Gus Kenworthy

Closeted gay athletes used to say that they stayed in the closet because they would lose lucrative sponsors. Well, Olympic skier Gus Kenworthy has turned that excuse on its head. 

An excerpt from Sports Business Journal:

...As a good-looking, outgoing silver medalist who helped rescue stray dogs in Sochi, Kenworthy would have had plenty of calls from sponsors regardless. But when he told ESPN Magazine in 2015 he’s gay, he added the factor that makes all the difference to marketers: A distinctive personal story that highlights a diversity theme.

He’s already signed with Visa, Toyota, Ralph Lauren (photo above), Deloitte and 24 Hour Fitness, and his agent...says at least two more Olympic deals are coming. Those are on top of his long-term relationships with Monster Energy, Atomic skis and Smith goggles. He’ll be featured in Visa’s marketing and extensively profiled on NBC broadcasts. Olympic insiders say nearly every USOC or IOC sponsor inquired about his availability.

“It’s absolutely true –  I think I’m more marketable now as an out athlete,” Kenworthy said. “Every brand is looking for diversity...more so than it’s ever been.”

From Jim Buzinski at Outsports:
...(Kenworthy) is aware of the power of being a brand spokesman because he’s gay (“I think that’s so friggin’ cool,” he said). And his story has been embraced by the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Assn., which asked him to do a Facebook live video on Wednesday (October 11) for National Coming Out Day*.  

Background: In October, 2015, Kenworthy became the first action-sports star to come out. He had won a silver medal in men’s freestyle skiing at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and he’s training for the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea next February.

*Observed annually since 1988. October 11 was chosen because that was the anniversary of the 1987 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. 

Photo from the ESPN Body Issue (Summer 2017):

Excerpts from a Time Magazine interview July 5, 2017:

Time: If you are invited to the White House after the Olympics, would you attend?
Gus: I won’t go. Yeah, I have no interest in going and faking support. I’m proud to be competing for the U.S. I'm proud to be an American. But I don’t want to show any support for that cabinet. I don’t want to go shake his hand.

Time: So who is your celebrity crush?
Gus: It's always been Jake Gyllenhaal. I mean, this list can go on. I love Henry Cavill too. I went to lunch the other day with reps from Polo Ralph Lauren, and Jake Gyllenhaal was two tables over. I took a photo of him from a distance. I zoomed in, shaky hand.



Your blogger's original post on Mr. Kenworthy (Oct. 24, 2015):

Olympic skier reveals that he is gay 

Olympic champion freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy (b. 1991) revealed earlier this week that he is gay. He became the first action sports figure to come out as gay. The British-born American, who now lives in Colorado and competes in slopestyle and halfpipe, won the silver medal in Men's freestyle skiing at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

“I feel just amazing to have it out there,” Kenworthy said in an interview. “It feels like a huge weight’s been taken off of my shoulders. I’ve been completely floored by the response that I’ve gotten. Everyone’s been so supportive and so kind with what they’ve said.” Gus, who says he has known he was gay since he was five years old, appeared on the cover of this week's ESPN magazine, the venue he chose for his coming out story.

 Peter Hapak for ESPN

Kenworthy gained international media attention as a result of his efforts to rescue five stray dogs that hung around the media center of the Olympic village. He stayed behind for more than a month to save the family of dogs. Kenworthy arranged for their eventual adoption, calling further attention to the problematic rise of the stray dog population in Sochi, which grew significantly during the Olympics.

Pier Paolo Pasolini

Italian film director, poet, writer, actor and painter Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975) was a highly controversial figure who was at the center of postwar European intellectual life. He was involved in 33 trials relating to scandals, censure and assorted controversies. He was also a defiant homosexual, visionary artist, a Catholic who was tried for insulting the Church, and a non-aligned Leftist.



Pasolini was born in Bologna and became a member of the Communist party in 1949, but his political enemies outed him as homosexual, resulting in his being expelled from the party. This ruined his career as a teacher, resulting in a move to Rome, where he wrote poetry and novels of high quality, although laced with obscenity, which brought on subsequent prosecutions. He favored scandal and going against the tide, with a willingness to shock.  Beginning in the 1960s he began writing plays while he was dabbling in film-making. It is for his films that he is remembered today.

