Ruben Diaz, Sr., Aims to Return to the Council
BY ANDY HUMM | State Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr., 74, has a bad back and wants to take over the closer-to-home City Council seat opening up this fall in the South Bronx, including parts of Parkchester, Soundview, Unionport, and Castle Hill. His record of virulent anti-LGBTQ bigotry and opposition to women’s reproductive freedom has some political […]
LGBTQ Russians, Allies Liberate Brighton Beach
BY ANDY HUMM | The first Brighton Beach Pride, led by RUSA LGBT, a group for Russian LGBTQ émigrés, drew 300 marchers to the uncharted territory — for gay demonstrators — of the boardwalk in a Brooklyn enclave of Russians and other Eastern Europeans on Saturday, May 20. The overcast skies greatly diminished the number of […]
Deadlines Loom on Sex Abuse Survivor Relief
BY PAUL SCHINDLER | As the deadline approaches for victims of sexual abuse by local priests to file claims under a special fund established by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, legislators in Albany looking to provide more broad-based relief to survivors are scrambling to move bills through the State Senate and Assembly in advance […]
Pride Parade Insurance Reg Trips Up Small Groups
BY DUNCAN OSBORNE | The New York City chapter of American Veterans for Equal Rights (AVER) has marched in every Pride Parade since the chapter was founded in 2002, but it may not march this year after the group that produces the annual event required all contingents to get insurance coverage to participate. “Basically, we […]
Marriage Equality Triumphs in Taiwan
BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD | In Taiwan this week, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of China voted overwhelmingly that same-sex couples are entitled to marry and that anti-gay discrimination violates the Republic’s Constitution. The May 24 ruling was greeted with relative equanimity by legislative leaders, who were ordered by the court to implement this […]
With Human Rights in Crisis, Courage Honored
BY PAUL SCHINDLER | At its annual Celebration of Courage, OutRight Action International, which defends the rights and dignity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer people worldwide, presented its Felipa De Sousa Award to Caleb Orozco, the man who last year successfully challenged the sodomy laws then still in place in Belize. The May […]
Time for Resistance to Jeff Sessions’ Drug War
BY NATHAN RILEY | It’s a question of will; you want to solve the drug problem, give them the max, says Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, the man Donald Trump chose to be his attorney general. In line with that thinking, Sessions is torpedoing a three-year experiment that encourages leniency before its impact could be examined. Sessions’ […]
Faux Stakes, Real Laughs
BY TRAV S.D. | The summer of 1967 — 50 years ago, now! –– is remembered today for many things. It was the “Summer of Love” — the Beatles released “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and the Monterey Pop Festival brought together many of the top musical acts of the day. But it was […]
Marlene’s Movies
BY DAVID NOH | Marlene Dietrich, a star of many accomplishments and fecund longevity, was one of the last century’s most remarkable women in having made herself a literal human mirror to history. In the hometown that she deserted, Berlin, Dietrich is still very much alive — her spirit evoked on many street corners, its […]
