11/20/20, Vol. 11 Issue 17

voice

georgia VOL.11 • ISSUE 17

ABOUT THE COVER: Cover photo by Shutterstock.com

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4 Editorial November 20, 2020

GUEST EDITORIAL

Georgia’s Senatorial Races Become Battleground for LGBTQ Equality Lisa Keen Georgia has very quickly become ground zero in the battle to protect LGBTQ equality and, once again, to stave off attempts to undermine American democracy.

“January 5th is now a critically, critically, critically important date,” said Fred Smith, a Georgia activist and member of Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ LGBTQ Advisory Board. He was speaking with other Georgia LGBTQ leaders to Project Q Atlanta just days after the November 3 presidential election and key Senate races around the country.

Warnock photo via WikiCommons; Ossoff photo via Facebook

As the dust settles around most of the U.S. Senate races, the partisan makeup of the next session stands at 50 to 48. The two runoff races in Georgia give Democrats their only chance of taking control of the Senate (When there is a 50-50 split in the Senate, the tie is broken by the incumbent Vice President who, next year, will be Democrat Kamala Harris).

Georgia’s two important runoff races have two Democratic contenders to vote for in the upcoming January 5th election, Raphael Warnock (l), and Jon Ossoff (r).

According to Smith, “Biden’s hands will absolutely be tied across the board on every issue, including LGBTQ issues” if Republicans win both of the seats from Georgia.

These two runoff races are the result of none of the four major-party candidates for U.S. Senate in Georgia getting at least 50 percent of the vote during the November 3 election.

Therefore, the top two vote-getters in both races now square off on January 5.

Lucas Acosta, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), said his group “will be making some announcements in the coming days on Georgia, but I can say we will be heavily involved.”

HRC has been heavily involved in Georgia since last year, when it partnered with Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight organization to combat voter suppression in Georgia. HRC promised a six-figure contribution to Fair Fight, saying that while voter suppression efforts are primarily aimed at people of color, “it has also harmed LGBTQ Americans.”

Smith, who is also a law professor at Emory University, said the outcome of the two Georgia runoff elections will control not

only the types of judges Biden will be able to appoint, but “whether he’ll get to appoint judges at all … [as well as] the type of people he’ll be able to appoint to his cabinet and pro-equality legislation.”

One race pits incumbent Republican David Perdue against Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff. The other pits incumbent Republican Kelly Loeffler against Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock.

Warnock garnered 340,000 more votes than Loeffler on November 3, but a second Republican in the race took away 979,000 votes from Loeffler. Warnock can hope to pick up the 459,000 votes siphoned away by two other Democrats in the November 3 race, but it’s clear, the race is going to be tough.

Democrat Ossoff received 88,000 fewer votes that his Republican opponent Perdue, but

there was one other candidate on the ballot: a Libertarian, who won 115,000 votes.

Fivethirtyeight.com, the data analysis website founded and run by openly gay statistical guru Nate Silver, said “Things aren’t looking so rosy for Democrats now.” It calls a Democratic sweep of both Georgia seats “unlikely.”

Georgia’s electoral votes have still not been called for either the Democrat or the Republican in the presidential race. Even though Georgia has voted for the Republican presidential candidate in every election since 1992, Biden leads Trump by over 12,000 votes as of Tuesday morning.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr sent out a memo Monday to direct all U.S. attorneys to investigate any “substantial allegations” of voter fraud anywhere in the country before states certify their election results.

Georgia’s Republican Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan told various news outlets today that his office has been monitoring for “any systemic examples of fraud or voter disenfranchisement” in the state and “have not had any credible examples.”

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NEWS BRIEFS Staff Reports

Next Congressional Class to be the Most LGBTQ in History A record number of LGBTQ candidates won their election on Tuesday, guaranteeing the incoming Congressional class to be the most LGBTQ Congress in history.

Nine out candidates on the ballot for Congressional seats won their election.

LGBTQ candidates who won their races include New York Democrats Ritchie Torres and Mondaire Jones, who became the first out Black LGBTQ candidates elected to Congress; Rhode Island incumbent David Cicilline; New Hampshire incumbent Chris Pappas; Wisconsin incumbent Mark Pocan; Minnesota incumbent Angie Craig; California incumbent Mark Takano; Kansas incumbent Sharice Davids, who is the first out Native American in Congress; and New York incumbent Sean Patrick Maloney.

According to the LGBTQ Victory Fund, there are currently the seven LGBTQ incumbents in the House and two out members of the Senate – Tammy Baldwin and Krysten Sinema. With the addition of Torres and Jones, there are now 11 LGBTQ Congress members.

“The next U.S. Congress will have the largest and most diverse group of LGBTQ leaders in history, and with increased representation comes increased political power,” Mayor Annise Parker, president of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, said. “These LGBTQ members of Congress will influence how their constituents and colleagues view our community and ensure issues of equality remain a priority.”

