Preeminent composer of stage musicals, Stephen Sondheim worked with Leonard Bernstein on West Side Story and wrote words and music for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, A Little Night Music, Sweeny Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, and Into the Woods. He won an Academy Award for his work on Dick Tracy in 1990.
Sondheim stayed in the closet until 1998 despite rampant speculation about his sexuality. His first long-term relationship had begun late in life, with a younger man named Peter Jones, whom he met in 1991. The two eventually lived together and exchanged wedding rings, but Jones later moved out.
“I was sexually very late blooming,” Sondheim has said. From the beginning, though, his work has resonated with gay men, and regardless of his personal life, he has held a prominent position in gay culture.
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Lieutenant Daniel Choi is a veteran of the US Army, where his service included an extended tour of duty in Iraq as an Arabic interpreter. A graduate of West Point Military Academy, he is the co-founder and spokesperson of Knights Out, an organization that includes about 75 West Point grads who are openly gay or lesbian, in defiance of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that requires homosexuals and bisexuals in the service to keep their sexual orientation secret. As an infantry platoon leader in the New York National Guard, Choi is still subject to the ramifications of DADT.
On March 19, 2009, Choi appeared on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, where he began to tell his story. “By saying three words to you today, ‘I am gay,’ those three words are a violation of title 10 of the U.S. Code.” The audio feed mysteriously cut off, but he returned the next day to continue the interview. Referring to his extended tour of duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom he noted, “One of harder things was coming back from Iraq. Being an Iraq combat veteran, an Arabic linguist, a West Point graduate, I come back to America as a second-class citizen who‘s forced to lie because of this rule, because of this law.”
A few weeks after this interview, Choi received his discharge letter. On June 30, 2009, a panel of New York National Guard officers recommended that Choi be discharged from the military. The final decision, which will be made by the commander of First Army and the chief of the National Guard Bureau, is pending.
He has since become even more active in the gay civil rights movement, focused on repeal of the ban on openly LGBT service members. He’s a popular speaker at events including Pride rallies and protests. He was Grand Marshal of 2009’s San Francisco Pride Parade.
In an open letter to President Obama and Congress, Choi begged to keep his job. “As an infantry officer, an Iraq combat veteran and a West Point graduate with a degree in Arabic, I refuse to lie to my commanders. I refuse to lie to my peers. I refuse to lie to my subordinates. I demand honesty and courage from my soldiers. They should demand the same from me.”
Video of speech from Lt. Dan Choi at the Pink Triangle unveiling ceremony on Twin Peaks in San Francisco on Saturday, June 27, 2009 as part of the Pride weekend festivities.
Posted 1 year, 2 months ago at 11:54 pm. 1 comment
In 1995 Rachel Maddow was the first openly gay or lesbian American to earn a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford. Later, she broke into radio by winning a contest held by a small FM station seeking on-air talent. “I was crashing with friends in Massachusetts, working odd jobs, when they told me to try out. And they hired me on the spot. Radio came to me, I didn’t come to it.”
One of her odd jobs was doing yard work for accountant/artist Susan Mikula. They’ve been living together since Halloween 2000.
Beginning in 2004, Maddow hosted The Rachel Maddow Show for the national Air America network. She moved into television by substituting for Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. They gave her her own show in 2008, and she started attracting big ratings for her liberal punditry.
Recently she broke the story of Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, who is facing discharge from the Air Force because he’s gay.
Posted 1 year, 3 months ago at 9:46 pm. 0 comments
Lieutenant Colonel Victor Fehrenbach is an 18-year veteran of the United States Air Force. As a flight weapons system operator he has flown 2,180 hours, including 488 combat hours in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kosovo. On September 11, 2001 he was chosen to patrol the skies above Washington, DC while Dick Cheney and Condi Rice huddled in a bunker below.
