Opinion

I would like to thank Wisconsin Gazette for including PrideFest-related articles in some editions before the festival, especially the article about our organization’s volunteerism. There was also a mention of the LGBT entertainers showcased at PrideFest. Many of them come from around the country and the world simply for exposure at our festival.

But I take to task WiG’s view that PrideFest didn’t do enough or anything political. It also cited a blank Web site history page.

In a world gone mad, Rachel, in a media circus dominated by moronic shouters, you are my dream come true: a paragon of intelligence and civility. You are simply the best interviewer, researcher and anchor on TV today. You are credited with raising MSNBC’s ratings, and when you appear on the snoozefests known as Sunday morning public affairs programs, record numbers of people tune in.

In the movie “Funny People,” there’s a scene where Seth Rogan’s character attempts to hit on Aubry Plaza’s character with the line, “Do you like music?” Plaza’s character, named Daisy, responds with the clever answer, “Did you just ask me if I like music? That’s like asking me if I like food.”

This movie moment is a true testament to today’s culture and our perception of the value of music. Everyone loves music, and I’ve appreciated the way many music artists have been standing up for gay people lately, especially since Christina Aguilera’s 2002 video for “Beautiful.”

The Milwaukee LGBT Community Center is moving to its new location at the Blatz Boiler House, 252 E. Highland Ave., over the summer.

This will be the center’s third home. In 1998, we were located on South Second Street in the Walkers Point area. Our second home, which we currently occupy, is on Court Street north of downtown near Schultz Park.

Being born and raised in – and rarely removed from – Milwaukee has turned me into a very specific type of person, one who’s completely over Milwaukee Pride Fest. I go to school with people from all over the country as well as a few from outside the country and a common opinion I’ve heard from them is that Milwaukee is a “drinking town.” I agree with this judgment, though I never really had a huge issue with it because I like drinking (a lot) and could never completely understand why some people chose not to drink. At Pride Fest this year, however, I witnessed a number of gay spectacles, many of which might never have occurred if the spectacles hadn’t been drinking.

Spectacle #1: Gold stretch pants. I’ve worn some ridiculous looking things in my days as a younger gay man but gold stretch pants were not one of them. My question is, did he get dressed at home and kiss his mom goodbye with them on or did he secretly put them on in the car outside the festival? I ask this because if I were a parent of a 16-year-old boy, gay or straight, and he left my home dressed like a hooker I’d stop him just like you’d stop a three-year-old from leaving the house with his shoes on the wrong feet. Where are the parents these days? It’s one thing to be supportive of your son’s gayness and quite another to be a supporter of fashion disasters.

In a tough economy, cities, regions and entire states must do everything they can to compete. That means providing the best infrastructure, talent pool and economic incentives necessary to attract and retain jobs.

Among the most important factors businesses consider as they seek out sites to locate or expand operations is workforce. That’s why marriage equality is a key plank in “Progressive Recovery,” my 18-point job creation platform.

This year make June’s LGBT Pride month something you don’t just watch but something you involve yourself in.

Here are 10 or so ways to do that.  If these don’t appeal to you, come up with some of your own. If you let me know what they are, I can include them in next year’s Pride column:

Despite a rough national economy that has created difficulties for so many people and families in Wisconsin, one aspect of this past legislative year was cause for optimism.

When the Democrats took over the Assembly last year, one of my goals for being in leadership was mitigating the black eye Wisconsin deservedly got in passing a hateful, anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment in 2006. We did this by making sure all committed couples had basic protections for their relationships.

I’ve noticed a number of commercial and public health ads for free HIV-testing in WiG. Yet I wonder if there is any gay man (and it is mostly men who are at risk of infection) who has not at this point been tested.

I suppose so. There are always new young gay men who are just becoming sexually active, and there are obvious holdouts among older men who do not think they are at risk. I'm sure there is a sizable population of gay men who have not been tested.

The events of PrideFest are major for our community. Seeing members of our LGBT family happy, seeing Rainbow Families WI marching down the street, or witnessing those wonderful moms and dads of PFLAG - Pride brings out the best of our LGBT community for all to see. I wish my family could have enjoyed it more.

Sadly, it brings out the worst of some people. The worst of our community is the number of people, including teenagers, who smoke and drink. It is the smoking that matters most to me, because it doesn’t just impact the individual. Second-hand smoke forces itself onto others.

It’s been 41 years since the Stonewall Rebellion in New York sparked the gay liberation movement. One wag called it “the hissy fit heard ’round the world.”

The Stonewall riots in 1969 were an immediate reaction to police harassment in a New York bar. But they emerged out of a swirling vortex of social change fueled by the Old Left, the Civil Rights Movement, the Sexual Revolution and Women’s Liberation.

There is much to be gained from a lifetime of continuing education. The world has many riches and sources of pleasure to absorb. Those broad survey courses we all took in college provided only a smattering of what is available on any topic. They were designed to whet the appetite for learning more.

Self-education beyond college can involve reading books. But it also includes travel to new places, learning about different peoples and their cultures and the effort to have new experiences (e.g., in music, in art, in personal growth).