June 28, 2002 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 11

on the airoff the press

Right loses some support in outcry over Nick special

by John Graves

Linda Ellerbee drew the ire of the religious right when she and a group of young people discussed the issues faced by families with gay parents on her My Family is Different special report on Nickelodeon's Nick News on June 18.

Ellerbee and the young panelists were joined by lesbian mom Rosie O'Donnell; Tom Ryan, a New York City firefighter and gay father who helped in the rescue efforts at the World Trade Center disaster, and an openly gay middle-school principal.

After watching the show, it seemed odd the conservatives protested because even though the youth panel included several teens who had gay parents, there were several others who seemed to have been wellindoctrinated in the rhetoric of the religious right. Homophobic televangelist Jerry Falwell was also given the spotlight in a separate, taped segment. Nevertheless, the program drew around 100,000 e-mails and phone calls in protest.

Falwell tempered his antigay stance in the taped segment by recognizing the diversity in our culture, the right of lesbian and gay people to have their civil liberties protected and the need for people to get along despite their differences. But he now says he regrets his participation in the show.

Falwell told Larry King on CNN that although he hadn't seen the show, he was sure the message at the end of the show would be, "It's okay to be gay."

David Bittler, a Nickelodeon publicist for My Family is Different, told Plain Dealer TV critic Mark Dawidziak, “We don't want to diminish the number [of protests] that's been received, because it's been considerable, but most have been a generic e-mail form, and we see this as primarily the work of one organization.

USA Today says Navratilova denies her win over the 25th-ranked Panova was a sign of weakness in the women's ranks, saying, "That would make me mad, because when Michael Jordan comes back, he still makes an All-Star team and plays well because he's great. I can still play, and certainly I can still play on grass. So don't look at the age, look at the ability."

Unfortunately, Navratilova lost her second match to Daniela Hantuchova a third-seeded player 26 years her junior. After the loss, Navratilova commented, "I don't know if I'm playing next year, but I have no plans to play singles again. It was fun. I showed I can keep up with these girls. I won a match and lost a three-setter to a player ranked 13.”

While in England, Navratilova was interviewed by the BBC's Radio Times magazine, and told them she wanted to adopt children. "The time when I could have my own children has passed," Navratilova said. “I could adopt a 5-year-old, a brother and a sister, or two sisters. There are too many kids out there who

want a home."

"It will happen when the time is right," she added, “and, and I'll be a good, fun mother."

Navratilova said she was in a committed relationship now but declined to identify the woman saying, "I'm in the best relationship I could be in and let's leave it at that. She is the most amazing human being, period, and I've known her a long time. I've said similar things before, but I didn't really find the right person. This one is for life, which is brilliant."

Stop that, Velma!

Hanna-Barbera, the makers of the new Scooby Doo movie, were ordered by censors to cut a lesbian kiss from the film if they wanted it to qualify for a PG rating.

The scene the Motion Picture Association of America ratings board objected to had Daphne (Buffy star Sarah Michelle Gellar) give her four-eyed friend Velma (Linda Cardellini) a kiss after their souls are transported into the bodies of two lovers on Spooky Island.

Dawidziak says that organization is the notoriously homophobic Traditional Values Coalition. Their executive director, Andrea Lafferty, said before the show aired, "Nickelodeon markets itself as a familyfriendly place that parents can trust. This upcoming show proves that this network has been co-opted by homosexual activists who are targeting children. Sodomy is not a family value. Nickelodeon has now lost the trust Frankly, my dear of parents over this decision.”

In her opening remarks on the show, Ellerbee countered, “It is never a wrong time to talk about hate, it's just not. That's all our show is about. It is not in any way about the homosexual lifestyle. It's not even introducing the subject to most kids. They know. But quite frankly, many of them know it from a hate standpoint without even knowing what they're talking about."

Commenting on the anti-gay protest, Tom Shales of the Washington Post said, "What's scary about the kind of protest that has been mounted is that it seeks to suppress all debate rather than merely put forth a viewpoint. The protesters are saying that merely by acknowledging the existence of samesex living arrangements, the producers are automatically encouraging them or advocating acceptance of them."

Three-love for Navratilova

Lesbian tennis ace Martina Navratilova was in the news twice this past week, first by playing in her first singles match since 1994 and then by announcing she wanted to become a mother.

Navratilova got into the Wimbeldon warmup tournament in Eastbourne, England as a wild card after losing a bet with her personal trainer, Giselle Tirado.

"She said that I was playing well enough to play singles," Navratilova noted, "and that if [doubles partner] Natasha Zvereva and I won Madrid, then I had to play singles."

They won, and Navratilova found herself facing Tatiana Panova of Russia in her singles match. Saying, "It was fun. It's always more fun when you win," Navratilova won that match; 6-1, 4-6, 6-2.

"I didn't really expect anything," she said: "I expected to have a good time and to do the best I could and see what that's good for.

A movie insider said the censors were horrified when they saw the film at its first screening and said the scene, “has now been edited out and will not be seen," according to a report on GQ's web site.

Let's Get Frank, New York filmmaker Bart Everly's candid documentary on openly gay U.S. Rep. Barney Frank's role in the Clinton impeachment scandal, is set to debut this summer or fall.

Everly's 70-minute film "mixes scenes of the politically charged Monica Lewinsky saga on Capitol Hill with remarkably candid footage of Frank, D-Mass., discussing his personal life," according to the Boston Herald.