While openly gay from the very start of his career, Pasolini rarely dealt with homosexuality in his movies. One of several exceptions was “Salò” (1975), made the last year of his life. Subtitled “The 120 Days of Sodom,” the film depicted the Marquis de Sade’s compendium of sexual horrors. His personal life, however, was jump started when at age forty he met the great love of his life, fifteen-year-old Ninetto Davoli in 1962. Pasolini cast him in his 1966 film “Uccellacci e uccellini” (The Hawks and the Sparrows). Even though their sexual relations lasted only a few years, Ninetto continued to live with Pasolini and was his constant companion, also appearing in six more of Pasolini’s films.

But all of this brilliance, sordidness and controversy was extinguished when Pasolini was just 53 years old. In 1975, in an act of gruesome cruelty, Pasolini was murdered by being run over several times with his own car on the beach at Ostia (the port of Rome). Seventeen-year-old hustler Giuseppi Pelosi, who was later spotted driving Pasolini’s car, was arrested and confessed to the murder. Pasolini’s body was marked by broken bones, crushed testicles and gasoline burns. Twenty-nine years later Pelosi retracted his confession, claiming that three people who denounced Pasolini as a “dirty communist” had committed the murder. New evidence indicated that Pasolini had been murdered by an extortionist, that several spools of the film Salò had been stolen (the film had not yet been released at the time of the murder), and that an eyewitness had seen a group of men pull Pasolini from his car, but the judges responsible for the investigation found that the new evidence did not justify a continued inquiry – this was Italy, after all! The crime has never been fully resolved.

Because so many of Pasolini’s films depicted a sexual and moral reality that did not reflect what society sanctioned, controversy was aroused at every turn. In addition to written works, a list of his films (1961-1975) can be found on Pasolini’s Wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pier_Paolo_Pasolini

From San Francisco film critic Michael Guillen:

"Pasolini's cinema takes its inspiration from many sources: Renaissance painting, Romanticism, Freudian psychology, Italian neo-realism, ethnographic film-making, and music – his films share an affinity to musical structures and form. His aesthetic often rebuked traditional film grammar, opting instead for a spirit of experimentation. More often than not, he drew upon non-professional actors, casting peasants and urban youths who brought an authenticity and edginess to his narrative films. Behind the camera, Pasolini collaborated with top-notch film-makers, including cinematographers Tonino Delli Colli and Giuseppe Ruzzolini, costume designer Danilo Donati, and composer Ennio Morricone, often working with the crew on location, be it Syria, Yemen, or the impoverished outskirts of Rome. As a poet/film-maker, he spoke of his 'tendency always to see something sacred and mythic and epic in everything – even the most humdrum, simple and banal objects and events.' "

Tom Ford

Self-made, fabulously successful fashion designer/film maker Tom Ford celebrates his 56th birthday today (born August 27, 1961 in Austin, TX). He grew up in Santa Fe, NM, but moved to NYC while in his late teens, ending up with a degree in architecture (!) from Parsons. Along the way he studied art history and fashion, taking breaks to act in television commercials, followed by a year and a half in Paris – with his eyes wide open.

Fast forward – following stints in major positions at iconic fashion houses such as Perry Ellis, Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, he launched his own luxury brand in 2006, and sunglasses have never been the same. He designs for both men and women – clothing, shoes, bags, eyewear, fragrances, makeup – winning major awards while practicing his exacting craft. Responding to criticism that he objectified women, Ford stated he is an "equal opportunity objectifier" and is "just as happy to objectify men".

On the horizon was a whole other career as a film director, screenwriter and film producer. In 2009 he wrote, produced, financed and directed “A Single Man,” an adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 novel. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival and resulted in an  Academy Award nomination for Colin Firth as Best Actor. “Nocturnal Animals” followed in 2016, winning the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival. This second film, written, co-produced and directed by Ford, is based on the Austin Wright novel, “Tony and Susan” (1993). Ford received Golden Globe nominations for Best Screenplay and Best Director.

