfect Venue By Scott Stevens 15 The NKOB are showing their Pride 18 I.C. Kings are bursing with Pride this June! 23 The Bookworm Sez by Terri Schlichenmeyer 26 Comics and Crossword Puzzle 26-27 How Far Out? By Bruce McCabe 27 PFLAG - Des Moines Chapter Meeting 28 SSSS=Second Saturday Social at Six 28 Transformations Iowa Meeting 28

Section 3: Community

FFBC: Sean Faircloth by Bruce Carr 29 New GOglbt Business Referral Group 29 Prime Timers of Central Iowa 29 The Project of the Quad Cities 29 PITCH Calendar 2013 29 Pastor’s Pen: Foundation of Sexual Ethics by Rev. Page 31 Ask Lambda Legal : HIV Disclosure by Scott Schoettes 31 Business Directory 32-33 Blazing Saddle Promotes “Get Screened” 34 Health Care Equality by Ejay Jack 34 Diversity Focus Reports Understanding of Diversity 36

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JUNE 2013

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Section 1: News & Politics

ACCESSline Page 3

Letter to the Editor

Pride Walk ‘N Roll/ Health Fair

In a continued effort to support the LGBT community of central Iowa, the Pride Sports League is hosting the 1st annual Pride Walk ‘N Roll/Health Fair. The theme for this event is: “Getting to a Healthier Place.” It will take place on Saturday, June 8th, 2013. The Pride Walk ‘N Roll and Health Fair’s purpose is to show both our supporters and those who oppose the LGBT community that we encourage healthy lifestyles among our friends and family members. Too often people stereotype the LGBT community as unhealthy, both in lifestyle and physicality. We hope

that with the Pride Walk ‘N Roll, and with your support, that we can continue to demonstrate to those outside the community how we recognize and appreciate healthy living. We are looking for groups who would like to sponsor water stations along the 5-mile walking trail and 18 mile biking trail. We are asking for a donation of $50 to help support both the Pride Sports League and Project HIM (Healthy Iowa Men), an initiative through the AIDS Project of Central Iowa. Project HIM works to promote and encourage safer sex tools and free HIV testing among gay and bisexual men, as well as promoting a healthy lifestyle. By providing a water station, we ask that you provide bottles of

water to bikers and walkers as they pass through. You are welcome to pass out any other information that you would like as well by hosting a table at the starting area. We would need volunteers at the water stations from 9am to 11am. The event is expected to run approximately two hours, and then two additional hours for the health fair. There is an estimated attendance of 250. With your support, we hope to make the first Pride Walk ‘N Roll and Health Fair a huge success. We are planning to start the event at 9 am, and it will begin at the SE 1st St. walking bridge, near Mullet’s and Principal Park. For more details please go to pridesportsleague.org.

If you do things God’s way when it comes to marriage, things work out really good. When you go against his plan it’s awful.” ~Bob Vander Plaats, May 20

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Please send us information on any of the following: Corrections to articles • Stories of LGBT or HIV+ interest • Letters to the editor Editorials or opinion pieces • Engagement and wedding ceremony announcements or photos Questions on any topic we print • Photos and writeups about shows, events, pageants, and fundraisers Please email us at Editor@ACCESSlineIOWA.com. You may also contact us at our regular address, ACCESSline, P.O. Box 396, Des Moines, IA 50302-0396 ACCESSline reserves the right to print letters to the editor and other feedback at the editor’s discretion.

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PRIDE the history of pride. The silent years of hiding ones true self, the struggles and risks through the Stonewall Riots, and groups being formed to fight for equal rights and gaining more LGBT places to socialize at as successes. To today, fighting the same struggles, such as; bullying, suicides, bashings, to celebrating pride and gay marriage within Iowa. I hope they are inspired to celebrate through the past silences and stances everyone has made for us to be where we are right now. Celebrating Capital City Pride’s 35th Annual PrideFest that started with 4 and has become a Pridefest of over 10,000. Such a cause for celebration.” Kerr y Weyers, Capital City Pride “I designed the 2013 CRPride Fest logo that won, the theme subtext is “Shades of Pride”. Not because I wanted to play off the “shades of grey” book everyone is well aware of, but the theme reinforces the fact there isn’t one type of gay or transgendered person. Just like with straight people, there is a wide array of personalities, styles, ethnicities and interests when it comes to self expression and finding a partner. It is so refreshing to see people break out of molds society has placed them in, breaking the rules of the “gaydar” and being proud of whom you are as an individual, inside and out. People shouldn’t be described or referenced by their sexuality—that is just one tiny aspect of what makes up a person. “Shades of Pride” proves that Cedar Rapids has a slow uprising of people coming out in the community—people choosing to be amongst other gays, to build friendships and a family bond. But also there has been a rise in the number of straight people that come out to Club CO2 to enjoy the New King on the Block shows. Pride is advocating acceptance and love—for anyone. It’s not just about being proud of your sexuality and flaunting it, but rather being out in public with open arms to invite anyone to come join in the festivities.” Alana Hyatt, CR Pride Fest theme winner “Our theme this year is LIVE PROUD. The theme was chosen from a list of 5

Section 1: News & Politics themes that we put up to a public vote. The one that resonated with our community is LIVE PROUD. We wanted a theme that would have people immediately take action! Just saying LIVE PROUD makes people stand a little bit taller and feel a little bit stronger. We want people to walk away with a greater sense of being proud of who they are. In the world today we still have too many kids who are turning to suicide as an option to escape the hate and bullying in this world and we wanted a theme that everyone would be able to gain some confidence from. Our goal was to inspire all people to hold their heads up high and LIVE PROUD!” Beth Rigatuso, Heartland Pride “Our goal is to build community and acceptance through Events that Celebrate Diversity. This is also our Mission Statement. So when we invite people to perform or to be a vendor at our Pride, we accept those individuals that are good people that want to make connections with other good people. We usually have over 40 vendors that are from churches, political parties, small businesses, businesses that are just trying to get off the ground, social groups and nonprofit organizations. On our stage we will have local singers and multiple performance groups, and all are guaranteed to be upbeat. Our festival and parade are located in the downtown area of Iowa City on and around the Ped Mall.” Jewell Amos, Iowa City Pride Living out loud, no matter who you are, lets us recognize our own value and magnificence as a human being. It gives us permission to accept ourselves and to accept others who are living out loud; creating an atmosphere of acceptance, generosity and love. In turn, a culture of knowing how to live out loud and accepting others will create a world full of new possibilities rather than languishing in old probabilities! Jeff Simpson, QC Pride President Pride is unique to the person, to the time, and to the area. But we all celebrate Pride in ourselves, our friends, our family, and most definitely our history. Take these themes and inspirations to heart this month when you are celebrating Pride.

I hope they are inspired to celebrate through the past silences and stances everyone has made for us to be where we are right now.

JUNE 2013

Ten Students Receive FFBC Scholarships for Promoting LGBT Acceptance

Ten 2013 Iowa high school graduates were awarded the First Friday Breakfast Club (FFBC) Scholarship for their efforts in promoting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) acceptance and highlighting LGBT issues. Each scholarship is valued at $2,500. The ten recipients were: Rebecca Barrett, Iowa City; Lily Clark, Norwalk; Gabriella Daft, Newton; Christopher Krebill, Donnellson; Nadia Loeppke, Dubuque; Charlotte Mann, Ames; Tanner Mote, Mt. Vernon; Josie Mumm, Davenport; Christopher Reising, Le Mars; and Jade Riley, Sioux City. “These students have gone to significant lengths to call attention to LGBT issues,” said FFBC President Jonathan Wilson. “We honor their efforts in making their schools and communities safer and more accepting places.” The recipients were involved with a variety of activities including: establishing gay-straight alliances (GSA’s), speaking out against violence and bullying, organizing

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MINNESOTA ing August 1st. Minnesotans and individuals throughout the nation celebrated this step towards equality. Artist Rachael Kilgour of Duluth, MN had this to say: “I am thrilled to have won the freedom of marriage here in my home state of Minnesota. As I look around me at my friends and mentors in the GLBT community, I realize how privileged I have been as a lesbian woman of my generation. The folks who came before me endured unimaginable trials for the freedom and respect I enjoy today. I am eternally grateful. The campaign for marriage equality has been brilliantly executed, and I hope we will take our organized energy and keep moving forward on the many, many social injustices

alternative proms, promoting suicide prevention, serving on Iowa Pride Network’s leadership team, and organizing LGBT-awareness events in their schools like the National Day of Silence. FFBC presents the scholarships to the recipients at their high school senior recognition ceremonies. Students and their families will also gather for an award ceremony during FFBC’s June 7 meeting at Hoyt Sherman Place in Des Moines. Since 1997, FFBC has awarded $160,000 in scholarships to Iowa high school seniors planning on post-secondary education. FFBC is an educational, non-profit Des Moines breakfast group for gay, bisexual and transgender men. FFBC works to reduce discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and promote acceptance. The group strives to provide opinion leaders and the general community with positive images of LGBT people. FFBC, Iowa’s largest breakfast club, meets monthly. For more information go to ffbciowa.org. that continue to exist in our society.” ACCESSline columnist Ellen Krug of Minneapolis, MN stated that the legalization of same-sex marriage in Minnesota came about “as a result of over-reaching by political and religious conservatives in the 2012 elections”. She goes on to state that a previous passed bill defining marriage as between one man and one woman led to a ballot initiative aimed at amending Minnesota’s constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman. “The advantage to doing that, as ultra conservatives saw it, was that if the amendment passed, it would take a popular vote to change the definition of marriage (e.g. to allow gay marriage), something that’s far more difficult than simply having state legislators vote in gay marriage,” stated

As I look around me at my friends and mentors in the GLBT community, I realize how privileged I have been as a lesbian woman of my generation.

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Section 1: News & Politics

JUNE 2013

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From the Heartland by Donna Red Wing, Executive Director One Iowa The tee shirt that every hip Iowan will wear to the Twin Cities Pride Celebration at Loring Park, June 28-30th, will be the newest offering from Raygun of Des Moines: “Minnesota is finally as gay as Iowa!” On May 13th, the Minnesota Senate voted 37-30 to extend the freedom to marry to gay and lesbian couples. The week before, the Minnesota House voted 75-59 to approve a similar bill with bipartisan support. The marriage trifecta began with Rhode Island, followed by Delaware and finished with Minnesota. Last November Minnesota voters rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would have excluded gay and lesbian couples from marriage with clergy and community and groups like Minnesotans United for All Families, building on the historical work of Outfront Minnesota and others. No longer will Iowa stand as the only state in the Midwest to extend the freedom to marry. Together Iowa and Minnesota are the centerpiece of marriage equality maps, which are now anchored by Washington

State to our west and New England and mid Atlantic states to our east. How will the bipartisan vote in Minnesota impact Iowa? Perhaps fewer couples from The North Star State will cross the border into Iowa to get married. My married friends in Mason City, who frequently travel in Minnesota, will no longer, as they say, “feel divorced” when they cross that border. The legislative vote in Minnesota, coupled with our 2009 Iowa Supreme Court ruling, clearly demonstrates that marriage equality is not an anomaly in the middle of the country; it is not a coastal thing. It is, quite frankly, the beginning of a national movement, one that will end only when all loving committed couples in every one of our United States have the opportunity to marry. A handful of our legislators made a few feeble attempts this year to derail marriage equality and further punish the justices in the Varnum ruling (with reduced salaries). They should take a long hard look at the numbers in the Minnesota vote. It was a bipartisan vote. There were Republicans

who had the courage to put themselves on the right side of history. In Iowa we have seen that kind of courage from conservatives like former state senator Jeff Angelo and political strategist David Kochel. As the pundits and politicians begin to prepare for the First-in-the-Nation 2016 caucuses, we have a phenomenal opportunity to celebrate marriage, and to highlight our ‘wins’ for the nation and for the world. The state now recognizes children born to lesbian couples as having two parents on their birth certificate, ensuring full parental rights for both parents and equal treatment for gay and heterosexual couples. We have celebrated more than six thousand samegender marriages in Iowa since the Varnum ruling. The sun still rises every morning. We have not gone to hell in a hand-basket. My marriage to my life-partner of 26 years will not diminish anyone else’s marriage. The world moves forward. And Iowa, in those heady pre-caucus weeks and months and years, has an opportunity to model what equality means. Congratulations are in order to our friends to the north. They worked so hard and so long for marriage equality. But let us not forget, we got there four years ago.

express homophobia or to make a point would be equally anathema. That said, I recently received a solicitation from my insurance agent asking that I renew my various insurance policies. I have LOTS of insurance: auto; property on multiple properties; public liability; umbrella—you name it and I’ve got it. I was confident he’d like to retain my business. Emboldened by the aging process, I found myself reminded of an old hymn that says that for each of us there comes a moment to decide between right and wrong, between the good and the evil side—to take a principled stand. So I called my insurance agent and told him I’d received the solicitation and that I was at a decision-point in my life. I’d decided to give preference in my business dealings to those who support gay marriage; that seemed emblematic of all things gay supportive. I figured that if he were supportive of equal access to marriage I could be fairly confident he was supportive on other proequality issues without being asked. I told him I wouldn’t necessarily drop my insurance through him, but I would for sure shop my insurance portfolio with others. If I had his assurance on the marriage question, I wouldn’t feel any need to go shopping. There was a pregnant pause, as you might imagine. He said he’d never been asked such a question in his business dealings. I said that he’d never be able honestly to say that again. He then added, in the hope that it would placate me, that he does

not discriminate against customers based upon their sexual orientation, nor do the companies he represents. That was good, as far as it went. It didn’t go far enough. From years of conducting depositions I have gained some skills in both asking precise questions and then listening carefully for truly responsive answers. I pointed out to him that his wasn’t. I was not particularly surprised about his willingness to take money from anyone, regardless of sexual orientation. Also I was not particularly impressed by it either. I wanted to know specifically about gay marriage. There was another pregnant pause. It was then that I realized that my life decision-point was being shared with him. He had a choice to make also. He similarly had to choose between right and wrong, between good and evil. And he chose to do the right thing (whatever the motive). He said unequivocally that he is in favor of equal access to marriage. Thus satisfied, I reviewed with him my coverages and renewed the portfolio. I have, since that incident, repeated it several times with others and with similar outcomes. The idea is not unique to me. I read an article recently about the potential that Rush Limbaugh may soon be parting company with the Cumulus Radio network. A high-ranking Cumulus Radio official was quoted as saying that 48 of the top 50 network advertisers have ‘excluded Rush and Hannity’ orders. “Every major national ad agency has the same dictate.” The point to be taken is that my exercise of my buying power, if replicated by enough others, could have a cumulative impact and without doing a serious injustice like a “Fire a Straight” Day directed drone -like against the innocent. The fact is that any

No longer will Iowa stand as the only state in the Midwest to extend the freedom to marry.

Remarkables by Jonathan Wilson Time For Some Good Ol’-Fashioned Discrimination

Before there were employment protections written into Iowa law to guard against discrimination based on actual or perceived sexual orientation, I advocated the initiation of a “Fire a Straight” Day. The idea, which never really caught on, was that on the designated day gay employers would terminate the employment of a straight staff member for no other reason than that. I, for example, have a terrific secretary who has been with me and supportive for many years and throughout my coming out. She has also been indispensible to the success of the First Friday Breakfast Club. Her capabilities, loyalty, and support could not be questioned. That was the whole point. If she was fired admittedly because she is straight, it would bring home, graphically, the lack of legal recourse for such an injustice. The objective was to call to people’s attention the fact that there are both gay and straight employees and employers, and the needed protection would protect everyone. The idea never caught on because it relied upon an obvious injustice—and we live in Iowa where most folks are pretty fair-minded. Hurting the innocent to

Donna Red Wing is the Executive Director of One Iowa. She served as Executive Director of Grassroots Leadership, as Chief of Staff at Interfaith Alliance, she was a member of the Obama’s kitchen cabinet on LGBT concerns, and was Howard Dean’s outreach liaison to the LGBT communities. Red Wing was the first recipient of the Walter Cronkite Award for Faith & Freedom. Red Wing serves on the national board of the Velvet Foundation, which is building the national LGBT museum in Washington, DC. Contact Donna at OneIowa.org or donna@oneiowa.org.

