Metro - 12 - Sep. 30, 2004

September 30 – October 13 Volume 1 ■ Issue 12

Web Woes Equality Utah’s domain hijacked by homophobes

‘No on 3’ Support Broadens McCoy: Defeat of Utah amendment will shock the nation

Utahns in Speedos QUAC sends 48 swimmers to international meet

Calling in Angry Could Oct. 8 boycott unleash gay power?

A Man of God Televangelist makes anti-gay death threat A&E Reviews by our new film critic Eric Tierney

Ruby Ridge What if Amendment 3 were to pass?

Red, White & Bubbly Jarvis does five shots of vodka, then writes column

LAST DAY TO REGISTER TO VOTE

BY MAIL — OCTOBER 13 You MUST register to vote if you: • have never registered to vote in Utah.

• have moved since you last registered.

• have changed your name since you last registered.

• register to vote in Utah.

You can use this form to: • register to vote in Utah.

• change your name or address on your voter registration record.

• register with a party or change your party affiliation.

To register to vote in Utah, you must: • be a citizen of the United States.

• have resided in Utah at least 30 days immediately before the next election.

• be at least 18 years old on or before the next election.

• first time voters must include a copy of a valid form of photo identification or proof of residence (or present it at the polls).

Deadline for Submitting this Form This form must be postmarked at least 20 days before an election to be eligible to vote in that election.

Mail-In Registration Instructions • Complete all required information in the form below. Boxes 1, 6 and 9 are optional.

• If you previously registered to vote with a different name or address, complete box 14.

• Read the voter declaration in box 15 and sign in the box below it.

• Mail the form to your county clerk’s office. The address of your county clerk is listed to the right.

• For boxes 10 and 11, one or the other must be completed. If you do not have a driver license or a state identification card, please write “none” in box 11 and fill in the last four digits of your social security number in box 10.

For More Information If you need more information, contact your county clerk at the number listed to the right, or call the Lt. Governor’s Office at (801) 538-1041 or 1-800-995-VOTE. BROUGHT TO YOU AS A PUBLIC SERVICE BY

State of Utah Mail-In Voter Registration Form Use pen - please print clearly 1

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SEPTEMBER 30, 2004

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Reason(s) for Completing this Form Address change New registration Name change Party affiliation change Last Name

4

Street Address (principal place of residence)

5

Mailing Address (if different from #4)

6

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2

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10

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11

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only) Independent American Libertarian Natural Law Socialist Workers

Are you a citizen of the United States?

Yes No Will you be 18 years on or before election day?

Yes No If you checked "no" to either of the above two questions, do not complete this form.

First Name Middle Name

County

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Driver License Number or State Identification Number

Name and Address on Last Registration Name on Last Registration Street Address on Last Registration City County State

State

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Reform Populist Republican Unaffiliated (no party preference)

Please Note: Utah's election law allows each political party to choose whom it will allow to vote in its primary election. If you do not affiliate with a party, you may be restricted from voting in the primary.

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City

Disabled (optional) No Yes

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Voter Declaration - read and sign below I do swear (or affirm), subject to penalty of law for false statements, that the information contained in this form is true, and that: • I am a citizen of the United States and a resident of the state of Utah, residing at the above address.

• I will be at least 18 years old on or before the next election.

• I will have resided in Utah for 30 days immediately before the next election.

• I am not a convicted felon currently incarcerated for commission of a felony.

SIGN on line in box below

Zip Signature

NOTICE: In order to be allowed to vote for the first time in a voting precinct you must either: 1) include a copy of a valid form of photo identification or form of photo identification or proof of residence to the election judge before you may vote.

For Office Use Only

Type of ID Voting Precinct Official Date

Date(mo/day/year) 04/2003

BEAVER COUNTY CLERK 105 EAST CENTER / PO BOX 392 BEAVER, UT 84713-0392 (435) 438-6463 BOX ELDER COUNTY CLERK 01 S. MAIN ST. BRIGHAM CITY, UT 84302-2599 (435) 734-3388 CACHE COUNTY CLERK 179 N. MAIN STREET, STE 102 LOGAN, UT 84321-4567 (435) 716-7150 CARBON COUNTY CLERK 120 E. MAIN ST. PRICE, UT 84501-3057 (435) 636-3224 DAGGETT COUNTY CLERK 95 N. 1ST WEST / PO BOX 218 MANILA, UT 84046-0218 (435) 784-3154 DAVIS COUNTY CLERK 28 E. STATE ST. / PO BOX 618 FARMINGTON, UT 84025-0618 (801) 451-3213 DUCHESNE COUNTY CLERK 50 E. 100 S. / PO DRAWER 270 DUCHESNE, UT 84021-0270 (435) 738-1102 EMERY COUNTY CLERK 95 E. MAIN / PO BOX 907 CASTLE DALE, UT 84513-0907 (435) 381-5106 GARFIELD COUNTY CLERK 55 S. MAIN / PO BOX 77 PANGUITCH, UT 84759-0077 (435) 676-8826 GRAND COUNTY CLERK 125 E. CENTER MOAB, UT 84532-2492 (435) 259-1322 IRON COUNTY CLERK 68 S. 100 E. / PO BOX 429 PAROWAN, UT 84761-0429 (435) 477-8340 JUAB COUNTY CLERK 160 N. MAIN ST. NEPHI, UT 84648-1412 (435) 623-3410 KANE COUNTY CLERK 76 N. MAIN / PO BOX 50 KANAB, UT 84741-0050 (435) 644-2458 MILLARD COUNTY CLERK 765 S. HWY. 99 FILLMORE, UT 84631-5002 (435) 743-6223 MORGAN COUNTY CLERK 48 W. YOUNG ST. / PO BOX 886 MORGAN, UT 84050-0886 (801) 845-4011 PIUTE COUNTY CLERK 21 N. MAIN / PO BOX 99 JUNCTION, UT 84740-0099 (435) 577-2840 RICH COUNTY CLERK 20 S. MAIN / PO BOX 218 RANDOLPH, UT 84064-0218 (435) 793-2415 SALT LAKE COUNTY CLERK S. L. COUNTY ELECTIONS DEPT. 2001 S. STATE ST. #S1100 SALT LAKE CITY, UT 84190-1051 (801) 468-3427 SAN JUAN COUNTY CLERK 117 S. MAIN / PO BOX 338 MONTICELLO, UT 84535-0338 (435) 587-3223 SANPETE COUNTY CLERK 160 N. MAIN MANTI, UT 84642-1268 (435) 835-2131 SEVIER COUNTY CLERK 250 N. MAIN / PO BOX 517 RICHFIELD, UT 84701-0517 (435) 896-9262 SUMMIT COUNTY CLERK 60 N. MAIN / PO BOX 128 COALVILLE, UT 84017-0128 (435) 615-3200 TOOELE COUNTY CLERK 47 S. MAIN TOOELE, UT 84074-2194 (435) 843-3140 UINTAH COUNTY CLERK 147 E. MAIN VERNAL, UT 84078-2643 (435) 781-5361 UTAH COUNTY CLERK 100 E. CENTER, RM. 3100 PROVO, UT 84606-3106 (801) 851-8128 WASATCH COUNTY CLERK 25 N. MAIN HEBER CITY, UT 84032-1827 (435) 654-3211 WASHINGTON COUNTY CLERK 197 E. TABERNACLE ST. ST. GEORGE, UT 84770-3473 (435) 634-5712 WAYNE COUNTY CLERK 18 S. MAIN / PO BOX 189 LOA, UT 84747-0189 (435) 836-2765 WEBER COUNTY CLERK 2380 WASHINGTON BLVD. OGDEN, UT 84401-1456 (801) 399-8400

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Dear Sane Advice...

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News NATIONAL AND REGIONAL

Louisiana Voters Approve Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment louisiana — In a 78-22 percent vote, Louisiana voters decided Sept. 18 to amend their state constitution to prohibit gay marriage.

“We’re really happy with the incredible mandate the voters sent that says we want to preserve traditional marriage,” said Louisiana state Rep. Steve Scalise. “We hope this sets the stage for the remaining states that have marriage amendments on the Nov. 2 election.”

Although Scalise said that the amendment put the state “in a much better position to deal with challenges” to Louisiana’s ban on gay marriage, opponents said they would continue to fight the amendment in the courts, despite a failed suit against the

secretary of state to keep the amendment off the ballot — a suit which the state’s highest court unanimously ruled not to hear.

Although the court’s decision surprised him, an attorney working for a group called Forum for Equality, which helped bring the unsuccessful suit to block the measure, said Chief Justice Pascal F. Calogero’s accompanying comments encouraged him. The justice wrote that he agreed with Forum for Equality’s assertion that the amendment may violate Louisiana’s “more than one single object law” — which requires an amendment to serve only one purpose — because it asked voters to decide both on the rights of gays to marry and enter into civil unions.

The American Civil Liberties Union has challenged similar amendments in Washington, Arkansas and Oklahoma on similar grounds. — JV

House Prepares for Marriage Amendment Vote washington d.c. — The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on the Marriage Protection Amendment, formerly the Federal Marriage Amendment, today (Sept. 30). Members on both sides of the issue vow their side will prevail.

“We all know that this is nothing but a political effort to draw attention away from Congress’s failure to do something about the economy, healthcare costs, and national security,” said Human Rights Coalition president Cheryl Jacques. “We need to send a message that playing politics with people’s lives is wrong.

We need to discourage future votes on this isHuman Rights Campaign sue by showing that it’s President Cheryl Jacques a waste of time.”

Amendment supporters, such as Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, have said that the amendment is necessary to keep judges from arbitrarily imposing same-sex marriage on the states.

Only 144 votes are needed to keep the House from adopting the amendment.

While Democrats number in the minority, their party still boasts 208 representatives who could vote by themselves to block the FMA. And while several House Republicans have voiced support for the amendment, opponents, including openly gay Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., and Nancy Johnson, R-Conn., are expected to lead their party’s opposition.

On July 22, the House passed the Marriage Protection Act of 2004 by a 233-194 vote. This act prohibits federal courts from ruling on issues pertaining to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which says that states can’t be forced to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. — JV

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Lesbian Couple Splits; Custody Battle Ensues galveston, texas — A Texan mother of a six year-old girl is attempting to overturn the child’s previous adoption by her former lesbian partner of eight years after the couple separated last March.

Julie Anne Hobbs used artificial insemination to conceive her daughter, who her then-partner Janet Kathleen van Stavern legally adopted in 2001. According to Hobbs, however, Texas law says that a child’s relationship to biological parents must be terminated before the child can be adopted. Further, a parent whose rights have not been terminated must also marry the individual seeking to adopt before that adoption can be legal. As Texas doesn’t recognize same-sex marriages, Hobbs and her lawyers said the adoption should not have happened.

“The granting of this adoption was directly contrary to and in violation of Texas law and, therefore, void as a matter of law,” her attorneys Marie Trefethern and Christine Mangle argued in a legal brief.

“The court had no authority to grant the adoption as Janet Kathleen Van Stavern could not be the ‘spouse’ of Julie Anne Hobbs nor the ‘stepparent’ to the child.” In response, Van Stavern’s attorney, Shannon

Warren, said that Hobbs had waited too long to challenge the adoption, which was approved after six months.

Trefethern also said that Hobbs had brought the suit only to see that her child’s parentage was protected.

“The fact that Janet Kathleen Van Stavern and Julie Anne Hobbs were in a homosexual relationship is not really the issue in this case,” the attorney wrote in a legal filing. “If Janet Kathleen Van Stavern had been the male boyfriend of Julie Anne Hobbs, the adoption would also be void, as no spouse or stepparent existed as intended by the legislature in order for the child to be adoptable.”

Van Stavern has paid $400 in child support each month and has visited the child since the couple’s separation. — JV

Televangelist’s Anti-Gay Threats Draw Criticism baton rouge, la. — American gay rights organizations have criticized evangelist Jimmy Swaggart for a recent sermon in which he called for a federal marriage amendment and said he would kill a gay man if one ever displayed sexual interest in him.

“I’m trying to find the correct name for it … this utter absolute, asinine, idiotic stupidity of men marrying men,” Swaggart said in a broadcast Sept. 12.

“I’ve never seen a man in my life I Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart wanted to marry. And I’m gonna be blunt and plain: If one ever looks at me like that I’m going to kill him and tell God he died.

In case anybody doesn’t know, God calls it an abomination. It’s an abomination! It’s an abomination!”

Although Swaggart added he was only “knocking” pro-gay lawmakers, not the “poor homosexual” who needed “salvation just like anybody else,” a Toronto television station pulled the sermon after the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council received a complaint. Additionally, Cheryl Jacques, Human Rights Coalition president, criticized Swaggart for his remarks: “His language only encourages an environment where hate crimes occur.”

Swaggart publicly apologized Sept. 21, saying that he intended the comments as a joke: “It was a tongue-in-cheek statement best left unsaid. I won’t make it anymore.”

According to Swaggart, he has made similar remarks in the past about killing members of other groups, including other preachers. He also said his remarks were not intended to encourage violence against gays and lesbians, as some gay rights groups have suggested.

“Good gracious alive, it would be a long stretch of the imagination to come up with that,” he said.

Popular during the 1980s, Swaggart’s television ministry faced a serious blow when New Orleans police caught him soliciting a prostitute in a motel. In 1987, California police also pulled him over for having a suspected prostitute in his car.

— JV

Locals Skeptical About Oct. 8 ‘Boycott for Equality’

by Mandy Q. Racer

More information is available online at www. boycottforequality.com.

The Boycott Here’s how the boycott’s organizers say gays, lesbians and their allies can participate in the Oct. 8 boycott: Withdraw from work. Call in sick or

1use a personal/vacation day. You do not have to come out to anyone in doing so unless you choose to do so. This will impact overall economic productivity. If you own a business, consider closing for the day to honor the goal.

Withdraw from your ATM. We are

2 asking GLBT citizens to withdraw $80 from their bank accounts on that Friday and hold the cash in their pockets. This is the symbolic average daily contribution of gay people to the economy. There are an estimated 20 million GLBT citizens with a daily spending power of $1.4 billion, equivalent to $500 billion annually!

Withdraw from commerce. Do not

3 purchase or buy anything. This

includes groceries, services, retail goods etc. No movies, restaurants, or entertainment — nothing! If we make no purchases, we do not generate sales tax for government coffers or revenues for businesses.

Withdraw from cell phone com-

4 munication. Do not use your cell

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The Salt Lake Metro offices will be closed October 8 in support of the Boycott for Equality.

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phone for the entire day. We are planning on GLBT citizens to disappear for the day so that our fellow citizens feel the loss of our presence in their lives.

SEPTEMBER 30, 2004 5

Organizers nationwide are promoting an Oct. 8 boycott in support the queer community and its allies. Called “Boycott for Equality” the event is being organized by Dale Duncan of Atlanta, Ga. The boycott calls for participants to withdraw from economic society: No work, no shopping, no cell phones and an $80 ATM withdrawal.

Interest in the boycott exists locally as well as nationally, although some are skeptical. “Boycotting is only an option for the elite,” said Shauna Sanchez, a local photographer and bartender.

“Most young people who are financially Boycott for Equality organizer struggling can’t afDale Duncan ford to miss work.”

However, Duncan says, “That’s why we made it multifaceted. People can do what they want to do.” Participants may, for example, choose to work that day, but refrain from making purchases.

Janice Eberhardt, publisher of the local magazine Women 4 Women, said, “For people who are working for employers that offer sick leave benefits, it seems that taking a paid sick day just bites the hand that feeds them. This may not be the most effective way to impact the anti-gay establishment.”

Real estate agent Mark Barr said, “I only see this boycott making sense in a context of working for an employer with a majority of heterosexual employees or management to emphasize a point of how many of us there really are and that we should not be forgotten when the time comes to support us, whether it be standing up for our community, or offering our families benefits and rights.”

Local comments about the boycott reflect a concern that the protest will be but a drop in the U.S. economy’s ocean — the effect of one day won’t be felt, regardless of the $1.4 million that Witeck-Combs Communications estimates is spent daily by the queer community.

Don’t focus on the numbers, Duncan stresses: “We’re not going to shut down the country. We’re not going to put a huge dent in the economy.” Instead, the boycott’s purpose is to “show people we are together as one.” Duncan repeats the importance of unity within this embattled community.

The boycott will “put our issues in front of the American public.”

When President Bush called for a Federal Marriage Amendment, Duncan and his long time partner were horrified. In that moment, Boycott for Equality was born.

“We had never done anything like this before,” he said.

The men funneled their own money and enormous amounts of time into this boycott with an overwhelming response. The website, www.boycottforequality.org, has received over one million hits, fueled purely through grassroots-inspired word-of-mouth.