Ford lives with his partner of more than 20 years, journalist Richard Buckley, with whom Ford shares homes in London, Los Angeles and Santa Fe. Last December the couple snagged the William Haines designed home of former socialite and philanthropist Betsy Bloomingdale, wife of the department store heir. The home is located in the exclusive Holmby Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles – with annual property taxes in the $350,000 range. Success comes with a price tag.

For a more detailed bio, click this link:
http://www.tomford.com/about

Dimitri Mitropoulos

Greek-born orchestra conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos (1896-1960) had a distinct style while on the podium – he didn’t use a baton, he conducted without a printed musical score in front of him, and he displayed an intense, vigorous physicality (later mimicked by Leonard Bernstein and Gustavo Dudamel – all three of them criticized for it).

Born into a deeply religious family, he trained to be a monk, but abandoned that plan when he learned that the church would not allow him to keep a musical instrument in his cell. His musical career rose to the very heights of his profession, most notably as principal conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra for twelve years, followed by his appointment to the New York Philharmonic in 1950, a position regarded as the most prestigious in classical music in the United States. A talented pianist and composer in his youth, Mitropoulos championed difficult, complex newly-composed music, but it was during the time of his studies in Berlin that he redirected his focus from performing and composing to conducting.

But for all his international success and acclaim, he was victimized for his homosexuality.  During the time that Mitropoulos and Bernstein were having an affair in NYC, Mitropoulos advised the much-younger Bernstein to get married if he wanted to better his chances at leading a major symphony orchestra. Bernstein, a gay man, took his advice and married an actress – and went on to succeed Mitropoulos as conductor of the New York Philharmonic.

Photo below: Mitropoulos as both soloist and conductor with the Minneapolis Symphony.

At the height of his success as conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Mitropoulos became the subject of rumor and innuendo spawned by the open secret of his homosexuality, and he became a victim of McCarthy-era homophobia. He invariably dodged questions about his bachelor status by claiming "I married my art." Fear of being outed publicly forced Mitropoulos to sublimate his sexual desires, and he claimed that music making was a substitute for his “unlived sex life.”

Mitropoulos always lived modestly, even while being one of the highest paid conductors in the country; he gave away most of his money to assist struggling musicians and orchestras. He was sweet natured and kind, showing great professional respect for his orchestra members, but he was criticized for that, as well.

As support for Mitropoulos waned in NYC, the NY Philharmonic board looked for a replacement that would epitomize the masculine, heterosexual ideal. Ironically, they settled on Leonard Bernstein and named him co-conductor with Mitropoulos for the 1957-58 NY Philharmonic season. Bernstein took over as sole musical director in the fall of 1958. Although Mitropoulos bowed out gracefully, championing Bernstein’s talent, the loss of that job created a wound from which he never fully recovered. During the last years of his life Mitropoulos toured the world as guest conductor of major orchestras, but he succumbed to a third and fatal heart attack in late 1960 while rehearsing Mahler's Third Symphony with the La Scala Opera Orchestra in Milan. He was sixty-four years old.

Note: principal sources for this post are Linda Rapp and Geoffrey Bateman.

This video gives an up-close view of his “baton-less” conducting style – excerpts from a rehearsal and performance with the New York Philharmonic.

Third movement (Mephistopheles) of Franz Liszt’s A Faust Symphony:

Jean-Michel Basquiat

New York City graffiti prodigy Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) had honed his signature painting style of obsessive scribbling, elusive symbols and diagrams alongside mask-and-skull imagery by the time he was 20. He sold his first painting in 1981. Although he received extraordinary exposure and acclaim as a painter, the Brooklyn-born artist was also an accomplished poet and musician. But his meteoric rise as a multi-genre artist was cut short when he died from a heroin overdose at age 27*.

In the early 1980s he fell under the spell of Andy Warhol, with whom he collaborated on a series of paintings. Some say he entered into an intimate relationship with Warhol, his idol and mentor,  but Basquiat’s sexual relationship with fellow East Village artist David Bowes is better documented. However, no matter how fluid his sexual orientation has been described by art historians, most of his sexual relations were with women.