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) also celebrated the historic victories.

“For too long, particularly LGBTQ people of color have been pushed to the sidelines and stripped of our voice,” Alphonso David, president of HRC, said in a statement. “But today we reclaim our power and declare ourselves not only worthy but indeed required representatives in the halls of Congress.”

Gay Conservatives Get Small Victory: LGBTQ Vote goes 61% Biden, 28% Trump Amid celebration in the LGBTQ community over the wins of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 election, gay conservatives are 6 News Briefs November 20, 2020

Photo via Facebook

Charles Moran, co-chair of the Trump Pride coalition and managing director of Log Cabin Republicans said, the LGBTQ vote demonstrates Trump was a “candidate who is unlike previous Republicans.”

claiming a small victory of their own with President Trump claiming a better than expected percentage of the LGBTQ vote.

Trump won 28 percent of the LGBTQ vote compared to the 61 percent won by Biden, according to exit polling from Edison Research, which compiles demographic information for every U.S. election, published last week in the New York Times.

Self-identified LGBTQ voters also represented 7 percent of the electorate – the highest percentage in any election since the LGBTQ vote was first recorded in 1996.

Charles Moran, co-chair of the Trump Pride coalition and managing director of Log Cabin Republicans said, the LGBTQ vote demonstrates Trump was a “candidate who is unlike previous Republicans.”

“Donald Trump was the first president elected who supported gay marriage and had a long, deep relationship with the LGBTQ community before he got into politics,” Moran said. “We didn’t have to play the ‘how comfortable are you with LGBTQ issues’ game with him like we did with other candidates. It was a given from Day 1.”

The 28 percent of the LGBTQ vote Trump secured is the highest percentage for any Republican presidential nominee since George W. Bush in 2000, when polls showed he won 33 percent of the LGBTQ vote. It’s also significantly higher than Trump’s share of the LGBTQ vote in 2016, when LGBTQ voters

backed Hillary Clinton over Trump by a lopsided 78-14 margin.

Biden, on the other hand, with 61 percent of the LGBTQ vote secured the lowest majority of any Democratic presidential nominee since that demographic was first recorded in 1992.

Gary Gates, a retired expert in LGBTQ data collection in surveys, came up short when asked why Trump had a stronger showing among LGBTQ respondents.

“If that group, for instance, skewed older or skewed very white, then you might expect somewhat higher numbers for Trump,” Gates said. “If you think that LGBT population, in some way mimics characteristics of the general population which is certainly at least if they’re more white, they’re more likely to vote for Trump, so I think it’s very difficult to know.”

Gates, however, said the low support Biden won from LGBTQ voters is the “more interesting statistic,” because that’s a historic low for a Democratic candidate.

“Some people have observed that Biden didn’t specifically call out LGBTQ issues in many of the debates this year,” Gates said. “I don’t know if people feel like their outreach to LGBTQ voters was more muted this year than other candidates, Democrats have done in the past.

It’s hard to tell, but that 61 percent is quite a bit lower than other Democrats have gotten.”

Read these articles and more at thegavoice.com.

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NATIONAL NEWS

New ‘Blueprint’ Lights Way for Biden to Reverse Trump Policies on LGBTQ Rights Chris Johnson, Washington Blade Courtesy of the National LGBTQ Media Association

LGBTQ people,” David said. “So, we want to make sure that we take all of the steps necessary to implement regulations that would be appropriate in protecting LGBTQ people, so that’s one example of where we would have to go through a process.”

With LGBTQ advocacy organizations eager for change in the new Biden administration, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has laid out proposals lighting the way forward with a detailed guide on administrative actions to reverse President Trump’s anti-LGBTQ policies.

The new blueprint is for administrative actions, so it doesn’t take into consideration legislative items such as the Equality Act to advance LGBTQ rights, which Biden has said would be his number one legislative priority and signed within 100 days of his administration.

The 24-page document, titled the “Blueprint for Positive Change 2020,” lays out guidance across all federal agencies to reverse the anti-LGBTQ policies under the Trump administration and advance equality after President-elect Biden takes office.

Alphonso David, president of HRC, said the organization prepares a blueprint at the start of a new administration, but this time at the end of the Trump era things are different.

“These are steps that the Biden-Harris administration can take affirmatively and administratively to protect LGBTQ people and really not only put us back in positions that we were in before the Trump administration, but advance us forward toward equality,” David said.

HRC has been identifying policies for the past year under the Trump administration in anticipation of producing the blueprint and having the chance to reverse them if President Trump was voted out of office.

