Twin Ports Pride Breaks Out Labor Day Weekend
Former Dee-Lite Thrush Lady Miss Kier Highlights Four Days Of Queer Fun
Superior/Duluth - It’s been heralded by Out magazine as one of the nation’s best small town pride celebrations. It’s also older that the state’s best-known pride weekend, the Milwaukee PrideFest and has drawn gay folks from as far away as Winnipeg, Canada.  It also serves to close Wisconsin’s summer-long season of pride. And this year, the 21st annual Duluth-Superior Twin Ports Pride will add a top-name headliner as part of its four days of LGBT-themed fun August 30 - September 2.
  Lady Miss Kier, best known as the lead singer of the 90’s chart-topping Dee-Lite (“Groove Is In the Heart”), will close the centerpiece festival at the heart of the pride weekend Saturday, September 1 at 6 PM. Since Dee-Lite’s disbanding in 1994, Kier has been deejaying and performing in clubs from New York to Europe and beyond. She has also lent her voice as an activist, protesting against the Iraq War, social inequality, environmental issues, and gay rights movement, garnering her a loyal following in the gay community. After a successful solo tour in Australia in 2006, she reportedly completed a solo album, Me and My Records - Lady DJ.
  Kier’s show will cap a day-long schedule of events at Bayfront Festival Park in Duluth that will include a keynote address by activist Mags David and a mix of entertainment that will span jazz, rock and ballet. Keynoter David has lived in Duluth for more than a decade and is a co-recipient, with Tineke Ritmeester, of the 2006-7 University of Minnesota Breaking the Silence Award.
  Mags has been “out” for 30 years, variously identifying herself as gay, dyke, lesbian, and queer. Her multiple identities also include singer, musician, librarian, atheist, girlfriend, friend, sister, daughter, aunt, uncle, neighbor, and teacher. 
  Since the fall of 2006 Mags has been an advisor to the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Queer and Allied Student Union, and also served as chair of the UMD GLBT Advisory Commission from 2000 to 2005. In the fall of 2006 she spoke to the UMD campus community in honor of National Coming Out Day. David’s speech will begin at 2 PM.
  Throughout the day festival attendees will have the opportunity to enjoy Duluth’s six-woman band Winchell’s Machine, self-described “pansy folk singer” Jeree Small, the Minnesota Ballet troupe, Minneapolis rockers Concentual, post-punkers Manheat and The Keep Aways and the funky jazz ensemble Ill Chemistry featuring Desdamona and Carnage.
  Over fifty vendors and information booths are already registered, according to festival organizers, plus there will be a wide variety of food and beverage choices for sale. There is no admission charge for the festival, but all are encouraged to purchase the Twin Ports Pride buttons to help underwrite the cost of the weekend.
  The weekend officially kicks off with a formal mayoral celebration Thursday, August 30, at The Depot in Duluth. The free event runs from 5-8 PM and will feature Duluth Mayor Herb Bergson’s pride proclamation, which has caused some controversy in past years. The reception also will feature music by Clear (beginning at 6:30), hors d’oeuvres, and a cash bar.
  Following will be three days of events that include a lesbian film festival, a poetry reading, a cruise, a night-long pub crawl, a 5K run, a bonfire, a drag show, a worship service and a parade in addition to Saturday’s festival.
  The pride celebration begins in earnest with several events on Friday, August 30. A poetry and other reading event will run from 6-8 PM at Jitters Coffee & Tea House, 102 W. Superior St. in Duluth. Among those already scheduled to read is Quest’s advice columnist Uncle Barbie. Also scheduled in the Building for Women that houses Jitters is a lesbian film festival that will run from 6:30-9 PM. Festival admission is $5.
  A new event this year - The first Annual Friday Night Crawl - will start at 6 PM with an Art Walk at Jitters, followed by the opening of Jaded, Bitter...and Proud Of It, described as “a one drag queen show in two frocks” at The Playground, 11 E. Superior St. in Duluth at 7:30 PM. The night-long tour ends up at 9 PM with the Red Star Jazz Night at Fitgers at the Red Star Club in the Fitgers Complex, 600 E. Superior St.