In the course of his career, Fehrenbach has earned over 30 awards and medals including nine air medals, one of them for heroism. As a flight instructor he has passed on his knowledge and experience to over 300 Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force officers. He wants to be deployed again to combat, but one thing stands in the way. Lt. Col. Fehrenbach is openly gay.
In September 2008, after a civilian acquaintance outed him, Fehrenbach was informed he was to be discharged under the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” anti-gay policy. His first instinct was to submit quietly, even though he’s only two years away from retirement with full pension.
With encouragement from five of his fellow officers, he decided to fight, in the hope that President Obama would deliver on campaign promises to end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The policy remains in place, however, and over 200 officers have been discharged just since Obama’s inauguration.
Fehrenbach, 39, is the son of Air Force parents. His family supports his decision to fight his discharge. As his sister, also a veteran, says, “This is the only thing he’s ever known in life. It’s all he’s ever wanted to do.”
Fehrenbach has been called the “$25 Million Aviator” because that is the estimated investment from US taxpayers to develop and train him. The Air Force seems determined to throw that investment, and much more, away.
Posted 1 year, 4 months ago at 5:00 pm. 0 comments
Kelly McGillis co-starred with Jodie Foster in The Accused and with Tom Cruise in Top Gun. Her other films include Reuben, Reuben, Witness (Golden Globe nomination), and The Babe. She played a closeted military lawyer in The L Word.
She’s been married twice to men, and has two children with her second husband. They were divorced in 2002.
Long-rumored to be a lesbian, McGillis was said to have been very close to singer Whitney Houston prior to Whitney’s marriage to Bobby Brown. In April 2009, McGillis came out during an interview with Girl Rock on SheWired.com, noting that she was “done with the man thing” and seeking “definitely a woman” for her next serious relationship.
McGillis spoke of trying to come to terms with her sexuality all her adult life, and how she long felt God was punishing her for being homosexual. She has since realized, “God is okay with you being gay.”
Posted 1 year, 6 months ago at 4:58 pm. 0 comments
By the age of eleven, Lindsay Lohan was a show business veteran with a career in modeling and commercials, and a regular role on a daily soap opera. At age twelve, she starred in the Disney remake of The Parent Trap, garnering favorable reviews. Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan called her “the soul of this film as much as Hayley Mills was of the original, and…she is more adept than her predecessor at creating two distinct personalities.” Lohan followed that with another Disney remake, Freaky Friday, playing Jamie Lee Curtis’ daughter. In 2004, Lohan became a major star with the success of Mean Girls, a teen comedy written by Tina Fey.
Pursuing a singing career, in 2004 Lohan released her debut album Speak, produced by Emilio Estefan, Jr., which went platinum. A second album was less successful.
As Lohan became a celebrity and paparazzi began to follow her every move, personal and professional problems began to emerge. During filming of Herbie: Fully Loaded in 2005 she was hospitalized with a kidney infection. Overstressed, she refused to promote the film and Disney dropped her from their publicity. A public row erupted with producers of her next movie, Georgia Rule, who wrote her a letter complaining: “You and your representatives have told us that your various late arrivals and absences from the set have been the result of illness; today we were told it was ‘heat exhaustion.’ We are well aware that your ongoing all night heavy partying is the real reason for your so-called ‘exhaustion.”’
Lohan has had a troubled relationship with her father, a former stock broker who has been in and out of prison for fraud and probation violations. He has not hesitated to inject himself into the limelight surrounding his daughter, sagely pronouncing his advice and expressing concern for her welfare to any reporter who will listen.
In 2007, Lohan was arrested twice for DUI and underwent treatment in a rehabilitation center. Unable to obtain insurance, due to her unpredictability, Lohan became unemployable in films. At the same time she has maintained her place in the spotlight, conducting an affair with a young British DJ, Samantha Ronson (b. 1977), complete with public shows of affection and shouting matches. In a Harper’s Bazzar interview, Lohan summed it up when asked about Ronson: “I think it’s pretty obvious who I’m seeing…I think it’s no shock to anyone that it’s been going on for quite some time…she’s a wonderful person and I love her very much.”
