The Bizarro Logic Of NY Sen. Ruben Diaz

From a just-published interview with Steven Thrasher at the Village Voice:

All right, let me ask you about this. You believe marriage is between one man and one woman, yes?

Yes [laughing] So? Why are you asking me this? You know that, you know what I believe. Why are you calling me? Marriage is between a man and a woman.

But you yourself have been married twice, and are divorced.

Yes. So?

So do you believe it is alright to be divorced?

No. Divorce is wrong. Gay marriage is wrong.

You think you are wrong, then?

When I got divorced, I was wrong, yes. Why are you asking me this?

But you believe that gay marriage is wrong and divorce is wrong, but that you should be allowed to get divorced and remarried, and gay people shouldn't be able to marry at all.

When I got divorced, it was wrong, but marriage is between a man and a woman.

So is being divorced OK with your religion?

No, it is not OK. Gay marriage is still wrong. This is what I believe.

You may recall that Sen. "Reverend" Diaz once grandiosely declared, "I am the the church AND the state."

Quote Of The Day - Sen. Ruben Diaz

"If the affront to my personal safety wasn't enough, it was embodied in an article that was so poorly researched. The two factual errors come to mind: first of all, if as you say my chief-of-staff is gay, no one has bothered to tell her. Also, if any of your readers are interested in attending a counter-demonstration, they shouldn't bother taking your directions to gather at 181st Street expecting the end of our rally there, I and the thousands of New Yorkers who believe in respect for human life and sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman will be found praying near the Bronx County Courthouse at 161st Street and the Grand Concourse. It's so sad to see people in journalism abuse their positions, but it's outrageous to see how the editors of the Village Voice use their editorial discretion to facilitate and encourage homicide." - New York state Sen. Ruben Diaz, responding to a Village Voice blog post in which a commenter made a death threat against him.

RELATED: On May 15th Diaz, who signed the above letter "Senator Reverend Ruben Diaz," will stage what may be the largest anti-gay rally in state history. A similar rally in 2009 brought over 20,000 Hispanic evangelicals to midtown Manhattan, most of whom arrived via out of state church buses. LGBT groups have noted that Diaz' rally is scheduled to conflict with NYC's annual AIDS Walk in order to diminish counter-protests.

ALSO RELATED: Please do not leave comments making even the most idle of threats of physical harm or property damage against any persons or places. Longtime readers may recall that in late 2009, anti-gay and Christianist websites launched a campaign against JMG, claiming that readers were making "terrorist threats" against supporters of Proposition 8. Please contact me via email if you see any threats or calls to violence and I will dispatch them at once. Our enemies are reading every word you write.

NYC LGBT Center Israel Flap Continues

Earlier this week the NYC LGBT Center canceled a planned Israel Apartheid Week meeting after gay porn kingpin Michael Lucas threatened to have the Center's wealthy donors pull their support. Immediately after the event's cancellation, a petition went online with a demand that the Center not let "wealthy bigots censor free speech." Among the petition's sponsors are well-known activists Cleve Jones, Judith Butler, and Sherry Wolf of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network.

Today the Village Voice's Steven Thrasher interviews Wolf, who says it's an insult for her group to characterized as a "hate group" by a pornographer. (Snap!)

"More than half of [Siege Busters] is Jewish, and the others are mostly Arabs, and they call us anti-Semitic? Isn't the center a place where different people are supposed to meet and discuss? Shouldn't Jews and Arabs, gay and lesbian and transgender, working together towards peace be something that is celebrated? We cannot allow a wealthy porn entrepreneur to dictate what kind of speech is allowed, at a center whose very mission is to represent the oppressed and the marginalized!"

Read Thrasher's full interview.

Lady Musto

Michael Musto's year in review.

JMG Wins Village Voice 2010 Web Award For "Best Political Blog"

Last night I attended the Village Voice 2010 Web Awards where JMG was awarded Best Political Blog! I was asked not to blog about it until after the event and I don't even know who my competitors were, but whatevs! The downtown Manhattan awards show was a hipster mosh-pit and didn't feel very gay at all, but lots of folks approached me with congrats and outed themselves as JMG readers. Very interestingly, most of them were young female hotties. Who knew?

Among the other winners were the famed Gregory Brothers (of Auto-Tuned News fame) who won Best Viral Video for their stone 2010 classic Bed Intruder, which at this writing has 46 million views on YouTube. The Gregory boys were very fun and my loyal companion Dr. Jeff totally plotzed to pose for photos with them. I also finally met famed and openly gay Voice political columnist Steven Thrasher and Buzzfeed homo pop culture king Matt Stopera, who provides us with the detritus of gay weirdness like yesterday's John Waters/Justin Bieber photo.

