Fairbanks Regional Public Health Center

• Location: 1025 W. Barnette, Fairbanks, AK (see map)
• Date/time: Wednesday, Feb 22,  11:00 AM to 7:00 PM and Thursday, Feb 23, 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM. No appointment necessary.
• Further info: Call  (907) 452-1776.

Interior AIDS Association (IAA)

• Location: 710 3rd Avenue, Fairbanks, AK (see map)
• Date/time: Every Monday through Thursday, 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM
• Further info: Contact IAA at (907) 452-4222.

DHSS also reports a syphilis outbreak in Anchorage.  Both the increase in HIV cases in Fairbanks and the syphilis outbreak in Anchorage appear to be particularly affecting men who have sex with men who seek anonymous sexual partners online. Of the nine men infected with HIV in 2011 in Fairbanks, eight were men who have sex with men, and seven were either in the U.S. Army stationed in Fairbanks, or had sexual partners who were in the military.

The HIV and syphilis outbreaks are the subjects of two epidemiology bulletins issued yesterday —

• 21 Feb 2012: “HIV Outbreak — Fairbanks, 2011–2012.” State of Alaska Epidemiology Bulletin.
• 21 Feb 2012: “Syphilis Outbreak —Alaska, 2011–2012.” State of Alaska Epidemiology Bulletin.

— and have also been widely covered in the Alaska press, including:

• 21 Feb 2012: “State Concerned Over Increasing Numbers of HIV Cases” By Lori Townsend (Alaska Public Radio Network (APRN))
• 21 Feb 2012: “Sudden spike of HIV cases in Fairbanks area concerns health officials” by Eric Christopher Adams (Alaska Dispatch)
• 22 Feb 2012: “Spike in HIV cases reported in Fairbanks linked to military — Nine new cases reported in year” by Michelle Theriault Boots (Anchorage Daily News)

Get educated.  Get tested.  Know your HIV status.
In Fairbanks: Interior AIDS Association (IAA)
In Anchorage/Juneau/statewide: Alaskan AIDS Assistance Association (Four A’s)

Press release

Here is the press release issued yesterday by the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. [Update: The dates/times for free rapid HIV testing at Interior AIDS Association were incorrect in the press release, and have been corrected by Bent Alaska based on direct discussion with IAA.]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Feb. 21, 2012

Contact: Greg Wilkinson, 907-269-7285, Cell 907-382-7032
gregory.wilkinson@alaska.gov
Ann Potempa, 907-269-7957, Cell 907-230-4001
ann.potempa@alaska.gov
Brandy Ostanik, 907-361-5091, Cell 907-590-8877
brandy.ostanik@us.army.mil

State reports increase in new HIV, syphilis cases
Testing encouraged for early detection

ANCHORAGE — The Department of Health and Social Services HIV/STD Program is reporting an increase in reported cases of HIV and syphilis during 2011. The new HIV cases were clustered in the Fairbanks area, while the syphilis outbreak is mainly concentrated in Anchorage.

An analysis of the data shows the HIV infection case count in Fairbanks spiked in 2011, with a total of nine cases of HIV reported between Jan. 1, 2011, and Jan. 31, 2012. Of the nine cases, eight involved men having sex with men, seven of whom reported meeting anonymous sexual partners online. In addition, seven of the nine were either in the U.S. Army or had sexual partners associated with the military, and four were 20 years old or younger.

The HIV/STD program is also working on a recent outbreak of syphilis cases in the Anchorage area. Since January 2011, 13 new cases of infectious and early syphilis have been reported; nine since October. The current outbreak involves similar risk characteristics as the cluster of new HIV cases in Fairbanks, including men who have had sex with men and who find partners online.

“Several of the patients were co-infected with both syphilis and HIV,” said Susan Jones, the HIV/STD program manager, “and having both diseases increases the potential for passing the infections due to open sores.”

Everyone with risk factors for HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases should use appropriate precautions when having sex and should be tested. Testing sites for HIV and STDs can be found at: http://www.hivtest.org/.

