Sinead O’Connor marks 25-year milestone
Family Portrait: Jacob Glickman is all fun and games
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Summer LGBTQ Youth Supplement: Eight pages of content for youth, by youth
There’s a new sports bar coming to the ’Hood PAGE 8
PAGES 21-28
Aug. 29-Sept. 4, 2014
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Vol. 38 No. 35
Philly wins bid for repeat media convention By Jen Colletta jen@epgn.com LGBT journalists and bloggers from around the country will converge in Philadelphia this winter — their second trip in as many years. The sixth-annual LGBT Media Journalists Convening will be held locally March 13-15. The event is sponsored by the Eveyn and Walter Haas Jr., Fund and hosted by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. The Haas funding covers accommodation and travel costs for the attendees. About 80 attended last year’s event in Washington, D.C. The convening was held in Philadelphia for the first time in 2013. The City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection again put in a bid to host, and bested other cities in the running. “We sent out a request for proposals to the convention and visitors bureaus for several cities and then we go back and forth with the cities, and this year it was mostly between Philly and Baltimore,” said Bil Browning, founder of The Bilerico Project. Browning said one of the biggest draws about Philly is its resonance with past attendees. “We send out our survey every year to attendees about what they liked, what they didn’t like and ask if they’d like to come back to that city. Philly’s really dominated in terms of where people say they’d like to go back,” Browning said. “Everybody wants to go back to Philly, they just loved it.” During the bid process, Browning visited the city and met with Visit Philly director of public relations Bruce Yelk, Philadelphia Multicultural PAGE 17
PA LGBT youth group awarded $100K national grant Pennsylvania Student Equality Coalition is the first organization from the state to receive a Queer Youth Fund grant By Jen Colletta jen@epgn.com
LADIES’ NIGHT: About 200 LGBT revelers sipped and socialized on the Delaware River at Our Night Out, held Monday at Morgan’s Pier. The event was postponed from earlier in the month because of inclement weather, but Mother Nature cooperated this week, with plenty of sunshine and high temps. “We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect ONO to end the summer,” said Samantha Giusti, executive director of Delaware Valley Legacy Fund, which staged the event along with Stimulus Philly. “We had an excellent turnout (thank you to our partners at Stimulus Philly), and the weather was beautiful.” Giusti said DVLF is looking forward to next month’s ONO, at Pyramid Club, which will serve as the kickoff for the organization’s annual TOY drive. Photo: Steve McCann
The Pennsylvania Student Equality Coalition announced this week that it is the recipient of a major national grant. PSEC, a statewide LGBT student organization, received a $100,000 grant from Queer Youth Fund, the only national grant program that specifically supports the work of LGBT youth-led organizations. PSEC is the first Pennsylvania grantee to be awarded the QYF, which was founded in 2003 and is in its last year. Three other groups throughout the country were awarded this year’s funding from the Californiabased nonprofit. PSEC executive director Jason Landau Goodman said the grant is a game-changer for the three-yearold organization. “It’s incredibly exhilarating, to say the least,” Landau Goodman said. “We’ve been waiting to apply for three years because we wanted to present a strong case
for the investment to be made in the Pennsylvania LGBTQ youth movement, and finally it’s now our time to rise.” Landau Goodman described the funding as a “major gateway grant” that has served as a significant foundation for agencies like the Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth, and the New York City-based FIERCE. “It’s not just a major grant but it’s a significant and meaningful grant in the national LGBTQ youth movement, so we’re deeply honored and humbled,” he said. More than 50 agencies applied for this year’s grants. PSEC submitted a letter of intent in the fall and was notified it had made it to the semi-finalist level in February. The organization submitted a full proposal earlier this year and was named one of the eight finalists in May. The QYF committee conducted a site visit in June at PSEC’s Pittsburgh office, housed in the Gay and Lesbian Center PAGE 16
New details emerge in school play controversy By Angela Thomas angela@epgn.com New documents were released last week that call into question the reason behind the canceling of a play at a Pennsylvania high school. Last month, Keystone Progress submitted a Right-to-Know Law request to gain access to correspondence regarding the canceling of “Spamalot” at South Williamsport Junior Senior High School, which the state granted, giving the nonprofit 63 pages of documents. The school was set to perform the Broadway
musical in the spring but administrators canceled the production this summer. School officials told reporters that the production was halted because of controversial content, but Drama Department director Dawn Burch indicated the cancellation was primarily because of LGBT content. In the email chain with Burch released last week, principal Jesse Smith expressed concerns about the “homosexual themes” in the play, including a same-sex wedding. “I am not comfortable with ‘Spamalot’ and its homosexual themes for two main reasons,” he wrote. “Drama productions are supposed to
be community events. They are supposed to be performances that families can attend. To me, this type of material makes it very hard for that to take place. I don’t want families to be afraid of bringing small kids because of the content. I don’t want members of the community staying home because they feel the material is too risqué or controversial.” The same day, Burch responded to Smith, noting that, with Pennsylvania’s recent marriage-equality win, she didn’t view the wedding scene as questionable, adding that, as a “public high school, an institution funded by the state, I do not underPAGE 16