SGN December 2, 2022

SAME-SEX MARRIAGE CODIFIED

SMC director brings music that matters to Seattle audiences

by Georgia Skerritt SGN

by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer

The US Senate passed the Respect for Marriage Act on November 29 by a vote of 61-36, with 12 Republicans joining 49 Democrats and Independents in voting for the measure.

The bill now goes to the US House, where it’s expected to pass with a comfortable majority.

The bipartisan yes vote didn’t happen on its own, however. It was the result of hours of behind-the-scenes work and some skillful horse-trading by the measure’s managers.

see MARRIAGE page 18

Celebrating their 43rd and 20th anniversaries, respectively, this year, the SMC and SWC have long held a special spot in the city’s heart. “The slogan I like to use is, ‘Music that makes a difference,” Coogan said about the choruses’ work.

Club Q aftermath: Conservatives shift blame while Queer communities mourn

by Lindsey Anderson SGN Staff

were seriously injured.

In the days since the shooting, investigators hailed the quick actions of civilians, armed with nothing more than courage and high heels, as heroic and credit them with saving lives by taking down the attacker.

Intern

Craig Coogan, interim executive director of Seattle Men’s Chorus (SMC) and Seattle Women’s Chorus (SWC) knows the importance of choral tradition to the LGBTQ community.

Writer

Tragedy struck in the late hours of Saturday, November 19 when an armed assailant opened fire on the patrons of Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colorado. In six minutes, five people were shot dead and 18 others

Seattle Men’s Chorus presents Fa-la-la-liday –

Photo by John Pai

Photo by Isaiah J. Downing / Reuters

Sen. Tammy Baldwin D-Wisc. (r) and Sen. Susan Collins R-Maine speak to reporters following Senate passage of the Respect for Marriage Act, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2022 –

Photo by J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Local News

Local luminary Holly Zhang hosts holiday market

by Daniel Lindsley SGN Staff Writer

Across Lake Washington this snowy December, the Holly Zhang Pearl Gallery will host a charitable holiday market, beginning at noon and ending at 6 p.m. on Sunday the 11th. This local jewelry store specializing in pearls has been around for well over a decade now, and is currently located in the luxurious Shops at the Bravern Building in Bellevue.

The market will offer more than pearls that afternoon, though. Beyond jewelry of other kinds, there will be sustainable designer clothing, works by local photographers, and live modeling of the products, with refreshments and appetizers in case anyone gets peckish.

The gallery is a family-owned business. Moreover, the eponymous Holly Zhang, who began working with pearls as a young professional in China, was honored this year by the Bellevue Downtown Association as one of the city’s “extraordinary leaders.”

“When you’re a female entrepreneur, you have more obstacles to conquer,” Zhang told the association in March. “It’s crucial that you seek help and resources from the right people when you run into those barriers.”

That message fits with the gallery’s record of charitable events, which will carry on at the market. Twenty percent of the sales made that afternoon will go to Mary’s Place, a venerable organization that runs five family shelters in King County. Last year alone, those shelters helped move over 500 families into stable housing.

Zhang has also held fundraisers for Compass Housing Alliance, Volunteers in Action, the MultiCare Health Foundation, and Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital, which has brought her business full-circle, in a way. Although she first discovered her love for pearls as an interpreter in China in 1999, she began working as a jewelry vendor in 2005, at a pop-up shop that traveled to hospitals all over Washington state. Finally, she landed a brick-and-mortar store in Bellevue in 2011.

Such is Zhang’s involvement with the local community that she ran for city council in 2019. In the same spirit as her charity work, her platform contained policies that would ease restrictions on how many rooms could be rented in one house, which,

she said, would make housing more affordable. She also advocated for subsidizing childcare for poor families.

Zhang didn’t win the race, but clearly, that hasn’t stopped her from continuing to effect real change.

As for the pearls themselves, they’re high-quality freshwater and saltwater variants not commonly found in the US, such as Akoya, which are largely produced in Japan; Tahitian black, from near Tahiti; and Gold South Sea, which are farmed from the Philippines.

