The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Bad Blood
To give blood in the United States today is like joining an elite, profoundly uncool, hyper-exclusive club.
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Posts Tagged: gay rights
The Storming Bohemian Punks the Muse #19: Are YOU My Hero?
This week, I’ve found myself thinking about heroism. What makes a hero, anyway? Who should we choose for our heroes? When I was around fourteen, I developed a hero crush on W. C. Fields, of all people! I was delighted when I read about the time he and John Barrymore gave a ride to a […]
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The Friends of Dorothy Have Something to Say to Kansas
As we move backward in time, we must beware of yellow brick fallacies. Also: poppy fields, flying monkeys, and entrepreneurial wizards.
...moreThis Week in Trumplandia
Welcome to This Week in Trumplandia. Check in with us every Thursday for a weekly roundup of the most relevant content on our country, which is currently spiraling down a crappy toilet drain. You owe it to yourself, your communities, and your humanity to contribute whatever you can, even if it is just awareness of […]
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The Future of Body Horror: Can Our Art Keep up with Our Suffering?
The individuality of body horror is its signature attribute. Nothing is more intimate than one’s own body, and by extension, one’s own physical suffering.
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This Week in Trumplandia
Welcome to This Week in Trumplandia. Check in with us every Thursday for a weekly roundup of the most pertinent and relevant content on our country, which is currently spiraling down a crappy toilet drain. You owe it to yourself, your communities, and your humanity to contribute whatever you can, even if it is just […]
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United We Stand
No one knows exactly what the next four years will bring. But we are always stronger when we protest together.
...moreFrank Ocean’s Plea for Beauty after Orlando
Frank Ocean has released a message about the Orlando shooting that is mournfully beautiful in both its reflection on the hate that fueled the attacks and the hope for a counter-balancing beauty to emerge in its wake: I heard on the news that the aftermath of a hate crime left piles of bodies on a dance floor […]
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Different Love
Let me be clear: I’m not interested in changing. I’ve made my choice, and I’m happy.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Growing Up Gaming
“Is this inclusive or exclusive?” he asked with a creased brow. “I don’t like the idea that we’re being treated as a joke.”
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A Long Engagement
The image that comes to my mind is a foot hovering above a stair. Marriage is the fabled next step, but engagement implies a kind of limbo, an almost-not-quite-there yet—the zero that comes before the one.
...moreDan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
(Dan Weiss is out on tour with his band The Yellow Dress. He’ll be back on August 3rd.) In galactic news, now we know what Pluto looks like. Ever wonder where all the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge money went? Two men film themselves holding hands on a walk through Moscow. Hit an inconvenient red light […]
...moreDan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
(Dan Weiss is out on tour with his band The Yellow Dress. He’ll be back on August 3rd.) In the best news ever for someone yet to be determined, J.K. Rowling has announced an open casting call for her Harry Potter spin-off. The Boy Scouts of America have (finally) unanimously approved a resolution allowing gay adults to […]
...moreDo It Like They Do on The Discovery Channel
Even the animal kingdom is more progressive than the US. Penguins have been forming same-sex romantic relationships for as long as penguins have existed, and none of their compatriots ever batted a wing. The Dodo looks back at some of the most “aww”-inducing penguin pairs, because why not celebrate love with adorable pictures of birds?
...moreMarriage Equality: A Rumpus Roundup
On June 26th, the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that states must allow same-sex couples to marry and that they must recognize marriages performed in other states. The ruling ends the bans against same-sex marriage that existed in 14 states. This decision comes two years to the day since the Court’s decision in […]
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The Rumpus Interview with LaShonda Katrice Barnett
Novelist LaShonda Katrice Barnett discusses her debut novel, Jam on the Vine, how becoming a historian taught her about plot, Muslims living in Texas in the 19th century, and the Missouri State Penitentiary, also known as “the bloodiest 47 acres in America.”
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Towards a Fight
The future is coming, it is coming for everyone in this story. Someday that cop will turn on his TV and see the first black president, the first president who looks like he does, say that he thinks couples like me and Dee ought to be able to marry if we want to. Which probably means we ought to be able to kiss.
...moreAcclaimed African Author Comes Out as Gay
Supporters of African LGBT rights were so relieved about Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni’s veto of an anti-gay bill that they were nearly blindsided when Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan’s signed a similar bill into law. The law prompted Binyavanga Wainaina, a prominent Kenyan author who also spends a lot of time in Lagos, Nigeria’s capital, to […]
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Sympathy for the Devil
“You have a demon inside of you that is making you gay,” she stammered quietly. “I know because I used to have a demon that gave me a gluten intolerance. But then I, uh, prayed and God cast it out.”
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The Rumpus Interview with Michael Lowenthal
Michael Lowenthal’s new novel, The Paternity Test, goes well beyond questioning whether two guys should be allowed to walk down the aisle together. It asks what they are willing to risk to stay married.
...moreFormer Eagle Scouts Fight The Boy Scouts Of America’s Anti-Gay Policy
Maggie Koerth-Baker documents the ongoing confrontation centered around the Boy Scouts of America’s anti-gay policy. Many former Eagle Scouts are combating the policy by writing to the Boy Scouts of America and returning their badges, an effort that is being documented on the Eagle Scouts Returning Our Badges tumblr: “So here’s a point that may […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Inga Muscio
Inga Muscio is the highly acclaimed, and equally controversial (and unapologetic) feminist author of Cunt: A Declaration of Independence, Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil: My Life and Times in a Racist, Imperialist Society, and her latest, Rose: Love in Violent Times.
...moreThin Opposition
“…Prejudice is a kind of cartel that works best when there is no real dissent. Once one person breaks away, others who may have had doubts find it easy to speak up. Moreover, those who never really had objection–but were just kinda going along–also fall away.” As more public figures express their support for marriage […]
...moreJoining Forces
“Whatever your personal opinions and your insecurities about homosexuality and the various liberation movements among homosexuals and women (and I speak of the homosexuals and women as oppressed groups), we should try to unite with them in a revolutionary fashion.” That’s Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, in a 1970 speech that focused […]
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Cassie Jaye
Documentary filmmaker Cassie Jaye landed the Best Documentary Award at Cannes Film Festival for her film, Daddy I Do in 2010 — about the controversial religious ceremony Purity Balls, where girls from six to sixteen pledge their virginity to their fathers until marriage. She is now touring the country with a new stick of dynamite, […]
...more“The Love That Dares”
At Mother Jones, our friend Mac McClelland reports from Uganda, focusing on the defiance of the country’s gay community in the face of bigots (some of whom have American allies). McClelland calls attention to the fact that despite the media’s recent focus on Uganda, anti-gay violence and attacks on gay rights is occurring elsewhere, including […]
...moreIs the Gay Bar Dying?
June Thomas in Slate asks, in the light of the most recent victory for same-sex marriage rights for gays and lesbians and greater acceptance across American society, if the gay bar is in danger of disappearing. It’s an interesting question because as Thomas points out, “gay liberation is the only civil rights movement that began […]
...moreAn Odd Definition of Losing
The Southern Poverty Law Center recently added the Family Research Council, along with a number of other fundamentalist Christian groups, to its list of hate groups because of their anti-gay rhetoric. The Family Research Council didn’t much like this, and responded in part by saying this: ” The Left is losing the debate over ideas […]
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