  Also scheduled Friday evening is the traditional all-night bonfire on Wisconsin Point that begins at 7 PM and lasts until dawn. Attendees are encouraged to bring a blanket, a warm jacket and mosquito repellent, two necessities for the typically cool and insect-filled late summer evenings in the north woods.
  Saturday will begin with the 5K Fun Run, Walk and Roll at Western Waterfront Park in Duluth. The beautiful Western Waterfront Trail runs along the St. Louis River near the Northern head of the Munger Trail. The event, which has a $5 per person or $10 per family entrance fee, begins with registration at 8 AM, steps off at 9 and is expected to last most of the morning.
  The annual Block Party at JT’s Bar & Grill in Superior returns for its second year on Saturday evening. The outdoor dance and party will cover over 1,000 square feet and run from 9 PM until bar closing. JT’s deejays will be spinning a mix of rock and pop music, and there will be four bars to serve the expected crowds for the event.
  Sunday’s events will begin with a worship service and breakfast at Peace United Church of Christ, 1111 N. 11th Avenue in Duluth. Breakfast will be served at 9:30 AM, followed by the service at 10:30. Peace Church is one of a half-dozen gay-affirming congregations in the Twin Ports that take turns holding the traditional pride worship service each year. An earlier 8:30 AM service will also be available.
  This Twin Ports Pride Parade will be held in Superior, kicking off at Noon on the corner of Hammond and Broadway. The parade, which rivals Milwaukee’s in terms of both entries and attendance, will wend its way down to the Main Club and feature music, floats filled with bare-chested young men and drag queens, leather-clad women on motorcycles, and marching units of families, friends and other allies.
  Following the parade will be the traditional annual Fruit Float, featuring Vista Cruise Lines’ Vista Star. As of Quest’s deadline tickets were still available for the cruise that will feature live and illusionist entertainment. The Fruit Float will leave port at 3 PM for the waters of Lake Superior.
  Twin Ports Pride will close with the annual drag show benefiting AIDS research and education at the Main Club Sunday evening beginning at 8 PM. Plenty of glitter and glamour are promised as both drag queens and kings are expected to strut their stuff on the club’s stage. A $5 admission charge will benefit AIDS programs.
  Lodging arrangements for Twin Ports feature seven area hospitality providers: The Androy Hotel and Barker’s Island Inn and Conference Center in Superior and the Hawthorn Suites At Waterfront Plaza, the South Pier Inn On The Canal, the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites, the Radisson Hotel Duluth Harborview and the Best Western Edgewater Resort and Waterpark in Duluth. 
  Organizers for this year’s Twin Ports Pride include Co-Chairs Carolyn Reisberg and Harvey Plasch, Secretary: Cara Pearson,  Treasurer Keith Haugen, and Asst. Treasurer: Jeff Anderson. More information about Twin Ports Pride can be found at the festival’s extensive website located at: www.dspride.com or by contacting the committee. Phone 218-728-4217 or write the Duluth-Superior GLBTQAI Pride Committee at P. O. Box 3198, Duluth, MN 55803.

World & National News:

The Logo/HRC Gay “Debate” - Online Poll Suggests Hillary “Won”
Analysis by Mike Fitzpatrick
Los Angeles - Billed as the “Visible Vote ‘08” (and repeatedly visible in ad nauseum televised repeats and on demand online) The Human Rights Campaign and LOGO cable channel’s so-called “gay presidential debate” went off with a semi-historic bang August 9. And a recent online poll suggests that front-runner Hillary Clinton may have won the series of “job interviews” conducted by reporters Margaret Carlson and Jonathan Capehart, HRC Exec Joe Solmonese and celebrity panelist Melissa Etheridge.
