Shelter

This now ranks as one of my favorite LGBT films. There are plenty of parts of the movie that aren’t perfect, but what is perfect are the feelings expressed between the two main characters as they fall in love. The desire and desperation are downright palpable. It also doesn’t hurt that the soundtrack is so full of great music – like the luscious “Lie To Me” by Shane Mack.

Fawn

Honey spotted this fawn asleep under our crabapple tree this afternoon. I snapped a few photos through the back door with the zoom lens. It is a little out of focus, but you can still see how cute the little guy is.

A site I found online said the mother will sometimes leave the fawn for up to eight hours while she feeds and replenishes her milk. I am trying to remain hopeful that she returns to the baby, but there is a strong smell of something dead coming from the wooded area behind our home and there are at least five buzzards circling overhead. I’m afraid she got hit by a car and died back there. I hope I’m wrong.

UPDATE: The fawn was back yesterday morning, so I contacted a rehabilitator. She said it looks to be around 5-6 weeks, which is old enough to survive without the mother’s milk. She thinks it will hang around our yard for the rest of the year, and we can supplement its diet with berries and bread.

Anderson Cooper bravely steps out of the closet

This was probably not a surprise to many, but Kathy Griffin explains how Cooper coming out as a gay man is an incredibly courageous act for someone in his position.

The reality is that despite the very real, the very necessary, and the very life-changing progress we have made in this country in treating people across the sexual orientation spectrum with dignity and respect, America—the world—is not fully represented by Chelsea in New York City. It’s not fully represented by DuPont Circle in Washington, D.C.; the Castro; or West Hollywood. Hell, it’s not even Ft. Lauderdale and its Wilton Manors or Denver’s Capital Hill neighborhood. America is, in large part, small towns like Oxnard, Calif. It’s Sevierville, Tenn. It’s Laramie, Wyo. And it’s Wichita, Kan., where I was eating recently at a local diner and a patron asked me, “Kathy, how do you deal with so many godd*mned fags?”

Many of my young gays don’t know about Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” initiative, which was developed with the help of some extremist American evangelicals. Many don’t know about Stonewall or, more recently, the importance ofLawrence v. Texas. They don’t know about Cuba’s jailing of HIV patients or even that Iran has sentenced gay teenagers to death by hanging. They don’t know that in large portions of Baghdad, honest LGBT folks are hunted and summarily executed by roving bands of so-called morality police, who kill with impunity both the “out” and those simply perceived to be gay. What many young people do know is what they read in short bursts on celebrity Twitter posts or on TMZ. And what they read and see is how freeing being honest can be. What they don’t see is that it remains, in many places, very dangerous to do just that. And that dichotomy is deeply troubling to me.

Kathy concludes with a statement of support for her friend:

Here’s the thing: I love my friend Anderson and remain immensely proud of him. And I’m honored, truly, that he considers me a friend. But I just want him to be careful. Of course he wouldn’t be doing his job if he really were being careful. And he wouldn’t be who he is.

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