Key among the recommendations is implementation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which found anti-LGBTQ discrimination is a form of sex discrimination, thus illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key

The Human Rights Campaign under Alphonso David has laid out a blueprint to reverse Trump’s anti-LGBTQ policies.

protections,” David said. “The court clearly says if federal statutes prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, that should also include sexual orientation and gender identity. So, we have many federal statutes, housing, credit, other federal statutes that would provide protections to LGBTQ people, so a full implementation of Bostock would take us steps forward in terms of protecting LGBTQ rights and advancing those rights.”

Also highlighted in the blueprint is reversing the transgender military ban, establishing an interagency working group to address antitransgender violence, appointing openly LGBTQ federal officials, and uniform standards in federal surveys for data collection on the LGBTQ community.

David pointed out the Trump administration has never implemented the decision even though it was handed down in June.

David said he has been in conversations with the Biden transition team and provided a copy of the blueprint to them and the reaction was “positive.”

“Bostock is not just simply about employment

Some of the policy changes, David said,

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could be done immediately, such as implementation of the Bostock ruling, but others would take additional time because of federal law governing regulations.

As the U.S. Supreme Court determined earlier this year in its decision on DACAprotections for undocumented immigrants, the Administrative Procedure Act prohibits any administration from making policy changes too quickly or without going through an open process allowing for due consideration.

David identified the Department of Health & Human Services withdrawing an Obama-era rule interpreting Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in health care, to apply to cases of anti-trans discrimination as one Trump-era measure that would take some time to reverse.

“We certainly suspect that anti-equality forces will be attacking the Biden-Harris administration in their attempts to protect

The failure of Democrats to capture to the U.S. Senate, however, has thrown a wrench into the anticipated majority Biden would have for his legislative agenda. Despite the lack of a Democratic majority in the Senate, David said he sees opportunities to move the Equality Act. “If we’re not able to obtain full majority in the Senate, we will expect to work both with the House of Representatives and the BidenHarris administration to push through with the Equality Act,” David said. “You know, there are certain pieces of legislation that were passed during the Obama administration, with a Republican Senate that were progressive, proequality pieces of legislation, so we anticipate that we can do the same here.”

David conceded challenges would exist in moving forward with the Equality Act but pointed out the president-elect has a record of reaching out across the aisle.

“Even if we’re not able to control the Senate, the Senate majority will need certain things from the Biden-Harris administration just in order to make sure governments function, and Joe Biden has always been someone who reaches across the aisle to make sure he can get things done,” David said. “So, we anticipate working with them, and working with President Biden to make sure that we get through pro-equality legislation.”

November 20, 2020 National News 7

I’m Kwanza Hall and I’m running for Congress to stand in the gap and be a bridge between the legacy of the late great congressman John Lewis and the next generation of leaders of the fifth district. The baton has been passed and we need to ensure that the Democratic nominee has a smooth transition. Now is the time to make a new future standing on the shoulders of giants who have come before us.

On September 29th, I came out ahead, but the vote has now gone to a runoff.

I need your vote for the runoff on DECEMBER 1ST, so that I can make an impact in our district.

For more information, please visit: www.kwanzahall.com Info@kwanzahall.com 404-454-1116

10 Holiday Gifts November 20, 2020

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November 20, 2020 Holiday Gifts 11

IMPORTANT FACTS FOR BIKTARVY®

This is only a brief summary of important information about BIKTARVY and does not replace talking to your healthcare provider about your condition and your treatment.

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MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT BIKTARVY

POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS OF BIKTARVY

BIKTARVY may cause serious side effects, including:

BIKTARVY may cause serious side effects, including:  Those in the “Most Important Information About BIKTARVY” section.  Changes in your immune system. Your immune system may get stronger and begin to fight infections. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any new symptoms after you start taking BIKTARVY.  Kidney problems, including kidney failure. Your healthcare provider should do blood and urine tests to check your kidneys. If you develop new or worse kidney problems, they may tell you to stop taking BIKTARVY.  Too much lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis), which is a serious but rare medical emergency that can lead to death.

Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: weakness or being more tired than usual, unusual muscle pain, being short of breath or fast breathing, stomach pain with nausea and vomiting, cold or blue hands and feet, feel dizzy or lightheaded, or a fast or abnormal heartbeat.  Severe liver problems, which in rare cases can lead to death.

Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow, dark “tea-colored” urine, light-colored stools, loss of appetite for several days or longer, nausea, or stomach-area pain.  The most common side effects of BIKTARVY in clinical studies were diarrhea (6%), nausea (6%), and headache (5%).

These are not all the possible side effects of BIKTARVY. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you have any new symptoms while taking BIKTARVY. You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.FDA.gov/medwatch or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

Your healthcare provider will need to do tests to monitor your health before and during treatment with BIKTARVY.

 Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection. If you have both HIV-1 and HBV, your HBV may suddenly get worse if you stop taking BIKTARVY. Do not stop taking BIKTARVY without first talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to check your health regularly for several months.

