Dear Proud & Willing

Dear Fabulous Marc:

Hello, I have a couple of questions for you, and if you have the time, and of course, at your leisure if you please, I’d love some answers!

Very recently, about month and a half ago, I got CLEAN, as in Narcotics Anonymous clean, which I am a proud & willing member, & which I find extremely useful. In the short time I’ve been clean however, I’ve literally been inundated with feelings of all sorts, which is good I’m told, but it scares me. I have discovered that my problems are not really about drugs at all. I’ve been having resurfacing memories, severe anger issues, and crying bouts, throughout all of this I must add, I am still so grateful to be clean & sober. I do not really feel bad, just weird.

I did survive abuse as a kid, sexual, verbal, emotional, & mental; as did my siblings; I am gay; I am 31. My question is concerning therapy & if you could perhaps point me in a direction, any direction would be so very appreciated. I am employed, but have no insurance, so I realize that this is an issue? I would prefer someone who is probably male, although I am open; experienced in sexual abuse; addiction; and being healthy. Portland is a city rife with options for people in my situation: poor! Are there any sliding scale places that you know of, etc.? Options that I am perhaps unaware of?

Thanks so much for your time. I am much obliged.

Sincerely,
proud and willing

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Dear Proud & Willing

I first want to stress that becoming clean from Narcotics is an amazing step and you really need to be commended for the strength that it has taken for you to do this. And while I would have to agree with you that the underlying factors for your drug use are more than likely the sexual abuse, first things first. You are still young in your recovery and are at a very fragile place. I want to encourage you to work your program, go to meetings and use your sponsor A LOT! This will be the foundation for all the other work that you have started on your journey to wholeness.

Being inundated with feelings is very common. Generally at the age that some one starts using and abusing drugs and alcohol is the developmental age that they stop maturing. So it only makes sense that when you get clean and sober that developmentally there is a lot of catching up that takes place. This can be very overwhelming when your reason for using was to avoid these feeling in the first place.

What I would suggest is that you get a journal, one that has a lock on it or that you have a place that you can lock it away. And write all the feelings, memories, what you are angry about and what is causing you to cry. Write, draw, scribble, paste, do what ever helps you to gather what you are experiencing and put them in your journal.  I suggest that it be a journal that can be locked for two reasons. The first is that as a survivor of abuse your fundamental sense of privacy has been violated, your feelings and what you write about them need to be private to you and shared only when you want to share them. The second reason is knowing that you can lock up these feelings in a journal once you get them out of you can help bring some stability back to your life. These feeling will always be there safely locked away for you to deal when you are ready to.

As to your question about therapy, there is the Men’s Resource Center, and the Sexual Minority Provider Alliance, both you can find on the web. There are a number of GLBT AA and NA groups in Portland that are very supportive.  Look up Portland AA or NA on the web and you will be able to find meeting times.  For healthy social activities with other men check out Manifest at www.Qland.org.  Also check out my web page www.rmarcandrews.com there are a verity of articles and resources that you might find useful.

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R. Marc Andrews is a counselor in Portland, Oregon specializing in gay male relationships and issues.

• Got a question for Fabulous Marc? Click here.

• Visit Marc’s Website.

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY: This is an advice column. It should never take the place of therapy offered by a licensed professional. Neither R. Marc Andrews nor Fabulous PDX bears any liability for the advice given or your interpretation of it. If you need help, please contact 911.

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Gay at the Oscars

This year’s Oscar nominees are nowhere near as gay as 2005, when Brokeback Mountain, Capote and Transamerica all vied for major awards. Yet, the 2009 Oscar nominees still have some fabulous. So, writes The Reverend on his blog Movie Dearest.

You can click here to jump to the article directly, or just read the summary below.

Academy nominees for 2009 may represent the second highest number of GLBT contenders in history, with a nod toward 2005 as the highest.

The 2009 Oscars will be awarded on March 7, and the following fabulous nominees could be among the winners.

Openly gay director Lee Daniels’s Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire has six nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director (Daniels,) Best Actress (Gabourney Sidibe,) and Best Supporting Actress (Mo’Nique.) The story is based on an abused HIV+ teenager who receives support from, among others, a lesbian teacher (Paula Patton) and her partner.

Avatar and The Hurt Locker will vie for major awards, but gay faves Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia) and Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side) are expected to battle it out for top actress honors.

The gay drama A Single Man received only one major nomination – for Colin Firth in the lead role. It is a great performance and a touching story, but the consensus is that Jeff Bridges will win for Crazy Heart.