He similarly had to choose between right and wrong, between good and evil.

Jonathan Wilson is an attorney at the Davis Brown Law Firm in Des Moines, and chairs the First Friday Breakfast Club (ffbciowa.org), an educational, non-profit corporation for gay men in Iowa who gather on the first Friday of every month to provide mutual support, to be educated on community affairs, and to further educate community opinion leaders with more positive images of gay men. It is the largest breakfast club in the state of Iowa. He can be contacted at JonathanWilson@DavisBrownLaw.com.

single advertising purchaser would not impact Cumulus Radio’s commitment to Rush Limbaugh. But when the number gets to 48 of the top 50 advertisers, a decision has to be made and folks find motivation to choose the right thing. The end result is the same whether someone chooses to do the right thing for a mercenary motive or with a genuine attitude of altruism. Are you at a decision-point yet?

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Section 1: News & Politics

JUNE 2013

Remarkables by Jonathan Wilson Improving Public Education

I had occasion to be in Washington DC recently with the Greater Des Moines Partnership. It was the annual information gathering and lobbying trip and, in addition to accomplishing both of those laudable objectives, it affords an outstanding opportunity for networking interactions between and among the private sector and government representatives that attend. The delegation was nearly 200 strong, again. One session was on public education policy and there was an opportunity for Q and A. I took the chance to deliver a sermonette challenging two assertions made by a couple of members on the expert panel. I questioned the assertion that public education decisions must be made at the lowest local level possible because “one size does not fit all.” I believe that one size can be made to fit all, whether it’s a large urban school district or a one room school house in rural Iowa. Three things are required: First, every child should be provided with an Individual Education Plan (IEP) that right now we reserve for Special Education students. An IEP is developed to find out

exactly where a child is educationally and what that individual child needs to achieve his/her potential. The development of an IEP requires the focused collaboration of cross-discipline professionals familiar with the individual student’s circumstances. The plan identifies needs like nutrition; tutoring; help with homework; the need for a computer or other technology; the need for tablets, pencils, erasures, and consumable workb ooks , mentor couplings, and even psychological counseling if necessary. We have readily available the technology to keep track of individual progress in all subject areas from week-to-week and year-to-year. Second, public tax dollars should be used to fund fully the development and implementation of each IEP, whether that means a nutritious breakfast and lunch for some kids, in-school tutors in subject areas where a student is found deficient, or afterschool help with homework. And don’t give me that baloney about having parents help with the homework. Some can and will. Great. The public education system cannot be premised upon that expectation. Too many parents are struggling to make ends meet, are exhausted in the evenings after a long day at work or work a night shift, and

some may themselves have been less than terrific students and may simply not have the ability to help with homework. To expect individual students to succeed in a system based on the commitment and capabilities of their parents necessarily destines the children of the disadvantaged to repeat the cycle of the parents from generation to generation. Third, teachers should teach. They should be expected to do only three things: (1) attend administrative and IEP staff meetings; (2) prepare lesson plans; and (3) teach and manage teacher assistants who would take attendance; do all the bulletin boards; hand out, collect, and grade papers; fill out accountability reports; whatever. I also questioned the well-worn maxim that more money is not the answer to our admittedly failing public schools. The three things I have described that would “fit” the urban school district, the one-room school house, and everything in between, would cost a lot of money. I, for one, cannot think of a better way to be spending our tax dollars in the long term. It would hold the greatest promise of meeting uniform, high standards; reducing drop outs; and assuring that our country will maintain an edge in an increasingly competitive world. Watching public education policy over a period of decades, I’ve seen reform after reform after reform. They have been no

Warning, the following article makes use of language that may be offensive to the reader. If you have not been bullied, you will never truly know what the bottom of a foot looks like. If you have not been bullied, you will never know what it feels to be completely alone in agony and torment. If you have not been bullied consider yourself lucky to not have the learning opportunities of those who have been bullied. If you have not been bullied, consider yourself lucky to not need the armor to protect against what life will throw. If you have been bullied, consider how far you have traveled under so much duress and how much you have moved above the ugly of life. Consider that you survived and learned from those experiences. We are the non-athletic, spectacle-faced, different-looking, 4-eyes, retarded, noncliched, non-Christian, not-rich, fat, geeky, and queer. We, the bullied, were The Scarlet Letter every day at recess, in the locker room, on the way home, and even at home in many cases. There would be no reason given. Even more ironic, when we could excel, we were still being ridiculed and persecuted. We wanted to just be. Yet, our achievements and dreams were fodder for the taunts just the same. More than anything, we challenge the teachings of Jesus to love our enemies or to turn the other cheek one more time. We know in our hearts that we would like to at least have done to them what they have done to us. We may find ourselves shaking fists at God for the apparent disparity of experiences. Further, the

people that were supposed to be there for us were nowhere to console or to support. They offered to us jerky idioms about sticks and stones, but we know, for certain, that words can cut painfully deep. We have been forced to sit on the sidelines of what it feels like to be a person because of irrational hatred. Those bullies grow up and are surprised at how we feel about them. Unfortunately, they may go on bullying people as well as their own children while we find more ways to build more courage to work another day without much fanfare. We may applaud for the underdogs, the comeback kids, and we may even consider that we finally escaped if we are able to leave the torment of schoolyards, churches, or even our families. When you grow older, you find there are different sorts of bullies in the world. They call you names behind their hypocritical religious views. They taunt you for living outside their 1950s TV sitcom of normal. They defile your picture, your ideas, and very being. They beat you into submission and force you to fall in line. We cannot be frightened of Hell when Earth has been the definition of horror. These bullies, they will never know what sensations will overcome you when people rip your child away because of some test of religion or supposed lifestyle. They will not know the betrayal felt when family members are willing to hurt your spouse and kids because they are not what they envisioned. They will never know the defeat you have when you are kicked out of the house for simply being who

you are. They will not know the awful torment of knowing that your family will be the focus of the many attacks from around the community because your family does not conform. Fortunately for us, we, the bullied, have learned to not live in the pretense of the past or stale sitcoms. We realize there is such a thing as real respect and real compassion. Some of us, instead, become empowered by bitterness; some by pride of finally feeling untouchable by the bullies. We can question why we could not enjoy days without harassment, torment, or physical torture. We do not want to watch sinister fingers scheme to hurt us again. Still, bitterness is an attachment that should be released, otherwise it may evolve into more senseless hatred and violence. Maybe, this is why many want to drown out those memories and experiences through alcohol and drugs to escape that haunting history. Yet, we “made it” this far. We have outlasted the taunts and teasing. We have learned to laugh at the ridiculousness of those taunts. We have learned the price of intolerance and the grace of loving fully. We have found refuge in places that they cannot touch, like music, writing, religion, sports, and even our own families. That is why we like personalities that push beyond those taunts and hateful remarks. This is why people seek refuge in religion because that realm is supposed to be exempt from perpetual torture on Earth. Yet, there are those that want to turn that idea into an exclusive arena that is more indicative of the gladiator trials we faced at recess instead of the place of solace mentioned in the scriptures. The bullied are not alone and will see better days.

I questioned the assertion that public education decisions must be made at the lowest local level possible because “one size does not fit all.”

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Pride of the Bullied by Tony Dillon-Hansen

We, the bullied, were The Scarlet Letter every day at recess, in the locker room, on the way home, and even at home in many cases.

Tony E Dillon-Hansen is a web developer, organizer, researcher, writer, martial artist, and vocalist from Des Moines. For more information go to tigersnapdragons.com. We, the bullied, have learned and will continue to learn. We, the bullied, will march with other souls because we, too, have a place and we, too, are part of loving families. We, the bullied, will show how compassion works because we know what real compassion is rather than simply looks like. We will build better families despite the ridicule. We will embody that which Jesus taught because we have already suffered Hell. Maybe, the bullies will never learn, and maybe, they will always find reasons to scorn people. We, the bullied, will come to the aid of our brothers and sisters like soldiers because like soldiers, they should never be forgotten. We will be shining examples of good people, even if the bullies are blind to the facts. We, the bullied, have pride because we are better than bullies.

Section 1: News & Politics

JUNE 2013

ACCESSline Page 7

Shrink Rap by Loren A Olson MD Dr. Olson, I’m almost 51 and madly in love with a 24 year old bodybuilder. I haven’t come out to him. I think about him every day and today I lit a candle in church for him. Am I out of my mind? I am so infatuated with someone I have never met in person. Paul Paul, Until I saw the short film, “Fourplay: Tales of Sexual Intimacy,” directed by Kyle Henry, I thought I knew about “normal” sex, but all that has changed now. I never thought a dog treat could be a sex toy. Stay with me here for a minute. Although some will undoubtedly think so, this film is not pornographic, but it definitely pushes the limits of the ways sex acts have been represented in film. In fact, I had to watch it twice: The first time, I kept asking myself, “Am I seeing what I’m seeing?” It took a second viewing to understand and connect more empathically with the characters. Most of us don’t give much thought to the idea that persons with significant challenges—physically, emotionally and socially—have the same needs for physical intimacy and sexual expression as everyone else. This short film is actually a series of four short films woven together by the theme that what appears transgressive to some may be transformative to others. The stories take place in four different cities. In “Skokie,” a middle-aged, closeted woman’s sexual fantasies erupt while dog sitting for her minister and his wife upon whom she has a crush. “Austin” exposes us to a thirty-something, heterosexual couple who discover that when passion diminishes, as it inevitably does, the game must be changed.

“Tampa” is the story of a young gay man who seeks out sex in a mall restroom. While the risk of finding a hook up (or a perhaps a cop) heightens his sexual excitement, it also elevates the potential perils of disappointment, rejection and humiliation represented metaphorically in this segment by the concern “Luis” has about the size of his masculinity. Jose Villarreal who plays “Luis” captures all these negative emotions. In the fourth short, “San Francisco,” a cross-dressing, male prostitute named “Aliya,” transforms Tom, a helpless quadriplegic, into feeling like a sex machine. Aliya’s tender concern for her client’s special needs will challenge every stereotypical belief you have about sex workers. Aliya, exceptionally well-played by Paul Soileau, was hired by Tom’s wife who is also Tom’s care-provider. Tom, silently well-acted by Gary Chason, is unable to communicate except by blinking his eyes “yes” or “no.” Carlos Treviño’s father struggled to come out as he was dying; his father’s situation inspired Treviño to write this story. This story touched me in a deeply personal way. My late brother was a quadriplegic from the age of sixteen. His story is too personal to detail here, but I knew that although he’d lost the use of his hands and legs, his sexual desires were undiminished; what he had lost was his ability to express his sexuality in expected ways. My mother was my brother’s caretaker. One day she and I, frankly and intimately, discussed my brother’s sexual needs. I know my mother loved him enough and understood sexual need enough that she would

You should watch this movie, but watch it twice. Watch it once just to react to the sex, sex that you may enjoy or you may find challenging.

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WILSON more than smoke and mirrors designed to create the appearance of doing something meaningful. My dad used to say that if things are complicated and you don’t understand what people are talking about, as is the case with operating a public education system, assume they’re talking about money and you’ll almost always be right. All other times they’re talking—usually faster or in slogans—trying not to talk about money.

I went out on a limb in DC and offered the Des Moines Independent Community School District as a demonstration project for that three part proposal and invited a federal grant to fund it. So far, no takers. Do you suppose it’s possible that there are those who are afraid that it just might work? More money, properly spent, is the one solution that hasn’t yet been tried. In DC I heard lots of talk about the national debt’s burden on future generations, but very little talk about underfunding public education and the cost of under-educating future generations.

have considered hiring someone like “Aliya” if there had been anyone like that in my small hometown in Nebraska. This is a small budget film but the constraints of a limited budget work favorably for it. The dialogue is very limited, demanding that the actors (who most will not know) actually have to act to deliver their characters’ personalities. Even though the four stories could make it seem disjointed, the common theme makes it flow smoothly from one city to the next. The cinematography allows you to feel as if you’re eaves dropping in a church choir, a mall restroom, or an adult book store. For the most part the costumes make you believe you could be at Wal-Mart, except when necessarily enhanced to express sexual fantasy. This isn’t a movie about sex, although there is a lot of sex and full frontal nudity in it; this is a movie about whom we connect with and about challenging our stereotypical beliefs about what some consider perversions. I began to recognize that the ways I express myself sexually on a daily basis— well, less often now that I’m older—would seem quite abnormal to a lot of heterosexuals, and when I believed I was straight, they seemed that way to me, too. You should watch this movie, but watch it twice. Watch it once just to react to the sex, sex that you may enjoy or you may find challenging. But the second time, seek out and find empathy for the humanness of those who choose to or must engage in sexual activities that some might consider abnormal or deviant.

Loren A. Olson MD is a board certified psychiatrist in the clinical practice of psychiatry for over 35 years. Dr. Olson has conducted research on mature gay and bisexual men for his book, Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight, a Psychiatrist’s Own Story. He has presented on this subject at conferences across the United States and Internationally. His blog, MagneticFire. com, has a strong following among mature gay and bisexual men. He established Prime Timers of Central Iowa, a social organization for mature gay/bisexual men. For more information go to FinallyOutBook.com or contact him on Facebook.com. So, Paul, your relationship isn’t typical, but enjoy it. As long as we don’t hurt others, why does it matter? Dr. Loren Olson will be doing a reading of his book, “Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight, a Psychiatrist’s Own Story”, Thursday, June 8th at 5:30 p.m. at Beaverdale Books. Excerpts will be read and discussed, with a discussion by Dr. Olson on his motivations and process of writing the book and then a Q&A. For more information go to BeaverdaleBooks.com.