Large organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign will not back the boycott.

“Too risky,” Duncan said. “We have to lead our leaders.”

Duncan warns repeatedly against the cynicism that is held by the majority of the queer community, one that is at times difficult to incite to action. “Stop assuming that people won’t participate,” he said. “We cannot lose by organizing this event. Even if no one participates — nothing will change the fact that there are 20 million of us.”

According to Duncan, the boycott itself is flexible. For organizations that cannot close for the day, Duncan suggests donating revenue to queer charities. When stocking up on supplies the day before or after, do so at gay-owned businesses.

To individuals and businesses worried about losing the day’s revenue, Duncan said, “We are losing money. Look at the long-term picture.” He says that partnered couples denied the benefits of marriage, such as social security benefits and tax breaks, are losing far more money over their lifetimes than they can earn in one day.

News LOCAL AND REGIONAL

Litvack, May Honored at Allies Dinner Organizers Optimistic After Unprecedented Attendance at Equality Utah Fundraiser

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by Jim Pitts Over 600 Utahns attended the 2004 Allies Dinner, a fundraiser benefiting Equality Utah.

Attracting a crowd nearly double that of last year’s event, organizers had to scramble in order to accommodate the nearly 150 attendees who failed to RSVP within 24 hours of the Sept. 18 event. However, according to Michael Mitchell, the advocacy group’s executive director, the event was a great success and the unprecedented attendance shows that the battle against Amendment 3 has energized Utah’s gay and lesbian community, as well as others who oppose the measure.

“We more than doubled what we took in last year and we will be able to give at least $25,000 directly to candidates,” said Mitchell.

The downtown Salt Lake City Hilton hosted the event, with cocktails served before dinner.

Entertainment was provided by award-winning jazz singer Angela Bingham. Each table featured a centerpiece comprised of 75 red rosebuds, which were later auctioned off.

“Today is a great day for equal rights, and tonight’s dinner is about honoring friends and allies,” said Tim Herzer, who chaired the event.

Awards went to recipients who were recognized for fostering an environment of collective acceptance. Those with the “courage to care,” said Jane Marquardt, Equality’s vice chair, are “creating a world right here in Utah where GLBTs are full participants in society — a society without fear of social or physical attack, where relationships are valued.”

“We believe this is our place too, and we have to get more active in politics. If any of us are less than equal, we are all less than equal,” said Marquardt. Citing Amendment 3 as an attack on civil liberties, Marquardt credited it for giving life to Equality Utah, saying that it has “thrust us forward.”

The political advocacy group was created in 2001 by Bruce Bastian, founder of WordPerfect; Jim Dabakis, who was honored with an award during the event; and Ruth Worthen.

From Equality Utah emerged two separate PAC organizations: one which raises and disperses funds to state and local candidates who meet Equality Utah’s standards, and the Don’t Amend Alliance.

According to Scott McCoy, the alliance’s campaign director, “Equality Utah is showing it is a first class, worthy organization that has clout in our community. The great thing is, this campaign — win or lose — has propelled EU to a new plateau. It is now a force to be reckoned with, and we will continue on to fight for equality in the future.”

So far, Don’t Amend has raised over $500,000.

According to McCoy, most Utahns are

tolerant of others, and when educated on what the amendment would do, they tend to oppose the proposed constitutional change.

In order to help educate voters, an aggressive media campaign, including TV, radio and print ads, stands ready to be launched now through the critical Nov. 2 vote — if Don’t Amend can raise the needed funds.

Says McCoy, “we have had over a thousand donors giving from five dollars to six figures, but a lot more money will need to be generated to get the media campaign going.”

“Our families matter, our lives are just as strong and there are allies waiting for you to invite them in,” said Mitchell, who received a resounding standing ovation for his speech.

Mitchell stressed the importance of building allies with family, friends and neighbors that cross “all religious lines, all sexual orientation lines, and all race lines.”

Merely coming out is not enough, said Mitchell, but living an unguarded life — the sort most hetersexuals take for granted — is necessary. “Have open conversations with your co-workers. Put a picture of your spouse on your desk and discuss your life,” said Mitchell.

When applying for a job, Mitchell said, people should “tell the human resource director how important it is that they have same-sex health benefits.” Quoting from Martin Luther King Jr., he added: “The arc of justice is bending toward equality.” However, there is work to be done to bend that arc further.

“How long will we have to be together before we’re recognized?” asked Tony Butterfield, speaking of his relationship of 12 years with his partner Paul. In many respects, the couple is just like any married couple: Paul legally changed his last name to Butterfield, and the two are raising children together.

They appeared in a media presentation developed by the alliance along with Tony’s biological parents Bobbie and Ed Butterfield.

According to Rep. David Litvack, D-Salt Lake City, Amendment 3 tends to divide Utahns along party lines: “It’s easy to be a Democrat in Utah against Amendment 3 — it isn’t if you are a Republican.”

“The Allies Dinner recognizes the courage it takes for representatives of our state to put aside partisan politics to do what’s right, not what is popular,” continued Litvack.

Erin Litvack, who is David’s spouse, shared the podium. Erin was honored for her work at the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of Utah.

Another of the evening’s honorees, Lorraine Miller, said that self-determination was one reason she decided to start her own

business: “I was the only one who could decide the person I was and who I could become.” That business — Cactus and Tropicals — was selected by Equality for fostering an inclusive workplace.

While Miller no longer owns Cactus and Tropicals, its present owners, Scott and Karen Heinz, have vowed to keep the company on the same path as its founder: “Thank you for trusting this straight, white guy,” said Scott Heinz.

Former Arizona Rep. Scott May, a Republican and member of the LDS Church, spoke of his support for presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry. “Bush has abused me and I am not running back into the arms of one who abuses,” said May. According to May, from the time he was sworn into office his political career was in constant jeopardy for being a Republican and a gay man. GOP leaders asked him not to participate in his party’s 2000 caucus and cautioned not to join in a debate on a proposed bill that would deny same-sex health benefits.

“My gay tax dollars spend just like your straight tax dollars. If you don’t give me equal rights, don’t tax me,” said May. May also spoke of the hypocrisy of the U.S. Military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding gay and lesbian service members.

According to May, after three years of being open about his sexuality while in public office, he was called to serve in Kosovo. Eager to serve his country, May was almost immediately

Arizona State Representative Steve May

subjected to a military tribunal over his sexuality. May appealed the tribunal, and was only allowed to complete his service in Kosovo after then-President Clinton intervened.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell is bigotry,” said May, and acts as a “punitive system” where gay men and women are “unrecognized as equal.”

“We are the spiritual and intellectual descendants of the American Revolution,” continued May. “Be shameless in your work for equality — not just for us, but for everybody. In a nation like ours we can’t have two systems for two people.”

More information about Equality Utah can be found online at EqualityUtah.org; the Don’t Amend Alliance website is at www.dontamendalliance.com.

Artist Trevor Southey (left) pictured with Don’t Amend Campaign Manager Scott McCoy.

‘No on 3’ Gets San Francisco Support

by Joel Shoemaker The local fight against a proposed state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and anything similar to it is getting national financial support.

Openly gay California State Assembly member Mark Leno joined about 50 others at a September 11 fundraiser in San Francisco for Utah’s Don’t Amend Alliance, the group leading the fight to defeat Amendment 3 on November’s ballot. The event was held at a private residence.

About $13,000 was raised through contributions, according to Don’t Amend organizers. Leno himself pledged $1,000 to the campaign, saying he would urge other openly gay and lesbian representatives to do the same.

Another $3,000 was raised through the dona-

tion and sale of a Trevor Southey painting.

“This defeat is going to be the shock of the nation,” Don’t Amend Campaign Director Scott McCoy told the group, explaining the campaign’s efforts to defeat the amendment.

McCoy and other speakers urged the crowd to understand Utah’s fight was important to support, even though an amendment banning same-sex marriage would seem an easy win in such a conservative state.

San Francisco helped give birth to the current national debate over same-sex marriage when Mayor Gavin Newscome allowed same-sex couples to marry. Several members of the Don’t Amend Alliance traveled to San Francisco for the fundraiser. Several attendees were California residents with Utah ties. Similar fundraisers are being looked at for Las Vegas and other areas.

Carnations Promote “Safe Space” for Gay Mormons

by Nicholas Rupp

Safe Space Declaration Following is the message that “Safe Space” campaign organizers plan to send to the LDS Church General Authorities, along with pink carnations, during the church’s general conference Oct. 2:

With love and respect,

Sports Editor David Nelson Contributing Writers Scott Abbott, Brandie Balken, Lee Beckstead, Xenia Cherkaev, Janice Eberhardt, Jace Garfield, Beau Jarvis, Lynette Malmstrom, Laurie Mecham, LaDonna Moore, Rob Orton, William T. Park, Scott Perry, Jim Pitts, Nicholas Rupp, Mandy Q. Racer, Ruby Ridge, Joel Shoemaker, Jim Struve, Eric Tierney, Darren Tucker, JoSelle Vanderhooft, Ben Williams Photographers Lucy Juarez, William H. Munk, Shauna Sanchez Art Director Michael Aaron Graphic Designer Kris Kramer Sales Director and Office Manager Steven Peterson Sales Executives 801-323-9500 | 877-870-0727 Sebastian Cruz | sebastian@slmetro.com Bob Tubbs | bob@slmetro.com Distribution Steven Peterson Courtney Moser, Northern Utah Copyright © 2004 Salt Lake Metro.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner, including electronic retrieval systems, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

One copy of this publication is free of charge to any individual. Additional copies may be purchased for $1. Anyone taking or destroying multiple copies may be prosecuted for theft at the sole discretion of the publisher. Reward offered for information that leads to the arrest of any individual willfully stealing, destroying or trashing multiple copies.

Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the publishers or staff.

Salt Lake Metro is published bi-weekly on alternating Thursdays by

Metro Publishing, Inc. 352 S. Denver Street, Suite 350 Salt Lake City, UT 84111 (801) 323-9500 Fax: (801) 323-9986

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The Safe Space Coalition, Comprised of members and friends of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Events Editor Greg Harrison

SALT LAKE METRO

exploitation, found among both heterosexuals and homosexuals everywhere.

We stand for the institution of the family as the embodiment of love and commitment. The presence of a father, mother, and children living together is no guarantee of family success. The presence of true love and commitment within a family is a much better indicator. We believe that all families, regardless of the gender of those involved, should receive wholehearted sanction from our Church in establishing and nurturing eternal bonds.

The color pink has been embraced worldwide as a symbol of “Safe Space,” a reminder of the prejudices and torture of the past, and a commitment to creating safe spaces for all of God’s children to progress together as equals. We believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints represents the highest of the ideals of the Enlightenment as a society based firmly on mutual respect, tolerance, and equality. The Church we believe in embodies the safest of all spaces, built firmly on the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We believe the prophet Nephi when he spoke from the dust: “Behold, doth he cry unto any, saying: Depart from me? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; but he saith: Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price. Behold, hath he commanded any that they should depart out of the synagogues, or out of the houses of worship? Behold, I say unto you, Nay. Hath he commanded any that they should not partake of his salvation? Behold I say unto you, Nay; but he hath given it free for all men; and he hath commanded his people that they should persuade all men to repentance. Behold, hath the Lord commanded any that they should not partake of his goodness? Behold I say unto you, Nay; but all men are privileged the one like unto the other, and none are forbidden” (2 Nephi 26: 25-28).

As faithful citizens of the Lord’s kingdom, we recognize that Church leaders are directed by inspiration and revelation, and that the Church’s canon of scripture remains open. We ask and pray that there will come a time soon when all Latter-day Saints may live honestly and openly as full participants in the blessings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Editor Brandon Burt

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Dear General Authorities: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stands as a restoration of the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We read in the scriptures of the teachings and actions of our Savior, who taught us that, as children of our Heavenly Father, we are to respect one another, to shun none, and to truly love our neighbors as ourselves. We believe that every child of God shares a divine potential, and as Latter-day Saints, we welcome all, regardless of their circumstances.

We are aware that many suffer in the Church because of their sexual orientation. One good bishop wrote recently about his gay son’s attempted suicide, and this family is not alone. Members who find that their gender identity or attractions do not fall within standardized expectations are too often marginalized, frightened, and taught that their feelings are an aberration that must be “corrected.” Many try desperately to change their nature through churchsanctioned measures, and when those fail, they feel that the only options left are to leave the Church or to commit suicide. The number of suicides and attempted suicides within the Church over the issue of sexuality indicates the need for a new approach.

We have learned through experience, as well as through scientific research, that homosexuality is not simply a changeable lifestyle choice, but a deeply ingrained element of a person’s created nature. We do not believe that God intends for some of his children to be treated differently than others, especially in the most significant matters of the heart.

We believe in standing for principles of truth and righteousness, and as such, we proclaim the following: We stand up for our knowledge that God makes no mistakes in the creation of his children. He taught us in the scriptures that each one of us has a unique and cherished place in the Kingdom of God. All humans are endowed with both the desire and the right to form lasting, nurturing relationships built on honesty and love.

We stand for a Church that is a beacon of hope for all people, a Church that opens its doors to all as a “safe space,” a tolerant and embracing place. We are committed to fostering the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a society where a homosexual member’s options are not limited to eternal silence, repression, excommunication, or suicide.

We stand for the principle that love is not a sin. We believe that the focus on sexual orientation obscures the real underlying issues of sexual sin, which are founded on lust, greed, and sexual

Publisher Michael Aaron

SEPTEMBER 30, 2004

With the critical Nov. 2 vote on Utah’s Amendment 3 coming just one month from now, this weekend’s LDS Church General Conference has the potential to be mighty uncomfortable for gay Mormons — and that’s not okay with some church members.

Bridget Foster of Greenbelt, Maryland, decided to let church leaders and gay Mormons know that she and many other faithful Mormons love their gay friends and family and want them included in the church’s future. So Foster, wife of an LDS bishop, created the “Safe Space” campaign, a grassroots effort designed to gently point out that there’s nothing wrong with being gay and Mormon.

Though both the LDS church and Amendment 3’s authors have made it clear that the church has no official stance on this particular amendment — although the church has stated that it supports such amendments in general — many Utahns interpret tacit approval from church leaders and expect gay marriage to be mentioned at the conference.

This conference weekend, pink flowers purchased by telephone and online will be delivered to church headquarters along with the “Safe Space Declaration,” Foster’s 800-word affirmation that, in part, states, “We are committed to fostering the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a society where a homosexual member’s options are not limited to eternal silence, repression, excommunication, or suicide.”

Though the Book-of-Mormon-quoting declaration differs significantly from official church positions on homosexuality and gay marriage, Foster emphasizes that the campaign’s goal is not to attack the church, but to send a message of love and acceptance to gay Mormons who may be suffering in silence. She says those who buy the pink flowers are “expressing their commitment to a community that is open, inclusive, compassionate, and tolerant of all people.”

Safe Space says other groups like Affirmation, comprised of gay and lesbian Mormons, are excited about the campaign, but are wary of being too vocal about their support for fear of causing the movement to be branded as just “part of the gay agenda.”

Foster personally discovered the anguish that comes from trying to reconcile being both gay and a devout Christian when her best friend attempted suicide and was admitted to a mental institution.

“I knew he had been struggling increasingly with something,” Foster said, “but I had no idea what it was. I rushed to the hospital and found him there, his eyes full of tears, terror, and trauma. He told me he was gay and wanted to die.”

As a bishop’s wife and faithful member of the church, Foster says the increasingly politicized gay marriage debate caused her to suffer “from a severe cognitive dissonance over the Church’s stance on homosexuality and gay marriage.” The news of attempted and successful suicides by faithful gay Mormons prompted her to find a way to tell them, “You are loved. Please don’t leave.

Don’t ever feel that you must take your life, or that you don’t belong.”

The idea for the campaign came to Foster after spending time in an LDS Internet group. “Some of us decided that the Church’s current stated positions endorsing conservative ‘family values’ don’t necessarily reflect the sentiments of all church members,” she says. “So we wanted to make a peaceful and affirmative statement that the church ought to be a safe space for all people, regardless of sexual orientation.”

After remarks last March by former Relief Society President and current Deseret Book President Sheri Dew that compared those who don’t actively oppose gay marriage to

those who didn’t oppose the rise of Hitler, Foster chose pink to represent acceptance and “to remind us of the horror of Hitler’s pink triangles. Even in this day and age, the extermination campaign against [gays and lesbians] continues — through institutions that force them to either hide, change, or kill themselves.”

Though past official statements from church leaders indicate they disagree, Foster says she’s prayed and reconciled her belief in the church with her belief that “homosexuality is not a choice, nor is it necessarily a sin. The Lord has answered me clearly, and my soul has been enlarged and filled with love in the process.”

