Afternoon View - MIA To EYW

Father Tony and I are about to board our little prop plane for the hop from Miami to Key West, where we'll be celebrating Gay Pride Week. Nonstop.

As Mayor As He Wants To Be

2 Live Crew rapper Luther Campbell is among the eleven candidates in today's special election to replace recalled Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez, who was booted from office in March for (among other things) daring to raise property taxes in the face of a massive budget deficit.

RELATED: Back when I worked for a Miami-based music distributor, once a week I had to visit the Liberty City office of Campbell's label. Even after my 20th visit, he always acted as if he'd never seen me before. Pissed me the hell off.

Photo Of The Day

A grand piano has mysteriously appeared on a sandbar in the middle of Miami's Biscayne Bay. It's been there for a week and no prankster or PR wonk has yet to claim credit. The Coast Guard says they have no plan to remove it and that with the next big storm, the piano will likely join hundreds of boats as just another sunken habitat for bay creatures.

Miami Church Wants Univision Fined For "Obscene Interview" With Ricky Martin

A Hispanic evangelical group plans to protest outside the Miami affiliate of Univision tomorrow because the FCC totally needs to fine the network for airing an "obscene interview" with recently-out Ricky Martin. Andres Duque provides the translation of their press release at Blabbeando:

On November 2nd, 2010, Univision broadcast a program called: Ricky Martin... Without Secrets, in which he spoke of having his first sexual encounter when he was 15 years of age and that, after having slept with women, he had relations with men. Afterward he felt confused until one day when he was being interviewed he felt attracted to the reporter who was interviewing him. To the point of falling in love with that man. Presenting himself as being ultra-successful, showing images of his 10 million dollar house, riding a sport motorcycle through the streets, walking through the beach and then, showing images of his concert, in front of thousands of young folk, he presents himself as the role model to follow for the children who watched the program at the child friendly hour of 7 to 8 pm. As people who valor the principles that gave birth to this nation, we have decided to say 'enough' with these shows that violate the innocence of our kids and promote confusion at a time in which our youth are developing. Univision's complicity in transmitting this message deserves, on our side, our complaints before the FCC - the entity that regulates media in the Unites States - which says that any pornographic, indecent or obscene content can be reported as a complaint.

Got that? Merely interviewing a gay person is obscene and pornographic.

FLORIDA: Pioneering Gay Talk Radio Host Neil Rogers Reportedly Near Death

The Miami Herald reports today that pioneering openly gay talk radio host Neil Rogers, 68, has been moved into hospice care after his doctors decided against heart surgery. Rogers suffered a heart attack and stroke last summer and retired from on-air work to launch a popular internet-based show.

Always caustic and controversial, Rogers (who was often characterized as "the gay Howard Stern") came out on the air during Anita Bryant's pogrom against gay schoolteachers in 1977. That unprecedented move only spurred his popularity and Rogers remained the top-rated local talk radio host in South Florida for the next three decades.

I'll admit that while my Miami co-workers adored him, I could never stand to listen to "Uncle Neil" because he was always screaming. But I'll also admit to being highly entertained by all the right wing attempts to silence him, from protests at the station to lawsuits. My favorite Neil Rogers story: He once announced that South Florida was being turned into a living graveyard by "alta kocker" New York retirees who did nothing but steal Sweet & Low at Denny's. At his next live appearance at a Dade County mall, dozens of old ladies showed up to throw Sweet & Low at him.

SAVE Dade - Don't Vote

Towleroad points us to this PSA from Florida's LGBT rights group SAVE Dade, in which they blast apathy and/or unwillingness to participate in next week's election. Watch this, it's very well done.

MIAMI: GetEQUAL Protests Obama

This afternoon GetEQUAL launched a protest of President Obama as he attended a Democratic fundraiser in Miami. Kerry Eleveld reports at the Advocate:

A group of LGBT equality activists working to end “don’t ask, don’t tell” launched an elaborate protest early Monday evening as President Barack Obama attended a private Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fund-raiser in Miami, FL, at the home of NBA star Alonzo Mourning. As the president headed toward Mourning’s Coconut Grove residence where donors had paid as much as $5,000 and $18,000 per person to see him, members of GetEqual, a national LGBT rights organization, along with local activists intended to line the street holding four, 10-foot signs that read “End the Discharges Now,” and “We’ll Give When We GetEQUAL” – a reference to the group’s recent campaign encouraging people not to donate money to either the Democratic or Republican parties or their campaign committees until the president signs an executive order immediately stopping the discharges.

GetEQUAL is tweeting live pictures as their protest unfolds.

FLORIDA: Conservative GOP Transgender Woman Running For Congress

Donna Milo, 48, a conservative Republican transgender Cuban-American from Miami, has declared her candidacy for Congress.