ACCESSline Page 8

Section 1: News & Politics

JUNE 2013

Be Proud, Be Aware, Be Yourself by Paul Whannel Happy Pride Month from our staff ! Take time to reflect on the amazing history the LGBT community has, the historic advances made in marriage equality in the past weeks, and celebrate to your rights here in Iowa! As it’s a month of celebration, I promised myself I wouldn’t do a “gloom and doom” story about HIV. The best way to do that is to celebrate the successes here in our state, nationally, and around the globe. But I do have a few points that aren’t all sunshine. First off, while I’ve cautioned (and continue to caution) people about the timetable for an HIV cure—which has been highly sensationalized—I can say we’re closer than ever before. New research is being published every week highlighting different vaccines and treatments that may pave the way for a world free of HIV. I can’t wait to hear people saying “I used to have HIV.” Best case scenario? 5-10 years. Worst case? We’ll never find a way to rid a human of the virus. But we’re optimists. Secondly, HIV prevention in Iowa isn’t as bad as it could be. The State and Federal

Governments, through subcontracts, were responsible for 5,390 HIV tests in Iowa last year. That’s a lot of people who know their status. And it’s not counting private facilities, like private doctors offices or our office. Unfortunately, only 21 new cases of HIV were reported to the State last year. That’s down from 29 each in 2010 and 2011. While it sounds nice that less people are testing positive, it means we as prevention workers aren’t testing the right people—the people who are actually infected and don’t know it. 509. That’s a number we’ve used in marketing campaigns before, because in 2010 and 2011, it’s been the estimated number of Iowans who have HIV but don’t know it. It’s probably a conservative estimate; Iowa is unique in the way people move in and out, and we have a hard time tracking infections across state lines. In 2012, that number increased to

531. Perhaps that’s because the number of State-funded tests performed dropped by almost 8% in 2012. The State can do better. We can do better. 531 Iowans who don’t know they’re infected? Seems like a small number, but think about the size our state. Those people are spread throughout so many social circles, and according to the CDC, those people account for 54-71% of new HIV infections. It’s not the people who know they’re positive you should be worried about. It’s you. This year, we’re going to be promoting testing like never before. At PrideFest in Des Moines, look for the Des Moines University mobile clinic on Grand Avenue. We’re partnering with Venus Family Planning’s great staff to offer completely confidential, free HIV testing along with urine screens and blood draws for other STIs. We’ll be offering testing both Saturday and Sunday, along with some great

On May 1st, Jason Collins, the 7’ 0” center for the Washington Wizards, and a former Boston Celtics, came out. His statement, “I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay,” made the cover story for the May 6 issue of “Sports Illustrated.” On May 2nd, three Morehouse College basketball athletes were accused of raping an 18-year-old Spelman College student. The story didn’t hit the airwaves as the Collins story. Many in the African American community were silent on both incidents because they view both as poxes on the community. But for those who did speak out on what the African American community’s order of preference, focus and concern should be about—Collins’ coming out story versus the Spelman rape— it, sadly, revealed where they stood in terms of valuing and devaluing members in the community. “While too many of us were concentrating on an NBA player’s sexuality despite the fact that most of the population had

never heard of him, some much bigger news was transpiring. Four Morehouse athletes were arrested in connection with sexual assaults,” Tom Joyner wrote in his May 3rd op-ed, “Reading, Writing and Rape? Sexual Assaults on Campuses Must End” on his nationally renowned website “BlackAmericaWeb.com.” While Joyner is nowhere in the league of a Rush Limbaugh or a Rev. Rick Warren in terms of spewing homophobic vitriol, he isn’t also just your run-of-the-mill homophobe. When Joyner speaks black America is listening. He’s the founder of REACH MEDIA, the largest media platform reaching African Americans in the country and the Caribbean. Joyner reaches as many African American homes as do the Black Church, and he does it more often, and some would say more effectively, too, because he’s the nation’s number 1 syndicated urban radio jock. His jewel “The Tom Joyner Morning Show,” airs weekdays in more than 100 markets and reaches a listenership of over

eight million—approximately 1 in 4 African Americans. While incidents of rape always need to be called out, as Joyner did, and addressed immediately, it shouldn’t be brought to attention at the expense of denigrating another minority group within the same population, as Joyner also did. But Joyner is not alone in his views concerning Collins’ coming out story and the Spelman rape. Rather he points to the ongoing struggle in the African American community with its unresolved homophobia and misogyny that falls on the backs of its women and LGBTQ population, and how the black community, like Joyner, pits one disenfranchised group against another. Violence against both groups is an ongoing problem whether within the hallowed halls of one of America’s historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) or on urban streets. Morehouse College Office of Communications released a statement that stated in part, “Morehouse has a zero tolerance policy related to violence of any kind. Violence is the very antithesis of the Morehouse ethos and the values of a Morehouse Man.” Morehouse is lauded as the jewel of black academia. Founded two years after the end of the Civil War by William Jefferson White in the basement of Springfield Baptist Church in Augusta, GA, Morehouse continues to confer degrees on more men of African descent than any institution of higher education in this country. Morehouse’s recent rape incident points to an ongoing problem on college campuses nationwide, especially among male athletes. And within this rape culture is also violence against its lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) students as well. (It’s one of the reasons why LGBTQ fear coming out, especially athletes on team sports. i.e. Collins)

It’s not the people who know they’re positive you should be worried about. It’s you.

Paul Whannel is the executive director and co-founder of the Midwestern AIDS Project, a nonprofit working to replace Iowa’s lost HIV prevention programs and improve quality of life for Iowans living with HIV/AIDS. information. That’s more testing than Des Moines PrideFest has ever seen! We hope to see you in our clinic or out and about celebrating LGBT history and culture this month. 2013 is a great year for celebration, and here’s to many more!

Tom Joyner’s homophobic message by Rev. Irene Monroe

Collins coming out story is good news especially in light of the Spelman rape because both women and LGBTQ people are frequent subjects of violence in our community.

I wish everybody could be right here and see what I see. Today is a day for rejoicing and celebrating in Minnesota. The dream of a life filled with joy, a happy, healthy family—that sounds so normal—and it’s gonna come true. ~MN Sen. Scott Dibble on Minnesota approving same-sex marriage.

Rev. Irene Monroe is a graduate from Wellesley College and Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University, and she has served as a pastor at an AfricanAmerican church before coming to Harvard Divinity School for her doctorate as Ford Fellow. She is a syndicated queer religion columnist who tries to inform the public of the role religion plays in discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. Her website is irenemonroe.com. And Morehouse has had its share of incidents. For example, its highly publicized 2002 gay-bashing incident where a student sustained a fractured skull from his classmate, sophomore Aaron Price, and not surprisingly the son of an ultra-conservative minister. Price uncontrollably beat his victim on the head with a baseball bat for allegedly looking at him in the shower. In the 1980’s and 1990’s it was more dangerous to be openly gay and bisexual on Morehouse’s campus than it was on the streets in black neighborhoods. Jafari Sinclaire Allen, a professor at University of Texas was an openly gay

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Section 1: News & Politics

JUNE 2013

ACCESSline Page 9

Minor Details by Robert Minor Pride

There’s still a need for opportunities to show that LGBT people are not only here but are glad they are. I’m not sure the best way to do it is through today’s versions of Pride Festivals, but nevertheless, I’m convinced that any opportunity for LGBT people to show to others that they like who they are is a gift to society as a whole. Most people have gotten use to the idea that LGBT people exist. They might even have come to tolerate the fact that some could be attending their church and providing them with their music. They might have come to know that they could be working with some. And they might even suspect that they have an uncle or aunt that’s one of those people. People are accustomed to laughing at them on network sitcoms. As they have with many minority groups, they’re tickled with the idea of LGBT people serving up their food and entertainment. They might deplore the attacks on LGBT people and the suicides of lesbian and gay teenagers who were bullied by their peers. And they are likely to think that the Phelps family’s Westboro Baptist hate group that works out of a Topeka, Kansas compound has gone too far, especially now that they picket the funerals of

straight people too. Through the activism of past generations of LGBT people and their straight allies, many people have come to tolerate LGBT people. And that is progress. But when we probe further, we see that many people don’t mind LGBT people around as long as straight people don’t have to be reminded of it—as long as (and here is the language that’s used of any minority group who doesn’t act enough like the majority) they don’t “flaunt it” or “shove it in your face.” Now, what this refers to is any time an LGBT person does what the majority always does—kisses their partner goodbye at the airport, holds hands with their beloved as they walk down the street, puts their partner’s picture on their office desk, talks about the events that their partner attended without changing the pronouns, inserts their engagement or marriage announcement in the local paper’s section for that, brings their partner to family and other gatherings, etc. And when an LGBT person does this, people will often accuse them of pushing their sexual lives on the rest of the world. The prejudice teaches that if two gay men or lesbians are walking down the street together they must have just had sex, must be thinking about sex, must be going to have sex, or must be flaunting their sexual

Out and proud LGBT people open up all people to be able to come out of their closets as full human beings. And that scares the status quo.

practices in some way. One of the arguments used to support marriage equality by some is that it will get same-sex sexuality under control, out of the streets and behind closed doors. It will, at least, put their sex lives under the same constraints as those that are supposed to inhibit straight people. Out and open Pride challenges the limits that all this implies. It expects more than tolerance and begrudging acceptance. It says that anyone can be proud to be LGBT and that everyone should celebrate and cherish the diversity that LGBT people can represent. It marginalizes bigots even further by refusing to be defined by them. The most bigoted, after all, want to stereotype LGBT people as they do any minority. Sick, lonely, psychologically flawed, unhappy, envying straight people? Yes. But proud and looking like an appealing way to live? Absolutely, positively not. To the extent that the extreme bigots are insecure in their own sexual orientations, they will fear that if LGBT people appear too happy, secure, and free, if being “gay” looks appealing, their children and everyone they care about will choose to be gay. That insecurity makes them desperate to fight the mainstreaming of LGBT humanity in the schools with claims that such fairness and equality actually “promotes the gay lifestyle.” And that insecurity gets covered over under religious and pseudo-scientific arguments. Out and proud LGBT people open up all people to be able to come out of their closets as full human beings. And that scares the status quo. They challenge the accepting churches that still don’t want to take a public stand for equal rights. They say that when they worry that if they do, they’ll become or be known as “gay” churches, they are actually still saying that whatever they mean by “gay” would be a bad thing. They will allow those religious and other institutions to grow in their spirituality by facing whatever it is that they fear, whether that be the opinions of others or the full valuing of LGBT people. And if that fear is that straight people will become a minority in their congregation, are they afraid that they will be treated the way minorities are treated in this country and

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MONROE student at Morehouse in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He recalls fleeing campus one evening after a forum to address homophobia turned violently homophobic. And throughout the 1990’s Morehouse was listed on the Princeton Review’s top 20 homophobic campuses. Collins coming out story is good news especially in light of the Spelman rape because both women and LGBTQ people are frequent subjects of violence in our community. Joyner’s derisive comment about Collins reminds me of Morehouse sophomore Aaron Price bat wielding incident, because Joyner’s remark serves as a reminder of how frequently LGBTQ people

Robert N. Minor, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas, is author of When Religion Is an Addiction; Scared Straight: Why It’s So Hard to Accept Gay People and Why It’s So Hard to Be Human and Gay & Healthy in a Sick Society. Contact him at www.FairnessProject.org. in the history of religious institutions? LGBT pride will free heterosexual people to act “gay” if they want. They can challenge the stifling limits in which the straight role confines them. They need no longer to be afraid that when they wear the wrong color, drive the wrong vehicle, cherish close same-sex friendships, choose the wrong careers, shop in the wrong places, present themselves in the wrong manner, walk, talk or gesture in the wrong way, and on and on, they should be afraid that they will be thought of as gay. And they themselves might actually stop worrying about whether their freedom from these limits means they are “gay.” Pride will allow everyone to learn from what LGBT people have to teach society by their differences and even open up the appreciation of diversity so white people can better value the differences in the cultures of peoples of color. It might actually help us move beyond a limited comfort level that says “they’re okay; they’re just like us.” It can help us face our fear of those not like us in some way while seeing them as also sharing our common humanity. of African descent are figuratively as well and physically bashed on the head by members of our community who deliberately want to strike out our existence. Since its inception in 1867 Morehouse College is noted as the bastion of black male leadership and masculinity. Embodying W. E.B. Dubois’s theory of “The Talented Tenth,” where “exceptional black men” would be the ones to lead the race, Morehouse College has produced unquestionably a pantheon of noted black men; its most famous alumnus Martin Luther King, Jr., graduated from Morehouse in 1948. And its alums maintain the “Morehouse mystique” the college is renowned for—“images of strong black men.” And as strong black men they need to both stop violating women and beating up on GBTQ men.

ACCESSline Page 10

Section 1: News & Politics

JUNE 2013

Just Sayin’ by Beau Fodor Gay Pride

“A sense of dignity and satisfaction in connection with the public acknowledgment of one’s own homosexuality.” The definition sounds so honest and rather innocent—and truly a reason to celebrate how far we’ve come. Some of my closest friends were at the Stonewall Riots, and I personally know how far we’ve come. As a young, openly gay boy, I struggled with being bullied my entire junior and high school-age years. Some said they could beat the “queer” out of me and tried. And gay weddings were something out of a movie called “Future Shock” (Google it) and the entire 8th grade classroom laughed out loud or loudly yelled, “Gross!” But, fortunately, I found my way into Greenwich Village in 1977 and found “my people”. And it honestly saved my life, because I had, up till then, contemplated suicide every day. After High School, I went into the Navy,

as a Hospital Corpsman, but was outed as a “Homosexual”, and quickly discharged. Then, in 1984, came the AIDS pandemic, and the GLBT community was persecuted yet again for that… for over a decade. Then the tide started to turn in the late 90’s...gay was starting to be okay and even chic in some circles of society. I was the token fag who offered up “Homo 101” and could make my straight friends laugh—make them feel not so homophobic. In 2009, as we all know, Marriage Equality came into being and I became Iowa’s Gay Weddings Planner—I never saw that coming! I even got to make a T.V. pilot and several episodes, which were deemed “too political”, and the Production Company decided not to continue filling with that format. Now, with over 200 Pride events this year, scheduled world-wide, everything has changed. I am in awe of how far we’ve come, and I am one hell of a proud gay man! But in these past few weeks, I’ve also come to believe we still have a long way to go. In fact, we’ve begun to be pushed back into the closets. Sure, President Obama has our backs for now, but who has his? Certainly not the Republican Party! So many right-wingers hating us and elitist gays ignoring it, that we just cannot be complacent. We can’t afford to be.

Justice John Roberts recently argued gays in America have so much political power they don’t need protection from anti-gay bias. He’s absolutely right that gay rights have progressed rapidly over the past few years. But political gains do not mean that anti-gay violence is over. As the gut-wrenching murder of 32-year-old Mark Carson in Greenwich Village on Friday reminds us. He was shot in the face after a man shouted anti-gay slurs at him. There have been other anti-gay attacks in New York City recently. A man said he was gay bashed in the East Village, and three other apparent anti-gay hate crimes in New York in May. New York’s police Commissioner Ray Kelly said anti-gay hate crime in New York has spiked 70% this year. The New York City Anti-Violence Project—which collects data on hate crimes against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people—saw a 13% increase in hate crime reports from 2010 to 2011.Reports of hate crimes against gay men nationwide has also gone up in recent years, according to FBI statistics. While it’s possible that more gays are reporting hate crimes, the reports do show that anti-gay violence is still prevalent in America. This violence comes as we have made unprecedented political gains; the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the legalization of gay

Christian views in America. Just think of all the taxes churches have to pay. Not to mention the fact that there has never been a single American President who identifies as Christian. Don’t get me started about how out-numbered Christians are in Congress. And just try getting Christmas day off from work! Yes, it’s a tough life for Christians in America. And it can all be blamed on Planned Parenthood and Jason Collins, a.k.a. “agents of Satan.” “The connection between these two stories should be very obvious: they both go directly against God’s Holy Word,” Hutcherson continues. “After all, God hates hands that shed innocent blood (Prov.617) and is sickened by sodomy (Rom.1:24-27).” In other words, Collins makes God puke. Of course, the joke is on Collins, according to Hutcherson. “Collins is being used as a pawn, in the most dangerous game of Russian roulette for his soul,” he writes. Silly Satan, souls are for Christians. Hutcherson also predicts a rude awakening for Collins in the locker room: “I can’t imagine that Collins, standing in the shower after a game, and knowing the vast majority of his teammates are not gay, will go over very well. How about the players standing in the shower with him, knowing that one of their teammates likes other men? Just saying…” Let’s unpack that, shall we? First of all, when someone ends an idea with

“just saying…” it means, “I have just said something for which I do not want to take responsibility” because it was probably a sh*tty thing to say. And, indeed, this thinly veiled “warning” about things not going “over very well” for Collins the homo while he is standing naked with a bunch of his hetero teammates is worthy of distancing yourself. Because it’s an asinine thing to say. Not only is Hutcherson implying that Collins is some kind of pervert who won’t be able to keep his eyes and hands off his

This violence comes as we have made unprecedented political gains; the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the legalization of gay marriage in nine states, and tremendous support from Republicans for samesex marriage.