ABOUT BIKTARVY BIKTARVY is a complete, 1-pill, once-a-day prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in adults and children who weigh at least 55 pounds. It can either be used in people who have never taken HIV-1 medicines before, or people who are replacing their current HIV-1 medicines and whose healthcare provider determines they meet certain requirements.

BIKTARVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS. HIV-1 is the virus that causes AIDS. Do NOT take BIKTARVY if you also take a medicine that contains:  dofetilide  rifampin  any other medicines to treat HIV-1

BEFORE TAKING BIKTARVY Tell your healthcare provider if you:  Have or have had any kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis infection.  Have any other health problems.  Are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if BIKTARVY can harm your unborn baby. Tell your healthcare provider if you become pregnant while taking BIKTARVY.  Are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed. HIV-1 can be passed to the baby in breast milk.

Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take:  Keep a list that includes all prescription and over-the-counter medicines, antacids, laxatives, vitamins, and herbal supplements, and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist.  BIKTARVY and other medicines may affect each other.

Ask your healthcare provider and pharmacist about medicines that interact with BIKTARVY, and ask if it is safe to take BIKTARVY with all your other medicines.

Get HIV support by downloading a free app at

MyDailyCharge.com

BVYC0218_BIKTARVY_B_10X10-5_Georgia-Voice_Dimitri_r1v1jl.indd All Pages

HOW TO TAKE BIKTARVY Take BIKTARVY 1 time each day with or without food.

GET MORE INFORMATION  This is only a brief summary of important information about BIKTARVY. Talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist to learn more.  Go to BIKTARVY.com or call 1-800-GILEAD-5  If you need help paying for your medicine, visit BIKTARVY.com for program information.

BIKTARVY, the BIKTARVY Logo, DAILY CHARGE, the DAILY CHARGE Logo, KEEP ASPIRING, LOVE WHAT’S INSIDE, GILEAD, and the GILEAD Logo are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc., or its related companies. Version date: February 2020 © 2020 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. BVYC0218 04/20

DIMITRI LIVING WITH HIV SINCE 2018 REAL BIKTARVY PATIENT

KEEP ASPIRING.

Because HIV doesn’t change who you are.

BIKTARVY® is a complete, 1-pill, once-a-day prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in certain adults. BIKTARVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS.

Ask your healthcare provider if BIKTARVY is right for you.

See Dimitri’s story at BIKTARVY.com.

Featured patient compensated by Gilead.

Please see Important Facts about BIKTARVY, including important warnings, on the previous page and visit BIKTARVY.com.

5/12/20 9:36 AM

14 Holiday Gifts November 20, 2020

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November 20, 2020 Holiday Gifts 15

SURPRISE HIM

B O Y N E X T D O O R M E N S W E A R . C O M 1447 PIEDMONT AVE NE, ATLANTA,GA 30309 - 404.873.2664 16 Holiday Gifts November 20, 2020

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November 20, 2020 Holiday Gifts 17

ENDLESS ECHO ESCAPE ENDLESS ECHO ISN’T YOUR TYPICAL GEORGIA MOUNTAIN CABIN. Yes, it offers all the amenities you’d expect, the ultimate in peace, quiet and privacy, and a breathtaking, seemingly endless multi-layered mountain view to wow you from sunrise to sunset. But it has so much more that makes it truly unique, including fruit trees, a herb and vegetable garden decorated with whimsical sculptures, and an unexpected, artfilled rustic-meets-midcentury modern decor that you won’t see anywhere else.

Located on a wooded hillside just 3.5 miles from downtown Blue Ridge, the cabin is close to shopping and dining, Toccoa River rafting, boating on Lake Blue Ridge, Mercier Orchards and everything the Aska Adventure Area has to offer, but it’s secluded enough to make you feel like you’re away from it all.

Fully refurbished with pine tongue-andgroove paneling, new dimmable lighting and ceiling fans throughout, the cabin’s interior has an open floor plan on the main level featuring an enormous great room with a vaulted ceiling, stone remote-controlled gas fireplace, a 65" HDTV with Apple TV and Roku, a Sonos music system, tastefully furnished with designer pieces and retro collectibles like Marcel Breuer chairs. With a sense of fun

18 Holiday Gifts November 20, 2020

endless_echo_blueridge

and enjoyment, the owners–a designer and an architect–have been collecting paintings, sculptures, and classic modern furniture for years, and they love sharing the collection with friends and guests. There’s original artwork in every room, and the cabin will change over time with each new acquisition.