Free rapid HIV testing is available at the Fairbanks Public Health Center, Feb. 21, from 1 to 5 p.m.; Feb. 22, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Feb. 23, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Call the health center at 907-452-1776 for more information. The Interior AIDs Association, in Fairbanks, will also be offering free rapid HIV tests, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Feb. 21–24 every week Monday through Thursday from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM. IAA can be reached at 907-452-4222.

A rapid HIV test consists of simply swabbing the inside of the mouth. Results are available within 20 minutes.

More information on both outbreaks is available at: http://www.epi.hss.state.ak.us/bulletins.

Related posts:

1. Saturday night in Fairbanks: Two events to shake out the cabin fever
2. Transgender health care workshop in Anchorage, Wed. Oct 20
3. Fairbanks ex-Air Force sergeant sues Rapid City, SD

Erin McKeown (it’s pronounced mick-YONE) packs a wallop of music into her shows.  Her music can’t be easily categorized: pop, swing, rock, folk, electronic music — she’s even cited The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as an influence. It’s a matter of breadth, not chaos: her undergrad degree from Brown University is in ethnomusicology, a field of study that has lent depth and diversity to her music. She’s not bound to just one instrument either — guitar, piano, banjo, mandolin, and more. With 8 albums and 5 EPs — her most recent album is Hundreds of Lions (2009) — she’s taken part in the LGBT music festival Queerstock and spends lots of her time touring around the world with such artists as Ani DiFranco, Josh Ritter, the Indigo Girls, Martin Sexton, Andrew Bird, Thea Gilmore, Melissa Ferrick, Allison Miller — and, this weekend in Anchorage and Palmer, Natalia Zukerman.

 ”In several distinctive ways — voice, dynamic subtlety, and sheer songwriting ability- Erin McKeown is in a class of her own.” — Sunday Times (UK)

“Erin’s playing is so muscular, her arrangements so well conceived that she succeeds brilliantly. As with all truly great guitarists, the wonder is less in her chops than her choices”- Boston Globe

Official website | Blog |  Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Wikipedia | Amazon

Natalia Zukerman, who last appeared in Anchorage with Willy Porter, engages audiences with a range of styles and moods.  If the name sounds multigenerationally familiar, that’s because she hails from a musical family — her father is violist and conductor Pinchas Zukerman, her mother is flutist and writer Eugenia Zukerman, and her sister, Arianna Zukerman, is an internationally regarded opera soprano. But the classical music that inspires her family is just one of her musical influences — she’s also got roots in the blues, jazz, folk, bluegrass, and country, counting Ma Rainey, Memphis Minnie, Bonnie Raitt, Erika Luckett, Joni Mitchell, Rickie Lee Jones, and Ani DiFranco among her influences.  She’s appeared at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Fetival and other women’s festivals. On top of her concerts, festivals, and five albums — most recently Gas Station Roses (2011) — she’s also an accomplished artist specializing in large format drawings and murals.

“Natalia’s voice could send an orchid into bloom while her guitar playing can open a beer bottle with its teeth.” — New Yorker

“A wise mix of rootsy styles from torch blues to country swing. If you’re a fan of Madeleine Peyroux, Bonnie Raitt or even Amy Winehouse, you’ll find stuff to connect with here.” — Philadelphia Daily News

Official website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Wikipedia | Amazon

Concerts

These events are part of Whistling Swan Production’s 2011-2012 season. Order your own subscription here or call CenterTix at 263-ARTS (1-877-ARTS-TIX outside Anchorage).

Anchorage

• Date/time: Saturday, February 25, 7:30-9:30 PM
• Location: Tap Root, 3300 Spenard Road, Anchorage (see map)
• Cost of admission: $25.00. Tickets at Centertix
• Age restriction: Mature audiences only. Minors must be accompanied by parent or legal guardian. ID required.
• Further info: see Whistling Swan’s website

Palmer

• Date/time: Sunday, February 26, 6:00-8:00 PM
• Location: Vagabond Blues, 642 South Alaska Street, Palmer (see map)
• Cost of admission: $23.00. Tickets at Centertix
• Further info: see Whistling Swan’s website

Is your event not on our calendar? No matter where you are in the state, if you’re running an event of interest to the LGBTQA community, we’d be glad to put it on the Bent Alaska events calendar. If you use Google Calendar, you can subscribe to our calendar at http://bit.ly/bentcalendar.