Posted 1 year, 9 months ago at 4:57 pm. 0 comments
Alice Walker earned the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award for her multimillion-selling novel “The Color Purple” (1982) which was adapted into an Oscar-nominated film (1985) and a Tony-nominated musical (2005). Self-described as “a Renegade, an Outlaw, a Pagan,” she has written dozens of novels, collections of short stories, non-fiction, and poetry.
Photo by Virginia DeBolt
When she was 8, Walker lost the sight of one eye after her brother shot her with a BB gun while playing “Cowboys and Indians.” She was ostracized by other children who were frightened by her scarred eye, and she became shy, introverted, and bookish. Her self-identification as an outsider informs her literary work.
Walker has long been an activist in both her personal and public lives. Born to African-American sharecroppers in rural Georgia, she fought for civil rights in Mississippi, where in 1965 she began a relationship with a white Jewish civil rights activist, Mel Leventhal. Interracial marriages were illegal there at that time. As she said, “In order to be able to live in America I must be unafraid to live anywhere in it, and I must be able to live in the fashion and with whom I choose.” After the US Supreme Court overturned the anti-miscegnation laws in 1967, Walker and Leventhal became the first legally married interracial couple in Mississippi. They divorced in 1977 and Walker moved to California.
In the mid-1990s she enjoyed a relatively quiet affair with singer/songwriter Tracy Chapman, noting in a 2005 interview with “The Guardian” that “it was delicious and lovely and wonderful and I totally enjoyed it and I was completely in love with her but it was not anybody’s business but ours.”
Posted 1 year, 11 months ago at 4:45 pm. 0 comments
Clay Aiken grew up singing in church choirs and local musical theatre productions. He performed the national anthem at sports events in his hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina, but a professional career in music seemed a distant dream. Aiken enrolled at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, to pursue a degree in special education. In 2003, he was working part-time helping an autistic boy, when the child’s mother suggested Aiken try out for “American Idol,” the phenomenally popular television talent show.
Photo by Judy Butler
The judges thought he looked too “nerdy” to make it, but Aiken’s resonant voice blew them away. The show’s stylists went to work on him and developed a trademark spiky-haired clean-cut look. He earned a slot in the competition and finished the season in second place while developing an enthusiastic following of “Claymates.” He went on to become a major star, releasing hit albums and touring the US and Canada. He’s also appeared on Broadway in the musical “Spamalot.” Meanwhile, he’s gone through a succession of hairstyles.
Aiken was raised in a devout Christian family, and has a deep faith which emerges in some of his songs, earning him the moniker “American Idol Christian” from “Christian Music Planet” broadcasting. His faith is balanced by tolerance and consideration of other beliefs. Aiken has been active in children’s causes and AIDS benefits.
From the time Aiken first appeared on “American Idol,” there was widespread speculation that he might be gay. He denied this in a 2003 interview with “Rolling Stone” noting, “One thing I’ve found of people in the public eye, either you’re a womanizer or you’ve got to be gay. Since I’m neither one of those, people are completely concerned about me.” This didn’t do much to reduce concern.
In 2008, Aiken surprised fans by announcing that he was soon to be a father. The child’s mother, Jaymes Foster (daughter of his producer David Foster), gave birth in August. It was even bigger news, though less a surprise, when Aiken appeared on the cover of “People” magazine in September, holding his baby next to the headline, “Yes, I’m Gay.” (Neil Patrick Harris, Lance Bass, and the fictional wizard Albus Dumbledore had preceded him on similar “People” covers—sans infants.) During a week when the US economy was melting down, a presidential election was heating up, and the country was involved in two active wars, the number one news story was Clay Aiken coming out.
She’s been married twice to men, and has two children with her second husband. They were divorced in 2002.
Pursuing a singing career, in 2004 Lohan released her debut album Speak, produced by Emilio Estefan, Jr., which went platinum. A second album was less successful.
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