After preparing your meals in the kitchen, which is fully equipped with brand-new stainless-steel appliances, custom cabinetry, a kitchen island and must-haves including a blender, crockpot and Keurig, you’ll dine at a classic glass dining table surrounded by six Charles Eames chairs, an elegant dimmable crystal chandelier overhead. Downstairs in the game room, there’s a ‘50s-style bar table and stools, a 43” Roku Smart HDTV, regulation billiards, board games and puzzles, and an exercise area with a padded floor, dumbbells, exercise mats, and a pull-up bar and workout bench.

Endless Echo’s outdoor spaces are professionally landscaped, made for relaxing

• •

and gathering, and situated to maximize the incredible view. On the covered decks, there are rocking chairs, a bench swing, a gas grill, dining, patio and end tables, and a six-seat hot tub overlooking the garden and woods, with atmospheric string lights adding to the ambiance. Head down the steps to the garden and you’ll find a picnic table and a fire pit with benches with room for 8-10.

The cabin has four bedrooms, including a master on the upper level with a king bed, deck access, vaulted ceiling, full-length mirror, and private bath with a jetted tub and walk-in shower. There are three bedrooms downstairs, each with a queen bed and one with a 32” HDTV and another with deck access. Two of the bedrooms share a Jack & Jill. There’s an additional half bath upstairs. The cabin sleeps 8 comfortably.

Eclectic, charming, fun and with surprising things to discover at every turn, Endless Echo is the ideal setting for a truly memorable vacation.

TO BOOK:

Visit www.escapetoblueridge.com/cabins/endless-echo Call 1.866.618.2521 and mention “Endless Echo”

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20 Holiday Gifts November 20, 2020

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22 Holiday Gifts November 20, 2020

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2020 WORLD

AIDS DAY

Join us for a World AIDS Day event, honoring those lost to and living with HIV/AIDS.

Darryl Stephens In the spirit of community and healing, this event will uplift with comedy by the award winning Sampson McCormick, and a town-hall style discussion with Sampson and Noah’s Arc cast member Darryl Stephens about ways to continue mobilizing and working together to eradicate HIV/AIDS.

BENEFITS

Get tickets: PositiveImpactHealthCenters.org

Sampson McCormick

TUES, DEC 1 7 PM • ONLINE

YOUR VOICE

Goodbye

#45 Bill Kaelin bill@billkaelin.com

It’s over. Four long years of anxiety, sadness, anger and helplessness have finally come to a close.

When I went to bed on election night this year, I had an aching feeling that it would turn out like it did four years earlier with Hillary Clinton. Would I wake up the next morning to news that America had chosen a hateful, racist and uneducated buffoon as our president for the next four years? Would I finally have to execute my plan to move to another country for my own mental health?

I’ve been in an abusive relationship with a narcissist before, and the months of lying, confusion and complete psychological warfare did a number on me until I finally escaped and avoided him like the plague. How was I going to practice these self-preservation skills I learned through years of therapy with the president of my own country? The only solution seemed to be that we would move far away and embrace another country that had leaders and laws that protected us and who stood for all residents no matter what side of the political aisle they fell.

Finally falling into an alcohol-induced sleep, I dreamt of the last words I heard from the newscasters reminding me that the results in 24 Your Voice November 20, 2020

“Every day my shoulders get lighter and my Facebook feed gets brighter as the feeling of safety, security and sincere optimism returns to my daily life. Textbook research of true narcissism has proven that we shouldn’t be shocked that #45 is refusing to concede and is claiming the entire election process was rigged (even though Homeland Security has stated it was the most secure election in modern day history).” battleground states were too close to call due to thousands of uncounted mail-in ballots. I had read a handful of articles warning us of a #45 landslide. It made sense that most of the votes cast on election day were from DJT supporters, since the strategic propaganda coming out of the Whitehouse was that mail-in votes wouldn’t be counted and that voting in person wasn’t risky because COVID-19 was a Democratic hoax.

When I woke up after a few short hours of sleep, I turned on the television to see a shift slowly starting to happen that supported this theory. Little by little, the numbers started to change, and slowly but surely red states turned purple and then eventually blue. The next four days consisted of a slow burn of

IMAGE BY SHUTTERSTOCK.COM / DODDIS77

realization that America may have finally done the right thing. The silent majority had finally spoken, and we were sending a very loud and clear message that we have had enough.

It was a long, drawn out, daily process to get the clear blue results we were hoping for. I think all of us wished the process could have gone quicker, however my sick sadomasochist side got a kick out of knowing that the Hater-in-Chief was sitting somewhere in the White House being tortured by his rapidly shrinking lead day after day after day. I found great joy that when Georgia finally turned blue for the first time in 28 years, it also turned #45’s face into a bright, deep red. It made that final call for Joe Biden as President-elect that much sweeter.