Photo credits: (1) Erin McKeown, August 2008. Photo © 2008 by Desdemona “Bunty” Burgin. Via Wikipedia; used in accordance with Creative Commons licensing. (2) Natalia Zukerman. Official press photo by Asia Kepka.

Related posts:

1. Saturday night in Anchorage: Three Valentine’s events
2. Dine Out for Equality: Spenard Roadhouse, Snow City, & Sacks Cafe in support of One Anchorage
3. One Anchorage Fun Run for Equality on Sunday, Jan. 29

The first support group meeting, held on January 19, was geared in particular toward FTM people and masculine-oriented women in Fairbanks and Interior Alaska. But discussion after the meeting was announced made it clear that there was a demand and desire for inclusion of people across the full spectrum of transgender and genderqueer experience. As the first meeting’s organizer stated, “There was never any intention of exclusion, only of catering to. The idea of a larger all gender inclusive sounds great,” and group members immediately set about to make it happen.

The other need was for a safe and welcoming meeting space, which organizers found in the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Fairbanks (UUFF). UUFF is a Welcoming Congregation which already provides meeting space for an informal LGBT discussion group the first Sunday of every month from noon to 1:00 PM. Both in Alaska and nationally, the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) has a long history of welcoming LGBT persons and their families in keeping with the seven principles of Unitarian Universalism.

There was a transgender support group in Anchorage which met for several years at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Anchorage (GLCCA), but at the moment there are no publicly advertised meetings.  There is also an email discussion list called Transgendered in Alaska on Yahoo Groups. After a period of dormancy, list activity has been picking up somewhat in recent weeks.  Bent Alaska is exploring ways to make it easier for transgender Alaskans, their significant others, and allies to meet for support and discussion online. Stay tuned.

And meanwhile, in the words of the organizers of the Fairbanks meeting: “Join us… and maybe help us pick a more catchy name!”

• Date/time: Thursday, February 23, 7:00 PM
• Location: Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Fairbanks (UUFF), 4448 Pikes Landing Road, Fairbanks (see map)
• Further info: see Fairbanks Pride Facebook group

Related posts:

1. Bipartisan group of former Anchorage mayors announce support of One Anchorage Initiative
2. TransAlaska gender support group forming in Fairbanks: First meeting tonight
3. Transgender Day of Remembrance

YWCA Alaska invites you to its February 24 Opening Hearts & Minds Luncheon on “Civil Rights, Then & Now,” featuring civil rights speakers Wanda Greene, president of the NAACP of Anchorage and Jeffrey Mittman of ACLU of Alaska with moderator Hilary Morgan of YWCA Alaska.

Speakers will discuss landmark shifts in civil rights movements from Rosa Parks to Elizabeth Peratrovich to One Anchorage, how past civil rights work can inform present and future civil rights movements, and the personal and political importance of fighting for civil rights.

Held six times per year, YWCA Anchorage’s Opening Minds and Hearts Luncheons serve to raise awareness and increase understanding about the various cultural groups of women represented in the Anchorage community. Past luncheons have featured: Alaska Native Women, Women from Israel, Women in the Military, Women in Politics, Transgender Women, Polynesian Women, Latina Women, Lesbians in Ministry, etc. The luncheons are sponsored by ConocoPhillips, Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., and Anchorage Equal Rights Commission.

• Date/time: Friday, February 24, 10:30 AM to 1:30 PM
• Location: YWCA Anchorage, 324 E 5th Avenue, Anchorage (see map)
• Cost of admission: Lunch tickets are $15.00 or $10.00 with student ID; $2.00 for beverages.
• Please RSVP: Due to the popularity of our programs, RSVPs are required. Email ekahler@ywcaak.org or call YWCA at 644-9605.
• Further info: see Facebook events page

Is your event not on our calendar? No matter where you are in the state, if you’re running an event of interest to the LGBTQA community, we’d be glad to put it on the Bent Alaska events calendar. If you use Google Calendar, you can subscribe to our calendar at http://bit.ly/bentcalendar.