In the film, Rep. Frank, the second-ranking Judiciary Committee Democrat in the 1998 impeachment battle, "disarms his GOP foes with a volley of stinging oneliners."

Frank, who marched in the Cleveland Pride parade this month, also discusses the ups and downs of his long and colorful career in the film, including his struggle coming to terms with his sexual orientation and coping with the scandal of Steve Gobie, a gay man who was found to be operating as a prostitute out of the apartment the two men shared for a brief time.

Recalling his slow but inexorable progress toward finally coming out in 1987, Rep. Frank says in the film, "You didn't have to have supersonic radar by the early '80s to pick it up... I had stopped dating women. I had started to date guys. I was doing it in a half-ass way. I was clumsy, but I was trying."

Recalling the moment he first came out to House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip❞ O'Neill, Frank says the speaker told him, "I'm sorry to hear that, I thought you were going to be the first Jewish speaker."

Then, Frank says O'Neill told his staff: "We better get ready-Barney Frank is going to come out of the room.'

In the film, Frank also quips about the effect of the impeachment hearings on his relationship with his partner Sergio Pombo, which had started just as the hearings got under way. "Not only do Republicans have a plot to impeach the president-they have a plot to screw up my social life," Frank said.

Everly said he wanted to present an honest portrayal of Frank, saying, "It's unflattering when you admit you were with a hustler, or lived for 40 years without admitting your sexuality, or that you eat a lot when you get stressed. He talks about those things."

Frank explains in the film how surviving the Gobie scandal helped him defend President Clinton during the impeachment hearings. Everly, who spent 31⁄2 years on the film, noted, "Barney was a bigger man because he admitted his wrongs. If Clinton would have come clean, he would have been a lot better off."

The ten-year itch

Toni and Kelly, two thirty-something lesbians who describe themselves as way out of the closet, join six other newlywed couples on Married in America, a new documentary series on A&E that plans to track their marriages over a period of ten years.

In the first show, the pairs talk about how they met, their backgrounds and families and their hopes for the future as their weddings are captured on film.

Kelly, who works as a corrections officer and Toni, a high school physical education teacher, plan to have children through artificial insemination some day. The series is directed by Michael Apted, who directed the critically-acclaimed documentary series 7 Up, which followed the lives of a group of British children from when they were seven until they were 42 years old.

Co-producer Steven Lawrence said the series would not be like the more exploitative reality shows that abound today, telling the Cleveland Plain Dealer, "This is a serious study to present relationships as faithfully as possible. This is something that treats these people seriously."

Henry Apted "avoided couples he thought. didn't have a chance. We want to study people who have a serious commitment to their marriages. We're not looking for the drama of divorce or infidelity."

The nine couples were chosen expressly by Apted to reflect a diversity of ethnic, religious, racial, social and socioeconomic backgrounds, including a same-sex couple. This was no easy task, according to coproducer Dale Riehl. "It was tricky to embed in the nine couples as many factors as we did," he noted.

Updates will follow every one to two years.

For some reason, A&E aired an abbreviated version of the three-hour program for its June 17 première, and the lesbian couple was left out. A&E aired the full version later in the week on June 20.

More 'All My Lesbian Children'

All My Children head writer Richard Culliton said of actress Eden Riegel's portrayal of lesbian teenager Bianca: "Eden does amazing work, and we are ready to expand her."

Asked if Bianca would finally get a love interest, Culliton told Soap Opera Weekly, "Well, sure."

The magazine's readers think that special someone in Bianca's life should be Maggie, the heretofore heterosexual twin sister of Frankie, a troubled girl who was murdered before her budding romance with Bianca ever got a chance to develop.

When Soap Opera Weekly asked readers what storyline they would like to see Maggie in, 71% responded they would like to see "Maggie pick up where Frankie left off and start a relationship with Bianca."

Eligible gay bachelors

In what appears to be a breakthrough, People magazine included three very eligible gay men, Chris Beckman, Brian Keith Jackson and Matt Zarley, in their feature article on The 50 Top Bachelors.

Beckman was the castmate who came out to viewers on Real World IX: Chicago on MTV this year. Beckman, a recovering alcoholic who lives in New York City, is now on the lecture circuit and studying acting.

"I have a responsibility to talk about where my life was and where it is today," he said, and that commitment to his responsibility has earned Beckman the 2002 Rep. Gerry E. Studds Visibility Award for being a role model in the gay community.

Beckman, 25, said he likes, "good, wholesome people."

Jackson, a 34-year-old AfricanAmerican gay man who lives in Harlem in New York City, has worked as an actor, a stand-up comic and a playwright, has just published his third novel, The Queen of Harlem.

"I'm oblivious when someone's flirting with me," Jackson admitted, "but I look for someone who is open, with no predisposed ideas."

Zarley, a 33-year-old actor and singer from Los Angeles, appeared in a Tony the Tiger TV commercial at age 12 and has performed in the musical Cats and the Broadway production of A Chorus Line.

When asked about his ideal partner, Zarley, whose first CD, Debut, was released in April, said, "I'm looking for somebody I can trust, somebody I can take home to my parents."

John Graves is the producer and host of Gaywaves, a lesbian-gay public affairs show on Cleveland's WRUW 91.1 FM Fridays at 7:30pm, and at http://radio.cwru.edu. Dave Haskell, Jim McGrattan and Kim Jones also contributed to this column.

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