What do you think about the fabulousity of this year’s Academy Awards nominees? Are you having an Oscar party? Leave comments below.

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Forces Pushing Obama on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: January 31, 2010, NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/us/politics/01military.html

WASHINGTON — President Obama and top Pentagon officials met repeatedly over the past year about repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the law that bans openly gay members of the military.

But it was in Oval Office strategy sessions to review court cases challenging the ban — ones that could reach the Supreme Court — that Mr. Obama faced the fact that if he did not change the policy, his administration would be forced to defend publicly the constitutionality of a law he had long opposed.

As a participant recounted one of the sessions, Mr. Obama told Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, that the law was “just wrong.” Mr. Obama told them, the participant said, that he had delayed acting on repeal because the military was stretched in two wars and he did not want another polarizing debate in 2009 to distract from his health care fight.

But in 2010, he told them, this would be a priority. He got no objections.

On Tuesday, in the first Congressional hearing on the issue in 17 years, Mr. Gates and Admiral Mullen will unveil the Pentagon’s initial plans for carrying out a repeal, which requires an act of Congress. Gay rights leaders say they expect Mr. Gates to announce in the interim that the Defense Department will not take action to discharge service members whose sexual orientation is revealed by third parties or jilted partners, one of the most onerous aspects of the law. Pentagon officials had no comment.

Gay rights groups are calling the hearing historic even as they question how quickly the administration is prepared to act. But Republicans are already signaling that they are not eager to take up the issue.

“In the middle of two wars and in the middle of this giant security threat,” Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader, said Sunday on “Meet the Press” on NBC, “why would we want to get into this debate?”

Still, it is undeniable that a variety of 21st-century forces — a new generation in the military, a change in climate at the top levels of the Pentagon, pressure on the president from a critical interest group, even Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand’s anticipated Democratic primary battle in New York — converged to begin repeal of a 1993 law that has led to the discharge of more than 13,000 gay men and lesbians, including desperately needed Arabic translators.

As Mr. Gates told Mr. Obama last year, it was no longer a question of if the ban would be repealed, but when, said the meeting participant, who declined to be named to discuss internal White House deliberations.

In the 2008 presidential campaign, Mr. Obama regularly pledged to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell,” but in his first year in office he refused to set a timetable and said so little publicly about the issue that gay rights leaders, an important constituency, grew increasingly angry.

Pentagon officials, who were busy withdrawing forces from Iraq and escalating the war in Afghanistan, were pleased that the president was stalling. In April, Mr. Gates told reporters that he and the president wanted to push the issue “down the road a bit.”

In New York, Ms. Gillibrand, a former House member from a conservative upstate district who had just been appointed to the Senate seat vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton, was moving to the left on several issues in anticipation of a primary this year.

In June she met with Lt. Dan Choi, a West Point graduate and an Arabic linguist and infantry officer in Iraq in 2006 and 2007. Lieutenant Choi is facing a discharge for announcing to Rachel Maddow on MSNBC in March that he was gay.

“This policy asked him to lie every day, and it was antithetical to everything he had learned in the military,” Ms. Gillibrand said in an interview. In July she tried and failed to introduce a bill for an 18-month moratorium on discharges and instead said she asked Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who leads the Armed Services Committee, to hold a hearing on the issue.

Since then, Ms. Gillibrand has frequently told reporters that Harold E. Ford Jr., a former five-term Democratic congressman from Tennessee who is weighing a run for her seat, voted twice in favor of legislation to make same-sex marriage illegal. (Mr. Ford says he has changed his mind.)

Despite Ms. Gillibrand’s efforts, little happened on the issue over the summer, although Mr. Gates asked his legal counsel to determine if the Pentagon could avoid a discharge if a service member’s sexual orientation was revealed by someone else. “If somebody is outed by a third party, does that force us to take action?” he asked in late June.

By September, when any hearings would have been subsumed by the intense deliberations at the White House and Pentagon about escalating the war in Afghanistan, there was a small but telling sign of change: an article in Admiral Mullen’s military journal, Joint Force Quarterly, called “don’t ask, don’t tell” a failure and said no evidence supported the claim that allowing openly gay men and lesbians to serve would undercut unit cohesion.

In December, after the Afghanistan debate was over and Mr. Obama had announced the deployment of 30,000 more troops, Admiral Mullen convened a small group to prepare for what would finally be Mr. Levin’s hearings. There was hardly unanimity.