Creep of the Week by D’Anne Witkowski Dr. Ken Hutcherson A few weeks ago if someone had asked you if you knew Jason Collins, you likely would have said no. That is, unless you were a big fan of the Washington Wizards (which I doubt). But today, it seems like Jason Collins is the only professional basketball player in the world. His name and face are everywhere. Because he’s gay. Specifically, because he’s the first openly gay professional player in a major U.S. sport. It’s a BFD. Even President Obama said that he “couldn’t be prouder” of Collins for coming out. Which is evidence that Obama is clearly taking orders from Satan, according to Dr. Ken Hutcherson of the Antioch Baptist Church in Redmond, Washington. In a May 2 opinion piece for the Christian Post, Hutcherson used the fact that Obama praised a known homo-sexer and that he spoke to Planned Parenthood as proof of Obama’s Satanic usurping and a vast conspiracy against Christians in America. “[D]o any of you believe there is a connection between [Jason Collins] announcing he is gay only 72 hours after President Obama’s speech to Planned Parenthood?” Hutcherson writes. “The answer is a resounding YES! More proof that Christian views are very much under attack!” Yes, very much under attack. Poor

Beau Fodor is the owner of PANACHE, an Iowa event and wedding planner who focuses specifically on weddings for the LGBT community. He can be reached at his blog www.panachepoints.com. Photo courtesy of Toby Schuh Photography. marriage in nine states, and tremendous support from Republicans for same-sex marriage. However, these gains have made the antigay movement feel threatened, and spurred them onto more hateful rhetoric. I point to the American Family Association as one example of a group with a lot of anti-gay rancor. That group lobbies against gay marriage and makes some pretty nasty assertions about gay people, including claiming that gay people “invented” the AIDS virus. What I think is going on, with respect to anti-gay hatred in this country, is a ratcheting

TTBEAU FODOR continued page 38

teammates, but he’s also implying that a bunch of grown men can’t behave themselves if one of them is gay, especially if they’re all naked. It’s an argument that has always left me baffled: how little regard folks like Hutcherson have not just for gays, but for men entirely. As if a penis makes it impossible to be a decent human being. Then again, maybe Hutcherson is projecting his own fantasy of getting in a wrestling match with Collins in the shower while a bunch of other naked guys stand around and watch. Just saying…

ACCESSline’s fun guide

Our Picks for June 6/1-6/9, Des Moines Community Playhouse, Des Moines, Iowa, Lend Me a Tenor, DMPlayhouse.com 6/1, Greene Square Park, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Cedar Rapids Pride Fest, CRPridefest.com 6/1, Davenport, Iowa, 6th Annual QC PrideFest, QCPride.org 6/2, Paramount Theatre, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Bill Maher, ParamountTheareCR.com 6/6, Theatre Cedar Rapids, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Our Town, TheatreCR.org 6/7, Community Choice Credit Union Convention Center, Des Moines, Iowa, Iowa’s 2013 Matthew

Clifton Murray: Leads with His Heart interview by Arthur Breur

Shepard Scholarship Awards Dinner,

eychanerFoundation.org 6/7-23, Stoner Theater, Des Moines, Iowa, Time Stands Still, StageWestIowa.com 6/8, Des Moines, Iowa, Capital City Pride Fest, CapitalCityPride.org 6/9, Civic Center, Des Moines, Iowa, The Tenors, DesMoinesPerformingArts.org 6/13, Studio 13, Iowa City, Iowa, I.C. Kings Performance, Facebook.com/I.C.Kings 6/14, Club CO2, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, NKOB: Pride, Club-CO2.com 6/14-7/6, Lower City Park, Iowa City, Iowa, Hamlet, RiversideTheatre.org 6/15, Iowa City, Iowa, Iowa City Pride, IowaCityPride.com 6/20, Omaha, Nebraska, Heartland Pride, HeartlandPride.org 6/21, 920 Main, Dubuque, IA, NKOB Performance, Facebook.com/NewKingsCR 6/27, Studio 13, Iowa City, Iowa, I.C. Kings Performance, Facebook.com/I.C.Kings 6/28-7/20, Theatre Cedar Rapids, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Spring Awakening, TheatreCR.org

...and July

7/12-7/27, Waterloo Community Playhouse, Waterloo, Iowa, 9 to 5: The Musical, WCPBHCT.org 7/12-8/4, Des Moines Playhouse, Des Moines, Iowa, Legally Blonde, DMPlayhouse.com

Clifton Murray The Canadian quartet ‘The Tenors’ have performed with Celine Dion on The Oprah Winfrey Show, performed for Her Majesty The Queen, shared the stage with Paul McCartney, Sarah McLachlan, Natalie Cole and are now coming to Des Moines, Iowa! Clifton Murray talks about their current tour, reinventing the concept of a tenor group, his own life dreams, charity and HIV advocacy. The Tenors are currently touring across North America. Tell us about the tour. It starts in Canada and the US, the seventy-city North American “Lead With Your Heart” tour, we’re calling it. Twenty-five cities in Canada which were great big arena shows, and now we’re coming back through the United States, we have about forty-five cities in the US—all the major markets. And then after that we’ll be heading over to Europe, doing Venice and Istanbul, Czech Republic, and London, then South Africa… so as the success of the album grows, so too does the distribution, and we just keep touring as they add on dates. So it’s sort of turning into a world tour, but right now we’re focusing on the US tour because we’re here. We’ve had a wonderful tour so far. It started in Raleigh (NC). PBS has been airing our “Lead With Your Heart” DVD concert on their channels pretty much around the clock on their last

round of pledge drives in December and again in March, and the response has been incredible. It has allowed us to fill up these houses across the United States. Really, really blessed, and super thankful for the response. Our fans have been incredible. For anyone who has never heard one of your songs, tell us about what a performance of The Tenors is like. When you come to a performance of The Tenors, there’s really something for everybody. This is a tenor group, but it’s more like a tenor “band” in the fact that the music really comes from the four tenors. We write the music, we write the arrangements, we play instruments on stage, we tell stories in our show. The music ranges as does the type of voices that we have. Four tenors, but “tenor” is just the range in the voice. We have a “pop” tenor, we have a “musical theatre” tenor, we have two “classical” tenors. So we’re able to do songs from the operatic repertoire, the pop repertoire… Leonard Cohens “Halleluiah”, Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young”, “Elton John’s “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word”… and then songs from Puccini, “Nessum Dorma”, crossover songs like David Foster’s “The Prayer”, some folks songs as well. So you can bring the family, you really get something for everybody.

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Inside Out: My Tribe by Ellen Krug I think the band was belting out Queen’s Under Pressure. I was standing—no, make that rocking hard with fist jabbing—at Ecolab Plaza in Saint Paul taking in the other four or five thousand celebrants two hours after Governor Dayton signed Minnesota’s marriage equality law. My bicycle was parked a couple blocks away. I had ridden over from downtown Minneapolis to avoid traffic and to get some exercise. Black and pink sweaty spandex covered me, but no one cared. In between fist jabs, I looked out over the crowd. I saw square-shaped dykes kiss, wispy tee-shirted men hand holding, twenty-something baby lesbians giggle, and an old guy—maybe seventyfive—wave a rainbow flag. The mood was ecstatic, the scene historic. And the memory…unforgettable. At that moment, it hit me. This is my tribe. A couple months before, I had celebrated my book launch. More than 100 people—straight and gay, queer and trans—attended. I note this not for ego, but to relate a story. Shortly after the launch, a straight friend who attended with his wife told me about a conversation they’d had on the way home. Both were born white, in formerly arrow straight Minnesota. My friend’s wife commented on how much she liked the diversity that the book launch attracted. She had never seen some of the types that were present, which she compared to their church, which my friend described as very homogenous and not at all GLBT. “Maybe we should think about changing that,” my friend’s wife said. I was humbled. One of my life goals (ah, that would be in my life as Ellie Krug) is to connect humanity, something I call “human to human contact.” I believe that when we understand how much we have in common, great things can happen. Like marriage equality. When I was a dude, I resided in a completely different world. It was white, straight, fairly Republican (gasp), and regimented. The cocktail hour subject de jour for those people might be the latest addition to the country club’s menu or that wonderful secret getaway in Wine

Country. That was one BMW and three Jeep Cherokees ago. I now drive a Honda. “Those people” (isn’t it quite nice to see the phrase turned around?) never ignited me. On the other hand, who can’t get excited by purple hair? Or full body tattoos? Or six visible piercings? Now that’s my people. And cute gay boys? Oh my god. Talk about honesty, sexuality and style. Not to mention a couple of men who’d walk over hot flaming coals to rescue me. They, too, are my people. And GLBT people as a whole? Let me say this: we are the most human people I know. When I speak to GLBT groups, my opening line always is, “I’ve come home.” That’s because all of us queers (sorry, I don’t mean to offend) really are “family.” Most of us have one thing in common— we’ve struggled with identity and accepting whom we are. We’ve disappointed others, lost people, and had moments where the nothingness of death seemed a viable alternative. In other words, we’re survivors. I like that about us. I cherish the bond. We are one for all and that other mucky emotional stuff that we crave as human beings. So back to Ecolab Plaza on Marriage Equality Day. The rock music echoed across two blocks, making my ears hurt and spirit soar. As the sun pinched the horizon, it was time to head home. I left downtown and rode past the Cathedral of Saint Paul, Minnesota Catholic headquarters. I couldn’t help but wonder about the Bishop and how he must have felt on that historic day, one that the Catholic Church helped engineer by pushing for an anti-gay marriage amendment in the fall 2012 elections. That hatemongering propelled the GLBT community to act, which in turn, not only defeated the amendment, but led to the exact opposite of what the Church wanted—marriage equality. How ironic. How incredibly sweet such irony tastes. I went down Marshall Ave, over the Lake Street Bridge, and onto West River

When I speak to GLBT groups, my opening line always is, “I’ve come home.”

It’s easier to come out as gay to straight people than to come out as religious to gay people. The experience has been so harmful, so abusive, anyone who embraces both is kind of an enigma. ~Retired Bishop Gene Robinson on gay Christians.

Parkway, which parallels the Mississippi River. I pumped and glided along the river until I crested a hill just south of downtown Minneapolis. That’s when I saw them. Rainbows. The Guthrie Theatre is a hulking mass of navy blue glass and sharp lines that juts out toward the river. It also has navy blue smokestacks, which ordinarily vertically display the titles of current productions in blinking lights. On this night, however, GLBT rainbow colors pulsated in lieu of theatre titles. How brilliant! It was enough to make me stop for one glass of Chardonnay—a solitary celebratory drink. I locked my bike and proceeded to the maître d’ station of a restaurant on the theatre’s first floor. “I just rode back from the marriage celebration in Saint Paul,” I explained. “I only stopped because of the rainbows—they’re so beautiful.” “Yes, it’s a great day,” the manager answered. He was well dressed, polished, and very friendly. “I wished I could have gone,” he said. “I’m Ellie,” I announced with an extended hand. His name was Santi. I asked if I could sit on the balcony, which overlooks the river and the Stone Arch Bridge. He answered affirmatively, and then added, “I’m going to buy you that glass of wine.” I was amazed by his generosity.

Ellie Krug is a columnist and the author of Getting to Ellen: A Memoir about Love, Honesty and Gender Change. She resides in Minneapolis and welcomes your comments at ellenkrugwriter@gmail.com. Visit her blog at www.gettingtoellen.com. Then I realized it was as written above—human to human contact in action. Sometimes it gets you marriage rights. Other times, it gets you a free glass of wine. Santi led me to the balcony with my glass of Chardonnay in hand. He pulled the chair out for me and invited me to sit for as long as I wanted. Then he was gone. I settled in and watched the sun disappear on a perfect night. I felt an incredible sense of peace and a wonderful feeling of community. Most of all, I felt at home.

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Wired This Way by Rachel Eliason

The Anonymous hacker group is one of the oldest and most active hackivist groups around today. They act frequently out of a sense of social conscience that often includes LGBT causes. This month for pride I would like to explore a short and partial list of LGBT friendly hacks they have pulled off in the last couple of years. Of all the hacker groups out there, Anonymous is probably the most recognizable name. They hack into computers, deface websites and often crash servers using the dreaded DDoS routine. They are in ways the quintessential hacker organization, if the word organization can be applied to a group like Anonymous. They are more a loose association of people, hackers who live in a shadowy world of online names and personas. The group originated on the 4chan website. Not familiar with 4chan? 4chan is an imageboard originally created to discuss manga and anime. Its extremely liberal posting policy and fierce support of freedom of speech has made 4chan home to many controversial topics. No subject is taboo. The site has either hosted or helped spread many internet sensations and scandals. Anonymous is a loose collective of individuals with an interest in hacking. It has no power structure, in fact most of its members jealousy guard both their real identities and their freedom. The group has become known for the use of the guy fawkes mask and text to speech voice recordings to spread their public messages.

Though hacking itself is illegal, anonymous is not a criminal organization, at least not in the common sense of the word. They are not a ‘mafia’ of identity thieves and they do not hack for money or power. Originally their intent seemed to be just having fun. They slowly split with the closely related Lulz sec, whose name lulz comes from lol—internet slang for laugh out loud. Lulz focused on having fun by causing havoc online. Anonymous on the other hand has developed a growing social conscience. Unlike the Turkishajan hacker group that I wrote about last fall, Anonymous is a western organization with a western educated sensibility. Their social conscience shows up in their support of movements like the Occupy protesters, numerous attacks on government sites in response to bills limiting freedom of speech on the internet (CISPA, SOPA and other internet privacy bills) and in response to what they see as overzealous prosecution leading to the suicide of hacker Aaron Schwartz. In keeping with their ideals and with the growing trend towards acceptance of the LGBT community, Anonymous hackers have instituted a number of online campaigns for LGBT causes. For pride month here is a short list of hacks that have been done for the sake of LGBT rights around the world. Seizing control of websites is a common hacker trick. Anonymous often seizes control of websites for oppressive government and post messages attacking the stances of those governments. Which they have done multiple times in Uganda.

In response to Uganda’s proposed legislation to apply the death penalty to homosexuality Anonymous hacked prime minister Amama Mbabazi’s website and left this public message: “Your violations of the rights of LGBT people have disgusted us. ALL people have the right to live in dignity free from the repression of someone else’s political and religious beliefs. You should be PROUD of your LGBT citizens, because they clearly have more balls than you will ever have.” “Real Ugandan Pride is demonstrated in standing up to oppression despite fearing the abuse, torture and murder inflicted on LGBT at the hands of the corrupt government.” They also hacked myuganda.co.ug, a huge public website and posted photos from David Kato’s funeral. David Kato was an openly gay man murdered in Uganda in 2011. They hacked databases from the department of Agriculture and released administrators emails, usernames and password. Revealing sensitive information about their opponents is another common strategy hackers use. Anonymous has used this against the anti-LGBT organization The Florida Family Association. In December of 2011 a hacker claiming to work under the flag of Anonymous posted the association’s entire email list. The hacker included information on what kind of credit card each member had and it’s confirmation code to prove that he had their credit information as well, but he stopped short of revealing the card numbers. He explained this by saying the members of the organization were mostly middle class individuals who had been “mislead (sic) by all your bullsh*t” and were also victims of the groups hatred. Which barely compares to the hatred Anonymous has heaped on the notorious Westboro Baptist Church in recent years. Operation Westboro has its own

I think “athletic” or “healthy” are more worthwhile goals than the pursuit of skinniness, but let’s face it–“skinny” is a popular fitness goal to which many people aspire. So if you are looking to slim down and drop some body fat, I’ve put together these simple and straightforward guidelines: 1. Reduce (or eliminate) added sugar. Even though sugar provides virtually no nutritional benefits, Americans eat 500 calories of a day worth of added sugar. Cut it out. 2. Don’t deprive yourself of unhealthy foods you love. The more you try to resist

unhealthy foods, the more you think about unhealthy foods–and the more you crave them. Allow yourself an occasional treat to break the cycle. It’s about balance. 3. Cook your own meals. You’ll know exactly what goes into the foods you eat. 4. If you do eat out, avoid the watch words. Don’t order foods that are described as crispy, fried, creamed, crunchy, battered, bottomless, giant, loaded, cheesy or breaded. 5. And if you do eat out, opt for steamed vegetables as your side. 6. Sleep well. People who don’t get enough sleep consume more calories. 7. Start your day with a real breakfast. Boiled eggs, no sugar added cereals, fruits and Greek yogurt all count. Danishes, doughnuts, pastries or a cup of coffee

do not. 8. Replace simple carbs with complex carbs. That means substituting white rice with brown rice and white bread with whole wheat bread. 9. Get 30+ grams of fiber a day. 95% of Americans don’t get enough fiber; eat fiber-rich foods like vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts and seeds. In addition to many other important benefits, fiber helps you feel fuller longer. 10. Don’t drink your calories. High calorie alcohol beverages or sugar drinks are calorie-dense but devoid of nutrients. Save your calories for foods that nourish your body and keep you feeling full. 11. Learn to read nutrition labels. 12.Never eat a food directly from the box or bag. Put it in a bowl; you’ll eat less and avoid the mindless munchies.