 From a political standpoint it was ground-breaking: all of the top contenders for the Democratic Party’s candidate for President in 2008 were present. After making a lot of noise so were several of the lesser lights. Though offered their own fifteen minutes of gay fame none of the Republican presidential candidates took the bait - not surprising since several believe gay people (not to mention evolution) don’t actually exist.
  By now the “news” about what was actually was said is stale: Bill Richardson followed up his lame defense of his Imus show comments by blurting out that he though being gay was a choice (and apologized officially and frequently for the gaffe over the next few days). Dennis Kucinich couldn’t oppose anything on the “gay agenda.” Obama looked a little uncomfortable when the gay marriage question was framed in the “separate but equal” rhetoric of pre-Brown vs. Board of Education America. John Edwards once again looked very pretty.
  According to the results of an online poll released August 18 by Gay.com, 53% of the “nearly 6,000 online voters” said Senator Hillary Clinton won the night’s conversations, with Barak Obama coming in at 30% - numbers surprisingly similar to recent 2-1 mainstream voter point spreads in polling for the 2008 Democrat nod. Kucinich came in third with 7% for those who are counting.
  What’s more telling is that less than a week after another survey said that upwards of 90% of self-identified gay and lesbian voters participated by voting in the 2006 election, only four one thousandths of 1% of those politically active voters chose to click an online poll on the debate. Now it’s true that Gay.com has suffered hard times recently (Bill Gates helped bail them out with $38 million or so), and the portal is not considered a leading gay political destination. Also its still “early” in the campaign season, its summer time, and not everyone gets LOGO or has online access. But depending on how may gay people you actually believe live in the USA,  that’s a pitiful response for such a “historic” event, don’t you think? 6000 vs. 12 to 24 million?
  I could go on about what was wrong with the debate - the mind and butt-numbing length, the Mitchell Gold furniture on the set, the audience of “activists” that appeared to include every comic who has done 15-minutes of stand-up on LOGO’s “Wisecrack,” Melissa’s making it all about her cancer survival, etc. - but no matter how you slice it to have six of the Democratic Party candidates, among whom most likely may be the next President of the United States, sit down on national TV and talk about our issues is one for the history books. But so is our community’s apparent collective “ho-hum.” It’s the stuff GOP victories are made of and a reminder - just nine months after a devastating 59-41% setback for full equality right here in Wisconsin - that over confidence and complacency bred by bad news for the “other side” (Iraq, the sluggish economy, sex scandals and so on) does not automatically turn into good news for “our side.”
  LGBT issues are not going to go away come the real battle for the White House in 2008. The major political party candidates are now going to chosen with a process that apparently will be starting about the same time as you begin to return unwanted Christmas presents. The sound bites of the Visible Vote will be back to haunt us in the form of Republican attack ads sooner than we’d like to think.
  Just like the kids in gay households around the country - its “back to school” time for our community when it comes to politics - presidential and otherwise. Take the time now to ratchet up your awareness of who’s saying what about us - before today’s current spin becomes the “conventional wisdom” six months from now.
  In closing, a side note: You don’t have to wait to get involved, at least not locally. Wisconsin’s budget battle is still not over - and the domestic partner benefits for state employees is still on the table. If you haven’t weighed in with the budget reconciliation committee by offering your opinion at Fair Wisconsin’s website (www.fairwisconsin.com), now’s the time to do so.

Lutherans Postpone Gay Clergy Vote
Chicago - The country’s largest Lutheran denomination officially bars openly gay people from the ministry. But in a move that advocates for gay men and lesbians hail as a step toward changing that policy, the denomination is urging its bishops to refrain from disciplining gay clergy who are in committed same-sex relationships.
  A resolution to that effect was passed August 11 here by delegates to the biennial meeting of the Church-wide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.
  Church officials said it did not signal a change in policy. But they said a denomination task force was completing “a social statement,” or theological document, on human sexuality, to be discussed in 2009, and that the resolution allowed bishops to hold off in the interim on taking action.
