Congrats to the world's first elected queer national leader!

In late January, I was quite pleased to see Johanna Sigurdardottir (pictured) appointed interim Prime Minister of Iceland. As such, Sigurdardottir became the world's first openly lesbian national head of government. (The first openly gay world leader was Per-Kristian Foss who served as interim Prime Minister in Norway very briefly in 2002.)

Iceland's conservative-led government had just collapsed, partly as a result of problems caused by the failure of that country's banks in the recent credit crisis.

Sigurdardottir led her Social Democratic Party into elections this past weekend and, together with her coalition partners, achieved an absolute majority, a first for a left-wing government in Iceland.

"Our time has come!" said Sigurdardottir, 66, who will lead a coalition with the Left-Green party.

Her victory is seen as a return to left-wing policies after almost 18 years of conservative Independent party domination and a sign too that women are going to take a stronger role in running the country. More women than ever before were returned to parliament and Icelandic media claimed that the island’s ancient assembly was now fourth in the world in terms of female participation.

All in all, a wonderful moment in the history of politics.

Inside Out launches 2009 festival website!

Toronto's Inside Out LGBT Film & Video Festival has launched its 2009 festival website, complete with full movie listings.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, a film I co-wrote and helped produce, The Golden Pin, (which stars Kris Duangphung, pictured above) is screening in this year's fest as part of the renowned Hogtown Homos selection of shorts on Wed May 20th at 7:15 pm at Toronto's Isabel Bader Theatre.

Tickets are already on sale for Inside Out members. Non-members can purchase tickets starting April 30. Click here for more details.

I LOVE Susan Boyle!

I've seen Susan Boyle's BGT performance video on Youtube probably six or seven times...What a great time for a such a gift! I came across this particularly touching tribute from this anonymous straight guy on Youtube. Suddenly the benefits of living in the era of the internet really hit home with what we're capable of experiencing together...I love you, Susan!

'The Golden Pin' to premiere at Toronto's Inside Out Gay and Lesbian Film & Video Festival...

I'm thrilled to let you know that a film I co-wrote and helped produce, The Golden Pin, will be screening at next month's Inside Out Gay and Lesbian Film and Video Festival in Toronto.

Directed and co-written by my good friend, Cuong Ngo, the short film tells the story about a young Vietnamese-Canadian swimmer who struggles to follow a different path than that chosen for him by his father. The Golden Pin explores the consequences of burying our own needs in matters of the heart.

I am so proud of this film. Filming it was life-changing, I agree. ;-) The entire team who put this together was outstanding. There are plans to adapt it into a feature film. Stay tuned.

The first screening is set for Wed May 20th at 7:15 pm at Toronto's Isabel Bader Theatre. For more on the Toronto Inside Out film festival, click here...

Vermont legislature passes equal marriage, overrides Governor's veto

Vermont has become the 4th U.S. state to legalize same sex marriage — and the first to do so with a legislature's vote.

The Vermont Legislature voted Tuesday to override Governor Jim Douglas' veto of a bill allowing gays and lesbians to marry. The vote was 23-5 to override in the state Senate and 100-49 to override in the House. Under Vermont law, two-thirds of each chamber had to vote for the override. Talk about a close call!

Vermont now joins Massachusetts, Connecticut and Iowa where same sex marriage is legal in America (with California still pending). Approval of gay marriage in those latter states came from the courts.

I will say I prefer winning marriage equality rights in legislatures, not the courts. I'm glad that politicians in Vermont appreciate the importance of equal treatment under the law. Congrats to Vermont!

Stephen Boissoin objects to my words...

In response to my recent post, Alberta plans to finally enshrine 'sexual orientation' protections in law, the infamous Stephen Boissoin, himself, felt compelled to leave a comment attacking “people” like me.

For the record, the only gay youth Boissoin wants to protect are those enrolled in so-called reparative therapy. There is nothing abnormal or immoral about being true to oneself; it is immoral, however, to pretend to be promoting God’s work when in fact you are doing the exact opposite.