Revealing sensitive information about their opponents is another common strategy hackers use. Anonymous has used this against the antiLGBT organization The Florida Family Association.

How to Get Skinny: 13 Rules by Davey Wavey Don’t order foods that are described as crispy, fried, creamed, crunchy, battered, bottomless, giant, loaded, cheesy or breaded.

Rachel Eliason is a forty two year old Transsexual woman. She was given her first computer, a Commodore Vic-20 when she was twelve and she has been fascinated by technology ever since. In the thirty years since that first computer she has watched in awe as the Internet has transformed the LGBT community. In addition to her column, Rachel has published a collection of short stories, Tales the Wind Told Me and is currently working on her debut novel, Run, Clarissa, Run. Rachel can be found all over the web, including on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Goodreads. twitter hashtag #opwestboro and its own twitter account @WestboroOps. They have defaced the church’s website: godhatesfags.com and posted a wealth of personal information on the group’s members: work phone numbers, personal emails, and even arrest records. (A short list can be found at: http://pastebin.com/ ygjBZDJB. ) They also target the group for frequent DDoS attacks. The DDoS attack is one of the most dreaded in the hackers arsenal because it’s sheer simplicity makes it hard to fight. Denial of Service attacks flood a computer with inane requests, overwhelming it and denying access to anyone wanting to get to that

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Davey Wavey is an AFPA certified personal trainer shares his passion for and knowledge of fitness, exercise, health and nutrition with the world. For more information go to DaveyWaveyFitness.com. 13. Move more. Combine a healthy diet with an active lifestyle and exercise. Take the stairs. Join a gym. Go for a walk. At its core, losing weight is really about creating a calorie deficit by consuming fewer calories than you burn. All the above guidelines are helpful in supporting a calorie deficit through nutrition and exercise. So have at it!

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Midwest Pride Events Illinois

Rockford Pride Fest

Vasa Park, 6616 42nd Street, Rockford, Illinois Saturday, June 1st, 11 a.m. Sunday, June 2nd, 8a.m.-5 p.m.

Metro East Pridefest

Downtown Belleville, Illinois Friday, June 21st-Saturday, June 22nd

Chicago Pride Fest

NorthHalsted, Chicago, Illinois Saturday, June 22nd-Sunday,June 23rd

Iowa

Cedar Rapids Pride Fest

Greene Square Park, Cedar Rapids, Iowa Saturday, June 1st, 4-8 p.m.

QCPrideFest 2013

2nd & Warren Streets, Downtown Davenport, Iowa Saturday, June 1st, noonMidnight. Sunday, June 2nd, noon-8 p.m.

Capital City PrideFest

East Village, Des Moines, Iowa Saturday, June 8th Sunday, June 9th

Iowa City Pride

Ped Mall, downtown Iowa City, Iowa Friday, June 14th 5:30 p.m. Saturday, June 15th noon- 5 p.m. Saturday, June 15th

Siouxland Pride

Riverside Park, Sioux City, Iowa Saturday, June 22nd Sunday, June 23rd

Cedar Valley Pridefest

300 block of West 4th Street, Downtown, Waterloo, Iowa Saturday, August 24th, noonmidnight

Minnesota

Twin Cities Pride

Loring Park, Minneapolis, Minnesota Saturday, June 29th-Sunday, June 30th

Rochester Minnesota Pridefest Peace Plaza, Downtown Rochester, Minnesota Monday, July 15th-Sunday, July 21st

Mankato PrideFest

Riverfront Park, Mankato, Minnesota Friday, September 6th, 7 p.m. Saturday, September 7th, 11a.m.-Midnight

St. Cloud Pridefest

St. Cloud, Minnesota Thursday, September 19th-Sunday, September 22nd

Missouri

Greater Ozarks PrideFest

Downtown Springfield, Missouri Saturday, June 15th

St. Louis Pride Fest

Soldiers’ Memorial, Downtown St. Louis, Missouri Saturday, June 29th-Sunday, June 30th

Nebraska

Heartland Pride

Aksarben Village, Stinson Park, Omaha, Nebraska Thursday, June 20th, 7-9:30 p.m. Friday, June 21st, 6-10 p.m. Saturday, June 22nd 11 a.m.- 10 p.m.

Star City Pride

Lincoln, Nebraska Thursday, July 11th-Sunday, July 14th

South Dakota

2013 LGBT Pride

Rapid City, South Dakota Location TBA July 12th-13th

Sioux Falls Pride

Covell Lake Park, Sioux Falls, South Dakota Saturday, August 17th, noon-6 p.m.

AIDS Walk

Pasley Park, Sioux Falls, South Dakota Saturday, September, 21st

Wisconsin Pride Fest Milwaukee

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Friday, June 7th-Saturday, June 9th

Wisconsin Capitol Pride

Madison, Wisconsin Saturday, August 17th-Sunday, August 18th

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Finding that Perfect Venue By Scott Stevens

One of the biggest concerns couples have when they are planning their wedding is picking the venue. No one ever says, “Oh I liked Jeff and Nick’s last wedding, let’s just copy what they did”. No, you want the wedding venue to be unique and to represent you as a couple. The venue is going to be one of your biggest wedding expenses, unless you have Vera Wang designing your dress. You want it comfortable to fit all the guests, meet your budget, and represent your style. Here are some tips on finding your

However, my personal favorite would be under the stars in the Science Center of Iowa’s Star Theater—yes! They really do weddings in the Star Theater!

perfect venue. First, tell yourself that there are no rules! This is your day, if you want to get married on the top floor of an elegant skyscraper or a simple outdoor wedding with only a few friends and family—it is your day and your choice. However, my personal favorite would be under the stars in the Science Center of Iowa’s Star Theater—yes! They really do weddings in the Star Theater! Sorry I digress. Personally, I would strongly recommend getting a wedding planner to help you. A good wedding planner, like Iowa’s Gay Wedding Planner’s, will not only save you time, but they will also save you money! They will know your budget, style, and work with your favorite venues. This will get you what you want by asking the questions you didn’t know to ask. Here are few tips for all you DIY’s out there. First, plan ahead! Many venues are booked a year in advance! You don’t want your special day to be rescheduled

Scott Stevens I grew up in a small town in Wyoming and in 1998 I moved to Iowa go go to college. I graduated from Buena Vista University with a degree in Marketing and a minor in art and communications. I am have been an active Member of Metro Arts Alliance for over 10 years. I am currently the Vise President and the incoming president in 2014. I was the Director of Development for One Iowa when marriage was legalized in Iowa! In 2009 my friend Ben developed a website to help same sex couples get married in Iowa. In 2010 I purchased the website and have had the pleasure with working with newly weds all over the country. because some snot nosed punk is having his bar mitzvah. Second, know the details! Many venues have required caterers, decorating exemptions, even a minimum food and spirits fee. Third, make sure you know how much time you will be given for setup and take down. It takes time to setup and take down, many places require you have everything cleaned up before you leave. You don’t want to postpone your honeymoon because you have to clean up birdseed and beer bottles the day after your wedding. Take your time, look at your options and know the details. Just remember don’t sweat the small stuff and have fun!

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MINNESOTA Krug. In response to this initiative the LGBT community was galvanized into action with organizations like Minnesotans United for All Families and Project 515. “Minnesotans United called nearly every Minnesotan with a telephone number,” said Krug. “The telephone discussions centered on how gay people can fall in love too, and how marriage shouldn’t be restricted to simply straight people. This turned out to be a far more effective message than one centered on equality or the need to avoid discriminating against others.” The “anti-marriage” amendment, as

The Fun Guide some called it, was defeated and Governor Mark Dayton publicly stated that he’d sign a gay marriage bill if the legislature voted it in. Krug points out that Minnesotans United had built a very efficient and effective political organization because of the anti-marriage amendment, and once it was defeated they shifted to pushing for legalization of gay marriage in Minnesota. “It was a classic example of biting the tiger’s tail,” Krug remarked. “The ultraconservatives already had a law against gay marriage, but that wasn’t good enough for them. By pushing for a constitutional amendment, too, they woke up the sleeping gay and lesbian tiger. I’ve got to think that some bishop in St. Paul is now shaking his head wondering why they ever started down this road in the first place.”

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The NKOB are showing their Pride Cedar Rapids, IA The NKOB will be performing at CR Pride Fest this year on the first of June in addition to our monthly show (which is Pride themed and will be June 14th at 10pm, Club CO2, Cedar Rapids, IA). You can also see some of the NKOB perform at Main 920 in Dubuque, IA on June 21st!

How do the NKOB show their pride?

Jayden Knight: “At the end of June I will be performing at Camp Pride at LV Campground, located in Coggon, IA with Monica Knight, Alexandria Steele, my fiancée Star E Knight, and Roxy Jo Steele. Not to mention I’ll also be performing with the New Kings on the Block at Cedar Rapids Pride Fest and our Pride Show on the 14th. Chelsea Joy Lob and Jazmine Fritz:

“We are MC’ing CR PrideFest!” Brave Crow: “I will be donating the money I make during pride events to fund Pride events in the future. The kings in Cedar Rapids care about the community. I began doing live Drag Poetry, and I am always trying to push the envelope.” Hunter Down: “I will be bringing Iowa Pride to Las Vegas this year. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend CR Pride Fest but I will definitely bring the spirit of equality and freedom to the city that never sleeps!” Tatem: “Embracing my drag alter ego and breaking the barriers of the typical drag audience is always an exciting challenge. My partner, who is on the Rollerderby team, brings the girls out to our shows for a night out together”. JD Lesbiani: “I am known for my love for country, my signature song is “We Shall Be Free” by Garth Brooks to help advo-

cate the message of equality and love for everyone”. Chelsea Joy Lob and Jazmine Fritz: “We met at Iowa City Pride in 2010 and have been best friends since. And now we have

the opportunity to EmCee pride this year! We are more than excited”. To learn more about The NKOB you can find them on Facebook at Facebook.com/ NewKingsCR.

Pictured from Bottom Left to Right Top. Tatem Trick flashes a smile for the cameras during his “Pimp Juice” performance. Jazmine Fritz is all smiles, celebrating her 25th Birthday at the NKOTB Prom themed show May 10th. JD Lesbiani makes a comeback on the CO2 stage after taking a much needed break from performing. Jayden Knight and fiance Star E. Knight pose at the photo booth. Photos courtesy of Alana Hyatt. You can find Alana at facebook.com/AlanasArtwork.

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I.C. Kings are bursing with Pride this June! Iowa City, IA

J.T. Amore courtesy of Tanya Kehoe. CatalogTKA.blogspot.com.

The I.C. Kings are bursting with pride this June! How do these gender-benders show their pride, you ask? The I.C. Kings love getting involved in community events, dancing around like maniacs and giving away buttons, candy and mustaches (stop by their booth at Iowa City Pride for the freebies)! They also enjoy riding on floats, wearing skinshowing outfits, waving, frolicking, cheering, clapping, smiling and shimmying. But their favorite ways to show pride are meeting new people, making contributions to the LGBTQA community, supporting fellow creative types, encouraging frivolity and making new friends. And most of the I.C. Kings bring out a little extra queerness for Pride events. If you want to catch a glimpse of these lovely bois, check out their June schedule of shows and appearances, listed below. To help you fabulous readers prepare for the unbridled gaiety, here’s a taste of what you might expect this month... * Hugh Jindapants exploding with energy, rainbows, monkey noises, douchery and magical sidechops. * J.T. Amore making his “booty bounce” and Miss Kitty swooning with passion at the sight of it. * Julius Fever enchanting everyone with his dreamy mustache and foreign ways. * Franky D. Lover performing a fanrequested song and practicing his swishy walk. * Max E. Mum flirting with all the ladies and showing off his tattoos. * Joey D. being a heart-throb... all day, every day. * Scott Abigwun shooting rainbows of awesomeness out of his fingertips (or other places). * Miss Kitty being her saucy, fine, feline

self!

* Guests, sexiness and ridiculous antics.

Your Guide to Seeing the I.C. Kings in June!

June 13th (Thursday) I.C. Kings present “Show Us Your Pride!” What: Drag King Show Where: Studio 13, in Iowa City When: 9pm – 12:30am Cover: $5 (19+ until 10pm) June 15th (Saturday) I.C. Kings at I.C. PRIDE! What: Pride parade, drag king performances & I.C. Kings booth Where: College Green Park & the Ped Mall in Iowa City When: Noon, 1:30pm (for performances), booth until 5pm Free! (All ages!) June 22nd (Saturday) I.C. Kings at The Tool Box What: Closing Party for The Tool Box and Photo Exhibit by Tonya Kehoe Where: The Tool Box in Iowa City When: 5pm – 9pm Free! June 27th (Thursday) I.C. Kings present “Free for All!” What: Drag King Show Where: Studio 13, in Iowa City When: 9pm – 12:30pm Cover: $5 (19+ until 10pm) Show YOUR Pride by getting out to these shindigs and all the other AMAZING events scheduled in Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, the Quad Cities and everywhere else! For more information on the I.C. Kings go to Facebook.com/I.C.Kings.

Above. Julius Fever and Franky D. Lover courtesy of Tanya Kehoe. CatalogTKA.blogspot.com. Below. Joey D. courtesy of Juan Carlos Herrera. JuanCarlosHerrera.net.

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CLIFTON MURRAY We have a very strong younger demographic, a lot of teenagers coming out to the show who have really been drawn in by the pop music, and there’s an older demographic as well, who really appreciate the more classical songs but is pleasantly surprised by the pop music. It’s that hybrid of pop and classical, and being able to do them both legitimately because we have the voices that come from those genres. So our opera singers are not going to take the lead on the pop songs, and vice versa. Being able to do the songs and do them legitimately is perhaps what separates us from other tenor groups. We really enjoy being able to perform that variety of music. We’re really reinventing the concept of what a tenor group is, in the sense that the music is coming from the artists themselves, not from management or someone that owns them telling them what to sing. It’s really a natural and organic thing. We’ve been experiencing an incredible response all over the world and we’re happy that we can “keep on truckin’” on it. We’re very inspirational, very positive, very uplifting. If there’s one thing I can say about the music, it’s that it really is a great tool for people to use to inspire them to follow their dreams or to help them through difficult times in life. We’ve received thousands and thousands of letters and emails about how the music has been there for people in their darkest hour and it has brought them out of that place. And they come to a show and they see it live and they’re just transformed. Grown men who haven’t cried in years, coming up after the show with their motorcycle beards, wanting to express, you know, “I was dragged here by my wife and I wasn’t expecting to like it, but you guys really touched me.” Those stories, for us, they’re immeasurable, they’re so valuable for us, to keep doing what we’re doing and believing in the project. We’re always looking for the heart of the matter in every song, picking songs that tell a story, that really connect, and writing songs that come from our experiences and the connections we have with the audience. It’s really been a whirlwind

experience because our fans, I can’t emphasize how important they’ve become to this group. They really are the wave we’re riding on. We have a fan club call “TFF” – Tenor Friends Forever – and they come to every show. They’ll travel across the country, they’ll travel overseas, they’ll billet with each other and organize rallies to get people involved. It’s so incredible to see them out in such large numbers. And they’re so proud of the music and of the group that they’ve created. And that inspires us to keep going, to keep writing music, to believe in the project, and that relationship is building and keeps getting stronger and stronger. We realize that there is something there, something special, that people are latching onto, that gives them hope and strength, and we’re blessed to be part of that relationship. You personally had your own life dreams have to change. You were in sports originally, but you had a heart condition that stopped you from pursuing that. Tell us about that. Yeah, unfortunately I was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. I was born with it, but they never noticed it until I was nineteen. I’d been doing music, of course, my whole life. All through high school I was in musical theatre, jazz vocal choir, but I was also the captain of the basketball team, lead scorer on the rugby team, and sports was a big part of my life. And then I got a scholarship to university, so I chose the sports path, and unfortunately we found out that I have this condition and I was told I couldn’t play professional sports. I went to a very dark place in my life, not having that direction, that focus that I always have in my life. After a lot of soul searching and some advice from my mother, I chose the performing arts path. I joined acting school, joined a gospel choir, and I put my heart into music and into acting and then it led me to the path of The Tenors. Life reflects art, truly: I led with my heart—my condition was a blessing in disguise. It stopped me in the path toward sports and redirected me to where I was ultimately always meant to be, which was in the performing arts realm. So even though I have this condition, I wouldn’t change it for the world because it put me on the right path and made me appreciate this

If there’s one thing I can say about the music, it’s that it really is a great tool for people to use to inspire them to follow their dreams or to help them through difficult times in life.