Although Basquiat’s Caribbean heritage provided ample subject matter (his father was Haitian and his mother of Puerto Rican descent), his art incorporated influences from African-American, Aztec and African cultures. Contemporary heroes such as musicians and athletes factored into his paintings, as well. Basquiat was often associated with Neo-Expressionism, and his works were shown at NYC’s most prestigious galleries and events. Tragically, a rapid descent into drug culture eventually stunted his creativity and artistic output. 

Untitled (1982): $10.5 million at auction

 

At a Sotheby’s art auction two months ago (May 18, 2017) Basquiat's “Untitled 1982" painting depicting a face in the shape of a skull, created with oil stick and spray paint, set a new record high for any U.S. artist at auction, selling for $110,500,000. Not a typo. The pre-sale estimate had been $60 million, aligned with the previous Basquiat record that had been set last year at $57.3 million, also for a skull painting. Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maesawa now owns both.

A 2009 documentary film, “Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child” was shown at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and on PBS television in 2011.

*Basquiat is buried at Brooklyn’s historic Green-Wood Cemetery, alongside other gay and bisexual luminaries Leonard Bernstein, Dr. Richard Isay, Jean Moreau Gottschalk, Fred Ebb (of the Kander & Ebb song-writing team) and Paul Jabara. See their individual posts in the sidebar.

Paul Jabara

 Paul Jabara and Donna Summer

You might not know the name, but you know the music. Songwriter, producer, singer and actor Paul Jabara (1948-1992), of Lebanese ancestry, won an Academy Award in 1979 for writing the Donna Summer disco hit "Last Dance" (Oscar for best original song for 1978's “Thank God It’s Friday”). A native of Brooklyn, NY, he made his Broadway debut in the original cast of “Hair,” going on to create the role of King Herod in the original London production of “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

Although he wrote songs for Barbra Streisand (“The Main Event”), Bette Midler (“Jinxed”) and a duet for Streisand and Summer (“Enough Is Enough”), he is perhaps better known as the author of “It’s Raining Men” (The Weather Girls). Jabara also produced Streisand’s Grammy Award-winning “Broadway Album.” As a singer himself, he released seven albums. “Paul Jabara and Friends” (1983) featured a 19-year-old Whitney Houston.

The incomparable WEATHER GIRLS:

Paul’s movie career included roles in "Midnight Cowboy," "The Lords of Flatbush," "The Day of the Locust," "Honky-Tonk Freeway," "Star 80," "Legal Eagles" and "Light Sleeper." He also appeared on television in "Starsky and Hutch," "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," "The Equalizer" and the made-for-television movies "The Last Angry Man" and "Out of the Darkness."

Jabara died from AIDS at just 44 years old. He is buried at the historic Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, alongside such gay luminaries as Leonard Bernstein, Fred Ebb (of Kander & Ebb), Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Dr. Richard Isay (see individual posts in sidebar).

LAST DANCE video -- Donna Summer

Sources:
Wikipedia
New York Times obituary (1992)

Paul Bowles

Paul Bowles

Bisexual American expatriate Paul Bowles (1910-1999) was a polymath who enjoyed successful careers as a composer, translator, novelist and poet. Until he was 35 years old he showed more interest in poetry and musical composition, although his legacy rests on his novels.

In 1937 Bowles met Jane Auer (1917-1973), a lesbian writer from a wealthy Long Island family. She walked with a permanent limp, the result of a riding accident when she was 14 years old. Both were only children who had grown up on Long Island, had lived abroad and spoke fluent French. Although American by birth, they spoke French together for the rest of their lives. Both Bowles and Auer preferred same sex partners, so their friends were baffled when the two married in 1938, having known each other for just a year. As a condition to marriage, they both agreed to be sexually “free,” while knowing that their union would upset their respective families. Paul’s anti-Semitic father, whom he hated, called Jane a “crippled kike.”

Marriage allowed each to express their homosexuality, instead of hiding it. Eighteen months into their marriage, they ceased sexual relations, although they remained devoted to each other for the rest of their lives. They were polar opposites in temperament and habits. Paul was restrained, but Jane was beyond wild. After both inherited some money, they pooled their resources to live a vagabond life free from the necessity of salaried jobs. In 1947 they settled in the city of Tangier, Morocco, living in separate apartments. They became permanent expatriates, remaining in Tangier to live out their lives.
 