Related posts:

1. ACLU of Alaska Liberty Awards Gala to feature Judge Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge of the 9th Circuit
2. NAACP’s first LGBT Town Hall: Gay Rights are Civil Rights
3. Alaska DMV refuses to put correct gender on drivers license; ACLU sues

1) Whitney Was to Shoot Antibullying Campaign on Last Day
Advocate, February 17, 2012

Us Weekly reports that a photographer for the Stop Bullying Now campaign was waiting for Houston February 11 and that her daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, offered to stand in for her mother to set up the lighting. After becoming concerned over her mother’s failure to show up at the shoot, Brown checked on Houston and was informed of the tragic news by the star’s staffers.

The campaign is officially titled “Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil” and is described in a press release as “an initiative that will reach parents and children, while providing tools needed to successfully cope with bullying.”

2) Cynthia Nixon: Bald and gay by choice, bisexual by birth
Los Angeles Times, January 31, 2012

Cynthia Nixon would like to clarify: She might be choosing to partner currently with a woman rather than a man, but she had no choice in the matter when it came to being bisexual in the first place.

3) Bill Maher: For Santorum, “Life Begins at Erection”
Advocate, February 16, 2012

Maher says Santorum is stuck in a time warp to 2004, when he says Republicans used the specter of same-sex marriage to drive evangelical voters to the polls.

4) Armistead Maupin: ‘We Give Our Families Too Much Slack When They Vote for Homophobes’
OUT, February 15, 2012

“I’m outraged that there are currently major candidates for President of the United States who are using homophobia to rally their base,” said the Tales of the City author. “I’m pissed off at my Republican family back in North Carolina, several of whom came to my wedding, but who went right back and are voting for homophobes and acting like it doesn’t matter. It does matter and it’s time for the queers in this country to start saying so to their families. I think we’ve all cut them too much slack for far too long.”

5) Is the Transgender Person’s Transition Process Selfish?
Huffington Post, February 15, 2012

Those who do reject the transitioning person often feel that the decision to transition was selfish. But could it not be said that the person rejecting the transitioning transgender person is actually the selfish one, concerned more with how society will view them for being associated with the person in transition than with the mental and physical health of the person they once called family or friend?

6) ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill advances: As students protest, House subcommittee reignites debate
Tennessee, Tennessean, February 16, 2012

A bill to restrict teaching about homosexuality before high school cleared its first hurdle in the [Tennessee] House of Representatives, setting the stage for a second year of debate on the appropriate way to handle discussion about gays and lesbians with schoolchildren.

7) 80 pct of young Chinese “non-discriminatory” toward homosexuality: survey
Beijing, Beijing Time, Xinhua English, February 13, 2012

More than 80 percent of Chinese people born after the 1980s hold no discriminatory beliefs regarding homosexuality, according to a survey on marriage perspectives conducted by jiayuan.com, a major Chinese dating website.

8) A Promising Trial: Using the same methods used to vaccinate against polio, researchers in Canada may be leading a path toward an HIV vaccine
HIV Plus Magazine, March/April 2012 issue

While an estimated 30 HIV vaccines are being tested around the world, one trial in Canada promises to be unique. After decades of research, development, and high hopes, scientists at the University of Western Ontario are ready to test a new type of vaccine known as SAV001 that they hope will prevent HIV infections.

9) BREAKING: Obama DOJ Won’t Defend Constitutionality Of Denying Military Benefits To Same-Sex Couples
Washington, Think Progress, February 17, 2012

The Obama administration has announced that it will not defend laws that prevent married same-sex couples from obtaining military benefits. In a letter to Congress today, Attorney General Eric Holder argued, “[t]he legislative record of these provisions contains no rationale for providing veterans’ benefits to opposite-sex couples of veterans but not to legally married same-sex spouses of veterans … Neither the Department of Defense nor the Department of Veterans Affairs identified any justifications for that distinction that would warrant treating these provisions differently from Section 3 of DOMA.”