"I'm an American. I make my way on the basis of ability. My triumphs are based on my abilities, not on a label or a crutch,'' said Milo, a Miami Planning Advisory Board member running to replace U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Weston, one of the House's most liberal Democrats. Milo, 48, will speak Monday night at Fort Lauderdale City Hall, a guest at the monthly meeting of the Sunshine Republicans club, a conservative group of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender South Floridians. "Donna is a very unique individual,'' Sunshine Republicans President Benjamin Lewis said. "She brings a story with her candidacy. The story is of overcoming obstacles and desires to become the person she has wanted to be."

Milo, who transitioned ten years ago, is a licensed pilot, member of the NRA, and the owner of boat fabrication business. She is divorced with two grown children. While Cuban-Americans are one of the few minority groups that traditionally vote Republican, it will be interesting to see if they will back a transgender candidate, regardless of her conservative positions.

Donna Milo's campaign site is here. On her issues page, she states opposition to "socialist healthcare reform," over taxation, and government regulation of industry. Her GOP primary is August 24th.

Rekers To Miami Herald: I Am Not Gay!

In a letter written to the Miami Herald's LGBT issues blogger, Steve Rothaus, Dr. George Rekers is threatening a lawsuit against the Miami New Times for calling him a homosexual. According to Rekers, rentboy Jo-Vanni Roman called him today begging to him to tell the world that he was not hired to be a prostitute. Rekers says:

If today’s news story in the Miami New Times is accurate, I have been advised to retain the services of a defamation attorney in this matter, because the fact is that I am not gay and never have been. My travel assistant called me this afternoon earnestly asking me to clarify on my website that he worked for me as a travel companion and not as a prostitute. I completely agreed with my travel assistant that it is absolutely true that I hired him and he worked for me as a travel companion and not as a prostitute. I also read to him the first sentence that has been posted on my website for several days that says, “A recent article in an alternative newspaper cleverly gave false impressions of inappropriate behavior because of its misleading innuendo, incorrectly implying that Professor George Rekers used the Rentboy website to hire a prostitute to hire a prostitute to accompany him on a recent trip.”

Rekers goes on to recount the phone call, using the expression "life my luggage" six times. SNORK. So now the ball is back in Jo-Vanni's court. Did this phone call really happen? Is Jo-Vanni now concerned about a possible arrest? Much more likely is that Rekers has completely invented this entire story.

UPDATE: In a separate Miami Herald story, Jo-Vanni supports Rekers' version of events. Note that this interview was made yesterday, before today's Miami New Times story in which Jo-Vanni made the anus long-stroking claim.

Both Rekers and Geo, who declined to give his real name, deny they had a sexual relationship during their 10-day journey to Spain and England. "In all honesty, I did go on the trip with him,'' Geo, 20, told The Miami Herald on Wednesday. "He was setting me up as a companion. In all honesty, he's a very kind, family-values man.'' Rekers, 61, said via e-mail that he hired Geo as "an assistant to lift his luggage in his travels because of an ongoing condition following surgery.''

He added: "Dr. Rekers found his recent travel assistant by interviewing acquaintances. There was nothing inappropriate with this relationship. Professor Rekers was not involved in any illegal or sexual behavior with his travel assistant.'' Geo says Rekers -- the father of three grown sons -- hired him to carry luggage, be a companion and to translate Spanish to English during their time in Spain. "Nor did he pay me enough'' for sex, Geo said. "I was getting about $75 a day,'' Geo said, adding that he and his friends usually charge $300 to $500 a day for sex. Geo said he is a Miami Dade College student who became a prostitute to pay his bills. "I was just trying to get through school,'' he said. "I think I'm going to have drop my classes.'' Geo's parents know he's gay, but not that he's an escort. "Who the hell wants to tell them I was doing this stuff?'' he said. "I come from a very conservative Spanish family.''

Rekers' Hooker: Yes We Had Sexy Time

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Advocate Locates Geo/Lucien

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Rekers & Geo: In Flagrante Delicious

Since the ho is out of the barn, the Miami New Times has released their photo of NARTH/FRC fuckweasel Dr. George Mekers at MIA with his hired male prostitute, the barely legal twink Geo. The New Times properly notes that Geo doesn't seem to be fulfilling his duties as Rekers' paid luggage lifter.

CAPTION THIS PHOTO.

Anti-Gay Christian NARTH Leader And Gay Adoption Opponent George Rekers Found Vacationing With A Male Prostitute

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Elian Gonzalez, Ten Years Later

So yesterday I'm flipping through the NY Daily News at lunch and when a photo caught my eye I thought, "Oh, who's that handsome lad?" It was Elian Gonzalez, now 16 years old and still a Cuban hero ten years after his Miami custody battle gripped both nations. Elian's birthday is a national holiday in Cuba, with parades held in his honor. Today he's a member of the Young Communists, hence the PR blitz from the Cuban government.