  According to Robert Tuttle, counsel to the bishop of the synod of metropolitan Washington, the decision “gives bishops some cover who want to exercise discretion to not bring charges.”
Those who support the ordination of openly gay men and lesbians hailed the vote. “Full inclusion and acceptance is still down the road, but the dam of discrimination has been broken,” Emily Eastwood, executive director of Lutherans Concerned/North America said.
  Lutherans who consider open homosexuality incompatible with biblical teachings played down the vote, however, saying it still left the decision at the discretion of bishops.

New Jersey Poll: 63% Of Voters Favor Gay Marriage
Trenton - Twice as many New Jerseyans “would be fine” with allowing gay couples to marry as would be upset if lawmakers enacted a marriage equality law, according to a new poll.  The Zogby survey of 803 New Jersey voters was commissioned by the gay rights group Garden State Equality to mark the six-month anniversary of New Jersey’s civil unions law on August 19.
  Gay couples were granted the same legal rights, if not the title, as married couples last February when New Jersey became the third state to offer civil unions. Gay rights activists have continued to press for full marriage equality, saying civil unions do not satisfy a state Supreme Court ruling that entitles gay couples to the same benefits as married couples.
  The poll, released August 15 showed 63% of voters surveyed said they would not be upset if the Legislature upgraded civil unions to marriage equality, compared with 31% who would be upset. 72% also said lawmakers would not jeopardize their re-election bids by enacting marriage equality, compared with 21% who felt such a vote could effect an incumbent’s chances of remaining in the Legislature.
  Regardless of their personal beliefs, those polled believe New Jersey will allow gay couples to marry within a couple of years, by a margin of 61-29%.
  “Regardless of whether any public official supports marriage equality or wants to maintain the state’s failed civil unions law, no official in New Jersey can credibly say that marriage for gay couples is a divisive issue in the state,” Garden State Equality Chair Steven Goldstein told the Associated Press.  “Even voters who oppose marriage equality are ready to accept an upgrade of the state’s civil unions law to real marriage equality.”
  The poll was conducted from August 8-10 and has a sampling error of plus or minus 3.5%. Though Garden State Equality commissioned the poll, Zogby collected the data independently.

Another Day, Another GOP Blow Job
Young Republican Fed Prez Resigns After Sex Charges
Jeffersonville, IN - The recently-elected president of the national Young Republican Federation has resigned abruptly after yet another scandal involving gay oral sex. 33 year-old Glenn Murphy, Jr. announced in an August 7 email that he was resigning the young GOP post as well as his position as Clark County Republican Party chair, claiming “an unexpected business opportunity.”
  The email arrived four days after the county Sheriff’s office announced they were investigating Murphy for alleged deviate sexual conduct based on a July 31 complaint in which a 22 year-old man claimed the GOP mouthpiece had given him an unwanted blow-job while he was asleep. Murphy claimed through his attorney Larry Wilder that the sex act was consensual. However, according to the victim and his sister Murphy had previously approached the man seeking to “resolve the issue” on several occasions. The pair eventually met with Murphy and taped their conversation which is now in the hands of the investigators.
  A reporter for the Terre Haute Tribune-Star soon discovered Murphy had a history of giving sleeping men oral sex. A 1998 Clarksville Police Dept. report offered a disturbingly similar account by a 21-year old man who alleged he was awakened by Murphy giving him a blow job, an event also witnessed by the man’s girlfriend. Formal charges were never filed in the nine-year old case.
  The Murphy episode is the third sex scandal to hit the GOP this summer. Florida representative and former McCain state campaign chair Bob Allen continues to resist pressure to resign from his elected position after being caught in a public restroom peeking over a stall and offering an African-American undercover detective $20 to perform oral sex. In Louisiana “family values”-obsessed Senator David Vitter (aka “Vitter The Shitter”) has also stonewalled resignation demands after his diaper sex escapades at New Orleans bordellos came to light.