At that time Tangier’s status as an international zone (separate from the rest of Morocco) had been restored, lasting until Morocco’s independence in 1956. The city’s population comprised 31,000 Europeans, 15,000 Jews and 40,000 Muslims. The cost of living in Tangier was extraordinarily cheap, and both Paul and Jane were able to receive guests from the cream of the crop of influential intellectual homosexuals. Paul became a habitual abuser of hashish, Jane of alcohol. Unfortunately, both also entered into dangerous relationships with Arab lovers. Jane, with Cherifa, who dominated and eventually destroyed her life; Paul, with a 16-year-old boy named Ahmed Yacoubi and his successor Mohammed Mrabet, 30 years younger than Paul.

Any search engine can yield a list of Paul’s musical and literary works, but his best and most successful novel was The Sheltering Sky (1949), in which Paul and Jane appear as Port and Kit Moresby, a couple who journey to northern Africa to rekindle their marriage but fall prey to the dangers surrounding them, experiencing horror and tragedy. A distinguished film version was released in 1991, with Bowles himself as narrator, also appearing in a cameo role (at age 79). Unfortunately Jane, whose literary efforts were in direct competition with her husband’s, has not enjoyed an enduring literary legacy.

While continuing to live in Tangier, Jane descended into illness and insanity. Having given away all her money and possessions, she caused Paul to have to cover checks she wrote without funds to support them. She died in a  psychiatric clinic in Málaga, Spain, at age 56. Paul died in his modest home in Tangier in 1999, at the age of 88.


A strange relation:

SALLY BOWLES – LIFE IS A CABARET

After writer Christopher Isherwood met Bowles in Berlin, Isherwood borrowed his surname in creating the literary character Sally Bowles, included in a collection of semi-autobiographical stories called Goodbye to Berlin (1939). Isherwood based the character on a woman he had known while living in Berlin. British playwright John Van Druten adapted Isherwood’s story for a 1951 Broadway play, I Am a Camera, for which Julie Harris won a Tony Award for portraying Sally Bowles. Producer Harold Prince commissioned the team of Kander (music) and Ebb (lyrics) to write the score for Cabaret, a musical version of I Am a Camera, which opened on Broadway in 1966, running for three years. It is a little-known fact that Judi Dench debuted the role of Sally Bowles in London’s 1968 West End production of Cabaret (photo evidence below). Judi Dench had never done a musical in her life, but John Kander later said that she was the best Sally Bowles he had ever seen, before or since.

Liza Minelli won an Oscar for her portrayal of Sally in the 1972 film version. Cabaret remains an oft-revived landmark of American musical theatre. A 2014 year-long Broadway revival starred Alan Cumming as the cabaret emcee and Michelle Williams as Sally Bowles.

Leo Varadkar

Openly Gay Leo Varadkar to Become
Prime Minister of Republic of Ireland

Ireland has just elected its first gay Prime Minister. 38-year-old Leo Varadkar (b. 1979) will become the youngest ever Taoiseach* and the fourth openly gay world leader, after Belgium, Iceland and Luxembourg. However, Varadkar must wait until Tuesday, June 13, before formally being appointed Taoiseach under Ireland’s election method. The Dubliner previously served as the Minister for Social Protection and Minister for Health, and was first elected to parliament at the age of 27.

“If my election...today has shown anything, it is that prejudice has no hold on this republic,” Varadkar said after his victory was announced in Dublin yesterday.

He is leader of the ruling Fine Gael party and will become Ireland’s first Prime Minister from a minority ethnic background. Varadkar’s father Ashok, who comes from Mumbai, met his Irish mother Miriam while they both worked at an English hospital. Dr. Matt Barrett has been Leo’s partner for two years, and both are fitness enthusiasts. Leo studied medicine at Trinity University (Dublin), so both Matt and Leo are qualified medical doctors. Prior to the election, Leo had stated that he would not expect Matt to accompany him on official government business (the couple are not married).