Pink flowers can be ordered from Absolutely Flowers at slcflorist.com or 984-2500.

Carnations are $1 each, roses are $2 each.

Both must be ordered in groups of 5. By using the coupon code “safespace,” buyers will not be charged for delivery.

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News LOCAL AND REGIONAL

Local Filmmaker Documents Amendment 3 Battle

by William Todd Park Frank Feldman is putting his education and passions together to make an impact. A recent graduate from the University of Utah, Feldman is looking at the political turmoil surrounding the proposed Amendment 3 to the Utah Constitution through the lens of his camera. Amendment will be his first feature length documentary.

The project follows the major players on both sides of the Amendment 3 battle lines.

Feldman has already filmed dialogue with Equality Utah Executive Director Michael Mitchell, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, Salt Lake County Mayor Nancy Workman, Representative Jackie Biskupski, and Don’t Amend Alliance Campaign Director Scott McCoy. Although the film is not intended to influence the election — it won’t be released until well after Nov. 2, when Utahns will vote on the amendment — proponents of the amendment have typically been less enthusiastic about talking on camera. Senator

Chris Buttars has opted out, but his fellow co-sponsor, Representative LaVar Christensen, as well as anti-gay lobbyist Gayle Ruzicka have agreed to participate.

More than just documenting political drama, this film is intended to focus on the impact of public morality debate on the lives of average people and families. “I’m trying to humanize the story a little bit,” says Feldman. “I want to draw comparisons between out-of-touch politicians who are legislating morality and real people living real lives.”

According to Feldman, the idea of creating a documentary was born after he witnessed a steady stream of nearsighted and outof-touch political rantings throughout the summer. After one landmark conversation with a close friend, the answer was clear: tell the story with a film. “That’s what I want to do. That’s what I went to school for.”

Putting his idea into action, Feldman began the process of building on his own film studies degree and contacted long-time friend Eric Tierney who agreed to produce the feature, capitalizing on his theater experience.

Producing a film is expensive. To date, the lion’s share of funding has come through private contributions, but collaboration with other organizations has spawned some interesting possibilities to raise the necessary capital to create a professional production.

A fundraiser at Club Panini is slated for the evening of Oct. 14. In addition to traditional fundraising techniques, the filmmaker plans to auction off credits in the closing titles.

Filming will continue through the election into mid-November to include follow-up discussions. Right now, there is still a lot of brainstorming with a focus toward scheduling interviews and funding. Screenings should begin some time in January. No venues have been proposed to date, but showing the documentary at a film festival or on public television is the goal.

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SALT LAKE METRO

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SEPTEMBER 30, 2004

For more information, see Frank Feldman’s web log at amendment.blogspot.com.

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Anti-Gay Web Site Hijacks Equality Utah’s Domain Name

by Brandon Burt Web surfers looking for information about Equality Utah — a local political advocacy groups supporting equal rights for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender persons — may find their browsers whisked away instead to an anti-gay website.

Equality Utah’s web domain is equalityutah.org.

Simply typing this into many browsers is enough to bring up Equality’s web site.

However, if computer users mistakenly type “com” instead of “org” their browsers will instead navigate to a web site called “Gay Answers” — a site which, among other things, compares homosexuality to alcoholism and argues that gay and lesbian families are less valid than heterosexual ones.

The registered administrator of gayanswers.com, listed in the domainname “whois” database as K.C., has the same physical address, email address and phone number as Kelly C. of Quincy, Mass.

— the person who registered the misleading equalityutah.com domain Sept. 23.

However, when contacted by Salt Lake Metro, Kelly would neither confirm nor deny being the person maintaining the “Gay Answers” web site, which is also registered as same-sex-gay-marriage.com.

Registering a domain name similar to that of an established web site is a tactic which has been used before in political campaigns.

In this case, anti-gay political operatives may be trying to mislead the public on the subject of gay marriage. “It’s too bad that people have to stoop to this kind of thing,” said Michael Mitchell, executive director of Equality Utah.

“It’s misleading on every front.”

However, using Equality Utah’s established name to draw visitors to an anti-gay web site isn’t the only deception involved, says Mitchell — the information contained at “Gay

Answers” is itself spurious. “When you go to the site, that’s misleading, too,” he said.

The web site contains no contact information or any indication of who authored it, but contains arguments using the language of diversity and equality to discredit gay marriage proponents. Most notably, the site argues that samesex relationships represent a new kind of “sex segregation” and are invalid because they contain “zero gender diversity” and therefore have “zero gender equality.”

Because of this, the web site argues that implementing legal recognition of gay families is the same as implementing laws promoting racism: Let’s look at what zero diversity really means.

Racism: “We’re doing just fine without blacks in our company’s all-white leadership.”

Sexism: “We’re doing just fine without a woman in our gay family’s all-male leadership.”

It also lists a suggested line of questioning — complete with “hints” — which opponents of gay marriage can purportedly use to sway others to their point of view: Start a discussion and then ask the following questions: A: Is diversity good? yes/no (hint: yes) B: Is zero diversity bad? yes/no (hint: yes) C: How much gender diversity is in same-sex? zero/100 percent (hint: zero) Calling homosexuality a “choice,” the web site concludes that the best thing for gays and lesbians to do is just go back in the closet and accept their status as second-class citizens: “It seems that if homosexuals want to do their thing privately, that’s one thing. But for them to legislate their morality onto society and push gay sex and more tax burdens upon society and elevate it way out of natural proportion through civil-unions or marriage seems to be totally another thing.”

New comic strip added to Salt Lake Metro With this issue, Salt Lake Metro begins publishing the comic strip “Oh My Gods!”

by Shivian Balaris, a young, gay student in Carbondale, Illinois.

He calls his strip “the pagan-based comic strip for the polytheistic masses.”

Characters include lead character Stan and his boyfriend Vincent; Vera, a feisty female who works at a metaphysiCartoonist Shivian cal bookstore; Fundie, Balaris your good-old Christian fundamentalist; and of course the Pope.

The characters are drawn in a very simple but very stylish fashion and look very much like Fisher-Price toy people.

The strip is oftentimes irreverent, but in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way. According to Balaris, “sacred cows make such tasty hamburgers.”

Comments on the strip should be directed to editor@slmetro.com.

More information on Oh My Gods! can be found online at ohmygods.timerift.net.

Some cast members of Oh My Gods!

STAN

VINCENT

VERA

FUNDIE THE POPE

Mr. Salt Lake Leather 2004 Chosen

Mr. Salt Lake Leather 2004 Jeff “Tiger” Rands

The Wasatch Leathermen Association held its first Mr. Salt Lake Leather contest and Blue Alley Fair since its reorganization earlier this year. Hundreds attended the various events held at the organization’s home bar, Club 161.

WLA president Tracy Tingey, Utah Power Exchange president Heidi Preuss and Salt Lake Metro publisher Michael Aaron judged the Mr. Salt Lake Leather 2004 contest, which drew six participants.

Contestants went through three rounds of judging, beginning with an interview of over a dozen questions and ending with a runway show and short speech to the crowded bar.

At midnight, Sept. 18, Jeff “Tiger” Rands

was given the title of Mr. Salt Lake Leather 2004. He will represent WLA in the International Mr. Leather contest in Chicago next spring.

Blue Alley Fair was also held in the parking lot of the bar with fetish vendor booths, food and drink. The fair was originally held at Club Blue before it was closed down by the city of Salt Lake. The name of the fair remains as a tribute to the bar and the fair’s past.

The WLA will join the Utah Bear Alliance to hold a Halloween party Friday, Oct. 29 at Club 161.

More information on WLA can be found at www.wasatchleathermen.com. The Utah Bear Alliance is at www.utahbears.com.

SEPTEMBER 30, 2004 ■

SALT LAKE METRO ■

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Opinion

Boycott Offers Opportunity to Make a Difference

by Brandon Burt

SALT LAKE METRO ■

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I’m not really sure now what to do with my collection of Jimmy Swaggart porn.

Swaggart is the blue-haired televangelist who is just so hot, hot, hot — to gay men at least — he finally had to break down and make a death threat against the next faggot who looked at him “like that.” (You know the look he means. It’s the look gay men get when they become enamored of a semiliterate, puffy Bible-banger who makes his living bilking little old ladies out of their Social Security checks.)

Yes, it was a terrible blow to discover old “hot cheeks” Jimmy is absolutely, unapologetically, 100-percent heterosexual. My hopes of getting it on with him — of finally having the opportunity to touch that flaccid, withered, somewhat gray and quivering flesh — have been utterly dashed.

But there’s nothing that can be done about it. If he’s straight, he’s straight.

Unfortunately for hetero Jimmy, the lusty animal magnetism he holds for gay men the world over does not extend to women. This is a man who does, remember, have to pay hookers in order to get his rocks off.

Not that there’s anything especially wrong with hookers. As long as they’ve chosen their profession of their own free will and are allowed to maintain enough self-esteem to stick up for themselves and ensure they’re treated well, who am I to disapprove?

It’s just that, while I’m not one to disapprove, Jimmy certainly is. One imagines the entire time he was sweating, grunting and flopping around on top of those call-girls he could barely contain the feeling of disgust he felt for himself, for them, and for a world that could hold such temptations of the flesh. That much became clear the day he had his spiritual epiphany, causing him to make a tearful speech of public repentance, which — as such spiritual epiphanies often do — came immediately after he got caught.

It was this epiphany, this complete turnaround in his spiritual convictions, that first made me realize Jimmy could change — if not with the prayers of his aged and rather superstitious viewers, then at least with the everlasting love of the right man.

After all, God didn’t make Jimmy a hypocrite — Jimmy’s just living the hypocrite lifestyle.

Hate the sin, love the sinner.

Nobody is born a right-wing religious nut. Ask any right-wing religious nut — he’ll tell you the story of his conversion. Likely he started out as a normal hellion: drinking, carousing, doing drugs, worshiping Satan. The kind of person you meet every day.

It isn’t until, in a moment of personal crisis, he is recruited by a member of the nefarious, world-wide, right-wing religious nut organization. These are the folks who hang out at political conventions and in churches, on college campuses and in prisons, in a never-ending hunt for their next victim.

That victim is exposed to religious literature, tempted to attend revival meetings, even subjected to the laying-on of hands — and, unless something can be done quickly, the predators’ job is quickly done: The victim joins their ranks and becomes a predator himself.

It is a vicious circle, but the predatory practices of right-wing Christians are well known. Some even go door-to-door!

All is not lost, however. It is important to remember that being a right-wing religious nut is a chosen lifestyle. Remembering this can be difficult in an age when the Washington D.C. elite and the Republican-dominated media are constantly barraging us with the false message that being a right-wing Christian is perfectly normal, even desirable.

However, I was heartened to learn that there is no gene that causes people to be right-wing religious nuts. This meant that Jimmy, my Jimmy, could change! He could even — dare I dream it? — be mine!

Visions of our perfect love danced through my head: the birds chirping sweetly, his massive neck-jowls fluttering manfully in the breeze, his lips pursed, for once, not in a wrinkled expression of his disapproval, but in a kiss barely tinged with the sweetness of Fixodent. Not only was I looking at him “like that,” he was looking at me “like that” right back.

And then, with this — this public avowal of his heterosexuality and with his determination to kill the myriad gay men who look upon his sagging man-breasts with constant, unbridled passion — my dream was dashed to bits.

Right-wing religious nut? That I could live with … I could even help him change. But heterosexual?

No, there’s nothing that could be done about that.

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gay community’s boycott against Coors Brewing Company in the 1970s and ’80s did generate a substantive response from the company — even if it didn’t change the politics of the Coors family itself — but it was a boycott which lasted for years, and was adopted almost universally by gay bar owners. What good could possibly come of a boycott that lasts only one day and isn’t really even directed at anything in particular?

In our community, things like these tend to become annual events — so even if this year’s boycott doesn’t make as much of a splash as its organizers hope, there’s still a good reason to participate: Not only will participants feel good about having been involved from the very beginning, but each person who does participate serves to increase the likelihood of the boycott’s eventual success — which, in the long run, could be huge.

And, considering the existence of a community fed up with a Bush administration — not to mention various state governments — that seek to capitalize on the unpopularity of our civil rights each election year, the boycott could crystallize into something beyond its organizers’ wildest hopes.

The first people to notice whether the boycott is a success or not will be the bean counters. Now, advertisers and accountants have known for years that the gay market is a lucrative one. However, the business world is about one thing: making money. This has led to a state of affairs in which gays and lesbians are recognized as a consumer demographic even as our status as human beings is ignored.

This kind of dehumanization is a natural by-product of corporatization. Finally, then, this boycott represents the first thing in years our community can do that actually decreases our participation in the consumerist culture that continues to dehumanize us.

For these reasons, Salt Lake Metro plans to participate in the Boycott for Equality. Our offices will be closed Oct. 8, and we encourage everybody who can to participate.

For the Love of Jimmy

SEPTEMBER 30, 2004

Organizers of the national Boycott for Equality Oct. 8 are conducting a unique experiment — to see if enough of us participate that mainstream America notices.

This is in response, organizers say, to the fact that “on February 24, 2004, the President of the United States declared war on gay/bisexual/transgendered Americans when he decided to support a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage denying us over 1,000 rights and responsibilities that all other Americans currently enjoy.”

By participating in the boycott, they say, we could wake the country up to the fact that we are just as much a vital part of society as everybody else. While gays and lesbians who are out of the closet help achieve this goal every day, just by going about their daily business, Boycott for Equality believes that there are so many of us still in the closet that a one-day boycott — “a silent protest that can be measured in dollars” — is the only way for society to experience the full, collective force of our numbers.

Or at least it would be, if we all participated.

Organizers are asking participants to do four things: 1. Withdraw $80.

2. Take the day off work.

3. Refrain from spending.

4. Turn off cell phones.

For many gay people, doing either of the last two things alone would be hardship enough, and it’s unfortunate that for many others, either of the first two things might be impossible.

Still, many great things have been accomplished by people who asked questions starting with the words “What if …”

What if we all participated by dropping out of the consumer pool — if not completely, then to the greatest extent possible? Taking time off work might not be an option for some — for those without jobs in this Bush economy it’s meaningless — but it is still possible to curb spending and consumption.

Some doubt that a one-day boycott is practicable. The

From the Editor

Guest Column

Amending the Way We Fight

by Cy Martz

MAD QUEER DISEASE I recently attended my local “Don’t Amend” Town Hall meeting. I was impressed at the great organization of the Don’t Amend organizers. They had everything: buttons, stickers, bumper decals, DVDs and yard signs. It all said “No on 3” and “Don’t Amend.” The Don’t Amend Alliance has done incredible work. They should be proud of what they have accomplished in the way of education about the amendment.

Unfortunately, the meeting wasn’t very well attended — 15 by my count, only three of whom I didn’t recognize as members of the GLBT community. The rest were friends of Dorothy.

In all who attended, I couldn’t help but notice there was something missing, something not there. I had my buttons, my stickers, my yard sign and my DVD. However, in that room full of queers talking about an amendment that relegated themselves, their families and their relationships to secondclass status, there was a void of anger.

Why is the gay community acting so calm during this blatant and hurtful period of discrimination? Aren’t we the same people who have engaged in such civil rights landmarks as the Stonewall Riots and ACT UP? Why are statements like “It’s unnecessary” and “It goes too far” the only admonishments we dare say about this legislation?

Isn’t any type of legislation that etches hate into our state constitution a little far-reaching? Why don’t we hear our leaders, our activists, using words like “hate” and “discrimination?”

It seems to me that the gay community feels that this amendment is so permanent that we don’t want to piss anybody off who may possibly vote against it. However, we as a community cannot afford to pander.

A common misconception people hold

is that it’s not okay to get mad. I believe that we should not let our anger cloud our perception, but it is nonsense to stifle the human emotion that is able to harnesses the most energy. Anger is the purest, most galvanizing and most motivating emotion we as humans have. Regardless of what our churches and Sean Hannity may tell you, anger is the emotion that changes minds and gets things done.

The gay community and the Don’t Amend Alliance have acted as the straight-friendly, happy-go-lucky, sedate population for long enough. It’s time to start talking louder. It’s time to start getting madder. It’s time we let people know that we’re not going to take this with a smile on our face!

So often I hear queer activists talk about how acceptance comes with exposure. “If they just get to know a more real and human homosexual, straight people will be more accepting.” There is nothing more human or real than being reactionary. We have to be real and honest and let our adversaries and those on the fence know that if this amendment passes, we’re going to be affected negatively, and we are upset.

We need to be challenging. We must challenge their rhetoric. When they say that the amendment will protect families, we must ask, “How?” We may not win this constitutional battle.