The Tenors gift of music that I get to share with the world. Of the different performances that you’ve done, which ones have really stood out for you? Performing at the opening ceremony of the Olympics in 2010 in my home town of Vancouver was pretty awesome. Performing with Celine Dion on the Oprah Winfrey Show certainly was our introduction into the United States and to this day lives on as the ultimate TV moment for The Tenors. Performing at the Emmys—you know, being an actor and aspiring to be at the Emmys or the Oscars some day, and being able to perform at the Emmys was, to me, sort of a surreal experience as a dream come true: hanging backstage with Gwyneth Paltrow and Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel. I was totally awestruck and blown away. But I think what takes the cake is performing for the Queen at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee at Windsor Castle, last year, and then after our performance—which was televised around the world—being invited by the Queen to a private tea in Windsor Castle with just thirty people in a small room. We sang a couple songs—Oh, Canada! and Halleluiah—that I think really stands alone as the defining moment for The Tenors. That invite, first of all, but being able to share conversation with the Queen. She was so down to earth. I look back and think, “Wow, that woman is on our money, and I got to have a conversation with her over tea!” You’re involved with charities as well. Tell us about that. I think what’s important is to give back. It’s important of anybody in a position of influence or power is to use that to give back in any way we can. So we have associated

JUNE 2013 ourselves with two organizations. One is Bolembu (Bolembu. org), which is a charity in Africa that used to be an asbestos mine and they’ve turned it into an orphanage in this small town. The community of Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV in the world, 48%, and they have an incredible orphan problem. They have a bunch of young kids and they have a bunch of grandmothers, but the middle-aged people all died of AIDS. So they’ve turned this town basically into a selfsustainable town where they’re taking care of all of the orphans from all over the kingdom. We’ve helped raise $2.2 million that goes back into the town and helps build infrastructure. They now have a dairy farm, and a honey bee farm, and a logging factory—things that people can do to empower themselves to live for tomorrow and not just giving them handouts or rice bags and stuff like that, but give them education and medicine and music and arts. So these kids get saved, because they were left for dead, they grow up in this town through the orphanage care system, they go to school, they learn jobs, and they take over the jobs, creating a self-sustaining community. Locally we’re working with Horatio Alger, which provides scholarships, funding, and mentorships for at-risk youth that have a dream to do more, passionate, hard-working individuals that perhaps don’t come from wealthy backgrounds, and give them scholarships to follow their dreams. So those are things we’re always talking about at every show, taking the opportunity to tell people those opportunities in the hopes that they will look into it. And that if they ever become or happen to be influential themselves they know that it’s important to give back. For more information on The Tenors go to TenorsMusic.com and to purchase tickets for their June 9th performance go to DesMoinesPerformingArts.org.

JUNE 2013

The Fun Guide

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The Fun Guide

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JUNE 2013

The Bookworm Sez by Terri Schlichenmeyer

“Stuck in the Middle with You” by Jennifer Finney Boylan

c.2013, Crown, $24.00 / $28.00 Canada, 288 pages When you were younger, you wanted nothing to do with parenthood. Life was a party then and having a family was the farthest thing from your mind. Kids changed people and who wants that? Being a parent was something that happened to somebody else. Once upon a time, Jennifer Finney Boylan thought that, too. But then she became a father. And then she became a woman and in her new memoir, “Stuck in the Middle with You” she writes about finding love, discovering life’s sweet spot, and being a mommy and a daddy. Well over twenty-five years ago, James Boylan fell in love at first sight. He remembered seeing Deirdre’s blue eyes from the audience as she performed onstage. He knew he had to ask her out, that he wanted to be her boyfriend. After she finally said yes to a date, it wasn’t long before she said yes to marriage and yes to a family. They welcomed son Zach first, and Sean a few years later. And then James Boylan told his wife something that he’d been struggling with for his entire life: deep inside, he was really a woman. He could no longer tolerate life in hiding. After six years of being a father, James needed to live as Jennifer. So how does a woman teach her son about being a man? Would the boys be teased, ostracized, or ashamed? Would they feel as

though they lost a parent? “What kind of men would my children become,” says Boylan, “… having been raised by a father who became a woman?” As it turns out, Boylan shouldn’t have worried. Her eldest became an activist and works for justice. Her youngest is a fine musician. Their lives weren’t much different from that of their friends, and everyone generally “forgot that there was anything extraordinary about our family.” Today, Boylan is still married to her wife of a quarter-century. It’s as “nontraditional” a union as you can imagine but then again, “traditional” families are no longer the norm anyhow. And besides, says Deirdre, “No matter what else you say about my husband, she’s an amazing woman.” And though parenting memoirs replicate like rabbits these days, “Stuck in the Middle with You” is a pretty amazing book. With her slightly-askew humor and a grateful sense of awe for her family’s relative ease in her transition, author Jennifer Finney

Boylan writes from the heart on the subjects of being father and mother, son and daughter. Those four roles were obviously played out by the same person, but it’s interesting to note how Boylan sees herself differently (and similarly) in each of them, pre- and posttransition. I also enjoyed her observations on connections between past and present, which nicely accompany interviews with friends and colleagues about family, children, and being a child. Readers looking for scandal won’t find it here, but if you want something that’ll bring you to the brink of tears again and again, this is your book. Wanting “Stuck in the Middle with You” should be apparent.

65 Multitude 66 Top-drawer 67 Peter the Great

2 Toward Dinah? 3 Members of Gertrude’s family 4 Dropped hankie and such 5 W.W. II gun 6 Nuts 7 Hollywood’s Hagen 8 Butts

After six years of being a father, James needed to live as Jennifer.

Across

1 Sprint at the Gay Games 5 Sucking sound 10 Places where women might sweat together 14 Italian wine city 15 The bottom line 16 Antifur org. 17 Start of a comment about Jason Collins 20 Brian on ice 21 Audrey Hepburn role 22 German Surrealist Max 23 Penetrate 24 Musical notes 25 Service receivers 31 Cold war prog. 32 More of the comment 34 Leonardo’s thing 37 Boyfriend 38 Silica stone 42 Strong as ___ 43 Connect with 44 Biggest of a bear threesome 45 Pinko’s hero 47 U-turn from SSW 48 Ruhr industrial center 49 Rabies threat 51 Black Sea city 52 End of the comment 56 Look curiously 58 Diabolical one 59 Robert of The Brady Bunch 62 Like a fairy tale brother? 63 Peta Wilson’s Nikita, e.g. 64 Charlotte BrontÎ’s Jane

Q-PUZZLE: He’s Seven Feet Tall, So ...

Down

1 Robin Williams’ Pam of Mork & Mindy

9 Guilty, to Perry Mason 10 Blow off 11 ___ fours (small cakes) 12 Made amends 13 African outing 18 Concoct, as a plot 19 Over the top in the middle 26 Split 27 Leave stranded on a gay ski weekend, say 28 Talk show host who made the comment 29 Streisand’s Prince of Tides costar 30 Poet ___ Wu 32 Art of stuffing animals 33 Active one’s affair on the side? 34 Collected 35 Top draft level 36 Gypsy lyrics writer 39 Superintendents’ masters 40 King Kong’s kin 41 Star Turner 46 Japanese theater 48 College web address suffix 50 Fish hooks 51 More queer 53 Debussy’s deity 54 Short term employee 55 Round-buyer’s words 56 Org. of athletes that Sheehan doesn’t swing with 57 Screw up 60 Bill written by Alice Paul 61 Aachen article

• SOLUTION ON PAGE 38

JUNE 2013

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Under Construction : ACCESSline’s Heartland Recurring Events List

ACCESSline’s Recurring Events List is and has been provided by ACCESSline readers. With the added communities of ACCESSline’s Heartland Newspaper, the list is need of a large overhaul. We need readers to continue to help and update the list. Please submit recurring ManagingEditor@ACCESSlineIowa.com.

How Far Out?

events

By Bruce McCabe

How far “out” is far enough? I’ve already told my mother. Telling her was not too rough, but do I need to tell my stupid brother? What would the blond at the office say? She has brought me cookies twice. If I blurted out “My dear, I’m gay” Will she still think I’m nice? Do I need to tell my barber, who asks “How About Them Hawks?” What gay-hatred might he harbor, razor-cutting off my locks? It was cool how grandma took it, But I don’t think grandpa wants to know. My Republican dad would have a fit, and take it as a personal blow. Maybe I should disclose to Paul. We were college buds. Our discussion topics included all, over many mugs of suds. Would his friendship be “fair weather,” If I waved my rainbow flag? If he saw me dressed in leather? Or knew some of my friends wore drag? Should I tell my stern-faced boss? (The company policy proclaims “diverse” ) Could being honest cause job loss? Is the masquerading worse? I pondered telling Preacher Russ, After Easter Service. But how he reads Leviticus makes me kind of nervous. Throwing the closet door wide is what I want to do. No one wants to hide, or limit the truth to a few. God, I think that I’m okay, with faith, on bended knee, telling You that I am gay, and thanking You for making me.

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The Fun Guide

JUNE 2013

PFLAG - Des Moines Chapter Meeting Transformations Iowa Meeting The Des Moines Chapter of Parents & Friends of Lesbians & Gays (PFLAG) will meet at 6:30 pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 1800 Bell Avenue Des Moines, IA 50315 on the third Tuesday of every month. The meeting begins with a short business meeting followed by an educational

presentation, and a social and support session. All are welcome! Made up of parents, families, friends, and straight allies uniting with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, PFLAG is committed to advancing equality through its mission of support, education and advocacy.

SSSS=Second Saturday Social at Six Begins June 8th, 2013

The Rainbow Outreach Center is asking for your support in sharing the news of a new outreach program. SSSS is aimed at providing a social event in the Omaha community on the second Saturday of each month at six o’clock p.m. This event includes a potluck meal (a main dish, tea, lemonade, water, utensils,

plates, napkins will be provided), a movie, games and plenty of space to spend time with friends and catch up. There is no cost to those who want to join us, and there is no membership required, donations to the Rainbow Outreach Center (a 501c3) are always welcomed. Program located at the Rainbow Outreach Center, 3620 Leavenworth, Omaha, NE.

If the Girl Scouts or 4-H or even the United States military is inclusive of gay folks, why can’t the Boy Scouts? If there’s any discrimination, the message to gay kids and adults is that they are somehow other. ~One Iowa Executive Director Donna Red Wing on Boy Scouts of America.

Every Wednesday, Transformations Iowa, 7-9pm, One Iowa, 419 SW 8th St, Des Moines, IA 50309. Transformations Iowa is a Transgender support group. It is open

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WIRED web server for legitimate reasons. (For a nontechnical example imagine you prank called the Westboro Baptist church 400 times in a row—that’s been done by the way. Anyone calling the number would get a busy signal and not be able to reach them. Now use a computer to automate that process and you have a denial of service attack.) The Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) works on the same principle except that it’s a virus like program that uses multiple computers to send an insane volume of requests. OpWestboro organizes public raids on the church’s website. The raids are organized via social media sites like twitter. Schedules and details are often posted on websites that feature wiki pages or increasingly on piratepad.net. Individual are encouraged to perform certain kinds of hacking, testing or DDoS attacks at certain time. The results that can be posted to twitter or to an anonymous online sharing tool like pastebin.com. Anonymous hasn’t completely forgotten its “just for the fun of it” roots. Actions against the Westboro Baptist church have included publishing physical addresses and encouraging twitter followers to call

to all ranges of the gender spectrum, male to female, female to male, cross dressers, drag queens, gender queer, questioning, as well as friends, significant others and allies.

fake pizza delivery orders to that address, recording prank calls, spreading internet memes poking fun at the church and even supposedly downloading gay porn onto the church’s computers. (Given the old adage about haters being closet cases, one has to wonder if that was really the result of hackers or just an excuse.) Readers should be warned though. Whatever you think of Anonymous’s hijinx, for better or worse the government says they are illegal. DDoS attacks are considered a federal offense under the Federal Fraud and Computer Abuse Act and can result in long prison sentences. Prank calls and spam emails can be seen as harassment and that too carries legal penalties. If you choose to become involved in OpWestboro you do so at your own risk. Since I prefer to avoid prisons, I am purely an armchair hacker. I follow several Anonymous sources on twitter and read about their exploits. I bring those stories back to you but I do not engage in or advocate any sort of hacking. If you want to explore the world of hacking without fear of consequence, you can always pick up my first novel Run, Clarissa, Run. (Available on amazon.com). Clarissa is a teenage transgender girl who must hack her way out of a dark situation. It’s available in paperback and on the Kindle.

JUNE 2013

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FFBC: Sean Faircloth by Bruce Carr The Project of the Quad Cities

Sean Faircloth Our guest speaker on Friday, May 3, was Sean Faircloth, author of Attack of the Theocrats! How the Religious Right Harms Us All — and What We Can Do About It, published last year. Faircloth is an attorney, a former legislator (Maine, 2002-2008), and an advocate for maintaining the separation of church and state. In 2009 Faircloth became executive director of the Secular Coalition for

America, to promote acceptance of nontheistic viewpoints in American life; and in September 2011 he became the Director of Strategy and Policy for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. His goal with us was to announce a political initiative called “Get Religion Out of Government” that will offer a focus for progressive action in the 2016 elections, and to develop support for its first event, which will feature Richard Dawkins; Faircloth hopes that the initiative can be professionally staffed in Iowa by early 2015. The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (richarddawkinsfoundation.org) is a non-profit organization founded in 2006. Professor Dawkins, a British biologist, atheist, and a vice president of the British Humanist Association, is well known for his criticism of creationism and “intelligent design”. Faircloth advocates and speaks around the United States regarding secular public policy and the harm that can come to average citizens if the secular nature of the American Constitution is not followed. Sean Faircloth is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. As he told us, he is sick and tired of the religious right’s “Lording it” over the rest of us in matters of public policy.

GOglbt is starting a new group of GLBT business owners or business professionals to meet twice monthly to support each other’s businesses by providing referrals. They will meet every other Thursday from 7:30am-8:30am at a TBD Wells Fargo sponsored location. Refreshments will be

provided. Once they secure the location the meetings will start. Membership Fee is $50.00 and will include a business listing on the GOglbt.com website. To sign up to be a part of this group please call Tom Luke at 402-650-2917, or email him at tom@lukedirectmarketing.com.

Prime Timers of Central Iowa, the Iowa chapter of Prime Timers World Wide, continues to grow and has expanded across Iowa and even across our borders. It has now launched its website: http://www.primetimersww. com/centraliowa/ Attendance at our monthly dinners has grown to fill our current space. Summer activities planned include attending an Iowa Cubs game, a pontoon boat party on Saylorville Lake, and a country barbeque. Some members

will be joining the St. Louis Prime Timers chapter for their 4th of July celebration. Mature gay/bi men are welcome to broaden their relationships with other men through a variety of activities. A monthly newsletter with a schedule of activities is available. For more information contact: PrimeTimersIowa@gmail.com. Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/PrimeTimersOfCentralIowa

New GOglbt Business Referral Group

Prime Timers of Central Iowa

Founded in 1986, The Project of the Quad Cities is a non-profit HIV/STI/AIDS Service Organization that provides support to persons living with HIV/STI/AIDS as well as their families and friends in Iowa and Illinois. www.apqc4life.org Symptom Management Group—Every Wednesday from 1-2:30 pm Life Skills Group—Every other Wednesday from 10-11:30 am Coffee Hour—10-11:30 am on Wednesdays when the Life Skills Group does not meet; A relaxed and casual atmosphere Groups meet at our Moline office. We also offer free HIV testing Monday through Thursday from 9 am to 4 pm. For more information call Susie or Mollie at 309-762-5433

PITCH Calendar 2013 Positive Iowans Taking Charge (PITCH) is a volunteer-run non-profit organization, founded in 2007, their goal is to provide social networking and support to Iowans living with, or affected by, HIV/AIDS. Their mission is to create an atmosphere where HIV+ people can unite, advocate, and assist other HIV+ people for better health and wellness. More information can be found at pitchiowa.org or call Tami Haught at 641-715-4182.