Every day my shoulders get lighter and my Facebook feed gets brighter as the feeling of safety, security and sincere optimism returns to my daily life. Textbook research of true narcissism has proven that we shouldn’t be shocked that #45 is refusing to concede and is claiming the entire election process was rigged (even though Homeland Security has stated it

was the most secure election in modern day history). It should come to no surprise that DJT is still trying to force himself on us even after America has clearly said NO. Every day that he and his Republican enablers actively try to destroy American democracy by refusing a peaceful transfer of power only gives us another reason to encourage Georgia voters to support Jon Ossoff and Reverend Warnock for the U.S. Senate run off on January 5th.

Electing them both will give President Joe Biden the power to finally take back America from the dark depths of hate, despair and division created by DJT. I encourage you all to bask in the light that Georgia helped to determine the presidential race, but rest up well, because we still have work to do to see the Narcissist-in-Chief finally fall. Let’s send him off with a message that is loud and clear: his hate, intolerance and un-American values are no longer welcomed here. Get involved! Let’s remind the man who has made our country almost unrecognizable that “no” really means no and finally end this nightmare once and for all.

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YOUR VOICE

Lily Collins (l) and Ashley Park (r) star in Netflix’s “Emily in Paris” PUBLICITY PHOTO

Jean-Philippe in Atlanta Buck Jones Like many of you, I just watched the Netflix series “Emily in Paris.” Created by Darren Star of “Sex and the City” fame, the show has been met with the kind of cool disdain and online eye-rolling here in Paris usually reserved for Madonna, so I was curious to know if it really was that awful. I went in expecting nothing but the intellectual nutritional value equivalent of a bag of potato chips, but hoped that it tilted a bit more toward the artisanal kettle chip variety.

I didn’t hate it, let me put it that way, which is a very French way of complimenting something. C’est pas terrible is something one hears quite a bit while discussing with friends the latest gossip over a shared plate of cheese and bottle of wine. There are stereotypes in the show for sure, but the criticism it has received is overblown. But it made me wonder what a comparable show might be if it were reversed with a French TheGeorgiaVoice.com

(gay) guy coming to live and work in Atlanta.

Picture this: Jean-Philippe doesn’t speak English very well and comes from a luxuryclothing brand that just acquired a small Atlanta-based hip-hop clothing brand (in my retelling of the story). He has been hired to give his marketing expertise, but as a white French guy he doesn’t know a thing about Atlanta or its many subcultures. Oh, the hilarity that ensues! I don’t know about you, but I would watch that!

One aspect of “Emily in Paris’s” success is that it focuses on Emily’s perspective of seeing things as an outsider. In Jean-Philippe’s case, he might have a panic attack going to the Midtown Whole Foods, spending several hours overwhelmed by the variety of choices.

“They had 47 different kinds of ranch salad dressing to choose from!” he tells his coworkers the next day at the office. “In Paris at the Monoprix, they have one!”

Another possible surprise, and uncomfortable truth for American viewers, might occur when Jean-Philippe doesn’t understand why

the food portions in American restaurants are so large. “What does ginormous mean?” he might ask. Or why work bleeds into private life. “Of course I didn’t read the email you sent me!” Jean-Philippe shrugs in one episode, “You sent it after I left work on Friday.” The opportunity to learn each other’s cultures, to question one’s assumptions about others, is one of the pillars of art. Maybe Emily in Paris isn’t great art (as opposed to Jean-Philippe in Atlanta, I’m sure), but it did bring to light some aspects of America that need reflection.

A common criticism by Europeans of Americans is that we’re “loud” and “arrogant.”

Similarly, while the United States has only four percent of the global population, we consume far more of the world’s resources and have no problem telling others how to live. We see these stereotypes brought front and center in the first episode when Emily arrives for her first meeting at her new job in Paris. Emily is confronted by her new friend, Mindy, who pushes back on Emily’s traditional, almost Puritanical, view of love and marriage. “Maybe after you’ve been married to the same person for 20 years you’ll

change your mind,” she chides Emily when she says how disappointed she is that her boss might be having an extramarital affair.

Many discounted the “Emily in Paris” aesthetic of capturing only the charming beauty of the center of Paris, and not having Emily living and working in one of the less photogenic neighborhoods — after all, the metropolitan area of Paris has more than nine million people and most live in non-picture postcard apartments. Well, Netflix created a more realistic series about a woman who made some questionable relationship choices and lived in a more realistic hardscrabble quartier; it’s called The Eddy, and nobody watched it. I don’t want to watch gritty and depressing. Give me sexy escapism any day.

“Emily in Paris” is a fun distraction. But I think Darren Star can do better, so when JeanPhilippe in Atlanta gets greenlighted and we see that he has a beautiful townhouse in Inman Park, is having picnic dates in Piedmont Park with Cedric (his hunky, Black next-door neighbor), and is zipping around on a scooter along the Beltline, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

November 20, 2020 Your Voice 25

JIM FARMER ACTING OUT

Amazon Prime’s Gay-themed Film ‘Uncle Frank’ Set to Debut He’s had tremendous success in both film — winning an Oscar for his screenplay for “American Beauty” — and in TV, creating iconic series such as “True Blood” and “Six Feet Under.” Now, Alan Ball — who was born in Marietta — is back with a new project, the character-driven “Uncle Frank,” which he both wrote and directed.