In fact, it’s not likely that we will. But we can use this as an opportunity to get gay people in the news, show discrimination in action and unveil the hypocrisy of our homophobic surroundings.

However, when a group like Don’t Amend says things like “You don’t have to be for gay marriage to be against this amendment,” or “There are already three laws in the state of Utah that define marriage as being between a man and a woman” it sends a message and makes a dangerous bargain. Messages that do not talk about discrimination but

Tolerating Intolerance

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SEPTEMBER 30, 2004

by William Todd Park Not long ago, I remember passing a billboard that just about made me crash my truck. The caption read, “If you just said, ‘Oh my heck,’ it’s probably not for you.” Some ad exec certainly earned his pay with that one. It’s one of those conversation starters that always brings a smile.

Just a few blocks away from where that sign was once posted, a new billboard has made a debut that is, no doubt, a conversation starter too. Unfortunately, no one I know is smiling when they read its tag line.

Erected across from Salt Lake Community College South Campus, the sign reads: “The National Alliance — Securing The Future For European Americans” along with the local web site URL. Blond hair, blue-eyes — I’m about as European as they come, but it didn’t take a moment before visions of yellow stars of David, pink triangles, and barbed wire flashed through my mind. A cursory look through

the National Alliance’s Utah chapter’s web site confirmed that the group’s Nazi ideology is far from dead, even though it is putrefying.

Determining the right balance between free speech and letting radical hate mongers spew their vitriolic diatribe is a touchy proposition at best. It has been 60 years since the world united to defeat Hitler’s regime in Germany. One would think that as the Western world has evolved into a progressively more educated and tolerant society that these hate groups would fizzle out, but they clearly have not. CNN reports that hate groups are very much on the rise, thanks chiefly to the Internet. “[The Internet] has become the propaganda venue of choice,” states Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “It allows Klansmen, who a few years ago could reach only 100 people with a poorly produced pamphlet, to reach an audience in the millions. The movement is interested not so much in developing street thugs who beat up people in bars, but college-bound teens who live in middle-class and upper-class homes.”

This isn’t the South, though. Thankfully, we in Salt Lake City have learned some of the hard lessons that, for those in the South,

moreover speak about defeating a single amendment set a precedent of allowing the heterosexual population to continue living under the ignorant assumption that they and their lifestyle is superior to that of a homosexual.

DUDE, WHERE’S MY PENIS? In the search for equal rights and overall acceptance, the queer population has relegated itself to the role of neuter. From Will and Grace and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy to Ellen DeGeneres, the queer population has allowed the public to accept homosexuals without accepting homosexuality. We are now seeing the other edge of that sword because people feel that they can vote for this amendment and still be gay-friendly or at least not be homophobic. Straights feel that they can vote for an amendment that condemns the homosexual lifestyle, but not the homosexual.

We hear this in the language of our politicians. John Kerry doesn’t believe that the word “marriage” is an appropriate term to use for same-sex couples, but he’s still gay friendly because he thinks we need equal rights. Governor Olene Walker can condemn the amendment just a few months after she signs it, and her worries about re-election are over. For good, straight Mormons, voting to amend our state’s constitution is just a matter of loving the sinner and condemning the sin.

It is crucial that we put the sex back into “homosexual.” The only way for gay people to get equality is to have straight people feel as comfortable with gay sexuality as they feel with their own. We cannot change the perception of our bedroom activities if we hide them.

I want my penis back! I want to be a sexual being, just like everybody else. I am more than just a great sense of fashion. We need to fuse sin and sinner back together and work on selling the complete package.

Now, I don’t mean that we should be exchanging blowjobs in the grocery store or post office queue. However, you would think that actual homosexuality would be at least visible in the Don’t Amend video. took a very long time. A grassroots organization in the neighborhoods surrounding the SLCC South campus canvassed the area with literature that read “Utah: Hate Free Zone.”

Other organizations in the valley that have a vested interest in these kinds of targeted hate messages have chosen to treat this organization’s ploy much the same way as a kid throwing a temper tantrum — by not giving the attention the brat wants.

Instead, they’ve been exposed. In an interview with the Deseret Morning News, Rep. David Litvack said, “They have a right to do what they’re doing.” However, he continued, “We do have a right to organize the community and make the community aware of hate’s presence amidst us.”

As in Nazi Germany, the key to defeating hatred is to simply defeat its ideology. The supremacist mantras served to indoctrinate only the disenfranchised, the poor, and the weak-minded into a dogmatic hatred that eventually turned the brush fire of fear into a world war.

Ironically, the very institutions that these white power groups assert are the downfall of our society have proven to be the ones that are the veritable pillars of our prosperity.

The successes we have enjoyed as Americans have come not as a result of divisive hatred and fear, but because we have come together and accomplished feats that are nothing short of noble and awesome.

As you watch the video, you meet Jane and Tami. They sit a comfortable distance away from each other and announce immediately that they met at church, as to not seem too “dykey.” You also meet Tony and Paul, two gay fathers. They, too, sit an appropriate Bible’s width apart.

Neither queer couple ever touches during the entire interview. This does not resemble two people so in love they wish they could marry.

There was one couple in the video that did show affection toward each other. Gary had his arm around Millie as she put her hand in his lap. They talked about their family and they were unapologetically in love.

UNAPOLOGETIC FAGS I think gay people have been trained that their form of sexuality is something to be ashamed of, so even when we ask for equality, we do it with our heads bowed.

It’s time we stop worrying about what “they” will think if we get angry, or what “they” think if we talk about our sex lives. It’s time to start living for us.

If we can stop being ashamed and own up to our own sexuality and our own emotions — not apologize for them — then people will soon see that efforts to put a stop to our lifestyle are a waste of energy.

Being angry, showing emotion, even having sex are all part of our real human nature.

We shouldn’t have to apologize for any of it. If we stop letting straight society inflict shame upon us, that is one less thing they can control.

We should not be ashamed of wanting equal rights. We all need to be unapologetic in our slow but apparent advancement. We need to become the unapologetic fags and dykes and own our sexuality.

I am a fag. Unapologetically, I am a fag. I am an angry fag and I’m not sorry. I might not be able to find a yard sign or a bumper sticker that says that, but I’m still sending a potent message.

Cy Martz is a senior at Utah State University majoring in public relations. He welcomes your comments: cy@brigham.net.

Differing ethnicity and orientation are not the cause of our woes — they are the very heart of our national existence and soul.

Differing faiths and philosophies are not the cause of moral decline — they are the foundation of modern science and a network of worldwide relief organizations. Differing opinion and political stands are not threats to our society, but rather provide the needed balance to prevent tyrannical powers from destroying everything we hold dear.

As much as I would like to see narrowminded people like the National Alliance silenced, their words accusing multiculturalism, Jews, and gays for all the world’s evils have exposed them for what they are.

I don’t think I have to come up with a list of adjectives here. Your list and mine would probably be pretty close. To silence them would honestly put our own free speech in jeopardy. That’s something I’m not willing to do.

We can overcome fear and hate by doing small things. Small decisions have big longterm impacts.

We can choose to enjoy our lives and the blessings of prosperity and freedom that were won with the blood of countless patriots in and out of uniform. We can volunteer our time to making the world around us a better place. We can extend a hand of friendship to someone who doesn’t look or live like us.

Ruby Ridge Living Plan B for Amendment 3

by Ruby Ridge

Darlings, how are we all this fabulous election season? I have to tell you how much I appreciate Scott McCoy and all the Don’t Amend volunteers who have been working tirelessly gathering support opposing Amendment 3. These folks have done a great job getting the word out that the proposed ban on gay marriage attached to the state constitution is simply a bad law that goes way, way, way too far.

Unfortunately, cherubs, the problem with our arguments about Amendment 3 is that they are based in reason — and we all know that reason, logic, tolerance, and civility will be the first casualties in any statewide referendum on gay marriage.

If the LDS majority votes true to form en masse, our arguments will go down faster than a hitchhiker in a porn video — and, muffins, we need to be emotionally and politically prepared for that possibility.

So my question for the queer community is: “What’s plan B?” If the amendment passes, what effect will it have on our lives come January 1?

Can we expect Gayle Ruzicka and Sen. Buttars to unveil some oven-fresh hell in the closing minutes of the 2005 legislative session? What erosions to our civil rights can we expect from Governor Huntsman (oh, you know he’s going to buy the election so don’t look so surprised)? Will the LDS Church succeed in making the gay and lesbian community invisible?

Who decides where our next battle will be fought? Curious minds want to know.

One of the more encouraging side effects

of Amendment 3 has been the development and organization of a gay/lesbian grassroots infrastructure. Not since the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic (before we got fatigued and lost interest) has there been such a surge in political activism.

This can only be a good thing, irrespective of what happens election day.

Hopefully the momentum and visibility of the Amendment 3 campaign will spill over into other pressing areas of political need, such as the passage of a viable hate crimes law in 2005, or to other areas of discrimination such as employment protections, equitable taxation, military service, child custody issues, etc.

In my ever-so-humble opinion, civil marriage and its legal consequences is an important issue for the gay community (one which will inevitably be settled in the courts) but it is only one battle in a much larger war. Our community needs to be fighting discrimination and stupidity on multiple fronts.

So kittens, get out there and vote against Amendment 3, and even if it gets hammered in the election, recognize that this is merely the beginning of the campaign for equal rights. More out gay people in Utah have been energized to participate in the democratic process than ever before.

As Martha would say, “It’s a good thing.”

Oh! One more item. I am proposing my own amendment to the Gay Agenda: Any gay male over high school age shall be discouraged from using the word “hottie.”

Gay males over age 35 shall be prohibited from using “hottie” entirely, because no matter what the context is or what prompted you to say it, you always sound like a pedophile waiting for a school bus.

It’s getting creepy and it needs to stop.

Bye, pumpkins!

Ruby Ridge is one of the more opinionated members of the Utah Cyber Sluts, a camp drag group of performers who raise funds for local charities. Her opinions are her own and fluctuate wildly due to bloating and irritability.

SEPTEMBER 30, 2004 ■

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by Joel Shoemaker

uss Gorringe remembers the moment he almost lost his life to his fight against being gay.

“I had determined that the only way out was to end my life.” Gorringe says he was hiking with his wife and children in Glacier National Park when they crossed a swinging rope bridge over a river ravine. “To make it look like an accident, I knew all I’d have to do is slip. If the fall didn’t kill me, a quick breath of the water would.”

Gorringe made sure he went last across the bridge. He waited for his family to go just out of sight, and then made his move.

“But as I was just going down, my daughter Emily turned around and looked at me,” he says. “Our eyes met. She knew exactly what I was doing. And I thought, ‘I just can’t let her know that I did this on purpose.’ I had to wait for another time to make it look like an accident.” He says she helped pull him up from where he was about to fall into the ravine.

He credits his daughter for saving his life that day, she was 14 years old.

Gorringe says that moment, and the following years where he questioned everything that had brought him to that place, came only after decades of trying to reconcile his homosexuality.

Having grown up Mormon, he says his earliest memories were of being gay and with no one to talk to about those feelings: “Years later I would discover that my closest friends from grade school through college were gay.”

He dated women in high school, but says the further he went with a girl sexually, the more it felt unnatural. He served a mission in Indiana, knowing he was attracted to men, “but I thought it was a temporary condition. I relied on the phrase ‘faith precedes miracles.’ I had complete faith I would be changed.

When I wasn’t, I felt I had been failed a miracle.”

After his mission, he got married, having gotten advice from church leaders that his attractions would go away. “I was given bad advice,” he says. Three years into the marriage, Gorringe told his wife about his attractions to men. A long period followed where Gorringe tried everything to get his feelings to change.

“I get so angry when people say, ‘Oh well you just didn’t try hard enough.’ That’s just not true.” Gorringe says he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on reparative therapy, trying to change his sexual attractions. “This was my big wound to heal. There was an emptiness inside me that was killing me.”

One hallmark of his efforts was deep involvement with the LDS teachings-based organization Evergreen International, which marked its 14th Annual Conference September 17-18. Part of a broader group of religion-based organizations that attempt to help individuals resolve conflicts over same-sex attraction (Courage for Catholics, Exodus for Protestants), Evergreen uses the teachings of the Mormon Church to guide its members away from homosexual “behavior.”

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Gorringe says the same BYU therapist who tried to get him turned onto women by introducing him to “girlie” magazines was also the first to recommend Evergreen. Even though the group has been criticized by many for trying to change gay and lesbian people, Gorringe says it gives its members more positive than some immediately think.

“In some ways it was good. It got me talking about these issues with other men where I hadn’t before. It was a bridge.”

A RESOURCE AND INFORMATION ORGANIZATION The small offices of Evergreen International on 300 South in Salt Lake City are just a few doors down from the irreverently-named bar “The Tavernacle” — named after the LDS Tabernacle on Temple Square.

The office door is not grandly marked — just a simple printed sign with the organization name typed in green letters. Along with a single receptionist, a wall of books and reference materials greet you as you enter. Some of the titles include Homosexuality and the Church of Jesus Christ and Emotional Dependency and Developing Genuine Friendships: A Guide for Women Struggling with Same-Sex Attraction.

David Pruden, Evergreen’s Executive Director, has been involved with the organization for nine years.

“Evergreen was like AA [Alcoholics Anonymous]. It started with people who got together and said, ‘We need help.’ It was them trying to live the scriptures and trying to do good.” Founded in the summer of 1989, the organization got considerable media attention with its first conferences.

The group is non-profit, and as can be seen by the contrast between Evergreen’s humble offices and the vast sky-rise office space of the LDS Church, the organization is not officially a part of that church, although it has strong ties. Pruden says Evergreen’s board of directors include church leaders, therapists and “strugglers” (the term used to describe those struggling with their sexual identity).

The organization’s purpose is to serve as a resource, he says. “Our job is to help the bishops, elders and others who are helping those who are struggling and who want to live LDS standards.”

According to the mission statement, Evergreen attests that individuals can overcome homosexuality and diminish same-sex attraction. Evergreen provides a website, an information line, books, pamphlets and an annual conference to help members achieve that goal.

What Evergreen is not, Pruden says, is a political organization with any desire to get involved in political debates. Pruden is adamant about not even commenting on timely debates like the proposed state constitutional amendment on November’s general election ballot that would ban same-sex marriage as well as legal recognition of domestic partnerships.

“Most of my people have been beat up a lot — through relationships, in their family, even by other church members. We don’t want to continue that by engaging into political, argumentative dialogue. That’s not what we’re about,” he says. “There are people who are there for a political fight. That’s why God made Gayle Ruzicka.”

Pruden says the group doesn’t work to divide lines between groups, and hopes that just as Evergreen supports those who choose to have a gay-affirming opportunity, he hopes others will support Evergreen members as they move through their process. He says the goal of Evergreen is not to evangelize their message, but to just

be there for those who seek it. “We have no interest in turning this into something hateful, we’re not looking for a fight.”

Pruden refused a request to refer members of the organization to be interviewed for this article.

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FIRST KISS Gorringe says he remembers the first time he kissed another man.

“In 25 years of marriage, my wife and I had four children but I never ‘French kissed’ her,” he says. “But when I was employed at Weber State University, I was working with this colleague, and an attraction built up between us.”

“Then one day, he kissed me. When that happened, every single cell in my body came alive! I thought ‘Oh my gosh, I get it! No wonder they write poetry about kissing!’”

That moment actually came before Gorringe got involved with Evergreen.

Now, having divorced his wife (they still remain extremely close, he says), he says he tells his story to help the next generation. He’s the subject of the documentary Marriages, Hopes, Realities and has been interviewed by the Deseret Morning News. He works heavily with the spiritual group Reconciliation, geared for those raised with LDS teachings. He says he hopes people keep God in their life when they come out.

“I love being gay. It’s brought me M great joy.” ■

SEPTEMBER 30, 2004

ONE THERAPIST’S VIEW Dr. Lee Beckstead is an openly gay practicing therapist working with individuals who are in conflict with their sexual orientation. His work has put him on the forefront of the subject, having published in the trade publication The Counseling Psychologist and in publications for the American Psychological Association. His own personal struggle with sexual orientation identity took him through Evergreen as well.

[Beckstead also contributes to Salt Lake Metro’s “Sane Advice” column.]

Beckstead categorizes two types of individuals who struggle with sexual identity: “On one side, there are those who accept their gayness. On the other, there are those who say, ‘No, gay is not for me.’”

According to Beckstead, “It’s ‘outgays’ on one side, ‘ex-gays’ on the other.” Reparative therapy, he says, is born from therapists who look to treat the people who don’t want to be gay.

“They say, ‘Here are these clients who don’t want to be gay; I can help them.’”

It’s from this idea that the religious groups like Exodus, Evergreen and others have been born, he says.