QNU Quickies: Recent Stories Of Note
By Mike Fitzpatrick
Here in no particular order is Quest’s take on stories of gay interest since the last issue. A friendly reminder that breaking news is updated daily on the QNU: Quest News Update site online. Visit us at: www.quest-online.com.
Scientists Trick Moths Into Gay Sex: Blame it on global warming. Hot April weather has caused brown-tailed moths to become a problem in some parts of the United Kingdom.  The moths have multiplied in such numbers that the men of the nation’s only full-time lifeboat station at Spurn Point have suffered rashes and breathing problems from the poisonous hairs of the moths’ larvae blowing in the wind.
  But now British experts have come up with the novel solution: tricking the males of the species into thinking that they are gay. Scientists are using a powder that spreads the smell of sexual attraction, confusing the male moths, and thus slowing the breeding. The powder is left near breeding grounds and, when larvae hatch, they are coated in it. Other male moths are then drawn naturally to have sex with them, believing them to be available for lovemaking regardless of the larvae’s gender. The moths apparently have small brains and dreadful eyesight.
  Why does this sound familiar? If they had added a throbbing dance beat it might have been a night of PNP at any gay club on the planet.
Church Reneges On Holding Gay Man’s Funeral, Congregation Applauds: After suffering a worldwide firestorm of negative media attention for backing out of holding a gay man’s funeral, the pastor of the Dallas “non-denominational Christian” (in other words, code for fundie bigots) High Point Church defended his decision from the pulpit to the applause of hundreds in the congregation, according to an August 15 report in the Dallas Morning News.
  Apparently the presence the award winning gay men’s Turtle Creek Chorale, an open mic for personal remembrances and a G-rated photo slide show (the family made a picture CD available to the press) made the funeral of decorated Persian Gulf War Navy vet Cecil Sinclair “too openly homosexual” for the church’s liking.
  Hey, the choir was going to sing “Amazing Grace,’ not “Amazing Will & Grace.” And its just more proof that evangelicals’ “love the sinner hate the sin” rhetoric is as empty as their promise to follow Jesus’ second great commandment: Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself.
Surprise! Siegfried & Roy Are Gay: In news that probably will shock no one except for the few Liberace fans who still think the late pianist was merely flamboyant, veteran Vegas showmen magicians Siegfried & Roy are coming out of the closet, according to their soon-to-be-published autobiography as reported by the National Enquirer. Even as they divulge their secret publicly for the first time, the pair also admits they were “once very much in love but have since transformed (their) relationship into a working partnership and a deep friendship” just like every successful married couple, straight or gay. Of course, eagle-eyed queens weren’t taken aback by the news: they’d spotted the matching pinkie rings years ago.
Rightie Wacko Demands Catholic Knights Oust Pro-Gay Members: An August 11 Boston Herald story reported that the “California-based Concerned Roman Catholics of America (CRCOA)” had demanded the Massachusetts chapter of the Knights Of Columbus expel 16 “pro-Sodomite” state lawmaker members for their support of gay marriage. A member of the “group” passed out fliers with the demands at the national K of C convention in Nashville. The paper also reported the CROCA’s website also offered names of 72 Massachusetts pols who were either pro-gay or “pro-abortion,” a list that included Senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry.
  However the media scrutiny apparently was too much for the supposedly high-minded CRCOA. A Quest pre-deadline check of the group’s website shows it has become “CyberPort, the personal website of Matthew Moore.” Clicking on Google’s cached version of the site brings up most of the deleted material.  The “Sodomite” lingo, disappearing website and guerrilla brochure blasts are tactics reminiscent of Wisconsin’s own holder-for-life of the Christian cuckoo crown, Rantin’ Ralph O, currently queen of all he surveys at the Pilgrims Covenant Church (formerly Wisconsin “Christians” United).