Although Pentagon officials were of the view that the younger rank and file did not care much about serving with openly gay service members, Gen. James T. Conway, the commandant of the Marine Corps, had major reservations. But as a practical matter, the military would follow the orders of the commander in chief.

Polls now show that a majority of Americans support openly gay service — a majority did not in 1993 — but there have been no recent broad surveys of the 1.4 million active-duty personnel.

A 2008 census by The Military Times of predominantly Republican and largely older subscribers found that 58 percent opposed to efforts to repeal the policy; in 2006, a poll by Zogby International of 545 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans found that three-quarters were comfortable around gay service members.

At the White House, Mr. Obama decided at a meeting shortly before Christmas to use his State of the Union address to reaffirm his support for repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell.” A White House official said that Mr. Obama’s call for repeal stayed through six drafts of the speech, despite reports of internal battles over how far he should go.

As Tuesday’s hearing approaches, no one is predicting that the issue will be easy.

Aaron Belkin, the director of the Palm Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, a research group that focuses on repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell,” said he expected Mr. Gates to announce on Tuesday that the Pentagon would end discharges based on third-party accusations, but also that it would move slowly, which Mr. Belkin opposes.

“By signaling that integration is a complicated, fragile process and slow-rolling it over a number of years, you give obstructionists in the military the chance to stir up trouble in their units,” he said.

Teriyaki Disco Fitness Cabana Lounge

On a Monday morning, nothing beats a fresh dose of the disco music you spent the weekend dancing to.

Here is some for ya. Keep it real, fabbies!

Uganda’s proposed ‘anti-homosexuality bill’ a setback for human rights and HIV prevention

By Nicola Winter of MediaGlobal (see credit at end of article.)

29 January 2010 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Human rights activists and the majority of the international community were appalled when Uganda introduced a bill last October that among other things, seeks a minimum life sentence for anyone partaking in homosexual activity and the execution of those who test positive for HIV. The bill also mandates that individuals who do not turn in lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender individuals (LGBT) within 24 hours can receive a three-year jail sentence, and anyone who “aids or abets homosexuality,” including humanitarian organizations that offer support to these sexual minorities, can face up to seven years in prison.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, called the bill “draconian” and a violation of human rights as it is “blatantly discriminatory.” While the ethics behind the bill are certainly questionable, there is also a potentially deadly impact on Uganda’s fight against HIV. Ryan Thoreson, a Research Fellow at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission based in New York told MediaGlobal that “the bill would make HIV/AIDS efforts for LGBT people difficult or impossible…[as it] would deter people from accessing prevention, treatment, and care by threatening HIV positive LGBT people with the death penalty.”

Currently, 38 African states including Uganda criminalize same-sex relationships, more than any other continent in the world. In December, James Buturo, Uganda’s Minister of Ethics and Integrity announced that the death penalty and life imprisonment might be removed from the proposed bill. However, the version that is currently under consideration has not been amended, and last week, Minister of Parliament David Bahati who sponsored the bill stated that he stands by the current version.

Ironically, Uganda is a good example of how the spread of HIV was successfully managed. Since the first HIV outbreaks in the 1980s, Uganda has gone from having one of the highest infection rates to one of the lowest. In 1991, 15 percent of all adults were HIV positive. By 2001, this number had dropped to about 5 percent. This drastic reduction in infection rates can be attributed to a number of factors. First, in 1987 Uganda introduced the ABC initiative, which promoted abstinence, being faithful, and condom usage. A widespread grassroots movement was also launched to educate people about HIV and to help minimize the stigma around being tested. In 1999, voluntary door-to-door HIV testing was conducted in parts of Uganda. In the district of Bushenyi, infection rates fell from 8.1 percent to 3.1 percent in just three years — progress that was attributed to the door-to-door testing. Hospitals also automatically began testing everyone for HIV, unless the patient requested otherwise, and free anti-retroviral drugs have been available since 2004. All this hard work to educate the public and de-stigmatize HIV is at risk of being undone if the bill against homosexuality passes because not only would the bill criminalize the work being done by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who aid in the treatment and prevention of HIV, but it would also put a stop to the open discussions about HIV that have been so crucial in lowering infection rates. As Cheikh Traore the Senior Policy Advisor on Sexual Diversity at UNDP explained to MediaGlobal, criminalization of homosexuality “increases stigma, drives behaviors underground, and discourages vulnerable groups from accessing testing and other HIV-related services. This in turn fuels the spread of HIV.”