Beckstead points out that groups such as these do have their positive aspects: “These people share these thoughts, meet each other and find support, something they didn’t necessarily have before.”

The groups serve a purpose of bringing together individuals who have many times felt isolated and shamed by their feelings. In these groups, they have an opportunity to speak openly about their struggles with others that have struggled too. “When they meet the like-minded people, it helps to validate them.”

It also helps affirm their religious beliefs and family relations — things that are sometimes thrown out in gayaffirmative therapy, Beckstead says. He also notes that the behavioral strategies that often accompany reparative therapy can be desirable, helping people to stop undesirable behaviors and helping them function in the lives they want to lead.

But the crux of the matter is that therapy cannot change attraction — only limit it. “Their sexual orientation does not change, but their sexuality does,” says Beckstead.

The theory behind reparative therapy is flawed: “The idea is that we didn’t get enough love from our peers, our parents, and that we got ‘stuck’ and sexualized those needs,” says Beckstead. “You’re really a hetero with homosexual problems.

Personally, I went through this and kept thinking, ‘My father is to blame?’”

While Beckstead says the therapy can serve to heal gender inferiority, it falls

short of giving what many who pursue the therapy really want: to become straight.

Instead of taking the individual from a place where they have same-sex attraction to a place where they have opposite-sex attraction, it makes people asexual. “So in a sense, the therapy is what pedophiles do,” says Beckstead.

“It’s a managing technique instead of acting out. … It gets them only to fit into certain ethics and values.”

Beckstead points out that reparative therapy can also be harmful in many ways: “Initial hopes turn sour; the hope to become straight doesn’t happen; they internalize failure causing more depression, hatred and suicidality. In short, it’s just too simplistic.”

Beckstead says his approach to therapy with clients is to basically let the client lead the way, and to be there to affirm and give information. He says he doesn’t discourage clients from pursuing Evergreen, put helps them process the information they get from the organization.

His therapy approach of letting the client choose his or her own path reflects Beckstead’s feelings that out gay people should be more understanding of those who pursue reparative therapy.

“We have this knee-jerk reaction of invalidation, that our feelings are threatened by these people, rather than hearing their stories and accepting them.” For some people, he says, being out can bring just as many restrictive choices as reparative therapy. “We have to build connections, build bridges.

We do the same thing to bisexuals. The whole ex-gay movement is really about ‘hear me out, validate me’ which is what out gays want, too.”

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SEPTEMBER 30, 2004

AberRant You Are as Jung as You Feel

by Laurie Mecham

As a young, directionless twenty-something, I searched for clues that would lead me in creating a happy life. Now, as a middle-aged, directionless sumthin’ sumthin’, I still have pretty much the same struggle.

As I have grown older, however, I have learned that there are a number of tools, tests and oracles that can help us to find such answers. There are multiple personality tests (you know what I meant), there are online career tests, quizzes to find the ideal mate, even community ratings to help you know where to live.

I just spent a weekend with my therapist and some fellow students. As you know by now, I rely on him heavily. He tells me that this is just my transference to him. I smile wisely and say, “Yeah, whatever.”

So we spent a lot of time talking about Jung and Freud, and we did some personal assessments. We discussed Jung’s Personality types and looked at the Enneagram. We discussed symbolic oracles such as the Tarot and the I Ching. As an Extroverted Thinker, I’m kind of a getit-done girl. I like things to be concrete.

Therefore, I have gone through my extensive notes and synthesized them here as a service to Salt Lake Metro readers.

INSTRUCTIONS Using the information below, find your position, which will be one of the five points on the Mammogram. This corresponds to a color or a number on the following chart which outlines your primary strengths as well as your weaknesses.

Do not be overly concerned about small details that seem not to fit. We are all on a path to wholeness. OK, some of us are on the highway to hell, but anyway, the point is that life is a journey — a journey that begins with the first drink.

POSITIONS

WRITERS If you are one of eight children, as I am, you have the Sun waxing and a full Moon behind. Your pentacles are in the House of Ill Repute. You are unaware of your Animus, but your Anime is a Japanese cartoon character. Your health is ruled by the Jock Chakra, which gives you problems with your howard sternum. Although you dislike working with your hands, you will never make money otherwise. You would do better if you went to a technical school.

I don’t know why you never listen to your Inner Mother. You never call her, you never write. You are like that red-headed guy on CSI: you always stand sideways with one hand on your hip.

POLITICIANS Your type is known as the Supervisor. Like seasoned, stalwart umpires, Supervisors will set their jaw and make the call on anyone who steps up to bat. Just kidding! You live in a Mother Complex, yet you never use the Jacuzzi or club room. Your symbol is the Knight of Wands. This means that you are nothing more than a walking penis. You drive an SUV, yet you never leave the city. You use your county gas card to buy Diet Coke and soft pornography.

honoring the dedication of outstanding individuals, organizations and businesses who have led the fight against HIV/AIDS. Friday October 15, 2004 Sheraton Hotel 500 West Temple Salt Lake City, Utah Tickets $50 Hors ’doeuvres & Silent Auction 6:00PM Award Presentation 7:00PM Please RSVP by October 8th

The annual

L IVING WITH AIDS CONFERENCE is held in October (AIDS Awareness Month).

The Conference covers an array of subjects for a variety of persons; including providers, people living with HIV/ AIDS, friends and family members.

The topics presented include relevant concerns ranging from new medical and holistic advances in HIV/AIDS treatment to spiritual and emotional issues.

In addition to its educational role, the Conference offers a supportive and open environment in which those whose lives are affected by the disease can interact with others who are facing similar issues.

Saturday, October 16, 2004 Jubilee Center 309 E. 100 S. Salt Lake City, Utah Tickets $25 Scholarships are available.

Please RSVP by October 9th

801.484.2205

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Laurie Mecham is best represented by the following emoticons: /:-* \:-\ [:-* |;~x \*.-#

COMMUNITY AWARDS R ECEPTION

SALT LAKE METRO

The above list is not exhaustive, of course. Other types include the Forger, the Princess, the Fornicator and the Editor.

These are all rather minor types, however, and not deserving of column space.

Close your eyes and meditate on what you have learned here. Then take a blank check and write down the first three-digit number that comes to mind. Sign the bottom line only, and submit it to Laurie Mecham, c/o Salt Lake Metro. If you guessed the correct number, your audio cassette program to Inner Awareness will be speeding on its way!

Please join the People With AIDS Coalition of Utah for our Eleventh Annual

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LEFTIES You are likely to be either an ENFP, an ESPN or a MILF. People mistrust you.

However, that is because they do not hear the voices that you hear. Your ego resides in the House of the Rising Sun, but you

TOP SWITCH You reside in the House of Cups. This informs you that you need to protect that which is precious and irreplaceable — that is, the family jewels. The Keirsey Temperament Sorter does not recognize your existence. If it did, however, it would advise you to get oil changes and dental checkups more frequently than are recommended. For some reason, however, you should never return to your house to see if you left the coffee maker on. Your symbol is a red and blue-checkered handkerchief worn over the right eye socket, pirate-style. You probably own a ferret.

This prevents you from forging long-term relationships.

SEPTEMBER 30, 2004

SECOND-BORN CHILDREN This position is the Helper, also known as the Pleaser, the Shape-Shifter, or the Doormat. Your birth date falls on the cusp of Androgyna with a Descending Testicle.

You have a deep and intuitive realization that everything is indeed your fault. You would be good at potty training puppies or would make an excellent, if overbearing, waitperson. You owe me money.

must remember that this is a song that you did not write, nor can you sing it.

You are skilled at multi-tasking. Sexual partners, when you can get them, find this very pleasing. Your symbol is the Heirophant. No one knows what Heirophant means.

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Lambda hiking club is scheduled to offer an easy hike but an early departure.

TOPAZ MOUNTAIN will be host to queers with boots.

who moved to San Francisco to become the executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Many other former Utahns are among the speakers.

8am, Chevron parking lot, 201 S. 700 East.

Carpool to the trailhead, stopping in Delta for brunch.

affirmation.org

3SUNDAY Agnes of Cheesecake can put on a buffet for a queen. The Royal Court of the Golden Spike Empire and Club Try-Angles are host to Oktoberfest, an AIDS Awareness fundraiser.

THE GAY AGENDA 30THURSDAY The Salt Lake Chamber Music Society brings the award-winning BRENTANO STRING QUARTET to the University of Utah campus. The Times in London recently raved, “Such was their ferocity on Saturday night that the instruments almost burst into flames.”

7:30pm, Libby Gardner Concert Hall, 1375 E. President’s Circle, University of Utah. $15 general admission.

1FRIDAY

atre, 50 West 200 South. $17-65 at 355-ARTS or ArtTix.org

A kick-off reception to introduce you to INVENIO — UTAH GAY MEN’S HEALTH SUMMIT takes place at Panini where you can sample food provided by the restaurant, get information about the summit, see photos of previous summits and chat with people who have been. Registration forms will of course be available.

6-8pm, Club Panini, a private club for members, 299 S. Main Street.

Ojibwe environSATURDAY mental activist and Grab some wet former Ralph Nader wipes and a bib running mate Wiand come on down nona LaDuke joins to ROCK N RIBS at the INDIGO GIRLS the Gallivan Center in a night called for great music “Honor the Earth” and ribs from in support of Native many restaurants American environaround town. Q4U, Indigo Girls “Honor the Earth.” See Friday, October 1. mental, cultural Sugarhouse BBQ, and survival issues.

Firehouse BBQ, and Ruby River Steak7:30pm, Kingsbury Hall, University of Utah. house are among the participating restau$40 through ArtTix, 355-ARTS or ArtTix.org. rants. Bands include The Buckle Busters, Three Bad Jacks, Joe “King” Carrasco and MoDiggity’s is hosting an Indigo Girls After-Concert party with a raffle for those the Crowns, The Mermen, and Jesse Dayton Band. with ticket stubs.

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MoDiggity’s, a private club for members, 3424 S. State Street, 832-9000

Anaheim gets a touch of pink as the seventh UNOFFICIAL GAY DAYS AT DISNEYLAND bring many parties, scavenger hunts, lounges, movies, bear parties, dances and much more to the land of Mickey.

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gayday2.com

One of only a few American ballet companies ever invited to perform at the prestigious Edinburgh International Festival, BALLET WEST received international accolades in Scotland this summer presenting Fall Festival, an Antony Tudor triple-bill of the nostalgic The Leaves Are Fading, the beautiful Lilac Garden and Offenbach In the Underworld. The company returns home to present the dances to its Utah audience.

7:30pm Friday and Saturday, 2pm Saturday matinees through October 2, Capitol The-

Noon to 8 pm, Gallivan Center, 230 S. Main Street. $5 Adults, 12 and under free.

Weather: rain or shine. Bring appropriate attire. 801.535.6110.

Park City Performing Arts Foundation brings us AN EVENING WITH EVE ENSLER. Since her one-woman show The Vagina Monologues shot down societal notions of acceptable topics in theaters, playwright, performer, and activist Ensler has turned her unique eye on the rest of the female form in her upcoming production of The Good Body. Ensler will romp through previous material and give a sneak peak at the new production in her performance.

7:30pm, Eccles Center for the Performing Arts, 1750 Kearns Blvd., Park City. 435-6553114, www.EcclesCenter.org

4pm – Oktoberfest, 6pm – Live for Life. Club Try-Angles, a private club for members, 251 W. 900 South. 364-3203, clubtry-angles.com.

4MONDAY Salt Lake Metro and Club Panini bring you another round of SPEED DATING. Pack as many 5-minute dates into the night and mark on the form who you would like to see again for the real thing. If they chose you too, you’re on your way to the chapel.

7pm, Club Panini, a private club for members, 299 S. Main Street. Call to register at 535-4300.

7THURSDAY REPERTORY DANCE THEATRE presents Terrain. Defining our perception of place: the individual, the environment, culture, family and community. Featuring “The Initiate” by John Butler; “Solitaire” by Susan Hadley; “Trio A” by Yvonne Rainer, “Generations” by Pat Catterson and “Waves” by Kathy Posin.

8pm, through October 9, Jeanne Wagner Theatre, 138 W. Broadway. $25 at 355-ARTS or ArtTix.org

8FRIDAY On an average day gay people are estimated to add $1.4 billion dollars to the US economy. Dale Duncan and his partner, angry about President Bush’s support for the Federal Marriage Amendment, are calling on all gay and lesbian people to BOYCOTT FOR EQUALITY. Call in sick and take a day off of spending. Don’t use your cell phone, don’t go out to eat, don’t drive, etc. See the full story on page 5.

BoycottForEquality.com.

The Public Safety Liaison Committee presents DESIGNATED DIVA Show featuring performers from the Utah Cyber Sluts, Salt Lake City Kings, and RCGSE to raise funds for an interactive website for gay and lesbian people to get safety information.

9pm, The Trapp Door, a private club for members, 102 S. 600 East.

9SATURDAY The annual AFFIRMATION CONFERENCE — Affirmation as Zion: Gathering Our Family by the Bay will be held in San Francisco. Affirmation is a national group of gay Latter-Day Saints. Keynote speaker is Kate Kendall, a former Utahn

The SALT LAKE MEN’S CHOIR travels to St. George to perform Classic Pops — an evening of favorite songs over the last four decades.

7pm, Saint George Opera House, 212 N. Main Street. Tickets $5 at the door.

SaltLakeMensChoir.org.

10SUNDAY The India Cultural Committee presents:

SILAPPADHIKAARAM ... A STORY OF WOMEN OF SUBSTANCE, a historical dance drama choreographed in the classical and folk dance forms of South India. Performed by Narendra’s AVIGNA Dance Ensemble, the story of Silappadhikaaram is considered by many scholars of Indian literature and history to be the gem of the literature of the Sangam era.

6pm, Jeanne Wagner Theatre, 138 W. Broadway. Tickets $10 through 355-ARTS or arttix. org. More info at 455-6786

11MONDAY This year’s NATIONAL COMING OUT DAY takes things a step further. With queer issues being used as a political wedge, it is important that each of us involve our families and friends in our lives. Talk to them about being gay.

12TUESDAY “Short course in modern dance: in the beginning there was Martha Graham, who changed the face of an art form and discovered a new world. Then there was Merce Cunningham, who stripped away the externals and showed us the heart of movement.

And then there was Paul Taylor, who let the sun shine in,” Newsweek’s Laura Shapiro.

Celebrating their 50th anniversary this year, PAUL TAYLOR DANCE COMPANY is considered the gold standard in modern dance. Kingsbury Hall will be Utah’s sole venue for their “50 years-50 states” tour.

7:30pm, Kingsbury Hall, 1395 E. Presidents Circle, University of Utah. Tickets $25–40.00 at 581-7100.

13WEDNESDAY Babcock Theatre brings us DANCING AT LUGHNASA set against the backdrop of the Celtic festival of Lughnasa with brilliant images of African customs that Jack imposes on the misty farm, and the kites that Michael chases, wonderfully decorated by his own hand — an early artistic vision that will later allow him to so eloquently recall a family to whom fate has dealt a severe blow. They meet their fate bravely. The memories of that summer in 1936 haunt Michael into manhood.

Memories of love and loss. And of the women dancing, in a final celebration of life before it changed forever.

7:30pm through Oct. 24, Babcock Theatre, 300 S. University Ave. $12 through 355-ARTS and ArtTix.org

14THURSDAY Tooth and Nail Theatre, the fledgling Salt Lake theatre company known for its innovative and provocative interpretations of diverse works such as Sir Richard Burton’s Arabian Nights, Sarah Kane’s Crave and David Sedaris’ The Santaland Diaries opens its 2004-05 season with PAINS OF YOUTH, a riveting drama written in 1926 by Ferdinand Bruckner.

8pm Wed.–Sat., 3pm Sun., through Oct. 31. Rose Wagner Studio Theatre, 138 W. Broadway. Tickets $10–20 at 355-ARTS or ArtTix.org. Opening night patrons on October 14th are invited to a catered opening reception at The Red Door martini-lounge after the show.

UPCOMING October 15–17 INVENIO GAY MEN’S HEALTH SUMMIT, www.

UtahGayMensHealth.com October 15 2004 American Folklore Society presents WATER LARRABEE. October 16 PWACU’s 16th LIVING WITH AIDS CONFERENCE. PWACU.org.

October 24

MISS GAY ROCKY MOUNTAIN USOFA AT LARGE. www.

USofA.org

At 7:00pm a film screening: Gay Pioneers in conjunction with Utah AIDS Foundation and the Salt Lake Film Center, Salt Lake City Library Auditorium. gaypioneers.org.