Varadkar is now one of two openly gay world heads of state currently in office – Luxembourg’s prime minister Xavier Bettel is the other. Other previous world leaders were former Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo and former Icelandic Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurõardóttir.

In 2015 the Republic of Ireland became the first country to pass gay marriage by public vote.

*Pronounced “TEE-shocks”. It means “chieftain” or “leader” in Irish. Outside of Ireland the term Prime Minister is used.

Kander and Ebb

After studying music composition at Oberlin and Columbia, John Kander (b. 1927), at left in photo, settled in New York City, where he worked as an arranger, accompanist, and conductor. He met lyricist Fred Ebb (1928-2004), at right, in 1963, and they formed a four-decade-long song writing team that produced such stage hits as Cabaret (1966) and Chicago (1975), both of which were made into award-winning films.

In 1965 Kander and Ebb joined forces with Harold Prince and George Abbott on a show called Flora, The Red Menace, which made a star out of nineteen-year-old Liza Minnelli, who won a Tony Award for her performance. In fact, Miss Minnelli and Chita Rivera went on to debut much of their material. The rest is Broadway history: The Happy Time/1968, Zorba/1968, 70, Girls, 70/1971, The Act/1977, Woman of the Year/1981, The Rink/1984, And the World Goes 'Round/1991, Kiss of the Spider Woman/1993, Steel Pier/1997 and The Visit/2001. Most of their collaborations were shows that explored the dark side of relationships, and few resulted in a happy ending.

Their contribution to the film score of Martin Scorsese's New York, New York/1977 yielded one of their most celebrated songs, sung by Liza Minelli in the film; however, it is Frank Sinatra’s cover that has become the most enduring interpretation.

Kander and Ebb – their two surnames were indivisible – it was impossible to say one without the other. Both were openly gay, and it was wrongly assumed by many that they were long-term lovers. In 2003, Kander, who has lived for nearly thirty years with Albert Stephenson (a choreographer and teacher) addressed those rumors in an interview in which he described the nature of his non-professional relations with Ebb as "his 40-year partner in creativity but never in domesticity, much less romance."

Marvin Hamlisch said of Kander and Ebb, "All I can remember is that working with Fred Ebb was a lot of fun. You know, John Kander and Fred Ebb wrote as a team. So, most of the songs that were written when we usually worked with Liza (Minnelli) were written by them. However, when it came to doing arrangements and working on Liza with a Z and putting things together, I loved working with Fred Ebb. We had the best time. He and I were really good friends. It was just delightful. He was a very, very smart man. And he was very funny. And he was very caustic. I think he probably wrote for her better than anyone in the world could have written for her. He just understood her so well."

After Ebb succumbed to a heart attack* in 2004, Kander continued working on the unfinished collaboration Curtains/2007, a murder mystery musical for which David Hyde Pierce won a Tony Award for best actor in a musical. Rupert Holmes supplied additional lyrics to complete the work. Alas, Curtains was not A-list Kander and Ebb. On a happy note, in 2010 John Kander wed his long-time partner, dancer and choreographer Albert Stephenson. Kander, who turns ninety this year, continues to work at his life-long profession. His most recent musical is The Landing/2013, with book and lyrics by Greg Pierce.

*Frank Ebb is buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, also the final resting place of Leonard Bernstein.

Update: July 28, 2014

John Kander was present at the White House to receive a prestigious award presented by President Obama, who spoke these words:


The 2013 National Medal of Arts (is given) to John Kander for his contributions as a composer. For more than half a century, Mr. Kander has enlivened Broadway, television and film through songs that evoke romanticism and wonder and capture moral dilemmas that persist across generations.

Alex Morse, Young Gay Mayor

UPDATE: In November, 2013, Morse was elected to a second term as mayor. In 2015 he was elected to a third term, and in January 2017 he turned 28 years old. Original post was published on November 16, 2011.

Out and gay Alex Morse (at left, photo by Rob Deza) is the newly-elected 22-year-old mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts, but CBS did not mention his sexual orientation on their Sunday news segment on Morse. That issue simply wasn't an issue in this campaign, according to The New Civil Rights Movement, a website dedicated to gay rights topics, especially same-sex marriage.

