James on the left is black and gay, while Daniel on the right is straight and white. Both have the same parents and were born on the same day.

The two teenage boys sitting on the sofa opposite are different in almost every way. On the left is James: he’s black, he’s gay, he’s gregarious, and he’s academic. He’s taking three A-levels next summer, and wants to go to university. Daniel, sitting beside him, is white. He’s straight, he’s shy, and he didn’t enjoy school at all. He left after taking GCSEs, and hopes that his next move will be an apprenticeship in engineering.

So, given that they are diametrically opposed, there is one truly surprising thing about James and Daniel. They are twins. They were born on 27 March 1993, the sons of Alyson and Errol Kelly, who live in south-east London. And from the start, it was obvious to everyone that they were the complete flipside of identical. “They were chalk and cheese, right from the word go,” says Alyson. “It was hard to believe they were even brothers, let alone twins.”

– Read the entire article here.

Ifti Nasim

Ifti Nasim, a good friend of mine, died late Friday night. For those not fortunate enough to have known him, here is a quick sketch of who he was.

Ifti was perhaps the most prominent political and cultural voice in Chicago’s vibrant South Asian community. A Pakistani-American who left his native country in the 1960s to escape homophobia and an arranged marriage, Nasim spoke out early and often against war and racism promoted by some in his adopted country, and homophobia promoted by religious mis-leaders.

His first claim to fame was as the world’s first openly gay, Urdu language published poet, and eventually became in constant demand to appear at literary gatherings around the world. Locally he hosted the weekly Sargam radio program on WSBC-AM and was Midwest Editor of the Weekly News Pakistan. He personally helped many young LGBT Pakistanis traverse the same immigration obstacles that he surmounted decades earlier as a young man.

As the years went on, Ifti became one of the few people in the Devon Avenue community who could bring together the many diverse factions within the community when events demanded it. The fact that he could do this while being openly gay for decades, forcing many to look beyond their prejudices, showed the deep respect that he commanded.

In early 2003 in the run up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the George W. Bush administration hyped the forthcoming war by demanding the “registrations” of immigrants from various predominantly Muslim countries, a prelude to the deportations of many. Chicago’s large Pakistani-American community was particularly in the cross-hairs. In this atmosphere of fear, Ifti was the key man who was able to bring together the most multi-racial anti-war protest this city has ever seen – 5,000 marching in 15 degree weather on Devon Avenue in February 2003 demanding an end to the racist registrations and no war on Iraq.

The crowd on that bitterly cold day was about half South Asian, and half of the program was controlled by that community. Without Ifti’s contacts with the many political factions in that community, the protest would not have been possible. As it turns out, he devoted so much energy to it that on the night before it, he suffered his first heart attack and landed in critical condition in the hospital.

Even though for several years his health was not good, Ifti supported various GLN actions and anti-war actions we were involved in, continuing to contribute financially to GLN when his health prevented his personal participation. Here is a link which discusses his activism around the murder of Haroon Paryani, a Pakistani cab driver, by a politically connected white gay man, Michael Jackson. While many white gay “leaders” circled the wagons around Jackson, Ifti and us stood against this.

To the annoyance of some and the delight of the rest of us, Ifti was gender-bending long before it became fashionable. Back in about 2000 we in Chicago’s Gay Liberation Network were in the midst of a campaign against then-Cook County State’s Attorney Dick Devine over his refusal to criminally prosecute Chicago police officers who committed brutality against LGBTs and others. Devine and Daley were principally responsible for the failure to rein in the infamous Jon Burge. So when we learned that a local organization was going to give Devine its “Abraham Lincoln Award” in the heart of the Loop, we were particularly incensed, and announced a picket of people dressed up like Abraham Lincoln, complete with stove pipe hats and long black beards. Ifti did us one better – he showed up as Mary Todd Lincoln, complete with frilly, long-flowing dress.

Ifti’s sense of humor and graciousness will be greatly missed. For those of a younger generation who were not fortunate enough to have known him, you should know that Ifti was breaking barriers in Chicago’s LGBT and South Asian communities before many of you were even born. We are fortunate to be able to build on his legacy.