PRIDE 2004 at the University of

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12 Professor Lisa Diamond will give a lecture entitled “What does acceptance really mean? Embracing the diversity of LGBT and heterosexual experiences over the lifespan” in the Women’s Resource Center Lounge, located within the University Union, at 12:00pm.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Film Festival begins with The Blessing, Saints and Sinners in conjunction with Utah AIDS Foundation and the Salt Lake Film center at the Salt Lake City Library Auditorium, 2:00pm.

SaintsAndSinners-TheMovie.com

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14 Keynote address featuring Chrissy Gephardt, Director of the Grassroots Campaign Corps for the National Stonewall Democrats at the Gould Auditorium in the Marriott Library at 12:00pm.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 11 National Coming Out Day Rally at the Union Patio at noon sponsored by the Lesbian Gay Student Union.

A gala dinner and silent auction will be held at 6:30pm at the Jewish Community Center, featuring Chrissy Gephardt. All proceeds benefit the LGBT Resource Center, $65 per person, $650 per table.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15

SALT LAKE METRO

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13 A final film screening Tying the Knot in conjunction with Utah AIDS Foundation and the Salt Lake City Film Center, University Union Theater at 7:30pm. 1049films. com.

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FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1 The week kicks off with a concert by Indigo Girls at Kingsbury Hall, 7:30pm. Tickets are available at the Kingsbury Hall Box Office, the Olpin Union Main Desk or through ArtTix at 355-ARTS or ArtTix.org.

SEPTEMBER 30, 2004

Utah

Kingsbury Hall brings us Paul Taylor Dance Company Performance, 7:00pm, tickets are available through ArtTix at 355-ARTS or ArtTix.org

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Now Playing A DIRTY SHAME A concussion unleashes the erotic fire within formerly repressed convenience store manager Sylvia Stickles (Tracey Ullman), who joins forces with sexual healer Ray-Ray (Johnny Knoxville) to push carnal boundaries. But Sylvia’s mother (Suzanne Shepherd), distressed that her Baltimore neighborhood is suddenly teeming with swingers and queers and bears — oh my! — vows to save the city from sex addiction. Director John Waters’ exuberant catalog of outre sex practices will probably land with the force of an explosion. But the one-time enfant terrible has become a dirty grandpa trying to shock with hoary jokes. The cast is fabulous, the rockabilly soundtrack adds a percussive thrill, but the bathroom humor never rises above the mildly amusing.

Grade: B- / Kinsey Scale: 5 (This comedy explores all modes of sexuality — hetero, homo, and bi are only the basic categories. Waters, of course, is one of the pioneers of queer cinema and many of his longtime collaborators — Mink Stole, Mary Vivian Pearce, Jean Hill, Patricia Hearst — appear here. Other cast

members with queer film, TV, and theater bona fides include Ullman, Jackie Hoffman, and Selma Blair.)

ANACONDAS: THE HUNT FOR THE BLOOD ORCHID Scientists embark on a journey deep into Borneo’s jungle in search of the rare blood orchid, believing the flower holds the key to a pharmaceutical fountain of youth.

But to reach the bloom, they must endure pouring rain, boating mishaps, paralyzing bug bites, cellular dead zones, and the snakes of the title. It’s mating season, so the super-sized anacondas are extremely peckish and regard the expedition as so much sushi. This lunatic horror-thriller lacks both terror and thrills, but provides unintentional laughs with its ludicrous dialogue, risible characters, and sub-B-movie plot. The acting by the mostly no-name cast is uniformly terrible, save for an adorable trained monkey who emotes far more efficiently than any of the humans. By no stretch is this a good movie, but if viewed as a live-action game to guess who gets eaten next, it mildly amuses.

Grade: C- / Kinsey Scale: 0 (There’s

no gay or lesbian content of any kind.)

directors. Damon starred in Gus Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting and as the sexually ambiguous title character in The Talented Mr. Ripley. Co-star Brian Cox played a gay pedophile in the indie film L.I.E., while costar Gabriel Mann had small roles in I Shot Andy Warhol and Stonewall.)

THE BOURNE SUPREMACY

CELLULAR

Kinsey Scale: 0 – not gay at all 6 – gay as a bunny

Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) thought he’d left his old life as a skilled assassin behind.

But then he’s found by Russian criminals, framed with a crime he didn’t commit, and forced back into action. Add to his headache a CIA chief (Joan Allen) one step behind him and nightmares of memories he can’t quite piece together from a life he no longer remembers. There’s plenty of globetrotting location scenery to enjoy and the even more enjoyable sight of a grim, anxious Damon forgetting that he’s a movie star for a moment and really investing himself in Bourne, a hunted man who becomes the hunter himself. This still-chilly bit of post-Cold War espionage is made fresh with violent, seizure-inducing camera work and a death-defying car chase that will leave audiences breathless.

It’s that rare summer thing: a sequel that matches its original, and an action-thriller that doesn’t leave viewers feeling empty.

Grade: A / Kinsey Scale: 1 (There’s no gay content, but some cast members have been in gay-themed films or films by gay

Jessica Martin (Kim Basinger) has been kidnapped, and she doesn’t know why — or where she’s being held. On a smashed-to-bits phone, she manages to wiretap her way into dialing the cellular number of impossibly handsome slacker Ryan (Chris Evans). Together they have to piece together the mystery before his phone signal dies, or else Jessica and her entire family will be killed. What follows is a breathlessly paced and brainlessly plotted thriller that involves corrupt cops, big, bruising kidnappers whom Basinger successfully fights at every turn, and some miraculous cell-phone technology that isn’t available to people who aren’t in the movies. It would all be terrifically tense if it weren’t so stupendously ridiculous. But that dumbness is part of its late-summer appeal; and though it’s as hilariously disposable as, well, a dead cell phone, it’s no less entertaining for it.

Grade: C- / Kinsey Scale: 1 (No gay content. Co-star William H. Macy — here playing a helpful cop — portrayed a gay sheriff in Happy, Texas. British actor Jason Statham was featured in the lesbian-character-filled horror film Ghosts of Mars.)

COLLATERAL Mild-mannered L.A. cab driver Max (Jamie Foxx) picks up slickly dressed, gray-haired Vincent (Tom Cruise) in his cab and winds up being kidnapped by the contract killer and forced to drive from hit to hit in this tense, elegantly directed thriller from Michael Mann (The Insider, Heat). While there’s nothing new happening here, Mann uses the catand-mouse formula well by shrinking its physical scope (imagine the cat swatting that doomed mouse inside a car for two hours) and playing his actors against type. The normally funny Foxx is deadly serious and conflicted, while the often irritatingly heroic Cruise gets to be an evil, murderous machine. The audience gets a nearly flawless, nerve-wracked bit of escapist fun.

Grade: A / Kinsey Scale: 1 (Neither Foxx nor Cruise have played gay, but supporting cast member Jada Pinkett-Smith starred in the lesbian-inclusive crime drama Set It Off; co-star Irma P. Hall appeared in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil; and co-star Javier Bardem played gay in Before Night Falls, as well as appearing in Pedro Almodovar’s Live Flesh and High Heels.)

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SEPTEMBER 30, 2004

CRIMINAL The biggest payday of his life falls into veteran grifter Richard Gaddis’ (John C. Reilly) lap when his former partner, Ochoa (Zitto Kazann), falls ill at the hotel where Gaddis’ sister (Maggie Gyllenhaal) works.

Ochoa had planned to con a wealthy currency collector (Peter Mullan) with an expert forgery, but, too sick to continue, he passes the plan along to Gaddis and young trainee Rodrigo (Diego Luna). This compact neo-noir — a close remake of the recent Argentinean import Nine Queens — takes place over 24 hours, making the most of its evocative L.A. locations in a slick game of double- and triple-cross. An excellent ensemble cast clearly revels in this convoluted suspense tale with its grace notes of family dysfunction and revenge.

Grade: B / Kinsey Scale: 1 (Reilly, Luna, and co-star Jonathan Tucker have all appeared in gay-themed films, while Gyllenhaal worked with queer director John Waters on Cecil B. Demented.)

FIRST DAUGHTER All that college freshman Samantha (Katie Holmes) wants is a normal life of classes and keggers. But as the daughter of the U.S. president (Michael Keaton), she endures a fishbowl existence of omnipresent security and prying reporters, which grows worse when she finds love with dorm resident advisor James (Marc Blucas). The president and first lady

(Margaret Colin) are creepy enough that a better movie would have used the story as a springboard to expose the hollowness of politicians; but about the best that can be said for this anemic teen romance is that Holmes is effortlessly charming, and she and Blucas make a pretty pair. The actors’ appeal is wasted as the movie sinks into a morass of ridiculous situations, risible dialogue, and anorexic characterizations.

Grade: D / Kinsey Scale: 1 (Blucas appeared in the lesbian drama Prey for Rock & Roll, Holmes was a regular on the queer-friendly series Dawson’s Creek, and director Forest Whitaker co-starred in The Crying Game.)

THE FORGOTTEN Grieving mother Telly Peretta (Julianne Moore) can’t let go of the memory of her dead son, an 8-year-old boy who may or may not have ever really existed. It seems that she’s the only person in her circle of friends and family who remembers the child. Just as she meets a neighbor (Dominic West) who also lost a daughter and his own memory of her, the Feds step in to run interference while Telly begins a desperate search to uncover the truth. “Desperate” also describes the script, which takes a compelling idea — governmental conspiracy and mindcontrol — and negates it with third-act cheesiness and silly sci-fi impossibilities.

This paranoid thriller starts out riddled with tension and loses its way completely, insuring that it — like other botched suspense films — will wind up forgotten.

Grade: C- / Kinsey Scale: 1 (Moore has appeared in two films by gay director Todd Haynes, _Safe_ and _Far from Heaven_; played a nominally lesbian character in Gus Van Sant’s _Psycho_; and starred in the lesbian-themed _The Hours_. West had a role in _Chicago_, while Alfre Woodard appeared in the gay-themed Christmas TV movie _Holiday Heart_, and Linus Roache played a gay priest in _Priest_.)

THE PRINCESS DIARIES 2 The sequel to the popular 2001 family comedy begins with the elevation of Princess Mia (Anne Hathaway) to Genovia’s queen being thwarted by an obscure law that decrees only a married woman can rule. Given 30 days to find a husband, Mia settles for an arranged marriage with Andrew (Callum Blue), only to realize that she’s falling in love with dishy Sir Nicholas (Chris Pine) — the man who would usurp her throne. This empty-headed, predictable romantic comedy is plumped like a sausage with pointless filler — an all-princess slumber party, for example — in director Garry Marshall’s desperate attempt to bolster a wafer-thin story. The production is handsome and so is the bland, personality-free cast, but pretty pictures and people do little to alleviate the tedium of this royal bore.

Grade: D / Kinsey Scale: 1 (One of Mia’s rejected suitors is gay, as is her hairdresser, played in stereotypically flaming fashion by Larry Miller. Co-stars Julie Andrews, Heather Matarazzo, and Kathleen Marshall have all appeared in queer-themed projects.)

SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW An evil scientist (the late, digitized Laurence Olivier) wants to destroy the world, so it’s Joe “Sky Captain” Sullivan (Jude Law) to the rescue. Together with reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Captain Franky Cook (Angelina Jolie), he battles multiple armies of robots in the search for the man who wants to control the fate of the planet. This is grand-scale silliness, lacking the galloping momentum and excitement of modern retro-classics like Raiders of the Lost Ark, but Sky Captain still has plenty to recommend it.

The old-fashioned, color-tinted, black-andwhite look created by using blue-screens and complicated computer tricks makes for a gorgeous eye-candy experience. So does the all-too-brief presence of Jolie as a saucy, in-command military leader whose winking performance is enhanced, not obscured, by a very sexy eye patch.

Grade: B- / Kinsey Scale: 2 (Although there’s no queer content, the cast includes

the bisexual Jolie — who played gay in Gia — and the CGI ghost of the bisexual Olivier. In addition, Law played gay in both Wilde and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and was the object of Matt Damon’s affection in The Talented Mr. Ripley. Paltrow played bisexual in The Royal Tenenbaums and cross-dressed in Shakespeare in Love.)

VANITY FAIR Plucky governess Becky Sharp (Reese Witherspoon) aims to rise above her station in 19th-century England. A marriage to gentleman soldier Rawdon Crawley (James Purefoy) looks profitable, until he’s disinherited for wedding outside his class. The couple’s wealthy neighbor, the Marquess of Steyne (Gabriel Byrne) befriends the young bride, assuring her a place at the pinnacle of society. But the price he demands for his services is more than Becky can pay. Director Mira Nair brings William Makepeace Thackeray’s classic novel to vivid life with a handsome production that casts a keen eye on Becky and her peers’ social shenanigans. The too-modern Witherspoon is miscast, but the rest of the actors are excellent in this epic comedy-drama that scores with witty dialogue and strong, memorable characters.

Grade: B / Kinsey Scale: 1 (Co-star Jonathan Rhys-Meyers played bisexual characters in Velvet Goldmine and Titus, while Jim Broadbent appeared in The Crying Game and Eileen Atkins was in The Hours and The Lost Language of Cranes. )

WIMBLEDON Peter Colt (Paul Bettany) is a former tennis champ from England, now fallen in rank and on the verge of retirement. Enter Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst), a young American tennis upstart. Their blooming courtside romance reinvigorates Colt’s life and game as he enters what is to be his final shot at the Wimbledon tournament. Naturally, conflicts arise that could jeopardize their love and their careers, but the lack of real suspense ensures that audiences aren’t on the edge of their seats about the outcome of either. Meanwhile underdeveloped secondary plotlines fill up the empty spaces, and too many supporting characters dilute the punch of what could have been a more focused movie.

But in the end, dry British banter and a charming performance from Bettany lifts this love match from mediocrity.

Grade: B- / Kinsey Scale: 1 (There are no fictional Billie Jeans, Martinas, or Amelies in sight. Bettany co-starred in 1997’s film adaptation of _Bent_.)

WITHOUT A PADDLE Tom (Dax Shepard), Jerry (Matthew Lillard), and Dan (Seth Green) are three 20-something buddies who decide to go off on a treasure-hunting river expedition to honor the memory of a recently deceased friend. The movie then attempts to be “meaningful,” with the trio having to learn life lessons to create “closure” instead of participating in tasteless, raunchy, testosterone-addled humor or moments of PG-13 horniness with busty, tree-hugging, wood nymphs.

Too bad, because this pale imitation of Up the Creek could have been funny. Instead, the whole film seems to be afraid of its own potential for masculine obnoxiousness. It even misuses the stunt-casting of Deliverance icon Burt Reynolds, begging the question of how much failure filmmakers can pack into one bad comedy.

The answer: a lot.

Grade: D / Kinsey Scale: 2 (Homosexual panic is always fun to watch, especially when the panic-stricken straight men are huddling together for warmth while wearing nothing but their underwear. Jerry even says he’d rather die than do such a thing — but eventually he does, and becomes the one that creates a moment of sexual arousal among the guys. There’s also the requisite suggestion of girl-on-girl action.

Green played James St. James in Party Monster, and Lillard co-starred in John Waters’ Serial Mom.)

Angels in America

5 / 5 stars — DVD

AIDS, the rise of Reaganism, the disastrous results of the Red Scare, the ideologies of Mormonism and the lives of gays in 1980s America seem on the surface to be topics too disparate for one film to handle. Tony Kushner’s “gay fantasia on national themes” not only does so, but does it so well that it could be described as an almost perfect film.

Angels features an unprecedented array of talent for a made-for-television picture. First aired Dec. 2003 on HBO, it was a once-in-a-lifetime event: the best actors of our time working under the direction of one our most celebrated filmmakers playing a script from a writer of true vision; it was released on DVD Sept 15.

Meryl Streep’s outstanding contribution alone turns the six-hour epic from an adaptation of a celebrated stage play into a first-class film.

Streep’s work has been of astounding inventiveness for almost thirty years, but she is at the height of her powers in Angels. Her work is that of a true virtuoso: She appears as an old Jewish rabbi, as the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg, as the quintessential Mormon mother, and as an angel — each role utterly distinct, considered, and rich.

Al Pacino, as conservative bigot Roy Cohen, has simply never been better. The subtlety and humanity he brings to such a hateful role is something that only a truly great actor could accomplish.

The entire cast is superlative: Jeffrey Wright reprises the role he played onstage with masterly precision, Patrick Wilson, Justin Kirk and Ben Shenkman represent a level of artistry that bodes well for the promise of a new generation of important actors. And Mary-Louise Parker, a performer of immense talent who has never truly gotten her due, is radiant as the prescription-drug addled wife of a Mormon man dealing with his emergent homosexuality.

Mike Nichols — at the apex of a career that gave the world Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and The Graduate — interprets the sprawling script’s tangle of ideas, emotions and storytelling techniques with a cogent, unified vision. The story and characters are never sacrificed to the film’s fantastically stylized form, yet the look of the film is dazzling.