Groups

Des Moines Open Support Group 5pm-6pm (Wednesdays) Thursday Group 2pm-3pm (Thursdays) Waterloo PITCH Support Group 6pm-8pm (Every other week) Wednesday Evening Group 5:30pm-6:30pm (Every other week)

Support Group Meeting Conference Call

Positive Iowans Taking Charge will be having a Conference Call Support Group meeting, June 26th at 7 PM. This Support Group Meeting is open to those outside of Iowa. The meeting is to provide emotional, social, and educational opportunities for Iowans across the state. The Agenda is as

follows: welcome and introduction from 7-7:30 PM, topic discussion from 7:30-8 PM, non-topic time for everyone to share how they are doing from 8-8:30 PM. Times are adjusted depending on the needs of the people on the call. The number to call is 949-812-4500 and the Pin number is 684713 that everyone will use the same code. For more information go to pitchiowa.org or find them on facebook.

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DIGNITYUSA Dignity began in 1969 when an Augustinian priest, Fr. Patrick Nidorf, was struck by the fact that many people in same-sex relationships who came to confession with him at his parish in Los Angeles suffered what he called “overwhelming guilt.” After consultation with others in his order, he began a support group for what were then known as “homosexual Catholics.” Due to safety concerns, people interested in this ministry wrote in to a P.O. Box, had a personal interview with Fr. Nidorf, and then were admitted to the group. Word and demand spread quickly. Soon, Fr. Nidorf was doing similar ministry in San Diego. Then requests for the program came in from Louisville, KY, Chicago, IL, New York City, and many other places around the country. What are some significant changes since DignityUSA was formed? The biggest change is that there is now public awareness that being both lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender and Catholic is absolutely possible, that LGBT people live and love with integrity and joy, and that we are members of virtually every family, faith community, workplace, and neighborhood. Support for LGBT people and for our civil rights among Catholics has grown rapidly. Despite the pronouncements of church officials, US Catholics actually demonstrate higher levels of support for same-sex

Section 3: Community marriage, adoption by same-sex couples, employment non-discrimination, etc. than any other religious group in the country. The other big change is that early in our history, in the 1970s, for example, Catholic leaders were among the first to embrace gay rights. Many bishops started supportive ministries in their dioceses. Catholic Charities, hospitals and universities were among the first organizations to add sexual orientation to employment non-discrimination statements. But in the mid-1980s, conservatives in the Vatican and the US Bishops’ Conference gained power. Due to a 1986 order from the Vatican, Dignity Chapters started being kicked out of Catholic churches, and now meet in space offered to us by other denominations. That has been a source of both pain and freedom. DignityUSA was the first Catholic LGBT group to openly support same-sex relationships. We’ve been blessing lesbian and gay relationships since the 1970s, and have been working for civil marriage and other civil rights for over 40 years. Discuss the ministries of DignityUSA. We have a network of over 45 Chapters that offer opportunities for Catholic worship, social support, and Gospel-based service for LGBT Catholics and our allies. We are a Catholic voice working for LGBT equality and justice in our church and society. We do this through media statements, public witness, participation in legislative work, public education, and

Having the courage to be honest and open about our lives, and then stand up to the bullying of Church leaders made us a much stronger organization.

even Congressional briefings. We speak out when Catholic officials make demeaning or false statements about our community, or harm LGBT people in other ways. We have a variety of publications that are available electronically including a weekly reflection on the Catholic Mass readings from an LGBT perspective, a monthly newsletter, a quarterly publication that reflects on issues of importance to our community, and as-needed News and Action Alerts. We sponsor retreats, a biennial convention, and speakers. We have recently begun a monthly interactive webinar series called Queer Catholic Faith, in which a person from our community discusses his or her spirituality, and responds to questions and comments from participants. We have active Facebook and Twitter pages. We participate in a number of coalitions working for justice and equality in the Catholic Church and the larger society. What social and legal reforms has DignityUSA been involved in for equality? We have worked for basic non-discrimination rights for LGBT people since the 1970s, have been a leader in working for marriage equality, inclusive immigration reform, supporting adoption and foster care for LGBT people, the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” anti-bullying initiatives, and much more. We recently worked with Lambda Legal Defense and won a court case in Missouri to end schools blocking positive information about LGBT people from students using their web services. We offer support to Church workers fired for being LGBT, for being in a same-sex relationship, or for marrying their same-sex partner.

JUNE 2013 How and why did you become involved in DignityUSA? I joined the Boston Chapter of Dignity shortly after graduating from college in 1982. As a college junior, I was president of the Catholic organization on my campus. The chaplain found out I was lesbian, and said, “We can’t have someone like you representing Catholics at this school.” Although I knew he was wrong and I still maintained a deep faith, I hadn’t been part of a Catholic faith community for a couple years. My straight roommate read an article about Dignity in a local Sunday paper, and pointed it out to me. We went that night! I immediately felt at home, and have been part of it ever since. My first convention was in New York in 1985. Meeting people from all over the country who had similar faith, hopes, and struggles was a life-changing experience. I joined the Committee for Women’s Concerns, and have had a number of roles with the organization, including being the first woman elected national President, a post I held from 1993-1997. Tell me about an experience with DignityUSA that really stands out in your memory. Wow. So many! One really transformative experience was being part of the 1987 House of Delegates, which preceded our 1987 convention in Miami. The 1986 Vatican letter that branded Dignity a dissident organization, and which labeled gay and lesbian people as “objectively disordered” and our relationships as “intrinsically evil” had come out about 8 months before. Until that time, Dignity had not publicly talked about our support for sexu-

TTDIGNITYUSA continued page 38

Section 3: Community

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From the Pastor’s Pen by Rev. Jonathan Page The Foundation of Sexual Ethics

The line for the bar stretched down the block. Usually, I am not one for long lines at bars, but this was my first Guerrilla Queer Bar in Boston and everyone in the line was gay. The concept is simple. You put together a Facebook group and then once per month send out a message that the gays are taking over a straight bar for the night. In Boston, it worked surprisingly well. Standing next to me in line was a drag queen or, more accurately, a drag nun. She wore a black habit with a nun’s hat and painted her face white with expressive lipstick and eyeliner. Naturally, I introduced myself and inquired, “So, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s with the nun outfit?” She proceeded to flip open her Japanese paper fan and cool herself down before responding, “I am a nun in the order of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.” From within her sleeve she produced a business card, which stated as much in colorful writing. Hmm, must be true, I thought. Later I went home and googled the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. As a student of religion, I figured it was important research. It turns out that the order was founded by an Iowan although, sadly, he was a Hawkeye and not a Cyclone. He had found some old nun’s habits from a convent in Cedar Rapids and brought them with him to San Francisco. On Easter 1979, this Iowan, Ken Bunch, convinced two of his friends to

don the habits and “terrorize” the streets of the Castro “to promulgate universal joy and expiate stigmatic guilt.” Talk about creative: the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a protest against gay sexual repression in the Catholic Church, and in the Christian Church more broadly, complete with its own religious elements. As a gay Christian, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence prompted some deep thought. For me the heart of the conflict between gay culture and Christianity has never been about the seven biblical passages that supposedly condemn homosexuality. The issue with being a Christian and gay is about desire, and sexual desire in particular, because here is where we run into a problem. A gay identity is fundamentally about sexuality and the expression of that sexuality, whether physically or not. You cannot have a liberated gay sexual identity without desire, and the early church was deeply suspicious of sexual desire, both gay and straight. From the best we can tell, Jesus was a celibate man and apparently encouraged others to live in a similar manner (Matthew 19:12). The apostle Paul, also celibate, explicitly advocated celibacy and urged people to get married only as a protection against excessive desire (1 Corinthians 7). Presumably in marriage your desire would be extinguished,

which is not a strong endorsement of sex in marriage! According to Wayne Meeks, in his famous study of ancient Christian morality, the early church held quite conventional views on virtues and vices but placed disproportionate emphasis on sex. In the fourth century the Jovinian controversy led Jerome and other Church Fathers to argue that sex was only permissible for procreation, even within marriage. Around the same time Augustine of Hippo claimed that original sin was passed down because of the inherent sinfulness of the sexual act. After all, at the moment of orgasm you are not usually thinking about God, not counting those who like to scream, “O God!” (I don’t think Augustine was considering that.) I find it oddly ironic today that conservative Christians insist that heterosexual marriage is the historical biblical ideal. It isn’t. Others argue that it was Greek philosophy that led to Christian prudishness about sex. The supposedly “original” Jewish Christianity was not so prudish. While there is some truth to that, Christianity did become more ascetic in the first few centuries, it is often overstated to sanction Christian sexual desire today. It is important for everyone to engage honestly with the role of sexual desire in our lives. Sex is an incredibly strong motivator. For Christians, any contemporary engage-

Standing next to me in line was a drag queen or, more accurately, a drag nun.

Ask Lambda Legal : HIV Disclosure

FFBC member Jonathan Page is senior pastor of the Ames United Church of Christ, 217 6th Street, Ames, Iowa. Sunday service at 10:45. He can be reached at jon@Amesucc.org. ment with sexual desire must begin with the admission that Protestant Christians today, of all stripes, do not uphold the same notions of desire as the earliest church. Factors other than “what Paul believed” determine Christian ethical reasoning around sex and desire. Only when we can admit that fact can we begin to explore the actual grounds for our sexual ethics in a gay or straight context. I give the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence credit. They know what they believe and why. Can Christians say the same thing? Next month I will offer some of my own views.

By Scott Schoettes, HIV Project Director for Lambda Legal Q: I was online and reading about people getting prosecuted for having sex because they didn’t tell their partner they had HIV. What are the realities behind HIV status disclosure and the law? A: As Lambda Legal continues to work on repealing HIV criminalization laws, we frequently see comments on blogs and our social media posts about disclosure, and some people believe that people living with HIV should be required to disclose their status before having sex, and that the failure to do so should land them in jail. Perhaps people who say “just disclose” do not realize the difficulties—and sometimes outright danger—involved in disclosure. We know from experience that disclosure does not necessarily prevent prosecution and conviction under these laws — it is up to the HIV-positive person to prove that s/he disclosed—and every one of these sexual situations is “he said, s/he said.” What we really need to do is create an environment in which people with HIV feel safe to disclose this information voluntarily to their sexual partners. HIV criminalization laws do nothing to foster that environ-

ment—and, in fact, contribute to greater reluctance to disclose. If people living with HIV are subject to criminal sanctions usually reserved for much more egregious offenses, then that could lead them to shut down and avoid disclosure of their status in an effort to avoid being made the target of one of these prosecutions. We have a long way to go before we will have reduced the stigma and discrimination surrounding HIV to a level at which people will begin to feel safe disclosing or being open about their status. In the meantime, we all must recognize that choosing to have sex presents certain risks, and we all control the degree of risk with which we are comfortable. If your tolerance for risk is zero, then you shouldn’t have sex with anyone—period. If your tolerance for risk is just above that, then you should only have protected sex within a long-term, committed relationship where the parties involved have been tested and shared the results. And you can keep moving up the scale of risk tolerance/sexual interaction from there. Trying to remain HIV negative by relying on another person to tell you their status —well, that plan is just designed for failure. From a public health perspective,

We have a long way to go before we will have reduced the stigma and discrimination surrounding HIV to a level at which people will begin to feel safe disclosing or being open about their status.

the current system of criminal laws and prosecutions doesn’t make any sense – it doesn’t encourage the behavior we want nor discourage the behavior we do not want. We should stop expecting people living with HIV to take sole responsibility for preventing the spread of HIV. Now that we know how to treat HIV and how to prevent its further spread, we need to focus on creating an environment in which people don’t feel ashamed, stigmatized or targeted based on their status, and that is what HIV criminalization laws do. If you are living with HIV, and are looking for resources in your state, call Lambda Legal’s Help Desk at 1-866-5428336, or see http://lambdalegal.org/help

Scott Schoettes

Scott Schoettes is the HIV Project Director for Lambda Legal, the oldest and largest national legal organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and people with HIV. Shortly after being diagnosed as HIVpositive in 1999, Schoettes left a decadelong career in the theater and began his legal studies at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. While in law school, Schoettes was an associate editor of the Georgetown Law Journal, served as co-chair of Outlaw (the LGBT student group at Georgetown Law), completed a fellowship with the Human Rights Campaign and volunteered as a counselor in the wills

Scott Schoettes clinic at Whitman-Walker. After graduating magna cum laude in 2002, he clerked for the Honorable J. Frederick Motz in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. Prior to joining Lambda Legal in October 2007, Schoettes spent four years litigating a wide variety of matters from the Chicago office of Latham & Watkins— primarily working on class actions, employment discrimination and political asylum cases. His pro bono work during that time continued to address matters involving the intersection of sexual orientation and the law. In his position at Lambda Legal, Schoettes focuses on cases and issues involving and affecting individuals with HIV.

ACCESSline Page 32 DIRECTORY NOTICE

The ACCESSline community directory is updated each issue. LISTINGS ARE FREE but are limited by space. Free online listings are available at www.ACCESSlineAMERICA.com. Information about new listings must contain a phone number for publication and a contact (e-mail address, land address, or website) for our records. For more information or to provide corrections, please contact Editor@ACCESSlineAMERICA.com or call (712) 560-1807.

The ACCESSline is expanding our resource directory to include heartland resources outside of Iowa. Please bear with us as we continue improving our resource directory. NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

Breur Media Corporation : Website Consultation, Design, Programming, and Hosting. HIV and STD Testing Sites near You, including places where you can get tested for free: hivtest.org/ Crisis or Suicide National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: suicidepreventionlifeline.org Information on Mental Health National Alliance on Mental Illness: nami.org Counseling, Information and Resources about Sexual Orientation GLBT National Help Center: glnh.org or 1-888-843-4564 Information on Mental Health for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender nami.org Information on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Health, cdc.gov Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund 1133 15th Street NW, Suite 350, Washington, DC 20005, victoryfund.org 202-VICTORY [842-8679] Human Rights Campaign, National political organization, lobbies congress for lesbian & gay issues, political training state and local, hrc.org, 1-800-777HRCF[4723] Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund I I E. Adams, Suite 1008, Chicago, IL 60603 lambdalegal.org, 312-663-4413 National Gay & Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) - ngltf.org - taskforce.org 1325 Massachusetts Ave NW, Ste 600, Washington, DC, 20005 National Organization for Women (NOW) 733 15th ST NW, 2nd Floor Washington, DC 20005, now.org 202-628-8669 PFLAG National Offices 1133 15th Street NW, Suite 350, Washington, DC 20005, info@pflag.org - pflag.org, 202467-8180 The Trevor Lifeline |Crisis and suicide prevention lifeline for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth. (866) 4-U-TREVOR - (866) 488-7386 Open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. All calls are toll-free and confidential - thetrevorproject.org/

IOWA ORGANIZATIONS

Equality Iowa P.O. Box 18, Indianola, IA 50125, equalityiowa.org - 515-537-3126 Faithful Voices Interfaith Alliance of Iowa’s marriage equality project. faithfulvoices.org Imperial Court of Iowa Non-profit fundraising & social, statewide organization with members from across the State of Iowa. PO Box 1491, Des Moines, IA 50306-1491 imperialcourtofiowa.org Iowa Chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) Janis Bowden, President, IA NOW janleebow@aol.com PO Box 41114, Des Moines, IA 503111 Iowa Gay Rodeo Association (IAGRA) 921 Diagonal Rd, Malcom, IA 50157 polebender60@yahoo.com 641-990-1411