10) N.J. governor issues “conditional veto” of gay marriage
New Jersey, Reuters, February 17, 2012

Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie vetoed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage on Friday, one day after the state Assembly voted in favor of the measure that had been previously approved by the Senate.

11) Maryland House passes gay marriage bill
Annapolis, Md., CBS News, February 17, 2012

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Maryland appears ready to become one of a handful of states in the U.S. to legalize gay marriage after the bill to allow it passed a long-standing hurdle in the Maryland House of Delegates on Friday.

After courting the votes of a couple delegates initially opposed to the measure, House members voted 72-67 to pass the bill. Next up is the Senate, which handily passed a similar bill last year, and Gov. Martin O’Malley has said he would sign it. Approval would make Maryland the eight state plus the District of Columbia to legalize the marriages.

12) Wallis Simpson Intersex? Doctor Refutes New Biography
ABC News, February 2012

Wallis Simpson has been demonized for decades as the Baltimore divorcee who scandalized Britain by luring Edward VIII, the Prince of Wales, from his short tenure on the throne….

And now, a new biography, “That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor,” suggests that the “mannish” social climber with the “beautiful dark sapphire blue eyes, full of sparkle and nice mischief” may have been intersex.

Related posts:

1. Sara’s News Roundup 5/15/11
2. Sara’s News Roundup 2/13/11
3. Sara’s News Roundup 2/21/10

Calves

by Annie Muse

We had two sets of Grandparents.
In a time before the roads were turned into highways
There was Grandma and Grandpa on the High Road
And Grandma and Grandpa on the Long Road.
Grandpa on the Long Road was an upholsterer;
Grandma, Swedish and far more intelligent than any Norwegian,  hammered and crafted the most wonderous things, sewing and gardening and building things with her tiny tools.
Grandpa was Celtic and spit tacks and swung a magnetic hammer.
Their furniture was old even then, beautifully finished, overstuffed, an antique roadshow in a little house that didn’t even have a foundation.
Grandma’d lay awake all night dreaming her next big project.

Grandma and Grandpa on the High Road moved to a different house just around the
corner and up the road.
But half the year, in Cordova or Dutch, from Southeast to the Aleutians, Grandpa built the Canneries.
Grandma was a poet and before she died
Grandpa dug her swampy ponds she could watch from her kitchen window.
With dynamite.
She liked to watch the dancing girls at play amongst the lily pads.
Out at Grandpa on the High Road’s,
My place was on the backporch.
Three sides were walls of glass, and the fourth was a former exterior wall with white siding.
My view was over the chicken coop, out into beautiful fields, barb wired and electric fenced, a brook running through the verdance, all surrounding an enormous black hole that sucked in everything that got near it.
We’d raise cows until they were a year or two old
At which time we’d ring up Orion’s Meats, a butcher who did house calls.
The cows hightailed it when he drove up.
I’d run up into the woods after the cows,
Pick out the balled and dehorned Chosen One,
and chase him up the nave framed by two enormous Douglas Firs.
Armed and silent, Orion hid at the western altar.
Waiting. Waiting.
Every few weeks
Men in trucks brought little calves.
We had six locked and tiny stalls in a shed that could open out into the larger field.
They stayed inside, their gates locked to keep out the dogs and coyotes and older and larger, sometimes dangerously psychotic, fieldmates.
My own light and drafty sleeping porch
was just big enough for a small bed, a rusty chrome kitchen chair, some shovels and boots,
reeking of cigarettes and lactose milk replacement.
So between my long periods of staring off into space, smoking, I’d mix up phony milk,
And pour it into enormous baby bottles.
Then I’d walk it down and feed it to the calves.

For their first weeks all any calf knew was his tiny shitty stall.
One day, God would set him free.
I’d unlock the shed, walk inside, and opening a stall door, I’d climb over the rascal to get behind and shove him toward the unknown.
At first sometimes it was damn hard to get ‘em to move
and they’d stand there
just inside the shadow,
blinking,
before shaking a back leg, then pronging into the sunlight, and for a few short minutes not even barb wire could contain them.