In the film, set in 1973, 18-year-old Beth (played by Sophia Lillis) comes to college at New York University and learns that her titular uncle (Paul Bettany), a literature professor, is gay and in a long-term relationship with another man. Not long after, Beth and Frank return home to South Carolina after a family tragedy — with Frank’s partner Wally (Peter Macdissi, Ball’s longtime collaborator and domestic partner) joining as well. “Uncle Frank” bows Nov. 25 on Amazon Prime with an ensemble cast that also includes Lois Smith, Steve Zahn, Judy Greer and Margo Martindale.

The idea for the film came 30 years ago. Ball was living in New York City and went home to Marietta to come out of the closet to his mother. When he did, he got an unexpected response. “She said, ‘I blame your father because I think he was that way too,’” Ball recalls. Ball also learned about a close friend of his father. “I had never heard of that person and my mother said he was a real, real good friend of your daddy. I later found out my father had accompanied this man’s body on a train back to his hometown of Asheville, North Carolina. I don’t know if my father was gay — he was already dead and I wasn’t able to have a conversation with him about it — but it opened this window into my brain of what if this were true. What would that story have been? It percolated in my head for 25 26 Columnist November 20, 2020

Photo courtesy of Brownie Harris, Amazon Studios

Director Alan Ball (c) with Peter Macdissi (l) and Paul Bettany (r) on the set of “Uncle Frank.”

years and five years ago I sat down to write a script and ‘Uncle Frank’ is what came out.”

When Ball was finished, though, he didn’t find an automatic greenlight for the film. “It took us a long time to find a financier,” says Ball. “A lot of people passed on the script. I think they looked at it and said we don’t see how this is going to make us any money.

Eventually we got Paul Bettany attached and that helped us to get into some meetings with other financiers. Eventually Miramax said yes, but it took two or three years to get set up.”

The fact that Ball wanted Bettany to play the lead character made the actor receptive almost immediately, even more so when he read the script. Bettany did want to talk to Ball first, however, and make sure he was the most appropriate actor for the role. “We had a beautiful phone call,” Bettany says.

The actor’s own upbringing made him relate to the character of Frank. “I was raised by a closeted gay man who came out when he was 63 years and he had a 20 year relationship with a man who I believe was the love of his life,” says Bettany. “After he died, my father went back into the closet and I have some knowledge of someone who is running from themselves and I felt I could help and it could be useful (for this character) to be me.”

Lillis heard about the project from her agent. She read the script, too, and loved it, especially Beth’s arc. “In the beginning Beth feels she is stuck in South Carolina,” the actress says. “She loves Frank because he takes her seriously and talks to her like an adult. She wants to be like him and get away. In the end, she becomes more comfortable with herself and more independent, her own person.

She becomes someone she can look up to;

someone who can be a mentor. She becomes something of a mentor to Frank, telling him what he told her — ‘Be who you want to be and don’t care what others think.’”

Virtually all of Ball’s projects have had queer representation and it’s important for him that they do. “Being gay myself, I grew up watching films and TV where the gay characters were villains or psychopaths or tragic victims,” he says. “They were defined by their sexuality and nothing else. Part of my own struggle or journey is to not let being gay define me like society wants it to define me. When I write characters who are gay, they are gay but I try and make them as three dimensional and fully rounded as any character.”

“Uncle Frank” premieres Nov. 25 on Amazon Prime TheGeorgiaVoice.com

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RYAN LEE SOMETIMES ‘Y’

A Dem Win is Not an LGBTQ Win Ryan Lee

I bend the knee to Joe the Dragon Slayer. While I thought it was shameful the way Democratic establishmentarianism resulted in hardly anybody’s first choice becoming the presumptive nominee, there was only one mission for our candidate to accomplish, and his success is toward the top of the list of things for which I will be giving thanks later this month.

Like so many at 10th and Piedmont, or in Paris and India, I rejoiced when the oppressive aura of the past four years was broken apart by hope, decency and a surge of mail-in ballots.

However, it took only a few days for leading Democratic politicians and pundits to insist the election results were not an automatic victory for LGBTQ folks, African Americans, immigrants or any of the other constituencies forced to place their faith in the less prejudiced half of our two-party system.

Democratic moderates such as New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, heir apparent to Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, cited “Defund the Police,” socialism and other elements of so-called “woke” culture to rationalize their woeful tally in congressional races. In Kentucky, national Democrats thwarted a progressive primary challenge to Amy McGrath, the allegedly ideal candidate who wound up losing to Sen. Mitch McConnell by almost 20 percentage points — and yet it’s still somehow the fault of leftists.