Here is Ifti on an October 2008 program discussing war and civil liberties.

Ifty Nasim

Schlessinger got a call from an African-American woman who said she was married to a white man and was getting fed up with her husband allowing his family and friends to say things that she felt were racist.

Dr. Laura’s response was to chastise the woman for being “oversensitive,” marrying outside of her race and went on to utter the N-word several times.

In 2000 Dr. Laura had a TV show which was later cancelled due to pressure from the public’s negative response to her hate speech, calling gays and lesbians “biological errors” and callinggay men child molesters.

The Rev. Al Sharpton decried the incident during an interview with Anderson Cooper on Thursday. “That is despicable,” Sharpton said about Schlessinger’s comment about the caller marrying outside of her race.

“She said the word over and over, and in a very animated way, I might add, but that she actually, if you listen carefully to the logic of what she was saying was that the N-word was not offensive.”

Listen to the whole conversation below. Warning: lots of racist language, inappropriate for work.

Today she apologized for it, going all over the media saying she was wrong.

If you think it’s just her having a bad day, check out her hot but deeply disturbed son Deryk Schlessinger’s 2007 scandal for posting racist and disturbing images on his MySpace page. Derek! Replace that gun with something else!

All across the world, Pride parades and celebrations reach their peak during the month of June, as millions gather to celebrate gay, trans, lesbian and bisexual culture.

But there is trouble under the rainbow- many people feel the celebrations wash over the ongoing problems of prejudice and that these rowdy festivals actually hurt our cause. Does acting like Snookie from Jersey Shore hurt us in the end?

Today we’re taking a look at Pride- the good, the bad, the ugly and the fabulous!

Queer theorist superstar Judith Butler shocked the gays when she appeared at Berlin Pride to accept an award, but then refused to accept it and criticized the event as being too commercial and ignoring the problems of racism and discrimination.

Listen to all the hot news-

A new drag queen video by us is just days away, starring Puerto Rican scholar Lola Von Miramar.

We have new t shirts! Blue is back baby!

A lesbian in Maryland almost gets arrested for looking like Justin Beiber.

Plus, Puerto Rican Pride, drag queens from RuPauls’ Drag Race, twitter wars and how low can you go? Vocalist Roger Menees breaks the world’s record by singing the lowest note ever produced by a human voice.

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In the post, the author argues that the closing of this beloved pizzeria is the fault of the owner for basically not being more discriminatory with his clientele. Not to mention the evil hand that is the Center on Halsted, for bringing youth advocacy to Boystown and thus also bringing “thugs.”

While I’m not going to go into the painful, almost unreadable, length that they went to in blogging about this, I do want to step up in defense of the people who they are not granting a voice.  Since, FYI, they appear to be that kind of blog that blocks comments of dissenting voices.

This may be more serious than is usually presented in the Fresh site, but I desperately want to engage this author in an actual discussion, since he blocks comments of those who disagree.

To read the rest of my response in full, go on over to my blog

Although the African American religious vote made a small but significant difference in passing this ordinance, many people are pitting gay rights advocates against the black church.

Did queer folks fail to reach out to black churches or did these Churches fail to see the universal struggle for equality in their own back yard?

Why wasn’t Barack Obama’s rejection of the measure a bigger part of the campaign against the proposition?

On today’s show we have Chicago’s very own, the Rev. Charles Straight- Pastor of Faith United Methodist Church, in Dalton Illinois.

He’s here to help us make sense of what happened and what we can learn from this setback in order to fight against injustice wherever it rears it’s ugly head, even when it means taking a good hard look at ourselves.

In case you didn’t catch it, Wanda Sykes has come out, saying that she was born a beautiful black lesbian. Does being biologically gay mean people will be less likely to discriminate against you?

And the truth about beer goggles. British researchers conducted a study on the effects of alcohol on our attraction to others. They found out that tipsy men and women tend to rate their own genders as more attractive even after, as little as, one drink.

There is much to celebrate!

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