— Annie Muse

[February 18, 2012]

Photo credits: (1). Calves (holstein, friesian) on slatted floor in group pens, indoors. 4 February 2009. Photo © 2009 by Compassion in World Farming. Used in accordance with Creative Commons licensing. (2) Cows with calves in the Weaver Valley. A Public Right of Way extends across the fields near Brook and Hartley Farms. These cattle were photographed at 10:09 on 12th April, 2004. Photo © 2004 by David Crocker. Used in accordance with Creative Commons license.

No related posts.

Appearing on stage with a stool, a microphone, and a can of Diet Pepsi, Paula Poundstone is famous for her razor-sharp wit and spontaneity. The Boston Globe said, “Poundstone improvises with a crowd like a Jazz musician…swinging in unexpected directions without a plan, without a net.” Paula is so quick and unassuming that audience members at her live shows often leave complaining that their cheeks hurt from laughter and debating whether the random people she talked to were “plants.”

Poundstone appeared in January at Portland’s Aladdin Theatre.  In advance of her concert there, Aimee Genter of Oregon’s LGBTQ newsmagazine just out leapt at the chance to write about her:

As a baby dykeling, I was obsessed with my holy trinity of stand-up royalty: Rosie O’Donnell, Ellen DeGeneres and Paula Poundstone. Now, you may see Ms. Poundstone in my holy trinity and jump to an assumption or two. And who would blame you? Those ties. Those gaudy suits. Her liberal political humor. They all point to one conclusion.

But you know what happens when you assume, right?

“I’m totally an asexual human being. I haven’t dated anyone,” Poundstone told the Dallas Voice in 2007. In her memoir, There’s Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say, she wrote, “The idea that I’d get to my bed and there’d be someone in there with whom I was supposed to have an activity is horrifying to me. It’s a safe bet that I’m not good at sex, that I do it wrong.”

How, then, did she become a gay icon?

Most likely it is her masculine fashion sense, mixed with a sardonic sense of humor. I, personally, pick my gay icons based on who makes me tingle. It’s not scientific, but it’s right 9 out of 10 times. Paula Poundstone is the anomaly—the woman who lives her life as she wants to, not as she thinks people want her to be.

Her concerts run approximately 2 hours without intermission.  Get your tickets!

Juneau

• Date/time: Thursday, March 15. Doors open 6:30 PM; show begins 8:00 PM.
• Location: Centennial Hall Convention Center, 101 Egan Drive, Juneau (see map)
• Cost of admission: $30 advance/$35 day of show & door. $5 from each ticket sold will be donated to KTOO Radio. Purchase tickets at fla.vor.us
• Age restriction: Must be 21 years or older, or with legal parent. Alcohol will be served.

Anchorage

• Date/time: Friday, March 16, 7:30-9:30 PM
• Location: Sydney Laurence Theatre, Alaska Center for the Performing Arts, 621 West 6th Avenue, Anchorage (see map)
• Cost of admission: $36.50. Purchase tickets at Centertix

Fairbanks

• Date/time: Saturday, March 17, 7:00 PM
• Location: Davis Concert Hall, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK (see map)
• Cost of admission: Adults: $25; Children/Military/Seniors/Students: $15 (ID required for military/students and may be requested for children/seniors). Purchase tickets through UAF Summer Sessions (see webpage for details).

Photo credit: Paula Poundstone, 2 February 2008 by Phil Konstantin via Wikimedia Commons. Licensed to the public domain.

Is your event not on our calendar? No matter where you are in the state, if you’re running an event of interest to the LGBTQA community, we’d be glad to put it on the Bent Alaska events calendar. If you use Google Calendar, you can subscribe to our calendar at http://bit.ly/bentcalendar.

Related posts:

1. Paula Poundstone: America is maturing on gay marriage
2. Brandi Carlile returns to Alaska
3. Choose Respect: LGBTs march against domestic violence and sexual assault on March 31

Juneau Rollergirls are “looking for redemption” after their heavy loss of 283-41 to Rage City’s Dirty Polli’s in January, according to Klas Stolpe of the Juneau Empire. But that loss looked a lot worse than it really was:

 “One of the things that really stood out in our Anchorage bout is that while we were a little bit behind in the strategic areas, we do have the strength and speed to play,” JRG Julie Sanbei, aka Just Julie, said. “We are just a little green. We don’t want Juneau to get the impression we don’t know what we are doing. We just played an undefeated team up there. Juneau and Yukon will be evenly matched.”