I thought his comments deserved their own post, as well as my response to them. Below, you’ll also find a link to a copy of Boissoin’s original 2002 letter so you can judge for yourselves if his letter was an incitement to violence, as I believe.

TODAY’S COMMENT FROM STEPHEN BOISSOIN:

You said "he basically compared gay activists to dangerous vermin against whom any action readers deemed necessary should be taken to save children."

Another perfect example of manipulation. Grossly stretching the facts to suit your cause. I NEVER encouraged nor advocate violence. Those that know me, including gay youth and young adults, know that I would never so such and that I would protect them if necessary. The media knew and has expressed that they do not feel that I advocated violence in my 2002 letter to the editor.

You people continue to BS the public and present yourselves as poor victims. Any communication that doesn't support you is 'homophobic' or hateful etc etc.

It's true, I hate homosexuality. It is a disgusting abnormal and immoral lifestyle. No use beating around the bush about it.

Stephen Boissoin
Straight & Proud

AND MY COMMENT IN RESPONSE:

Stephen, your hateful religious views continue to cloud your judgment. My line is a very fair summation of your characterization of gay activists.

I'm not going to beat around the bush either: Homosexuality is a naturally occurring, inborn orientation that has always been with us and will always be with us. It cannot be taught, 95% of children will grow up to become heterosexual regardless of whether or not people like me are treated equally and with respect in this society.

It's sad that after all these years you still can't be rational about your own words and the extreme damage they have caused.

In 2002, you wrote: "It's time to stand together and take whatever steps are necessary to reverse the wickedness that our lethargy has authorized to spawn. Where homosexuality flourishes, all manner of wickedness abounds."

"Whatever steps are necessary"? Easily, that line can and usually does mean violence, particularly when you asserted in your letter that people like me winning equality and dignity in life is the equivalent of, "every professing heterosexual [having] their future aggressively chopped at the roots."

"Their future aggressively chopped at the roots"? You identified a problem that doesn't exist, you asserted all gay activists like myself are just trying to "sleep with children." You used fiery language meant to incite unspecified action, which could easily be interpreted by any gay basher as good justification for violence, especially since your letter was signed as a Reverend. In the history of homophobia, far less inflammatory words have been used to justify great amounts of violence and suffering.

Without a doubt, it was incitement to violence and you should be ashamed of yourself.

But clearly you aren't. Religious extremists will always cling to their hatred because it makes them feel powerful and righteous. That's the only thing that's disgusting here.

While I think some of the punishments handed down by the Alberta Human Rights Commission against you may have been heavy-handed, there is no doubt in my mind that you incited violence in your letter. And for that, there should be justice.

Matt Guerin,
Gay & Proud.

Click here for a link to the original 2002 letter by Stephen Boissoin.

Iowa Supreme Court backs equal marriage

The Iowa Supreme Court today issued a unanimous ruling finding that the state's same-sex marriage ban violates the constitutional rights of gay and lesbian couples.

Same-sex couples in Iowa will be able to obtain marriage licenses starting April 24th. Iowa now becomes the third American state where gays and lesbians are no longer second class citizens.

Richard Socarides, an attorney and former senior adviser on gay rights to President Clinton, said the ruling carries extra significance coming from Iowa.

"It's a big win because, coming from Iowa, it represents the mainstreaming of gay marriage. And it shows that despite attempts stop gay marriage through right wing ballot initiatives, like in California, the courts will continue to support the case for equal rights for gays," he said. “Unlike states on the coasts, there’s nothing more American than Iowa. As they say during the presidential caucuses, ‘As Iowa goes, so goes the nation.’”

I'd like to think that today's ruling will start a trend similar to the remarkable victory in January 2008 for then-Democratic candidate Barack Obama. Before Iowa, few gave the first-term Senator from Illinois much hope of winning the U.S. presidency. But Iowa showed that his message of hope and change could resonate outside of traditional Democratic strongholds.