"He is gay. He is out. He has worked for the cause. He just won a stunner of a political victory, and as hard as this is to conceptualize, being gay was not a complicating factor in his campaign," writes Jean Ann Esselink in an article titled "On Our Radar – Mayor-Elect Alex Morse" that was posted Sunday on the website.

The 2½-minute CBS news segment included some hardscrabble images of the heavily Hispanic city, where a third of residents live below the poverty line and unemployment hovers around 11 percent. Morse, who takes office in January, says he's looking forward to managing a city with a $120 million budget and nearly 40,000 residents.

"I think of my age as an incredible asset, in that I haven't been around for 20 (or) 30 years. I'm not beholden to special interests. I haven't been around long enough to owe anybody a political favor," the mayor-elect told CBS.

But the optimism of Morse – a recent Brown University graduate who launched a mayoral bid while still attending the Ivy League school – shines through. He played up the city's bright spots, including a high-tech office park expected to serve as a magnet for new jobs and plans to renovate the old Victory Theater.

"One of the most satisfying things to do in life is to do what others tell you you cannot do, and I think that's what we did throughout this campaign," Morse says in the CBS interview. "Never once did I listen to folks who said, 'You're too young, you haven't paid your dues.'"

Morse, a political neophyte who won 53 percent of the vote in last Tuesday's election, unseated incumbent mayor Elaine A. Pluta, a longtime public servant and Holyoke's first woman mayor.

Xavier Bettel

Luxembourg's prime minister, Xavier Bettel (b. 1973) is at present the only openly gay world leader*. He became the first European Union Leader to enter into a same-sex marriage when he wed his civil partner, Gauthier Destanay, in May, 2015. Destanay, who works as an architect, comes from neighboring Belgium, and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel attended their wedding.

A native of Luxembourg, Bettel had become the youngest member of the Luxembourg Parliament at age 26 (1999). When he was sworn in as mayor of Luxembourg City in 2011, Destanay stood by his side. Continuing a meteoric political career, Bettel became Prime Minister of Luxembourg in 2013.

Bettel’s Deputy Prime Minister, Etienne Schneider (b. 1971) is also openly gay and married his partner, Jérôme Domange, earlier this year.

Luxembourg is a Grand Duchy, bordered by France, Germany and Belgium. The constitutional monarch is Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg (b. 1955 – not gay!), who has the power to appoint the prime minister and represent Luxembourg’s interests in foreign affairs. Bettel with Grand Duke Henri (below):

Trivia: Bettel’s mother is the grand niece of Russian composer/pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff. 

*Bettel (b. 1973) is the third openly gay world leader. Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo left office in October, 2014, and Iceland’s Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir left office in May, 2013. That leaves Bettel as the only gay leader still in office.

In 1997 President Bill Clinton appointed openly gay James C. Hormel as ambassador to Luxembourg. Although Hormel was eminently qualified for the post and quickly won approval from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he was subjected to an ugly confirmation battle during which he was defamed and belittled by homophobic GOP senators such as Jesse Helms and John Ashcroft. His nomination was effectively blocked by Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, who refused to schedule a vote. Finally, two years later, in May 1999, to the outrage of some Republicans, Clinton named Hormel ambassador via a “recess appointment.” Hormel thus became the first openly gay ambassador to represent the United States. That was the same year (still closeted) Xavier Bettel became the youngest member of the Luxembourg parliament. 

Luxembourg, the second-wealthiest country after Qatar*, was ranked #14 overall by U.S. News when it published a 2016 list of the 25 “best countries” **. Luxembourg ranked No. 1 in Open for Business and No. 10 in Quality of Life. Luxembourg is a major center for large private banking, and its finance sector is the largest contributor to its economy.

*GDP per capita $88,000; Luxembourg was $81,000.

**There were nine categories, such as Heritage, Entrepreneurship, Cultural Influence, etc. The U.S. ranked #4 overall, Great Britain #3, Canada #2 and Germany #1.  

