Tag Archives: GLAAD

What will survive of us is love. — Phillip Larkin’s An Arundel Tomb

The story of the life and love shared by Thomas Lee Bridegroom and Shane Bitney Crone resonates with me to this day. I learned of their life together and the tragedy that befell them in viewing It could happen to you, the YouTube video produced by Shane Bitney Crone in memory of Thomas Lee Bridegroom, who died in a tragic accident on May 7, 2011. Though I do not know either of these men, I was so moved in a way that I normally am not upon hearing of a personal tragedy that strikes people who are strangers to me. Watching It could happen to you had a profound effect on me; I felt grief and outrage well up inside me upon learning of the injustice and iniquity that was heaped on Shane Bitney Crone following the death of his partner, Thomas Lee Bridegroom. As same sex couples could not marry in California at the time of Tom’s death, Shane had no legal standing as Tom’s partner and could do nothing as the Bridegroom family claimed Tom’s body, his assets and barred Shane from attending his funeral. This is so wrong and it happens to other couples. From the grief and outrage I experienced I was inspired to join in the effort to advocate for full civil rights for gay people, marriage rights in particular. Continue reading →

“You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.” ― John Morley, On Compromise

2 Replies

There has been a great deal of heated discussion recently concerning an organization called GLAAD. GLAAD was founded in New York City in 1985 “… to protest against what it saw as the New York Post’s defamatory and sensationalized AIDS coverage, GLAAD put pressure on media organizations to end what it saw as homophobic reporting.” (Wikipedia) In 2012 GLAAD founded the Commentator Accountability Project (CAP). GLAAD maintains the purpose of CAP is to give a public airing of what various anti-gay commentators are saying and have said when they are not speaking through the mainstream media. Critics in the United States, generally those anti-gay commentators singled out in CAP and their supporters, accuse GLAAD of trying to impose censorship, that is, to stifle 1st Amendment guarantees of freedom of expression and freedom of religion. As a gay man, the anti-gay commentary GLAAD brings to light concerns me. I agree it needs to be challenged. However, censorship is an issue that resonates with me also, as I am a librarian and as such have a mandate to uphold intellectual freedom and freedom of expression. Continue reading →

Political correctness does not legislate tolerance; it only organizes hatred. — Jacques Barzun

4 Replies

Claude Hamilton Gresham, Jr. (June 21, 1922 – February 18, 2008), better known as Grits Gresham, was an avid sportsman and naturalist and a first-rate outdoor writer and broadcaster. I have many of his books in my library collection and his videos on duck and goose hunting. I have a great many books on hunting in my library collection from many different authors. Still, in my opinion, his book on waterfowl hunting, The Complete Wildfowler, is the finest ever written on the subject. He was from rural South Carolina and highly educated with a bachelor of science and master of science degrees, with a specialty in forestry and wildlife management, from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He made his home in Louisiana and is remembered by Robert J. Barham, the Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and a former Republican member of the Louisiana State Senate who recalled, “as a child, I got to meet him and be around him. He was just so easy to be around. Grits was nothing like the television celebrities of today. People were drawn to him. He made them feel at ease … he made me feel at ease, and I was just a child. … There will never be another like him.” (as cited in Wikipedia) Continue reading →