Perhaps those Americans (and others) sitting on the fence on this issue will continue to reflect and come sooner to agree that unjustifiable discrimination in law is never a good thing. Before various court victories in Canada on equal marriage, Canadians seemed generally divided on the merits of equal marriage. Years later, there's a new consensus that equality under the law trumps all other positions.

As with all gay civil rights victories, we can likely expect considerable backlash from the religious right over this issue. I'm not sure if Iowa has a similar ballot initiative process as California and other states, but when those pesky equality provisions in state constitutions get in the way of keeping those gays down in the gutter, so-called religious types will move heaven and earth to "re-define" equality in such constitutions to mean "heterosexual equality only."

Decades from now, we'll be watching as voters in U.S. state after U.S. state repeal those anti-equality provisions in state constitutions passed in these times. But for now, the culture war continues. It's nice to win a major battle.

Worth repeating: Andrew Sullivan's 'Be Not Afraid, Rod'

I came across this post by famed American blogger Andrew Sullivan, in which he responds to an ongoing online argument between gay writer Damon Linker and Christian writer Rod Dreber. The two were debating some pretty deep stuff such as same sex marriage and the attempts by some to normalize homosexuality as a fundamental part of the human family.

Sullivan took objection to several of Dreber's arguments, but most especially this line: "If homosexuality is legitimized -- as distinct from being tolerated, which I generally support -- then it represents the culmination of the sexual revolution, the goal of which was to make individual desire the sole legitimate arbiter in defining sexual truth. It is to lock in, and, on a legal front, to codify, a purely contractual, nihilistic view of human sexuality. I believe this would be a profound distortion of what it means to be fully human."

Sullivan's response, posted earlier this week, is a beautiful read.

Here's a snippet:

"...far from nihilistically renouncing nature, the [gay] marriage movement aims at reclaiming the mantle of nature for homosexuals alongside our heterosexual peers and siblings and parents. We know now that same-gender attraction, bonding and sex is ubiquitous in nature, and almost certainly has some evolutionary explanation. We know too, experientially, that the love cherished by many gay couples is real and beautiful and deeply human. It is not merely "contractual" or "nihilist". It is organic, natural and completing. It is humanizing and it is civilizing. History is full of such relationships, and they stand proudly alongside their heterosexual peers. The reduction of these shared lives and loves to abstract sexual acts is itself a form of bigotry. It is an attempt to reduce the full and complex human being to one aspect of his or her humanness. It is, in my view, anti-Christian to speak of gays the way this Pope does. The Christian calling is not to guard ferociously the ramparts of the 1950s out of fear but to listen to the experiences of gay people - what the Second Vatican Council calls the sensus fidelium - and try to integrate their humanity into the structures from which they have been so cruelly excluded, with such horrible human consequences, for so long.

"It is Rod's self-evident panic at the thought of such an integration that has made some of us sit up and take note. There is some lurking fear that if this form of being human is recognized as equal in the civil sphere, let alone the sacred one, then the entire edifice of heterosexuality and marriage and family will somehow be destroyed or undermined. I do not believe that in any way. And I don't think it's possible to believe that without, at some level, engaging in homophobia - literally an irrational and exaggerated fear that the gay somehow always obliterates the straight, or that 2 percent somehow always controls the fate of 98 percent. This is where paranoia and panic take over. It is where homophobia most feels like anti-Semitism."

Well written, Andrew!

Sweden approves equal marriage...

No, this is not an April Fool's Day joke. Sweden has become the latest country to approve same sex marriage. Six of the seven parties in the Swedish parliament backed a proposal to implement a gender-neutral marriage law starting May 1, 2009. The proposal passed today with a 261 to 22 vote and 16 abstentions. I'm sure fans of Abba will be proud.

Sweden has allowed civil unions for same sex couples since 1995. Now Sweden joins Holland, Belgium, Canada, Spain, South Africa and Norway allowing same sex marriage country-wide. (Massachusetts and Connecticut are the only two American states where equal marriage remains unchallenged, California still pending.)