Tony Kushner’s writing for the theatre is arguably the most important of the last fifty years. His genius translates to screenwriting — his adaptation is a rare example of a screenplay retains the voice and intention of the original work. The ideas at work in the film are immense, but are adeptly expressed through both fantastic fantasy sequences and extraordinary naturalistic scenes.

The only disappointment of the DVD is the complete lack of special features. A commentary track by the key players and creative team would likely have made the experience of the film more enriching. But the film is so superlative on every level that the lack of extras is an afterthought.

Angels in America is an artistic work of singular importance and artistic vision. It demonstrates in no uncertain terms the power of film to capture big ideas in human terms and to simultaneously educate and entertain. As a gay film, as a political film, as a domestic drama, as a character drama, and as satire, it is unparalleled in the history of television filmmaking, and holds its own as a quality piece of artistry of any variety. — Eric Tierney

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

3 / 5 stars

I am seldom enthusiastic about films where form takes precedence over content, but I’m making a well-earned exception for Sky Captain. There are a lot of big names on the screen, but the stars are most definitely the cinematography and direction.

Director Kerry Conran has made a film that exists in an entire, selfcontained universe. His vision combines the bravura of Baz Lurhman’s Moulin Rouge with the aesthetic beauty of The Saddest Music in the World, resulting in the look of an Edward Hopper painting come to life and shot in high contrast and soft-focus, which makes for a breathtaking image.

Such painstaking emphasis on the look of the film means that Conran neglected his script somewhat. The story is serviceable, but uninspired: Sky Captain — otherwise known as Joe Sullivan (Jude Law) — heads an ersatz “army for hire” which is sometimes called upon to save the world. Joining him this time around is perky, plucky Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow), a reporter for the fictional New York Chronicle.

The two must save the Earth from certain destruction at the hands of evil Dr. Totenkopf (German for “skull” — this guy is evil, got it?).

The role is perfect for Jude Law — he somehow manages to be both rugged and refined, both sexy and brotherly. On top of his compelling presence and devastating looks, the boy is a credible actor. I was also pleased with Paltrow’s work, which features a self-possession and poise that is most welcome after the maudlin hysterics of Sylvia and the flatout awfulness of View From the Top. But they are not truly used to their fullest potential, as the plot is largely a series of life-threatening situations through which they amiably spar and match wits, and which they seem to survive at no great personal cost. There are not many lessons being learned here.

Angelina Jolie is also along for the ride: She seems to be having fun, and speaks with a passable British accent, but her purpose seems mostly to lure box office, which is an astonishingly misguided notion to anyone who’s seen her last five or six films.

Rounding out the cast is Giovanni Ribisi, whose chief contribution is that for once he’s playing a person, and not flailing about as if in an apoplectic fit, all ticks and mannerisms, as is his custom.

There are too many films about which this is said nowadays, but the look of the piece is worth the price of admission, and the snappy dialogue and competent performances only enhance the experience.

I have a feeling that Sky Captain will return to us one fine day. Perhaps when he does, he’ll bring with him not only world peace and a huge heaping of movie glitz, but also some structure and decent storytelling.

— Eric Tierney SEPTEMBER 30, 2004 ■

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Queeriscaping Lawn-sagne Anyone?

by Brandie Balken

“Grass is the cheapest plant to install, and also the most expensive to maintain.”

— Pat Howell This article could also be titled “How to get rid of that water-sucking patch of weedy lawn and replace it with a beautiful xeriscaped bed.” I hope you’re not disappointed to realize that I’m not turning this into a cooking column — I can only be the goddess of one domestic task at a time.

Currently, I have taken it on as my personal charge to convince as many people as possible to Vote No on Amendment 3, to Lick Bush and Beat Dick and to Slow the Flow — but not necessarily in that order.

Yes, yes: I also realize that I am not writing political commentary either, but I just like to make my views known every now and again just in case some of you think I’m another apolitical Utahn.

So, on to the lawn-sagne!

There are three basic ways to get rid of a patch of vegetation, be it lawn or other.

The first is chemical: by the use of an herbicide. The second is physical: by using a shovel or sod-cutter to “skin” the area.

The third is what I would consider biological: by using a simple layering process to

kill the vegetation over a period of time.

The chemical method is fairly straightforward — you buy an herbicide and spray it on the area to be killed. Although it seems like an easy way to prepare a space for future use, I would strongly recommend that you do not utilize this method.

Why? Well, for one thing it’s toxic — toxic to you and your pets, kids and neighbors.

Herbicides can also have long-term effects on the health of the soil. You have to be pretty well informed to make sure you don’t use something that’s going to prevent anything from growing for the next six months to 3 years.

For another, it’s relatively easy to have “drift” in whatever you use — this is basically where the spray not only kills what you intended it to kill, but also drifts over to your neighbor’s blue-ribbon roses — not good.

The physical method does not have any of the negative side effects of the chemical method. However, it’s labor intensive and kind of messy.

If you have a small area, it’s relatively easy and quite satisfying to dig out the

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SALT LAKE METRO ■

clippings, manure, or even high nitrogen fertilizer. If you’re using something organic, spread it one to three inches deep; if you’re going for the chemical fertilizer, double or triple the recommended application.

Then you apply the “barrier.” This can be made with seven or eight layers of newspaper, or one layer of cardboard. Make sure that there are no gaps in this layer, as it effectively prevents any grass or weeds from surviving.

The third layer consists of more organic material — it can be pretty much anything weed-free: leaves, sawdust, manure or compost. This should be spread one to three inches thick.

Now you’re ready for your topcoat. This is basically to hold it all in place. I recommend mulch, wood chips, or even more compost.

Then, all you have to do is wait. Wait until spring, then till or shovel, turn it all together, and plant your wonderful new bed with delightful xeric plants that will surprise and enchant you with their heartiness and beauty.

Brandie Balken is a horticulturist in Salt Lake City and can be seen at Cactus & Tropicals, 2735 S. 2000 East, Salt Lake City. www.cactusandtropicals.com

Sane Advice Grieving Lost Relationship Takes Time

by LaDonna Moore Dear Sane Advice, My partner of eleven years left me. It was completely unexpected. I know I have to grieve, but I feel like I’m losing control, like I’m crazy. Is this normal? When can I expect to feel better?

Bereft

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grass with a shovel and expose the beautiful soil underneath. If you have a larger area you can rent a sod-cutter and just skim the top layer of vegetation right off.

But then you have this pile of plant leftovers to dispose of. These can be recycled in a compost pile, or formed into a berm (as long as there aren’t any really aggressive weeds in there), but generally you just have to arrange to have them hauled off, or try to send them off bit by bit in your trashcan.

As hinted at by my title, the method I would most strongly recommend is the biological, or “Lawn Lasagna” method.

This is basically a four-layer lasagna that requires little or no preparation, with the exception of getting the ingredients.

Here’s how you do it: Pick the area to be prepared. Although it’s not necessary I think it’s best to dig a trench around the area — not a huge one, just two to three inches deep and wide. Throw the removed dirt and roots in the middle of the area.

I also recommend (although it’s not absolutely necessary) just poking your shovel down into the area every two to three feet and lifting the dirt/grass/roots up. This makes it easier for the bio-degradation to occur.

Now you want to lay down the first layer.

This can be anything high in nitrogen: grass

Dear Bereft, First, let me say I am so sorry for your loss.

Grief is one of the most out of the ordinary, tumultuous processes we experience.

Stages of grief are often referenced, but early on the process is much more like a roller coaster. When we first sustain a loss there is some disbelief, shock, numbness and a feeling that the world has become surreal.

The mind is trying to process what the loss means and the shock mercifully helps the reality come in slowly. We can expect to feel very disoriented to space and time; all of this can make us feel “crazy.”

As the disbelief and disorientation continues, there is often a feeling of how unfair the loss is. We can experience anger, weep or just sit in a stupor. We often ponder why us?

Then we return to disbelief, “It can’t be, it just cannot be!” For all the tumult of feelings the core of grief is pain and sorrow, so often people say they wish they could get beyond the pain so that they could heal, but the pain is the healing.

I often use the analogy of how the body heals — the processes are very similar. We sustain a terrible wound. We wonder if we’re ever going to be the same.

The heart is no less miraculous than the body. We are born with an innate ability to heal emotionally just as we are physically.

This knowledge is critical so that we feel less crazy, but even so we are rarely prepared for the experience of raw or acute pain. This is the pain that can drive us to our knees.

Fortunately, we don’t actually stay in acute pain very long. We move to ache, but the ache can last quite a while and internal and external catalysts will make us very vulnerable. Internal processes that “poke” at the injury are memories and all the places the mind goes that can temporarily increase the pain.

Externally, there are also many things that poke the injury: seeing shared friends, times of day or season, songs, smells, photographs. When we get poked, we are set back temporarily and often believe that we are not really healing.

As time passes, and if we don’t abort the healing process, we will re-stabilize. Overall the wound will have ache less, but it is still tender. Then comes the day when we can have the memories without the pain.

The healing is a natural process, but we must facilitate the process, the way we would take care of a physical injury. I don’t believe that time in and of itself will heal; what we do in the time will make all the difference.

Facilitation has to be intuitive. Some days we need a lot of support and must gather friends or family around us for consolation. Other times we need solitude.

Some days we have to compartmentalize our grief and do things that give us respite and distraction. Other days we may write in a journal and face the essence of the loss head on (which takes a lot of courage).

We need to acknowledge that we are not going to have the same interests, energy level or priorities when we are grieving.

Don’t try to force yourself into situations you just don’t have the energy for. Honoring what you need and creating it, is how we facilitate the process.

The loss of a relationship is very complex.

It is like a kaleidoscope: Each piece, large and small, makes up the whole pattern of the relationship. It is these pieces that we

grieve — a crooked smile, an inside joke, a shared dream, the comfort of familiarity.

As we try to go on, we will naturally be confronted with these pieces of the loss.

If you can, try to give the sorrow a voice or a framework. For example, if you feel the pain start to rise while you’re cooking dinner you might say, “I know what I’m grieving. I miss her company while I cook.

I miss the light chatter and catching up the days events.”

Acknowledge that this is going to be very difficult for a while and maybe change your routine till you’re feeling better. This will help you not to feel so “crazy”. You’ll know what you are grieving and why a certain situation has stirred so much pain.

The most important thing is to honor the process and realize it’s going to take a while — you’re going to move in and out of a myriad of emotions. Have the courage to stay with emotions. Don’t expect to be the same person while you are grieving or when you emerge.

We are always changed by our losses.

Shutting down or trying to build a bridge over the pain will hamper the healing process. Honor what you need on any given day. Be extremely compassionate with yourself and seek support when you need it. Stay out of the future! The only thing you have power to do is tend to the emotional wound today. Believe in the miraculous ability of your heart to heal.

Give Sorrow Words; the grief that does not speak / Whispers to the over fraught heart, and bids it break.

LaDonna Moore, LCSW is a private-practice therapist in Salt Lake City.

The therapists who write “Sane Advice” would like to hear from you. If you have a question about relationships, emotional well-being or practically anything else, send it to saneadvice@slmetro.com.

Red,White & Bubbly Dear Little Vodka

by Beau Jarvis

Beau Jarvis is a sommelier and wine educator. He operates basicjuice.com, an independent wine review and information website. He also manages a weblog of entertainment and culture at basicjuice.blogs.com.

ADAM AND ANDY by James Asal

SEPTEMBER 30, 2004

U.S. consumers spent $9.5 billion on vodka in 2003. $950 million of this was spent on ultra-premium vodkas such as Grey Goose, Ciroc and Ketel One. This begs the question: What’s the big friggin’ deal with vodka?

Vodka originated in either Russia or Poland, depending on whom you ask — a Pole or a Russian. Vodka is the diminutive form of the word voda, which means water. So vodka can be roughly translated as, “dear little water.”

Dear little water indeed. Vodka, by definition, is a neutral distilled spirit. It’s basically colorless, odorless and tasteless. Of course ‘tasteless’ doesn’t refer to the pickling effect that vodka’s 40- or 50-percent alcohol content has on your tongue.

Contrary to what many of us have heard, vodka isn’t distilled from potatoes. Most vodka is distilled from grain, including wheat, rye, barley and corn.

How does this relatively humble, yet powerful liquid generate $9.5 billion in sales? My best guess: marketing.

The next time you leaf through a magazine, notice how many vodka advertisements there are. Most vodka ads convey sophistication, sexiness, and style. Stroll through the liquor store and take a look at the premium vodkas.

Some look as though they have been bottled in priceless crystal decanters. Others look as though a Swedish minimalist designed ultrachic aluminum bottles to hold the stuff.

With vodka, it’s all about appearance.

To prove (or disprove) my point, I purchased five different brands of vodka: two luxury vodkas, two mid-range vodkas and one bottle of “rotgut” vodka. My intent was to compare all of them in a blind tasting — a sort of “Pepsi Challenge” with vodka.

The luxury vodka lineup consisted of Ciroc and Absolut. Ciroc is in a beautiful bottle with purple glass at the bottom and a purple bauble embedded near the bottle’s neck. I know, I know — I’m a sucker for purple. This is French vodka whose claim to fame is that it is made from French grapes and distilled a whopping five times — although how multiple distillations of a neutral liquid do any good is beyond me. Ciroc rings in at a cool 30 bucks for a 750ml bottle.

Absolut is the well-known premium vodka from Sweden. On the bottle’s front, elegant text touts its “superb” origins from the “rich fields” of southern Sweden. Absolut will set you back $21.

The mid-range vodkas were the old Russian standby Smirnoff and Canada’s Polar Ice (not to be confused with the chewing gum of the same name). Smirnoff boasts 50 percent alcohol — or 100 proof — which makes it the most

potent vodka in the lineup. Smirnoff is bottled simply with the label “III/X” to draw attention to its triple distillation and ten-time filtration.

All this purity for only $15.

Polar Ice vodka pulled out all the marketing stops on its bottle. The label includes the following blurb: “Made of the finest grains; quadruple distilled in a state-of-the-art pressurized extractive distillation process to impart an exceptionally unique and smooth finish.” Sheeesh. Of course, this makes it seem like a steal for only $16.

Finally, the, ahem, value-priced vodka was Barton: “charcoal-filtered 100 percent neutral spirits distilled from grain.” Barton is made right here in the U.S. of A. and retails for about $6. It comes in a humble plastic bottle.

In front of me, I placed five identical glasses, side by side. I then closed my eyes (no peeking, honest) and my lovely assistant poured a shot of each of the vodkas into a glass.

Now, before someone decides to plan an intervention for me, let me just say that I did not drink all five shots of vodka. I utilized the same method of tasting that I employ for wine.

APPEARANCE: All five vodkas are clear. I suppose I could have skipped this step.

SCENT: The vodka vapors literally curled my nose hair as I sniffed each glass. With the exception of two, I couldn’t detect any differences. One glass of vodka didn’t seem quite as pungent as the others. (Read: My nose hair only received a body wave instead of a permanent.) This turned out to be Absolut. Another glass had a slightly sweet scent. Interestingly enough, this one turned out to be Ciroc; the vodka made from grapes.

TASTE: In all honesty, I had planned on sipping, swishing, swirling and spitting out each vodka sample. Easier said than done — the sensation of swishing around vodka inside one’s mouth is not especially pleasant.

I resorted to Plan B: I took a tiny sip of each one. Each sample tasted like, well, vodka.

Actually, there wasn’t a taste per se — it was more a strong burning feeling in my mouth.

I couldn’t detect the stronger vodka (the 100proof Smirnoff). The six-dollar vodka felt just like the thirty-dollar vodka.

I conclude that while luxury vodkas look neat in their snazzy bottles, they don’t represent any concrete step-up in texture, flavor or finish. I’m sure there are vodka connoisseurs out there who swear by their favorite brand.

To all of them I say this: Line up three or four glasses of different vodkas and see if you can pick out your vodka.

As for me, I plan on doing two things. First, I will stick to sipping wine rather than vodka.

Second, I’ll keep the nifty bottle of Ciroc and when it runs dry, I’ll refill it from my humble plastic bottle of six-dollar vodka. No one will ever know the difference.

Na zdorovia!

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Sports

Doug Fadel (right), founder and president of QUAC and Acting President of International Gay and Lesbian Aquatics with other members of QUAC at the Utah Pride parade.

Gone QUACkers event’s highest marks.

Swimmers and their coaches of QUAC When the 14th International Gay and plan to attend the championships. QUAC Lesbian Aquatics Championships get swimmers took top rankings in the underway on Oct. 6 through 11 in Fort Laucompetition’s 1999 Medium Team Division. derdale, Florida, at least 48 Utah swimmers Other events include swimming, diving, plan to lead one division in which they water polo, synchronized swimming and a won in previous meets. one-mile Atlantic Ocean open-water swim.

