Six GLAAD Board Members Resign

The controversy that prompted the resignation of GLAAD president Jarrett Barrios has widened to include the departures of six members of the group's board of directors. Politico reports:

Six board members of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation have resigned amid the fallout over the organization's letter in support of AT&T’s proposed bid for wireless rival T-Mobile, a person familiar with the matter told POLITICO. Some board members were said to have resigned because of concerns that GLAAD failed to adhere to its conflict of interest standards and to protest GLAAD's failure to protect its president, Jarrett Barrios, who submitted his letter of resignation to the group Saturday amid a growing backlash in the gay blogosphere over the group's AT&T stance. Barrios had signed the letter GLAAD sent to the FCC in support of the wireless mega-deal.

GLAAD Head Jarrett Barrios Resigns

After enduring weeks of criticism over a letter sent to the FCC supporting the merger of AT&T and TMobile, GLAAD head Jarrett Barrios has resigned. Those critical of the letter pointed out that AT&T is one of GLAAD's biggest annual donors. Other recipients of AT&T donations such as the NAACP and the NEA have issued similar letters.

GLAAD Joins Call For Kern To Resign

"Given her long and well-documented history of extreme bias towards minorities, this apology means nothing. Republicans and Democrats alike agree that the kind of blatant bigotry from an elected official like Sally Kern has no place in our public sphere. Sally Kern should resign immediately." - Jarrett Barrios, president of GLAAD, joining the NAACP in demanding that Kern resign.

SLIDESHOW: 2011 GLAAD Awards

On the GLAAD Media Awards red carpet: Ricky Martin, Andy Cohen, the Fabulous Beekman Boys, Denis O'Hare, Wilson Cruz, Tracy Young, Jarrett Barrios, Russell Simmons (and lots of reality/cooking show folks I don't really know) followed by lots of shots of the awards show, including winner Tina Fey. Full-screen versions here.

GLAAD's Jarrett Barrios To Divorce

GLAAD executive director Jarrett Barrios, seen above with his sons, announced today that he is divorcing his husband. Together for sixteen years, the pair married in Massachusetts almost six years ago. Barrios made the revelation in a lengthy Boston Globe editorial today.

As our families continue the march towards equality, the gay and lesbian community often doesn’t talk about divorce, even though some of the most important protections associated with marriage are exercised at the end of a relationship — protections that help the more economically vulnerable partner, give a formula for sharing the care of the children, and establish how two people can disentangle a life’s worth of acquisitions, compromises, and dreams. Just as gay and lesbian couples share the joys of marriage, we will share the pain of divorce, something for which we have no template. Divorce plumbs impossible depths of sadness. It involves separating the dishes and the books and all the other things you acquired back when you both still felt the lightness of love, asserting to a judge at a public trial that, yes, your marriage has broken down irretrievably, and telling your parents whose marriage of 47 years hangs heavy over your anemic explanations to them.

Tomorrow At 8PM: CNN's Gary & Tony Have A Baby

Last week Father Tony and I attended a preview screening of CNN's gay parenting documentary Gary & Tony Have A Baby, which follows New Yorkers Gary Spino and Tony Brown from finding an egg donor, to hiring a surrogate mother, to the eventual birth of their son. The couple's journey is expensive and trying, but ultimately quite sweet, even if it's a route that few gay couples could ever afford.

The film is part of CNN's Gay In America series and last week's screening was co-hosted by CNN reporter (and the documentary's narrator), Soledad O'Brien, as well as GLAAD executive director Jarrett Barrios. I have to give CNN big props for tackling this project, which involved filming in multiple states over more than a year. In addition to the big PR push for tomorrow's night's showing at 8PM, they've created an teacher's guide for high schools and colleges.

GLAAD's Jarrett Barrios, who has two adoptive sons of his own, stressed to me that while the vast majority of gay couples use other methods to create their families, Gary & Tony Have A Baby is nevertheless a very positive look at a gay parenthood. The trailer is here and below are just a few photos I took at the screening.