UPDATE:

Pope Francis Welcomes Bettel and Husband 

In March 2017 Pope Francis welcomed the world’s only openly gay leader and his husband to the Vatican. Catholic officials invited Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel (center) and his husband Gauthier Destenay (left) to the Holy See, where they were met upon arrival by Georg Gänswein* (above right), the dashing German-born Archbishop who still serves as personal secretary to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Bettel and Destenay joined other European heads of government for the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome on March 25, 1957.  The treaty established the European Economic Community (EEC), a major stepping stone to the establishment of the European Union (EU).

Bettel commented, “It was a great pleasure and honour for me and Gauthier to be welcomed by the leader of the Catholic Church.”

*60-year-old Gänswein rightfully earned the nickname “Gorgeous George” (Bel Giorgio). He appeared on the cover of the January 2013 Italian version of Vanity Fair magazine and was the inspiration for fashion designer Donatella Versace’s 2007 “Clergyman Collection.” For recreation the Archbishop plays tennis, flies airplanes and skis (he was once a ski instructor).

So there you have it.

Sources:
 
Joe Morgan (Gay Star News)
Wikipedia

Michael Lucas

Born in 1972 in Moscow, activist, columnist, documentary film-maker, lecturer, porn star and explicit gay film producer Michael Lucas (birth name Andrei Treivas) was raised in a secular Jewish family during the oppressive communist era. He was the target of anti-Semitism as a youth, and some of his ancestors had been killed in the Holocaust. His great-grandfather was a rabbi who was murdered in his own synagogue by the Nazis. Michael was given his mother's maiden name at birth specifically because Treivas sounded less Jewish than his father's surname, Bregman.

Lucas has an interesting back story. He earned a law degree from Moscow State Law Academy in 1994, after which he owned and operated a travel agency. Three years later he was living in New York city, with stops in Germany and France along the way. Treivas began his porn career in Munich by working in straight films, but while in France he began an association with Jean-Daniel Cadinot in gay porn. By the age of 25 Andrei Treivas became an exclusive porn actor for Falcon Studios, who, without his counsel or permission, had given him an Americanized name – Michael Lucas. Nevertheless, he had greater ambition than being a porn star, and he got lucky. He was awarded  a green card through a lottery system.

In 2004 he became a citizen of the United States, and in 2009 took dual citizenship with Israel. The following year he renounced his Russian citizenship as a protest against Russian homophobia and anti-Semitism.

With money earned from working as a male escort, Lucas started his own gay porn production company in New York in 1998. Lucas Entertainment is now a leader in the adult entertainment industry, having produced more than 300 films. His production company employs fifteen people who work in a midtown Manhattan office rented for nearly $20,000 a month, and Michael’s home apartment boasts original Robert Mapplethorpe art on the walls. To say that this immigrant has achieved success is understatement.

In 2000 Lucas moved his Jewish grandparents to New York, and one of the first things he did was take them to see the giant menorah in Central Park, so that they could witness that it had not been vandalized. He wanted to share with them the unbelievable freedoms Americans have.

In 2008 he married his partner of eight years, Richard Winger, a businessman and president emeritus of New York’s LGBT Center. In 2014 Lucas announced that they had divorced.

As a columnist for Out, The Advocate, Huffington Post and Pink News, Michael’s reputation is controversial, and his writing is highly opinionated and outspoken. Speaking regularly at universities such as Stanford, Yale, and Oxford, he discusses social, political, and sexual issues. Lucas has been on the cover of hundreds of magazines worldwide and has been profiled in many mainstream publications ranging from New York magazine to The New Republic.

In 2012 he wrote, produced and directed a documentary titled Undressing Israel: Gay Men in the Promised Land, which extols the tolerance of the Israeli State. A second documentary was made in 2014, Campaign of Hate – Russia and Gay Propaganda. Both received critical acclaim and have been presented at numerous film festivals.

As the gay news magazine The Advocate wrote, “Michael Lucas has used the stardom porn gave him as a platform to speak out against drugs, unsafe sex, child exploitation, anti-Semitism, religious oppression of gays, and a host of other social problems. Bold, honest, and passionately opinionated, Lucas continues to challenge conventional thinking in all of his pursuits.”

(Sources: MichaelLucas.com, vice.com, The Advocate, Wikipedia)