Some supporters of the bill welcome the proposed laws that would rid Uganda of its LGBT population, and feel it would also stop the spread of HIV. However, research shows that even though the bill is directed toward the LGBT community, it most likely would cause an increase in HIV in the heterosexual population as well. Traore explained that this is because the bill would “exacerbate the permeability between same-sex and heterosexual networks.” As Dr. Nicholas Muraguri of the Kenyan National Aids and STD Control Program explained to globalgayz.com in July 2009, “Half of the clients of men who have sex with men are actually married and therefore they may be a bridge for HIV infections [among heterosexual people].”

Ultimately, if Uganda is trying to keep the spread of HIV in check, further criminalization of homosexuality is highly likely to be detrimental to this effort. In fact, recent data from a UNAIDS study in the Caribbean where some countries have recently decriminalized homosexuality, suggests that “legal prohibition of sodomy and sex between men could be a contributing factor to the higher levels of the epidemic.”

MEDIAGLOBAL is the global news agency, based in the United Nations Secretariat, creating awareness in the media for the countries of the global South, with a strong focus on South-South Cooperation. The media company is one of the leading providers of information on global development issues facing vulnerable countries. MediaGlobal’s news stories are read by leaders of developed countries, the global media, policymakers in donor countries, non-governmental organizations and key personnel in the United Nations Secretariat, its agencies and managers in the field worldwide. Please contact us at: UNITED NATIONS, Room 301, UN Secretariat, New York, NY 10017. Telephone: 212.963.9878. Mobile: 609.529.6129. Email: media@mediaglobal.org. Website:www.mediaglobal.org

President Obama Pledges to End Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

In his State of the Union address just moments ago, President Obama pledged to work with the Congress and military this year to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT).

With the President’s leadership, now it is up to Congress to act. We’re rolling out a new strategic campaign to do exactly that – put an end to the discriminatory law that’s forced thousands of lesbian and gay members of the military to lie about who they are or face losing their jobs.

We’ve spent months designing a plan to pass legislation which repeals DADT. The plan will include organizing veterans across the country, generating media coverage in key markets and building focused campaigns in targeted states that will be critical to securing the final votes in the House and Senate.

First step: pushing legislation through the House by building a well-spring of support from representatives, while laying the groundwork for a critical fight in the Senate.

Help us capitalize on the President’s pledge tonight by asking your representative and senators to move quickly to repeal DADT.

Tomorrow morning when Congress returns to work, we want to make sure their inboxes are flooded with emails echoing the President’s call to repeal DADT.

It’s just the first step in a bold campaign to finally wipe DADT from the books this year.

The “Voices of Honor Campaign” will build on the successes of our 2009 Voices of Honor tour, where veterans toured the country speaking out against the law, garnering attention from Congress and the media, and helping us get to this moment.

Over the coming days, weeks and months, we will:

• Put an on-the-ground campaign manager in key states to build diverse local coalitions, drive earned media and organize voices from within these target communities;
• Organize a broad-based grassroots campaign to support our lobbying efforts;
• Expand on existing efforts to organize veterans in these target states and Congressional districts to generate media attention in the local area and put additional pressure on lawmakers;
• Bring veterans and other key voices to Washington, D.C. for a full day of lobbying on Capitol Hill;
• And more!

It’s an ambitious effort – working with our allies, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and Servicemembers United – and we’ll need you to play a key role if we expect to win. Today, I’m counting on you to take the first step and send an email to your representative and senators right away.

Tell Congress to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Once you send your letter, be sure to share this news with your friends and ask them to help, too.

We’ll keep you updated as this campaign progresses over the coming weeks. Thank you for helping us put an end to this law, once and for all.

Let’s end this now.

Joe Solmonese
President

Dear Hoping in Portland

Hi Marc – Thanks for doing this column. I am a 35 year old gay man here in Portland. I desperately want to get into a meaningful relationship but I find that every time I get close to someone, they either let me down in a really big way or I just lose interest. I am willing to work on the changes I need to make to meet (and keep) the right person. What do I need to do?
Hoping In Portland (HIP)

Dear HIP:
You are not alone.  I come across this situation all the time in my work with gay men.  As gay men and lesbians, we don’t really have many good role models on how to have and maintain a good healthy relationship (and that can mean a lot of different things for different people).  Most of us grow up in a heterosexual family and have that as a role model; which is not even working for the heterosexuals, with a divorce rate close to 50%.  While our peers are learning dating skills, we are often hiding our sexuality from others and ourselves.  On top of that, no mater how liberated we are, we still have been cultured in traditional male and female roles.  Men are active, outgoing and aggressive; and women are passive, stay at home, and smooth things over.  When you put them into a same sex relationship there are a lot of new dynamics to deal with.

