The Pridelets Files for September 21

On this day in 2000, hundreds come out to Washington, D.C., for the "Healing Works: First National Conference on Lesbians and Cancer" sponsored by the Mautner Project. Among the speakers at the three-day event are Marilyn Gaston, a U.S. assistant surgeon general National Black Women's Health Project founder Byllye Avery; and surgeon and author on breast cancer Susan Love.

BIRTHGAYS (and the occasional straights)
* 1723 - British author Sarah Scott
* 1902 - Spanish poet Luis Cernuda
* 1747 - French revolutionist Philippe I, Duc d'Orleans, would be 464.
* 1849 - British critic and translator Sir Edmund Gosse
* 1898 - Russian surrealist painter Pavel Tchelitchew
* 1902 - one of Spain's most influential twentieth-century poets, Luis Cernuda
* 1944 - Novelist, actress, and "Match Game" panelist Patricia Neal AKA Fannie Flagg
* 1955 - playwright and fiction writer Jim Grimsley
* 1974 - "R.F.D." (which does not stand for "Radical Faerie Digest")
* 1998 - "Will & Grace"

Q.UOTE
"Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said that homosexuality 'is a lifestyle I don't agree with.' This is a trope you hear from the religious right a good deal... but it is a very odd thing to say. No one speaking rationally says, 'I don't agree with the Pacific Ocean' or 'I don't agree with the Grand Canyon.'" -- Paul Varnell

THE BEDSIDE TABLE
"What is Marriage For?: The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution" by E. J. Graff
Will same-sex couples destroy "traditional" marriage, soon to be followed by the collapse of all civilization? That charge has been leveled throughout history whenever the marriage rules change. But marriage, as E. J. Graff shows in this lively, fascinating tour through the history of marriage in the West, has always been a social battleground, its rules constantly shifting to fit each era and economy. The marriage debates have been especially tumultuous for the past hundred and fifty years—in ways that lead directly to today's debate over whether marriage could mean not just Boy + Girl = Babies, but also Girl + Girl = Love.

This work is copyright© 2006 Thomas Allen Heald, all rights reserved. Contact the author at tom@idontgetit.org and the latest column are always available at www.Pridelets.com.