Comedian Todd Barry hosted the evening with irreverence and disregard for the winners' pleasure at receiving a Village Voice plaque, a giant green foam "thumbs up," and a surprisingly heavy bag of healthy crap from event sponsor Whole Foods that I immediately re-gifted to Dr. Jeff. (The highlight of the winners' gift bag, for most, seemed to be a ginormous can of Four Loko from what was said to be the final case in all of New York City. Dr. Jeff took that too.) I'll add a slideshow to this post a bit later, right now I'm a little hammered from the open bar.

Fifty Reasons To Love New York City

Today the Village Voice published a list titled "50 Reasons To Be Pretty Damn Euphoric You Live In New York City." Here's a few of my favorites.

50. Sending your laundry out for someone else to wash and dry it is not only convenient, it's just good business. Especially since you will probably never own a washer and dryer. Which means you never have to feel guilty about not doing your own laundry.
47. There is always someone crazier than you. ALWAYS.
44. The epic feeling you get running to catch a train and succeeding...just before the doors close.
36. Whatever you need, whenever you need it, there is someone who will bring it to you for a price, which may or may not be negotiable. (Or legal.)
30. The fact that one-bedroom apartments cost an average minimum of a half-million dollars means we think nothing of spending $12 on lunch.
29. Restaurants are as common as single men and women. And equally diverse. And you never have to see either of them again after the initial awkward encounter.
7. Subway "prewalking," in which you walk to the exact right spot on the platform to board the train car that will save you the most time upon exit, exists and has a name. Gotta respect.
5. We are, as a group, anti-fanny-pack as much as we are pro-gay-marriage. Hetero marriage, on the other hand, we can pretty much take or leave.
2. There is absolutely no reason to ever drink and drive. Added bonus: Spontaneous, fascinating conversations with cab drivers.

I'll have lived in Manhattan for ten years this spring (longer than SF or Fort Lauderdale) and I've probably seen less than 10% of the city. I still sometimes need a subway map if I venture below Houston or above 86th (and always on my rare trips off the island.) I haven't owned a car (much less driven one) in a decade and the last time I did my own laundry was in a previous century. But I also live in an apartment with a rent that would cover the mortgage on a lovely Wilton Manors pool home and that is so small that I can reach into my fridge without getting up from my desk. It's totally worth it.

Lt. Dan Choi: The Bad Lieutenant

This week's Village Voice cover story is an exhaustive look at the life and activism career of Lt. Dan Choi, whom author Steven Thrasher describes as personifying "the growing rift between gay-rights activists who want to cooperate with lobbyists and elected officials, and those who demand direct action." An excerpt:

There's no doubt that when Choi came out last March on MSNBC as a gay soldier, he helped take the movement to a whole new level. "When he appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show, he was very buttoned-down, very conservative, very professional—and clear as a bell," says Rick Jacobs, leader of a group fighting California's anti-gay Proposition 8, The Courage Campaign. But Choi isn't buttoned-down anymore. There are many across the political spectrum who wish the lieutenant would be quiet once in a while. He angered the right by appearing as the grand marshal at last year's San Francisco and New York Gay Pride parades, where, as he puts it, he was gleefully "breaking 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' all up and down the street!" (In uniform.) He has angered the left by not being lockstep antiwar enough at times, and by warmly welcoming Ken Mehlman, Bush's campaign manager, to the gayborhood when he came out. In a movement awash with political correctness, Choi decidedly isn't.

Read Steven Thrasher's entire piece, it's worth the time.

October 18th In NYC: The 14th Annual Anti-Violence Project Courage Awards

Hosted once again by Law & Order's BD Wong, this year's Anti-Violence Project Courage Awards honorees are the Paul Rapoport Foundation, Gay City News journalist Duncan Osborne, and Village Voice columnist Steven Thrasher. Get tickets here. AVP executive director Sharon Stapel raves about Thrasher to the Village Voice:

"Your work at the Village Voice, particularly your coverage of proposed state funding cuts for domestic violence, has been exemplary. In recognition of your work as a community activist, advocate and journalist, we would like to honor you with a 2010 Courage Award. In accepting this award, you will join the distinguished company of past awardees including: progressive LGBTQ bloggers -- Bill Browning, Joe Jervis, Pam Spaulding and Andy Towle, Tony Kushner, Emil Wilbekin and George C. Wolfe to name but a few."

The NYC Anti-Violence Project is the city's primary civilian organization dedicated to immediate responses to incidents of violence against the LGBT community. Please consider supporting their vital work.