Section 3: Community Iowa PFLAG (Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gay) State Council, PO Box 18, Indianola, IA 50125 http://community.pflag.org/Page. aspx?pid=194&srcid=-2 515-537-3126 or 641-583-2024 Iowa Pride Network 777 Third Street, Suite 312, Des Moines, Iowa 50309 - Iowapridenetwork.org, Executive Director: 515-471-8062, Outreach Coordinator: 515-471-8063 LGBT Youth in Iowa Schools Task Force PO Box 1997, Des Moines, 50306 515-243-1221 One Iowa 500 East Locust St, Ste 300, Des Moines, IA 50309 - 515-288-4019 - OneIowa.org The Quire Eastern Iowa’s GLBT chorus, thequire.org

NEBRASKA ORGANIZATIONS (LIST IN PROGRESS)

Citizens For Equal Protection-402-398-3027 1105 Howard St, Suite #2, Omaha, NE 68102. cfep-ne.org - info@cfep-ne.org The Imperial Court of Nebraska Meets the third Monday of Every month at the Rainbow Outreach Resource Center at 17th and Leavenworth in Omaha, NE. Meetings start at 6pm and are open to the public. PO Box 3772, Omaha, NE 68103 Nebraska AIDS Project Omaha Office (Home Office) 250 South 77th Street Suite A Omaha, NE 68114 (402) 552-9260 - Email us: info@nap.org (also serving Southwest Iowa)

AMES, IOWA

First United Methodist Church 516 Kellogg Ave, Ames, IA 50010, Contemporary worship Sat 5:30; Sun 8:30 & 11am acswebnetworks.com/firstunitedmcames/ 515-232-2750 ISU LGBTA Alliance GLBT Support, Activism, Social Events, Newsletter - 515-344-4478 L East Student Office Space,2229 Lincoln Way, Ames, IA 50014-7163, alliance@iastate. edu - alliance.stuorg.iastate.edu Living with HIV Program 226 SE 16th Street, Ames, IA 50010, Ask for Janelle (Coordinator), 515-956-3312 ext 106 or 800-890-8230 Lord of Life Lutheran - 515-233-2350 2126 Gable Lane, Ames 50014, Services Sundays at 9:00a.m.; Wed. 7:00pm. PFLAG Ames Youth and Shelter Services Offices, 2328 Bristol Drive, Ames, IA 5001, 2nd Tuesday, 7pm - pflagames.org 515-291-3607 Romantics Pleasure Palace 117 Kellogg Street, Ames, IA 50010-3315 romantixonline.com 515-232-7717 United Church of Christ-Congregational 217 6th Street, Ames, Iowa, 50010, Sunday Continental Breakfast, 9:00am; Sunday School, 9:30am; Worship 10:45am. office@ amesucc.org 515-232-9323 Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Ames 1015 Hyland Ave. Services: 9:15 am and 11:00 am, Sunday. Services 10 a.m. for the rest of the summer. Contact uufa@ uufames.org and www.uufames.org or call 515-292-5960. Also, the email and website are uufa@ uufames.org and www.uufames.org Unity Church of Ames - unityofames.com 226 9th St, Ames, IA 50010-6210, Sunday service and Sunday school 10:30am. Wednesday mediation 6:30pm Daily dial-a-blessing 515-233-1613

ARNOLDS PARK, OKOBOJI, SPENCER, SPIRIT LAKE, IOWA

The Royal Wedding Chapel 504 Church Street, Royal, IA 51357 712-933-2223 TheRoyalWeddingChapel.com Wilson Resource Center An Iowa Great Lakes area gay-owned, nonprofit community based organization. PO Box 486, 597 W. Okoboji Rd., Arnolds Park IA 51331-0486 - 712-332-5043 F.JosephWilson@aol.com. wilsonresource. org

BURLINGTON, IOWA

Arrowhead Motel - arrowheadia.com 2520 Mount Pleasant St, Burlington, IA 52601-2118 - 319-752-6353 Faith Lutheran Church E L C A 3109 Sunnyside Ave, Burlington, IA 52601 HIV/AIDS Screening @ Des Moines County Health Department in Burlington, 522 N 3rd By appointment between 8:00am to 4:30 319-753-8217 Confidential

RISQUES IV (adult store) 421 Dry Creek Ave, West Burlington, IA 52601 (319) 753-5455, Sun - Wed 8am-Midnight Thurs - Sat Open 24 Hours, LoversPlayground.com Steve’s Place 852 Washington St, Burlington, 319-7545868 Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Services start at 10:30 am, 625 N 6th St, Burlington, IA 52601-5032, (319) 753-1895 uuburlington.org

CEDAR FALLS - WATERLOO, IOWA

Adult Cinema 315 E 4th St, Waterloo, IA 50703-4703, (319) 234-7459 Black Hawk Co. Health Department Free HIV testing (donations accepted); MW, 1:00pm to 3:00pm; Thurs, 1:00pm to 4:45pm 1407 Independence Ave. (5th fl), Waterloo 50703 319-291 -2413 Cedar AIDS Support System (CASS) Service, support groups & trained volunteers for persons with HIV/AIDS in Waterloo/CF call Elizabeth or Karla, 319-272-AIDS(2437). cvhospice@forbin.net Cedar Valley Counseling Services Promoting personal growth and development in a strengths-based environment, Joan E. Farstad, MA, Director. 319-240-4615, cvcounseling.com farstd@cvcounseling.com. Cedar Valley Episcopal Campus Ministry. In Lutheran Center, 2616 College St, Cedar Falls, IA - 319-415-5747, mcdinoiwa@aol. com, episcopalcampus.org Community AIDS Assistance Project (CAAP) - PO Box 36, Waterloo, IA 50704 LGBTA Support Group at Hawkeye Community College, Call Carol at 319-296-4014 or carol.hedberg@hawkeyecollege.edu Iowa Legal Aid Free civil legal service available to low income persons who qualify under income/asset guidelines. 607 Sycamore, #206, Waterloo, IA 50703 1-800-772-0039 or 319-235-7008 Kings & Queens 304 W. 4th St, Waterloo, IA, 319-232-3001 Romantix Waterloo (Adult Emporium) 1507 La Porte Rd, Waterloo, IA 50702 319-234-9340, romantixonline.com Stellas Guesthouse 324 Summit Ave, Waterloo, IA Private B&B, Overnight accommodations for adults only. 319-232-2122 St. Lukes Episcopal Church - 319-277-8520 2410 Melrose Dr, Cedar Falls, IA 50613 Services: Sunday 8:00 & 10:15, Thurs 11:30 st-lukes-episcopal.org St. Timothys United Methodist Church 3220 Terrace Drive, Cedar Falls, 50613 sttims-umc.org, 319-266-0464, info@sttimsumc-org, “Welcome of all persons, including those of all sexual orientations and gender identities.” Together For Youth 233 Vold Dr, Waterloo, IA 50703, TogetherForYouth.net 319-274-6768 UNI-LGBTA Alliance-Student Organization, 244A Bartlet Hall, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls 50613 - lgbta@uni.edu 319-222-0003 United Church of Christ Cedar Falls 9204 University Avenue, Cedar Falls 319-366-9686 Unitarian Universalist Society of Black Hawk County - 319-266-5640 3912 Cedar Heights Dr, Cedar Falls, IA

CEDAR RAPIDS/MARION, IOWA

Adult Shop 630 66th Ave SW, 319-362-4939 Adult Shop North 5539 Crane Lane, 319-294-5360 CRPrideFest (formerly Cedar Rapids Unity) Social activities, non-profit Pride festival organization. PO Box 1643 Cedar Rapids 52406-1643 - CRPrideFest.com Christ Episcopal Church “We have a place for you.” 220 40th Street NE, Cedar Rapids, IA 52404, 319-363-2029 ChristEpiscopal.org Belle’s Basix - 319-363-3194 Open 5pm to 2am M-F, Sat & Sun 3pm-2am 3916 1st Ave NE, Cedar Rapids Club CO2, A GLBTQA Nightclub, 616 2nd Ave SE, 319-365-0225, Open 7 days a week 4PM-2AM, Happy hour from 4-8 pm, clubco2.com

Coe Alliance GLBTQ and straight students, staff and people from the community. Coe College, 1220 First Ave NE, Cedar Rapids, IA 52402. coealliance@coe.edu or Erica Geers, faculty advisor at 319-8616025 Community Health Free Clinic 947 14th Avenue SE, Cedar Rapids, IA 52401 - 319-363-0416 - communityhfc.org Free Medical Services provided for the uninsured and underserved patients of Cedar Rapids, Marion and the surrounding areas in Eastern Iowa. CSPS Legion Arts Contemporary Arts Center - 319-364-1580 1103 3rd St. SE, info@legionarts.org Diversity Focus, 222 2nd Street SE, Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401, 319-363-3707, DiversityFocus.org, Lead in the promotion of diversity, cultural awareness, and inclusion in the Corridor community. Eden United Church of Christ 351 8th Ave SW, Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52404 (319) 362-7805 Sunday School 9am - Worship 10:15am Foundation 2 Crisis Counseling 24-hour telephone crisis counseling. f2crisis@aol.com or www.f2online.org 1540 2nd Ave. SE Cedar Rapids, IA 319-362-2174 or 800-332-4224 Linn County Public Health 501 13th NW, Free confidential HIV testing, 319-892-6000 Linn County Stonewall Democrats For more info, contact linnstonewall@ gmail. com People’s Church Unitarian Universalist A welcoming congregation. 4980 Gordon Ave NW, Cedar Rapids, IA, 11am Sunday. 319362-9827 - peoplesuu.org PFLAG CR, Linn Co and Beyond Support Group meets on the 4th Thursday at 7pm except for Nov Dec - call for details. 319-431-0673, pflaglcb@gmail.com The Linn County Stonewall Democrats Meet 2nd Wednesdays, Blue Strawberry, 118 2nd St SE in Cedar Rapids, IA. Contact Harvey S. Ross, HRoss007@aol.com. Tri-ess, Iota Kappa Phi Chapter P.O. Box 8605, Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52408 We are a transgendered organization supporting crossdressers, their families, and friends. - ri-ess.org, 319-390-6376, georgia523@ yahoo.com - marlenemarschel@yahoo.com Unity Center of Cedar Rapids “A center of positive, practical Christianity.” 4980 Gordon NE, Cedar Rapids unitycr.org - (319) 393-5422

CLINTON, IOWA

18 and Beyond (aka ABC Books), 135 5th Ave South, 563-242-7687 Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Clinton 309 30th Avenue North, Clinton, IA 52732 (563) 242-4972 - uuclinton.org, Sunday services at 10:30 (year-round), Where YOUR spiritual and ethical journey is welcome! Rev. Ruby Nancy, minister

COUNCIL BLUFFS, IOWA

Council Bluffs Community Alliance “…will promote the city of Council Bluffs as a developing gay, lesbian, bisexual & transgender family community, & to assure the equality of all Council Bluffs’ residents.” CouncilBluffsCommunityAlliance.org Council Bluffs NOW PO Box 3325, Omaha, NE 68103-0325 Romantix Council Bluffs (North) (Adult Emporium) 3216 1st Ave, Council Bluffs, IA 51501-3353-romantixonline.com515-955-9756 Romantix Council Bluffs (South) (Romantix After Dark) 50662 189th St, Council Bluffs, IA 51503 romantixonline.com, 712-366-1764

DECORAH, IOWA

Decorah Human Rights Commission Contact: City Clerk, 400 Clairborne Dr, Decorah, 563-382-3651, Meetings: First Tuesdays, 5:30pm Luther College Student Congregation Contact Office for College Ministry 700 College Dr, Decorah, IA 52101, 563-3871040. Luther College PRIDE-Diversity Center, 700 College Dr, Decorah, IA 52101 Contact Charles 563-210-6570 PFLAG Northeast IA (Waukon/Decorah) Meets 4th Monday of the month from 7-8pm; contact Randall Duvall at krey1945@gmail.com

JUNE 2013 Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Meets alternating Sundays at 10:30am, Decorah Senior Center, 806 River St, Call Bill at 563-382-3458.

DES MOINES, IOWA

AIDS Project of Central Iowa Free HIV testing, prevention supplies, care services, food pantry, information. 711 E. 2nd, Des Moines, IA 50309, 515-284-0245 Blazing Saddle 416 E 5th St, Des Moines, IA theblazingsaddle.com - 515-246-1299 Buddies Corral 418 E 5th St, Des Moines, IA - 515-244-7140 Church of the Holy Spirit-MCC, Interim Pastor Peter Trabaris - Sunday service 11am at the 1st Christian Church, 2500 University (2nd floor chapel), Des Moines, IA, Facebook. com/CHSMCC, chsmccdmia@aol.com, 515-287-9787 Des Moines Diversity Chorus [A gay-friendly mixed chorus] Rehearsals on Mondays at 7 p.m. at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Beaver Ave. at Franklin St., Des Moines. All are welcome, no auditions. PO Box 65312, West Des Moines, IA 50265, Julie Murphy, Artistic Director jahmurphy@hotmail.com, 515-255-3576, desmoinesdiversitychorus.org Des Moines Gay Men’s Chorus 515-953-1540, 4126 Ingersoll Ave, Des Moines - administrator@dmgmc.org Des Moines Pride Center @ One Iowa (temporary location) 419 SW, 8th St., Des Moines, IA 50309 Family Practice Center - 515-953-7560 Safe, supportive LGBT health care. 200 Army Post Road, Ste 26, ppgi.org First Friday Breakfast Club Educational breakfast club for gay/bisexual men. Meets first Friday of each month. Contact Jonathan Wilson for meeting topic and place. 515-288-2500 info@ffbciowa.org ffbciowa.org First Unitarian Church 1800 Bell Avenue, Services Sundays at 9:30 & 11am - 515-244-8603, ucdsm.org Franklin Family Practice Dr. Joe Freund, MD 4908 Franklin Ave., Des Moines, IA 50310 515-280-4930, ucsinformation@ucsdsm.org, UCSOnline.org/FranklinFamilyPractice The Gallery (adult store) 1000 Cherry St, Des Moines, IA 50309-4227 - (515) 244-2916 Open 24 Hrs, LoversPlayground.com The Garden 112 SE 4th Des Moines, IA, 515-243-3965 Wed-Sun. 8pm-2am grdn.com Gay & Lesbian AA & AI-Anonymous Mon 7pm; Tue-Thu 6pm; Sat. 5:30pm, at Drake Ministries in Ed. Bldg. 28th & University Gay and Lesbian Issues Committee 4211 Grand Avenue, Level-3, Des Moines, IA 50312 - 515-277-1117 Lavender Victory Fund Financial assistance for women in need for medical emergencies. lavendervf@aol.com Le Boi Bar 508 Indianola Rd, Des Moines, IA Liberty Gifts 333 E. Grand Ave, Loft 105, Des Moines, IA Gay owned specialty clothing, jewelry, home decor. 515-508-0825 MINX Show Palace - 515-266-2744 1510 NE Broadway, Des Moines, IA 50313 North Star Gay Rodeo Association of IGRA, Iowa Division of North Star, NSGRA@ NSGRA.org or 612-82-RODEO Primary Health Care Inc., David Yurdin, 2353 SE 14th St., Des Moines, 503020, Works with GLBT ages 16 to geriatric, 25 years of experience. 515-248-1427 Rainbow Union, Drake University ru@drake.edu PFLAG Des Moines - 515-243-0313 1300 Locust , Des Moines, IA 50312 Plymouth Congregational UCC Church and the Plymouth GLBT Community 4126 Ingersoll Ave. 515-255-3149 Services at 9am & I lam Sunday. PlymouthGLBT.com Polk County Health Department Free STD, HIV, and Hepatitis B & C testing. HIV. Rapid testing also offered. 1907 Carpenter, Des Moines, IA, 515-286-3798. Pride Alliance, AIB College of Business Gay and straight students celebrating diversity. Contact: Mike Smith, Advisor, PrideAlliance@aib.edu - aib.edu/pride Pride Bowling League for GLBT & Supporters - Every Wednesday, 7 PM, Air Lanes Bowling Center 4200 Fleur Drive, Des Moines, IA 50321-2389. Email pridebowlingleague@gmail.com or 515-447-2977.

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