Equally so, I have seen some of the most functional relationships between gay men and women; whether they are monogamous, open, play together, close friends or polyamory.  I think the very fact that gay men and women have to talk about relationships more than heterosexual men and women leads to more explorations as to what will work for the individuals involved.

This is what I would like you to do.  Make a list of the traits and qualities that you feel are important in a long-term happy relationship.  Take some time and put some serious thought into this.  Then take the list and ask yourself, do you have and cultivate these qualities in yourself (would you be your perfect boyfriend), even talk to a close friend to get some honest feed back.  Finally take the list and compare it to all of your past relationships.  How do the people you have dated in the past line up to the list of qualities that you want in a relationship?  This should give you a good foundation of what to look for in the men you choose to date in the future.

R. Marc Andrews is a counselor in Portland, Oregon specializing in gay male relationships and issues.

• Got a question for Fabulous Marc? Click here.

• Visit Marc’s Website.

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY: This is an advice column. It should never take the place of therapy offered by a licensed professional. Neither R. Marc Andrews nor Fabulous PDX bears any liability for the advice given or your interpretation of it. If you need help, please contact 911.

New Social Mixer: Q=Mob PDX

A group of local activists has started a new mixer event called Q=Mob PDX. The event is billed as a “Buycott” to support the Human Rights Campaign and businesses who support equality.

Q=Mob PDX is a new social group for LGBTQ folks and allies who are interested in meeting, socializing, and having an opportunity to volunteer to advance full equality.

The Q=Mob is a network of activists who are working to live out their values of equality and support local establishments in order to reward businesses who are working to ensure their businesses are equality-minded.

Q=Mob PDX will meet for a social mixer happy hour the last Wednesday of every month, from 6PM – 8PM. The first Q=Mob on January 27 will be hosted by Mint/820, 816 N Russell Street, Portland, Oregon.

For more information, join the Q=Mob PDX Facebook Group and follow us on Twitter.

Fabulous Weekend Planner January 22-24

FABULOUS THIS WEEKEND

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Hot Things at Fabulous PDX

Fabulous PDX is selling awesome tees! Save $2 and get yours first. We will be at Crush starting at 9pm on Friday Jan 22 with the coolest t-shirts in Portland. Just $10! Also, plan to hear the musical stylings of Polikarp! – check it out!

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE T-SHIRT DESIGN AND FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE EVENT

Fabulous PDX has an advice column. Be the first to ask a question! http://fabulouspdx.com/resources/ask-fabulous-marc/

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FRIDAY, January 22, 2010

Polikarp and FabulousPDX Tees at Crush, 9pm
Double X Bear Dance at CC’s, 9pm
Queerlaughaganza at Vergnetti’s, 9pm
Mendy’s Big Gay Prom at Red Cap, 10pm
No Homo Dance Party at Holocene, 10pm

Regular Friday Night Events: Bear Happy Hour at Fox & Hounds, Karaoke at Northbank, DJ Crumb at Scandals, 80’s Night at Invasion, $3 Domestics at Eagle

Full Event Listings

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SATURDAY, January 23, 2010

Clackamas GSA Summit at CCC, 10am
HIV Testing at CAP, 5pm
Hot Flash Dance for Women Only at Barracuda, 5pm
Double Down at Holocene, 8pm
Boink! Benefit for Portland Sisters at Invasion, 8pm
Blowpony at Rotture, 9pm
Lipz Cabaret Drag King Night at Northbank, 930pm

Regular Parties: Haute Saturday at Red Cap, DJ’s at Scandals and Crush, Drag Show at Embers, Crystals Country Jam at PPAA Hall, Maricon at Matador

Full Event Listings

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SUNDAY, January 24, 2010

Sunday Brunch at Crush, 11am
White Knights for White Knot at Embers, 5pm

Regular Parties: Beer Bust at Silverado, Gay Beer Bust at Aalto Lounge, Superstar Divas at CC’s, Joqs Dart Tournament, Pinochle at Hobo’s

Full Event Listings

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Mark Your Calendars Now!

Q-Center Winter Gala: January 30, 2010 at The Nines
PABA Winter Party: February 24, 2010 at Red Lion Convention Center
Equity Foundation Speakeasy Casino Party: March 6, 2010 at Crystal Ballroom
Red Dress Party: april 17, 2010
International Day Against Homophobia: May 17, 2010
Beartwon 15: June 10-13, 2010
Portland Pride: June 19-20, 2010

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