With shiny pearls in hand, the next step is design. Zhang begins that process herself, but it’s “harder than you think,” she told the association. “To really succeed in this business, you must learn about the fashion industry and how other cultures have woven jewelry into their clothing.”

Researching both history and current trends is the key, she went on, which often means scouring fashion magazines for clues.

One of the gallery’s most prominent features is its wedding-focused jewelry-fitting service, which allows brides and grooms to try on pieces from the gallery’s collection and see what compliments their wedding attire best.

Look out for all the above and more should you visit the Holly Zhang Pearl Gallery. Just make sure to RSVP. You can find out more at https://hollyzhang.com/s/ category/events

Photo by Cedar Cone Photography

Photo courtesy of Holly Zhang

Photo courtesy of Holly Zhang

Arts & Entertainment

CHORUS

continued from cover

While he took his position with the organizations on September 1, his connection with the Queer chorus movement goes back almost 30 years, when he originally sought out performances as an audience member. “I had just moved to Los Angeles... and I was like, ‘How do I connect with the community?’” he recalled. Eventually, he would move on to leadership positions with choruses in LA, St. Paul, and Boston.

When Coogan received the invitation to join the SMC and SWC team, a sense of responsibility motivated him to make the move. “These are great organizations, and they needed the help,” he said.

Like many other groups over the last few years, the choruses navigated a long and complicated reestablishing process after the pandemic. “I thought, ‘I have some -

thing to offer, and there appears to be a bit of a need, so let’s do this!’”

The Seattle choruses are not only key members of the Pacific Northwest perform-

ing arts scene but also national trailblazers. In many ways, SMC was the first of its kind when it was established in 1979; today the two choruses make up the largest community choral organization in North America and are recognized on an international level.

Beyond their sheer magnitude and age, both organizations have also taken huge strides in changing the landscape of the choral movement for the Queer community. SMC, for instance, has had a leading role in creating music that has then been adopted throughout the movement, improving one key factor in LGBTQ+ welfare: visibility.

“When this whole thing started almost 45 years ago, there was not this entire library of music dedicated to telling the Gay experience,” Coogan said, touching on the fact that SMC has been a leader in developing music for LGBTQ+ TTBBs (which stands for tenor 1, tenor 2, baritone, and bass). “Music for TTBBs has always been out there, but it wasn’t specifically

connected to our lives.”

Coogan also explained that the SWC, while noticeably younger than the SMC, has also played a major role for women in the performing arts world. SWC uses a repertoire of female-identified composers to raise visibility and create work opportunities that might otherwise not have been available.

On the topic of equality and visibility, Coogan cited these as some of the most important parts of the Seattle Choruses’ mission. The organizations are an undeniable favorite for many across the Pacific Northwest, but they’ve also helped nurture Seattle’s LGBTQ+ population.

“The thing that binds everyone together is the music that tells their unique life experience,” Coogan said.

It’s no mystery that music humanizes us and brings us together, and the Seattle Chorus team has harnessed that power. “Changing hearts and minds and telling the LGBTQ experience: that’s what we’re trying to do.”

In the face of recent anti-Queer legislation and shootings in the US, this sense of community is especially important. While the PNW is a generally blue region, safety and equality are still critical issues, and Coogan takes this knowledge into his work to preserve these spaces.

“Yeah, we’re in a blue bubble, but that can be pierced, you know? It can blow up,” he said. “Standing there out and proud is as much a statement as anything else.”

The SMC is also looking forward to its “Holiday Fa-la-la-liday” concerts, which will take place December 2–23 in Seattle, Tacoma, and Everett. Coogan explained that he and the rest of the team are excited to bring people out to enjoy this time of year with fewer restrictions. As he described it, 2021 felt like a year of reopening, but this is the year of relaunch. “

Our chosen family includes our audience, so we’re looking forward to being able to see everybody,” he added.