Added Kim Glasow, aka Catapult Kim, “We knew we were going to get slaughtered, they had been around a long time and are one of the most competitive teams in the North West. We figured it would be a great learning experience and it was.

Yukon Rollergirls, nearly two years old as a team, has had two sanctioned bouts and took the victory in both, one against the Edmonton Oil City Derby Girls (a rookie team) in January 2011, and one against the Fairbanks Rollergirls last September.

Bent Alaska is pulling for Juneau. Good luck!

• Date/time: Saturday, February 18, 6:00-8:30 PM
• Location: Centennial Hall Convention Center, 101 Egan Drive, Juneau (see map)
• Cost of admission: $20. Tickets are no longer available online — 25 tickets will be released at the door — arrive early and good luck! 5% of proceeds go to a local charity.
• Age restriction: Must be 21 or older or with a parent to attend; there will be a no-host bar.
• Further info: see the Juneau Rollergirls Facebook page or website

Is your event not on our calendar? No matter where you are in the state, if you’re running an event of interest to the LGBTQA community, we’d be glad to put it on the Bent Alaska events calendar. If you use Google Calendar, you can subscribe to our calendar at http://bit.ly/bentcalendar.

Related posts:

1. Saturday night in Fairbanks: Two events to shake out the cabin fever
2. Fairbanks Rollergirls: Gold Diggers vs. Raven Rebels this Saturday at Carlson Center
3. Rage City’s Dirty Polli’s vs. Juneau Rollergirls this Saturday in Anchorage

At Drag Camp, there will be hair and makeup professionals available to help you get your drag on, and seasoned drag queens to help you acquire that swagger on the runway. Participation is limited only by the amount of room available in the Four A’s conference room. An “all fun/no fund” event. Participants must provide their own hair, dress, shoes, and makeup mirrors. There will be enough experience in the room to help make your drag dream come true!

The following week, come watch the fledgling divas at the Drag Camp competition! Contestants must have their own garments, accessories, hair, and shoes; have one song read to go; and must not have performed previously at the Friday Night Variety Show. The winning new drag queen will be offered a SPECIAL GUEST spot in Anchorage’s wildly popular Friday Night Diva Variety Show at Mad Myrna’s the following Friday.

Drag Camp 2012

• Date/time: Saturday, February 18, 2:00-5:00 PM
• Location: Alaskan AIDS Assistance Association (Four A’s),1057 West Fireweed Lane, Anchorage, AK (see map)
• Cost of admission: No cost. All fun, no fund!
• Further info: see Facebook events page

Competition

• Date/time: Saturday, February 25, 8:00 PM
• Location: Mad Myrna’s, 530 E. 5th Ave. in downtown Anchorage (see map)
• Cost of admission: $10.00
• Age restriction: Mad Myrna’s is a bar! Must be 21 with valid identification to enter.
• Further info: see Facebook events page

Is your event not on our calendar? No matter where you are in the state, if you’re running an event of interest to the LGBTQA community, we’d be glad to put it on the Bent Alaska events calendar. If you use Google Calendar, you can subscribe to our calendar at http://bit.ly/bentcalendar.

Related posts:

1. Last Frontier Drag Kings Post-New Year’s Bash — this Saturday
2. 2012 Pride Foundation Scholarship applications due January 31; drop-in nights for help Jan. 19
3. One Anchorage Boot Camp to be held Nov. 4–6

Peter J. Gomes

“There can be no light without the darkness out of which it shines.”

Peter J. Gomes (born May 22, 1942; died February 28, 2011) offered a look at religion from a distinctive perspective. Gomes, a minister and professor at Harvard University, argued that the Bible is not racist, anti-Semitic, anti-feminist, or anti-gay.