“We’re very excited,” said Doug Fadel, QUAC swimmers plan to compete in swimco-president of the Queer Utah Aquatics ming, water polo and the open-water swim.

Club. “We’re either the fifth- or sixth-largest Swimming events include various inditeam going. To have a team from Utah that vidual and relay men’s, women’s and mixed is so large is very impressive.” backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, freestyle The swim meet is a new experience for and medley in 1,500-meter, 800-meter, about half the 48 participating swimmers, 400-meter, 200-meter, 100-meter, 50-mesays Fadel. “We have a lot of beginners ter, 4x200-meter, 4x100-me— they’re excited, ter, 4x50-meter lengths. and it should be fun.”

QUAC swimmers include Having fun seems Martin Anderson, Mike to be what it’s all Anderson, Chris Barnes, about for this team: Alan Barton, Jeffrey Breglio, Although QUAC David Daniels, Christophe takes a competitive Diezma, Doug Fadel, Richapproach to swim ard Goers, Sean Hammon, meets, says Fadel, Dyal-Thomas Hennacy, “Our focus is on Marielle Hovsepian-Kelly, having fun and on Brandon Hutchinson, One of the reasons people attend swim meets. having everybody Priscilla Kawakami, Karen participate. If we can Nelsen, Raul Peragallo, Mark Pfitzner, score points too, that’s great.”

Kyle Treadway, Nicci Van Dyke, Jim Viney, In this vein, 14 QUAC members plan Jim(bo) Wadley, Scott Weaver, Patrick Wenon participating in a campy event called tworth, Kenshi Westover and Mario, and Pink Flamingo. A five minute routine on coaches Chris Barnes, Doug Fadel, Priscilla deck and in the water, in the past it was Kawakami, Tommy Thorum, Kyle Treadway approached as a sort of lip-sync drag act, and Betsy Watkins. where the performers eventually fall into The IGLA mission is to promote particithe water. pation in aquatic sports among lesbians However, says Fadel, it has since evolved and gay men and friends of our commuinto a “comedic sync-swim,” with this nity, and to ensure maintenance of the year’s QUAC participants sporting high highest standards for aquatic competitions heels, men’s Speedos and retro flower caps. and international standards for all Gay This is one event in which QUAC is Games and IGLA Championships. definitely competitive. According to Fadel, Brandon Burt contributed to this article.

“Last year we won Best New Entry” in Pink Flamingo, and in 1997, QUAC won the

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SEPTEMBER 30, 2004

by David Nelson

Lambda Legal Protests Foot Locker

by David Nelson

new york — Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc. leaders protested against Foot Locker Inc. at a Sept. 16 Women’s National Basketball Association game at Radio City Music Hall because they claim that Foot Locker discriminated against a gay employee. The company is strengthening its ties with the women’s basketball league.

Lambda Legal, joined by other GLBT New Yorkers, distributed fliers about the discrimination and talked to passers-by and people attending the game.

Lambda Legal and other protesters talked about the discrimination to passers-by and people attending the game, and distributed fliers and postcards for people to send to Foot Locker CEO, Mathew Serra, urging the company to treat all of its employees equally. Similar protests were also planned for Houston, Los Angeles and Seattle on the heels of the announcement of a multi-year partnership between Foot Locker and the WNBA. Foot Locker protests are part of “Blow

the Whistle on Workplace Discrimination,” a broad nationwide campaign against anti-gay discrimination (including at Foot Locker) that Lambda Legal leaders launched when it recently filed a lawsuit against the company in South Carolina for firing gay employee Kevin Dunbar.

Dunbar, 26, suffered antigay harassment and discrimination at the hands of his coworkers, supervisors and a customer. Foot Locker promises a harassment-free workplace and includes sexual orientation in its policies on discrimination and harassment, but when he formally complained, the discrimination grew worse. Dunbar was transferred from one store location to another and eventually fired.

“This week, we’re ‘Blowing the Whistle’ on Foot Locker outside WNBA games to make it absolutely clear that anti-gay discrimination won’t be tolerated,” Lambda Legal’s Director of Education and Public Affairs Michael Adams said. “We’re holding Foot Locker accountable for its deplorable actions. Bigotry isn’t just wrong. It’s also bad business.”

PlanetOut Signs $1M Gay Games Sponsorship chicago — In a sponsorship agreement valued at just over $1 million, online global media company PlanetOut Inc. leaders announced Sept. 20 that it has become a premium sponsor of Gay Games VII Sports and Cultural Festival, scheduled for 2006.

The sponsorship is the largest corporate sponsorship ever for an international GLBT sporting event and doubles the size of their 2002 commitment to Gay Games VI in Sydney, Australia.

The sponsorship provides Gay Games VII organizers access to PlanetOut’s 3.3 million active members residing in more than 100 countries throughout the world, including sites specifically serving the GLBT communities of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, the United States (English and Spanish) and the United Kingdom. Founded in 1995,

PlanetOut leaders consider that its flagship web sites, Gay.com and PlanetOut.com, constitute the most extensive network of GLBT people in the world.

“The Gay Games is a much-beloved worldwide event with a 20-plus year legacy,” PlanetOut President Mark Elderkin said. “Our support for the Gay Games is inspired by how we’ve personally seen the Gay Games combat bigotry and challenge negative stereotypes. Our decision to double our support for this event is based upon several months of research that lead us to have confidence in the organizers in Chicago and their plan for Gay Games VII. We view the 2006 Gay Games in Chicago as a key opportunity for the movement to be strengthened by partnerships between athletes, artists and fans of the Gay Games and companies like PlanetOut.”

HELP WANTED WOMYN 4 WOMEN would love to have a part time saleswoman to sell display advertising. Experience preferred. Reasonable commission and rewards.

Call Janice 801.268.6487 or womyn4women@networld.com.

ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT. Aware Media Management is seeking a full time administrative assistant.

Must have basic computer experience, strong organization and communication skills.

Basic bookkeeping skills helpful. Must have own vehicle and be available to work full time. Call or email Steven for details at (801) 323-0727 or stevenp@lavenderbook.com.

THE UTAH SYMPHONY and Opera are looking for the best and the brightest callers for our sales team.

Need artistic creative and savy individuals to promote our 2004-2005 season. Start immediatly. Work part-time.

Go to shows. Great money.

Great atmosphere. Great opportunity. Call Orlando Andrews at 869-9095.

LEGAL ASSISTANT Looking for part-time legal assistant.

Must have good computer and communication skills.

Must provide references.

Salary based on employment history. REPLY WITH RESUME TO BOX 101 CLASSIFIEDS@SLMETRO.COM

CLASSIFIED/SUBSCRIPTION SALES. Salt Lake Metro is seeking a full time classified ad and subscription salesperson. Previous telephone sales helpful but not required. Must be available to work full time.

Steven (801)323-9500 or steven@slmetro.com

REAL ESTATE GRAYSTONE MANOR Condo. 4 Floors, 6,700 sq. ft. Hollywood era eloquence.

3 Bdrm, 2 1/2 Bth. 540K Richard (801) 485-8700 NEW LISTING 11696 Oak Manor Dr. on the 16th hole of the Hidden Valley Golf Course.

Very open 3,304 sq. ft. with 4 bed and 3 bath. 3 car garage on a wooded .26 of an acre.

Priced to sell @ $280.000.

Dawn Colbert, Signature Group RE, 979-3558.

SANDY 877 E 7865 S. over 2,000 sq. ft. 4 bd, 2 bath, private backyard. Arbor over deck. 100% finished rambler. Seller relocating. $175,000.00 1 oversized car garage. Dawn Colbert, Signature Group RE, 979-3558.

FABULOUS 3500 SqFt 4BD 3BA Revival Period end unit townhouse condo on 3 levels of historic Graystone Mansion. Karen 518-7155.

Century 21 Elite. More info www.karenandcecil4RE.com

2 BD CONDOS in Holladay area. Several floor plans from $84,500 to $110,000.

Beautiful grounds & pool.

Model open Sats 1-4. Karen 518-7155 Century 21 Elite. www.karenandcecil4RE.com DOWNTOWN TWIN HOME Model unit $138,650. 3BR/ 2BA, only one left. 586 N. 800W. See tour at urbanutah. com. Babs De Lay, Broker, cell: 201-UTAH PERFECT 2 BED, 1 bath starter. Stream runs behind.

Walkout patio w/park-like backyard. Quiet location, mature trees surrounding make it an ideal place for someone who has a night job. Great daytime sleeping. $86,900 Dawn Colbert, Signature Group RE, 801-979-3558 AVENUES INVESTMENT— Hardwood flrs, fplc, 3 bed, 2 bath, 1 car gar w/wkshp.

Walk-out, stainless steel appliances. One yr. lease in place. $209,900. Dawn Colbert, Signature Group RE, 801-979-3558

COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE NEW OFFICE CONDO’S, Redwood Rd. exposure in S. Jordan. Starting at $125,000. 980–5,733 sf available. Cambridge office complex. Dawn Colbert, Signature Group RE, 801979-3558

FOR RENT CUTE 2 BEDROOM, 1 bath, older home. Close to town.

Washer & Dryer to use, swamp cooler and fenced yard. $700 per month. $400 security deposit. Call 3632812 ro 265-0307

ROOMMATES GAY MALE seeking third roommate in renovated craftsman house. $100/wk includes all utilities, phone, cable, cable internet, hot tub. Downtown in the West Capitol Hill area. Smokers ok outside. No pets. Home nudist. 856-5655.

QUIET GAY MALE, nonsmoker seeking roommate to share 2 bdrm condo in Taylorsville area. $350 a month includes utilities.

Pool, hot tub, weight room.

Call Larry at 913-7004.

SHARE A CUTE house downtown with 2 gay men.

Cozy attic room in dormer, small. Rent includes all utilities except phone. Rent $250/month 641-3362.

FOR SALE JEEP GRAND WAGONEER 1985, SUV, 4WD, 6-cyl 4.2 liter engine, 4 door, power everything, CD, Allow Wheels, Rook Rack Silver & Gray. New tires, Showing its age but no major repairs needed. $1,700 OBO. Call Steven at (801) 323-0727.

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SEPTEMBER 30, 2004

PERSONALS MISSED CONNECTIONS

TRY-ANGLES Saw you at the urinal. Nice. You laughed at where my eyes were.

CLUB PANINI You were at speed dating but didn’t participate. Going October 4?

Hope so.

REPLY TO BOX 94, PERSONALS@SLMETRO.COM

REPLY TO BOX 89, PERSONALS@SLMETRO.COM

LAGOON You: burgundy shirt, khaki shorts. Me: red tank. We were banging each other at the bumper cars.

Hope to bang some more.

DEER VALLEY Amphitheater during the Aug. 14 performance of H.M.S. Pinafore.

We smiled at each other in the refreshment line during intermission. Can I call you my Little Buttercup?

REPLY TO BOX 82, PERSONALS@SLMETRO.COM

GATEWAY. You were dancing in the fountain. Shirtless, tan and in cutoffs. I was sitting on the rocks staring and you began dancing for me. Was that your girlfriend or friend?

YOU WERE IN the rented car in Oxbow Park reading book, “Hey Dude Who Stole My Country.” I was in white Rabbitt. Said hi. You looked at me and said hi and left. I like Michael Moore too. Let’s go see F911 together.

REPLY TO BOX 85, PERSONALS@SLMETRO.COM

REPLY TO BOX 84, PERSONALS@SLMETRO.COM

REPLY TO BOX 91, PERSONALS@SLMETRO.COM

MEN FOR MEN

MGD AND TOXIC WASTE. Aug. 7 near Tesoro oil refinery in North Salt Lake. You: on late-model Harley wearing leather chaps. Me: in hazmat gear cleaning up a chemical spill. On my break, we shared a 40-oz bottle of MGD in a gas station parking lot. I can’t get you out of my mind.

YES SIR, OFFICER! Goodlooking, professional GWM, mid-30s, seeks dominant law-enforcement professional, 35-55. I’m healthy, clean, discreet and eager to please. Wild times, no strings.

REPLY TO BOX 81, PERSONALS@SLMETRO.COM

REPLY TO BOX 86, PERSONALS@SLMETRO.COM

GWM SEEKING BEAR for friendship or more. No smokers. No partyers. Must be employed. Mid 40’s, furry, beard a plus. Must like massage, long walks, and home cooking.

REPLY TO BOX 88, PERSONALS@SLMETRO.COM

QUESTIONING? Ex-gay?

Reporter would like to talk to you for upcoming Metro story on people who have tried to alter their sexual orientation. I will honor your choices and respect your privacy. Brandon 323-9500.

WOMEN FOR WOMEN NEW IN TOWN, or interested in meeting new friends?

Come to sWerve monthlies, 3rd Saturday of each month, GLBT Center. Info 539-8800 ext. 25 or www.swerveutah. com (join email list!)

PERSONALS ARE JUST A BUCK AT SLMETRO.COM! GET YOURS TODAY!

AM I READY? Perhaps it’s time to try again. 40 looking for 30s. Arts, travel, festivals, camping, getting out and doing things. Watching a video by the fire is nice too. Not big on bars, but get there often enough. Wanna know more?

REPLY TO BOX 101, PERSONALS@SLMETRO.COM

SPEED DATING If you have tried all the other ways to meet that special someone, try Speed Dating sponsored

by Salt Lake Metro at Club Panini, a private club for members. Monday, October 4, 7pm. Register in advance at 535-4300.

SERVICE DIRECTORY ATTORNEY MARLIN G. CRIDDLE, P.C. Serving Utah’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered communities. Estate Planning, Probate, Criminal Law, Bankruptcy, Corporations/Business.

474-2299. marlincriddle.com

GRAPHIC DESIGN JIM RENGSTORF Freelance Graphic Designer. Consultation, Concept, Design, Layout. www.creativehotlist.com/ j_rengstorff2 671-1672

ADVERTISING

GROUPS

SERVICE DIRECTORY listings in Salt Lake Metro are a great value at just $25. Call today at 323-9500 or slmetro.com

GAY WINE CLUB. Join qVinum at qvinum.com for monthly wine tastings and events.

ESTATE PLANNING JANE MARQUARDT & DOUG FADEL Attorneys at Law, providing comprehensive estate planning services, custom designed to your unique family situation, including trusts, wills, partnership agreements, estate administration. 801-294-7777

BURNING MAN Local group that holds an annual ‘burn’ in early summer. Learn about Burning Man and get to know others who go. Synorgy.org.

FURNITURE

JEWELERS

STUDENT SPECIAL. Receive 1 Hr. massage for $25.00 with Student ID. October only. Contact Pent Bradford at Jealous Salon 524-0750 or cell 2051755. By Appointment Only.

MAN’S TOUCH. Stimulate your senses, or feel deep peace with a relaxing full body massage. Call Therron for an appointment 801-8793583 for $5 off mention this ad. LMT#5608006

WEBSITES

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CruisingTheNet .com

SALT LAKE METRO

PROFESSIONAL WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT. Any junior high school student can create a website. Only a professional can make one that gets results. Marketing sites starting at $800. Storefront sites from $2000. 856-5655.

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SALT LAKE METRO. Join our Yahoo group and be the first to find out about events in the area. groups.yahoo.

MANHATTAN LOFT – Contem- com/group/slmetro porary furniture and accessories with hip sophistication for urban and surburban living. CUSTOM DESIGN JEWELRY. Relaxed atmosphere. All types Check manhattanloft.com of stone settings. Commitment to see the style. Stop by the rings, wedding rings, earrings, showroom floor for greater pendants. Repairs welcome. selection and instore pricing.

Open 11-7 Mon-Fri, 11-6 Sat. Charley Hafen Jewelers. Trolley Square. 521-7711 2233 S. 700 East, SLC

WWW.DENNISMASSAGE.COM A Man’s Man. 598-8344.

“For Men” Model/Massage.

LMT#98212332470

SEPTEMBER 30, 2004

Service Directory ads are $25 for five lines. Down to $14 with contract. Call 323-9500.

UTAH MALE NATURISTS Yahoo Group for men who enjoy being nude in the presence of others. Nonsexual group.

Home of the naked lunch. groups.yahoo.com/group/ UtahMaleNaturists

MASSAGE BEAUTIFULY DECORATED rooms for rent. Furnished w/ table, chairs, CD player, $10/hr. Also large classroom for rent $25/hr. or $100/day.

Great for support groups, lecturs, meetings, art shows, etc. Four Winds Healing Arts Center @ Trolley Square.

521-8448

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SEPTEMBER 30, 2004