In the words of Bill Maher, “Republicans are the party of ‘don’t wear masks,’ kids in cages, ‘lock her up,’ and Democrats are the party of every hypersensitive, social-justice-warrior woke bullshit story in the news.”

Democrats consistently blame their underperformance — both electorally and TheGeorgiaVoice.com

legislatively — on their constituents’ concerns or priorities, treating the demographics that help put them in power as their biggest liability. In 2004, it was “common sense” that marriage was between a man and a woman, which is why supposedly liberal icons like California Sen. Dianne Feinstein lamented how George W. Bush was re-elected because “the whole [marriage equality] issue has been too much, too fast, too soon.”

If we were operating on DiFi’s timeline or relying on Democrats to provide government recognition and protections for our relationships, we might have made it to civil unions by now. While a Biden administration will undoubtedly give us a gay or lesbian cabinet member and possibly a transgender ambassador, any advances in LGBTQ rights are likely to continue to come via court order rather than legislative action, even if Georgia’s two U.S. Senate runoffs give Democrats full control of Congress and the White House.

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For too many Democrats of every stripe, defending LGBTQ dignity is “cancel culture” and supporting the demilitarization of the police is tantamount to condoning rioting and looting. They claim the problem is how independents and moderate Republicans receive progressive messages, but if pressed, I doubt most Democratic politicians could explain the benefits of a drawn-down police presence in urban areas, or illuminate how they transitioned from sincerely believing the biblical definition of marriage to going, “Yassssss, queens!” after Obergefell v. Hodges.

LGBTQ Americans and other minorities can surely take some relief from the end of an abusive presidency, although the value of a known enemy versus a finicky friend is debatable. Our success continues to rely on us agitating, no matter how unhelpful we’re told our goals are to achieving progress.

November 20, 2020 Columnist 29

JANUARY

CLIFF BOSTOCK OLD GAY MAN

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About 25 years ago (as best I recall), I was walking obliviously through Piedmont Park during Pride when I heard my name called.

I looked around and didn’t see anyone familiar. The shouting resumed. I looked again and realized the voices were coming from the Log Cabin Republicans’ booth.

Because of my writing, I was often (perhaps truthfully) characterized as a radical-left pig and embarrassment to gay men, so I assumed I was being summoned for smearing.

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But no. Shockingly, the booth was being manned by two unrelated clients I’d seen for over a year. My sudden loss of speech caused the two of them to laugh hysterically. How could it be that two Republicans familiar with my writing had sought me out for counseling? Why didn’t they hate me?

The unpopular message here is that it actually is possible for people of opposing politics to sustain positive relationships. I say this while admitting that if a gay Facebook friend starts spouting Trumpism, my fingers still get angry and fly to my keyboard to retaliate. Most of the time, I catch myself and delete my angry response.

In my experience, gay Trump supporters acknowledge the stupidity of Trump’s tweets and his rollback of protections for LGBTQ people. But they cloyingly, inevitably say that they are more than their sexual or gender identity and that, everything else aside, Trump strongly supports capitalism, individualism, and patriotism.

In other words, as they see it, your freedom to be who you are and love whom you choose is less important than your freedom to make as much money as white straight men. If you make this admittedly provocative statement, the Trumper will simply deny it like she denies a pandemic or loss of an election and brand you a Bernie Snowflake Commie.

So, I go back to that day in the park 25

30 Columnist November 20, 2020

“In my experience, gay Trump supporters acknowledge the stupidity of Trump’s tweets and his rollback of protections for LGBTQ people. But they cloyingly, inevitably say that they are more than their sexual or gender identity and that, everything else aside, Trump strongly supports capitalism, individualism, and patriotism.” years ago and ask myself how I managed to sustain relationships with my two clients and a friend who also turned up in the booth. I think three things helped and still help if I’m mindful enough to know when I’m sliding into intolerant anger.

First is having a sense of humor. In this culture, we tend to look at everything through the tragic lens that Freud provided us. A better lens is tragicomedy or satire, by which we really can see the world in more complicated ways than pure polarization allows.

Second is the realization that none of us has a clue about the truth. I’m not playing the “fake news” game, but it is true that our brains are programmed by corporate media whose purpose is making money by attracting as many readers and viewers as possible.

The way to do that is by turning news into loud, disproportionately dramatic episodes. I promise you that you really don’t know what you’re talking about half the time.

A third consideration — a necessary strategy — is the most difficult. You cannot resolve an argument without taking 50 percent responsibility for it, even though you might be convinced you are totally innocent.

Nothing will change if you don’t do that. And if we don’t change, we likely will turn into disenfranchised members of an autocracy in which we have become complicit after the next election.

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