Born in Plymouth, MA, Gomes took an early interest in Puritan history and religion.  He spent hours at the local library researching the Mayflower and prominent leaders of the time, such as William Bradford.  His father was from the Cape Verde Islands and his mother was African-American. He was baptized a Roman Catholic, but later became an American Baptist. He graduated from Bates College in 1965, received a Bachelor of Sacred Theology degree from Harvard Divinity School in 1968, he also studied at the University of Cambridge, where he was an Honorary Fellow and where the Gomes Lectureship was established in his honor. He was ordained by the First Baptist Church of Plymouth, and in 1970 became Pusey Minister in Harvard University’s nondenominational Memorial Church. In 1974 he was made Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard.  His teaching and research interests included the Bible, the history of the ancient Christian church, worship, homiletics, and the black American experience.

In 1991, Peninsula, a conservative Harvard magazine, published a 56-page issue largely critical of homosexuality which led to a rash of harassment and slurs against gay men and lesbians on campus. Gomes, a self-described cultural conservative and registered Republican, stunned the Harvard community by denouncing the magazine and coming out publicly as a gay man at Harvard’s Memorial Church, stating that he was “a Christian who happens as well to be gay.” A small group called Concerned Christians at Harvard immediately called for his resignation, but Gomes received support from the Harvard administration. Gomes, who had never married and was celibate by choice, nevertheless took on a new task. As he later told the Washington Post,

I now have an unambiguous vocation — a mission — to address the religious causes and roots of homophobia, I will devote the rest of my life to addressing the “religious case” against gays.

Gomes held 33 honorary degrees. Religion and American Life named him Clergy of the Year in 1998, and he won the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Award from Harvard in 2001. Gomes gave the benediction at the second inauguration of President Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration and delivered the National Cathedral sermon at the inauguration of President George H.W. Bush. In 2006 he switched parties to become a Democrat in support of the candidacy of Deval L. Patrick, who became the first black governor of Massachusetts. Gomes preached at his inauguration.

As remembered by the Washington Post‘s Alexandra Petri after his death,

Libraries were an atmosphere the reverend clearly found congenial — the Bible, he noted on multiple occasions, was not a textbook, but a library.

But he was most at home behind the immense wooden lectern, from which his thunderous, widely imitated, but never surpassed, voice boomed out over the assembled throngs.

As an undergraduate, I found myself stumbling into Memorial Church in the admonitory light of a few Sunday mornings. His sermons were always bracing, delivered with a mixture of Old Testament fire and New Testament warmth

Gomes was a widely-published author. Of the ten volumes of sermons and numerous articles and papers he has written, two of his works — The Good Book and Sermons — became New York Times and national bestsellers.  The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart (1996) was described this way in a Publishers Weekly review: “His mission in this cogent exercise in nonsectarian Christian apologetics is to help reverse the current decline in biblical literacy by reclaiming the Bible from theological stodginess and lay laziness.” The second of its three parts, called “The Use and Abuse of the Bible,” went into depth about how scriptural passages had been misused in the defense of racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, and antigay prejudice. Sermons: Biblical Wisdom For Daily Living (1998) collected 40 of Gomes’ favorite sermons, guiding its readers through the year by way of the Christian calendar, beginning with Advent.  His last book, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What’s So Good About the Good News? (2008), asks why Christians insist upon making Jesus the object of their attention rather than heeding his message:

The question should not be, “What would Jesus do?” but, rather, more dangerously, “What would Jesus have me do?” The onus is not on Jesus but on us, for Jesus did not come to ask semi-divine human beings to do impossible things. He came to ask human beings to live up to their full humanity; he wants us to live in the full implication of our human gifts, and that is far more demanding.

Peter J. Gomes was hospitalized in January 2011 after suffering a stroke, dying on February 28, 2011 at age 68.

On June 15, 2008 at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral, Rev. Gomes discussed why he believed Jesus would have supported same-sex marriage. Watch:

For more about Peter J. Gomes, visit his LGBT History Month page, his Wikipedia article, or his obituaries at the Harvard Gazette or the New York Times.

Photo credit: Peter J. Gomes. Used under license through the Equality Forum.

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