State News:

Barbie Cries Uncle: Quest’s Advice Columnist Spills All
Interview by Mike Fitzpatrick
“As an advice columnist, it’s not my job to save souls - I’m just here to help people feel better about going to Hell!”
  Like his more famous namesakes Dear Abby or Ann Landers, Quest advice columnist Uncle Barbie prefers to use his nom de plume when speaking to his public when in print. However, Barbie will be making two rare live appearances back to back at the upcoming Twin Ports Pride festival weekend August 30 - September 2. In preparation for those appearances, Quest news editor Mike Fitzpatrick took the opportunity to “lift the veil” a little further for the magazine’s readers prior to the flesh-and-blood sightings.
   “I’m going to be in costume, roaming around (on Saturday),” Barbie said. “I’m going to be working the booth at the Northland Gay Men’s Center.” Besides his 10 AM - Noon appearance at the Twin Ports Pride Festival at Bayfront Festival Park, Barbie also will be reading excerpts from his column during the poetry reading to be held Friday, August 31 at Jitters in Duluth from 6-8 PM.
  Barbie’s column predates his his now “roughly” two-year old presence in Quest. “I’ve been doing the column for probably 10 years,” Barbie said. “I started when I was in California getting my doctorate.”
  Uncle Barbie was first published in NewsLink and later for many years in the Duluth Reader Weekly. His current hometown paper is the Zenith City Weekly. The Uncle Barbie column is also published online both on the Quest website (www.quest-online.com) and the Lambda Rising bookstore site. “It’s seen internationally,” Barbie said. “It’s nice because I get questions and comments from other countries.”
  Uncle Barbie also had a radio advice show. “About a year ago I had a six-month radio show on Mix 108 (KBMX),” Barbie said. “It was a commercial type radio show. It was call-in show on in the morning. It was kind of fun.”
  What Barbie enjoyed most about his radio days was being able to broadcast from his home. “I did not go into  the radio station to do the show,” he revealed. “They would call me at home. Most of the time I was in bed, propped up with pillows. People are talking to me about their problems... and I’m like laying in bed... with a cup of tea.”
  Inspiration for the column came from a supervisor. “I got lessons from here - in both what to do and what not to do,” Barbie admitted. “For example, she used her real name. She had a real-ego investment in her advice column. She was very careful... It was all very protected, even restrictive. When I decided to do it for entertainment reasons - I wanted it to be fun.”
  The pink-wigged, sun bpnnet, army boot and house dress-wearing Uncle Barbie persona was a conscious decision. “I (decided) to make myself look silly. I purposely tried to look like sort of a gay clown. It’s hard to think that I’m ‘hot stuff’ when I look like a fool.”
  Writing an advice column is not Uncle Barbie’s full-time career, however. “I actually teach at two different colleges. I’m a professor at Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College and I also am teaching at the University of Wisconsin in Superior,” he said. “I was teaching full-time at the University of Minnesota in Duluth, then switched over to Wisconsin which is closer to my home. I teach psychology.”
  Uncle Barbie’s Quest celebrity has caught up with him in the classroom at times. “Some of my gay students recognized me from the paper and have said ‘Hey that looks like Professor ----! My god! He’s Uncle Barbie!’” he said. “They’ve come up after class and (whispered) ‘Are you Uncle Barbie?’ And I yell them ‘Yeah, it’s no big deal. That’s how I keep myself humble!’”
  Barbie and his longtime partner Ed live in rural Wisconsin. “My partner live out in the country on farm land. I have a huge garden. The neighbors are farmer,” he said. “They just asked me today if I could come over and help feed their cattle. Last week I was shoveling manure. If people were to drive by they would assume I’m some heterosexual, redneck farmer.”
  The dichotomies of educator, farmer and drag queen advice column sum up Barbie’s ultimate message. “I think should avoid taking themselves too seriously. The whole lesson that Uncle Barbie is trying to communicate with ‘her’ appearance is: Let’s laugh with each other. Let’s enjoy life.”