Somewhere Under the Rainbow
Created | Updated May 29, 2002
'I remember driving my car when I got my permit. I was 18 and I was alone and I was like, I totally think I'm gay. Like I said it out loud in the car ... just like that it hit me. I first fell in love at 20, with a woman, and then I've had lovers who have been men as well. I mean, you know, it took me a while to understand and to figure out all the things that made me, me, where I was most comfortable, who I was, and how I was going to define my life. What coat fit me. And I found the coat that fit me.'
Rosie O'Donnell, US chat show host, from a recent TV interview.
If you can't win fair, play Name Games
In the forthcoming election to the Nevada State Assembly, three term member, and only openly gay Nevada politician, David Parks is facing a tough challenge. The Democrat who represents Las Vegas is facing a challenger called, 'David Parks'. It is believed that the ploy to try and unsettle the incumbent is the latest attempt by extreme right wingers Philip and Tony Dane, a father and son team who have been challenging the homosexual Assembly man since he won his seat in 1996. Father Philip is standing in the Republican primary again this time, having challenged in the last two elections following the defeat of his son who admitted involvement in a campaign flier in 1996, which showed clippings of a ten year old boy raping other boys alongside an endorsement of the local gay paper 'The Bugle' by Parks.
As the sole representative from the gay community in the State, Park's was involved in adding sexual orientation to the state's employment anti-discrimination laws in 1999. He is shrugging off his novice challenger, who's work fax number is the same as the Danes, telling the Las Vegas Review Journal 'I'm trying to stay positive and don't want to sink myself into this.'
If the name sake of Parks does cause enough confusion at the ballot box and a Dane wins the Republican primary for the forth election in a row, will there be uproar in Nevada when the state might lose its sole representative from the gay community. Or will his constituency of Las Vegas be too busy pursuing or helping others to pursue the 'Golden Nugget on Sunset Strip' to notice the duplicity on the election slip. Only time will tell. But the incumbent is ready for a battle to assure people that he has served them well in the last six years and intends to continue to do so, for a fourth term. We'll keep an eye on Nevada as the elections approach.
Life on the Wilde Side
Continuing to look at aspects of H2G2 with a LesBiGay theme, this week we turn to an excellent article on Oscar Wilde by MDS. It stands out as quite unique in the edited guide as every paragraph is headed by a quote from the subject. Which just goes to prove that Wilde had a
witticism for every eventuality in life. It takes us from his birth in Ireland, to the start of his writing career with Punch, through his marriage, the great plays, his liaison with, Lord Alfred Douglas, to his two years hard labour at Reading Goal. It may well have been as a result of his imprisonment for his homosexuality that he suffered an early death three years after his release at only 46 in his beloved Paris, but his genius lives on in his works to this day.
Wilde is undoubtedly a prime candidate for a list of M2M2 - Positive LesBiGay Role Models but surely you can think of more. Let us know and help establish a list of people from all walks of life who succeed and just happen to be Gay, Lesbian or Bisexual.
Keeping a 'Straight Face'
Another prime example to join the list above is that remarkable
straight actor and knight of stage and screen Sir Nigel Hawthorne who died on Boxing Day, 26th December 2001. Two days earlier this very private man yet public figure had finished work on his biography. His partner for the past 22 years Trevor Bentham, then found himself alone in the mansion in Hertfordshire which they had shared alongside their
heterosexual country neighbours, without anyone batting an eyelid. The newly completed work needed editing and Bentham threw himself into the task and even he realised things about Sir Nigel that he was only slightly aware.
For a private man the biography spares no punches as it chronicles Sir Nigel's tempestuous previous relationship with Bruce Palmer, who was later to die of AIDS, with his ex-lover then current partner beside him in 1992. It also records how he came to renown
quite late in his life with his role as Sir Humphrey Appleton in the BBC series Yes, Minister and then Yes, Prime Minister. As well as how ashamed Nigel was that one of his most prominent fans was the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
However he struggled to make it into films missing out on playing his stage roles in Private’s On Parade to John Cleese and C.S. Lewis' Shadowlands to Anthony Hopkins. However that changed when Alan Bennett refused Hollywood the honour of taking his successful stage show The Madness of King George III to the big screen without the man who carved the role on the London stage. As a result he won a BAFTA and received an Oscar nomination for the role on the big screen.
The success of George III the movie led to his so called 'outing', when the British press landed on an interview Sir Nigel had given, reluctantly, to an American gay magazine. It was the British tabloids at their worst, but to those who knew Nigel it was a case of so what? He had never hidden the fact from those he knew and worked with he just felt it wasn't an issue for the public record.
His last stage role in 1999 as King Lear however received poor reviews, but he took solace in the box office returns and letters of praise, ignoring the hacks as he used to ignore Jim Hacker in Yes Minister. The book Straight Face by Nigel Hawthorne is published on June 6th by Hodder and Stoughton.
Have You Got News for Us
If you have something to contribute by the way of current affairs for the M2M2 community please pop by The M2M2 News Centre and let us know. After all I can't keep up with all the happenings around the globe by myself.
The Somewhere Under the
Rainbow Archive
Steve
