October is National GLBT History Month

[Jamie McDaniel]

This thread is for discussing the 31 individuals highlighted during National GLBT History Month. The video above will feature a different story each day in October.

October 1: Leonard Bernstein, composer/conductor
October 2: Annie Leibovitz, photographer
October 3: Angela Davis, civil rights activist
October 4: Alexander the Great, military leader
October 5: Billie Jean King, athlete
October 6: Pedro Almodóvar, writer/director
October 7: Bessie Smith, singer
October 8: Klaus Wowereit, politician
October 9: Susan Sontag, commentator
October 10: Gore Vidal, writer
October 11: Lily Tomlin, actor
October 12: Peter Gomes, religion
October 13: Mary Edwards Walker, healthcare
October 14: Fredrick the Great, monarch
October 15: Virginia Uribe, educator

[keltic63]

That will be so cool. I can't wait! Do we have to discuss each person in order? or can it be unstructured?

[Jamie McDaniel]

I think it would be fun to only discuss them as they are presented. So we can talk about any that have been featured so far. And any of the 31 from last year if anyone is interested in discussing them as well, since we didn't have a thread in 2006. On this day last year, James Baldwin was featured. In 2004 he was on a postage stamp and I bought like 3 or 4 sheets of them. I liked the gay male mail.

[keltic63]

Originally Posted by Jamie McDaniel

October 1: Leonard Bernstein, composer/conductor

wikipedia talks about Bernstein's devotion to his wife, and how he continued to care for her after their divorce. Having been married to a woman, I can understand his desire to take care of her.

It has been suggested that Bernstein was actually bisexual (an assertion supported by comments Bernstein himself made about not preferring any particular cuisine, musical genre, or form of sex), and it has been alleged that he was conflicted between his devotion to his family and his gay desires, but Arthur Laurents (Bernstein's collaborator in West Side Story), said that Bernstein was simply "a gay man who got married. He wasn't conflicted about it at all. He was just gay." [10] Shelly Rhoades Perle, another friend of Bernstein’s, said that she thought "he required men sexually and women emotionally."

after the divorce, his ex-wife was diagnosed with cancer, and Bernstein moved in with her to care for her until her death. That's pretty aweseome.

[scrupulous_stoic]

Alexander the Great. If only he knew what influence his short reign would have. Thanks to him, Hellenistic culture spread throughout the known world, from Macedon to Egypt and to the banks of the Indus, influenced Buddhist art, which incorporated Greek statuary into its representations of the Buddha and bodhisattvas that we know of today, and led to a golden age of reason, science, and art, particularly in Asia Minor and Egypt. Alexander's war tactics are still taught in military academies the world over. He has probably held more influence on Western civilization than any other man in history.

He was also noted to be a very just and accepting leader. He incorporate beliefs from his conquered people, and was particularly considerate to his lovers, especially his friend from childhood, Hephaestion, and, though debated, Bagoas, the focus of Mary Renault's blockbuster novel, The Persian Boy.

Overall, my favorite GLBT icon, let alone one of my favorite people in history

[andrewlittle]

Largely at my own ignorance, but also that some of these people who have so significantly affected modern culture are/were LGBT.

I knew some of the honorees were LGBT, but not most. What struck me was that it shouldn't matter - to culture at large, anyway. (I fully understand the sense of pride and family expressed by our community.) These are truly impressive and talented people who have taught, entertained, challenged and affected attitudes and praxis in the world. God bless them.

That any of them should experience bias and backlash because of sexuality is a true indictment of the homophobic masses and the heterosexism that is such an accepted part of our cultural baggage.

Don't have anything more erudite to offer - I just wanted to let you know that I, at least, am watching, reading and listening, and learning a tremendous amount from this thread.

[antonyh]

I was surprised that Michelangelo is not on the list. Maybe they ran out of room. I found a page with four of his sonnets. In them Michelangelo discusses his passionate love first for Gherardo Perini, whom he met in 1522, and later for Tommaso de' Cavalieri, whom he met and fell in love with in 1534.

For Cavalieri:

If one chaste love, if one divine compassion,
If one destiny is equal for two lovers,
If one hard fate of the one is felt by the other,
If one spirit, if one will guides two hearts;
If one soul in two bodies makes itself eternal,
Lifting both to heaven with a single wing,
If Love in one blow and one golden arrow
The hearts in two chests can burn and tear;
If the one loves the other and neither loves himself,
With one pleasure and one delight, to such a measure
That one and the other desire to reach a single end:
Thousands and thousands would not make a hundredth
Of such a knot of love, or of such a faith:
And only anger could break and untie it.

Michelangelo's sense of shame and sin. "This is a typical sonnet motif in sonnet cycles dealing with love, but it takes on an added poignancy when used to express homosexual desire."

I live in sin, dying to myself I live;
Life is no longer mine, but belongs to sin;
My good is from heaven, my evil I give to myself,
From my own unbound will, which has been stolen from me.
My freedom is a slave, my divinity has made itself
Mortal.
Oh, unhappy state!
To what misery, to what life I've been born!

All sonnet's:
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/REN/MICHEL1.HTM

[keltic63]

Originally Posted by antonyh

I was surprised that Michelangelo is not on the list. Maybe they ran out of room.

actually, I think they do a new list every year, and for some reason, I recall Michelangelo on one of the earlier lists.

just more proof that the gays have always served the church, the church just doesn't want us to talk about who we really are.

[u-dog]

[QUOTE=Jamie McDaniel;42257]

Peter Gomes book "The Good Book" is an EXCELLENT book for figuring out how the Bible is true for Christians. Its very "believer friendly" and yet doesn't shy away from the hard questions. Two of my three children have been required to read it in intro Religion courses at College and have responded enthusiastically to it.