Whether it’s for a solo night out, a date, or an outing with family, the Seattle Choruses — a long-standing pillar of LGBTQ+ culture and creativity — continue to offer some of the best entertainment and community engagement in the Pacific Northwest.

For more information, please visit https://www.seattlechoruses.org.

Seattle Men’s Chorus presents Fa-la-la-liday – Photo by John Pai

Seattle Men’s Chorus and Seattle Women’s Chorus – Photo courtesy of the Seattle Choruses

Craig Coogan

– Photo courtesy of the Seattle Choruses

Violent Night a blood-splattered yuletide act of resistance

by Sara Michelle Fetters SGN Staff Writer VIOLENT NIGHT Theaters

It’s Christmas Eve, and a not-so-jolly Santa Claus (David Harbour) is making his yearly trek around the globe, delivering presents to all the “nice” children everywhere. He’s weary, and it’s clear this magical being’s Christmas spirit is on the decline. People have apparently forgotten what the holiday is all about, and they most likely wouldn’t even notice if he just silently went into retirement. After all, 1,100 years of doing the same thing would get a little tiresome for anyone, even Santa Claus.

But things change when he lands on the roof of the Lightstone mansion. After enjoying homemade cookies baked with love and care by young Trudy (Leah Brady), the sound of gunfire savagely breaks up the quiet.

Santa’s normally not one to get involved in what humans do to one another, but the sight of the little girl, her estranged parents Jason (Alex Hassell) and Linda (Alexis Louder), and the rest of the Lightstone family being held at gunpoint is too much for him to bear. All of these villains are on his naughty list, and for one night and one night only, instead of a lump of coal, he’s going to give them a brutal beating they won’t soon forget.

From the deranged minds of renegade Norwegian filmmaker Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters) and screenwriters Pat Casey and Josh Miller (Sonic the Hedgehog) comes the 1980s-style, aggressively combative action throwback Violent Night. More than just that Santa-versus-terrorist faux trailer from Scrooged brought to life, this gorily vulgar live-action cartoon is an explosion of bloody madness that follows the Die Hard template with pinpoint precision.

That it all works has a great deal to do with two things. This first is Harbour. He’s delightful. The actor brings this worldweary Santa to life with gleefully anarchic ease, giving him unexpected gravitas in the process. The other is John Leguizamo. He’s the secretive, Christmas-hating villain channeling his inner Hans Gruber meets

Howard Payne. Calling himself “Scrooge” and willing to shoot everyone and anyone point-blank to get the $ 300 million hidden in the Lightstone vault, Leguizamo goes all in as the over-the-top bad guy, and it’s obvious he’s having the time of his life.

Several little touches brought an immediate smile to my face: Beverly D’Angelo as the Lightstones’ cold-hearted matriarch Gertrude. The purposefully Michael Kamen–inspired, Die Hard-esque score by composer Dominic Lewis (Bullet Train). A cavalcade of henchmen given yuletide nicknames like “Sugarplum,” “Krampus,”

“Frosty,” and “Candy Cane,” almost all of whom are portrayed by talented stunt performers who help make the many action scenes sizzle. Deft blink-and-you’ll-missthem homages to past Christmas-set actioners like Die Hard II, Lethal Weapon, and even Cobra

The film loses track of some of its characters at times, a few of Scrooge’s crew all but disappearing entirely during the last act. Additionally, Wirkola still isn’t the best at juggling action and comedy; he’s so eager to get to his next bloody act of shock and awe that he sometimes doesn’t allow a joke the

time it needs to fully land. The breakneck pace is somewhat exhausting, making the few moments where the filmmaker actually allows things to slow down and breathe come close to feeling like a mistake.

Not that it honestly matters. Violent Night does exactly what it sets out to do, and does so with panache, frivolity, and style. It’s a blood-splattered act of resistance, and not since Billy Chapman went on his Silent Night, Deadly Night rampage has a Santa Claus crushed so many skulls as he removes names from his extensive “naughty” list.

David Harbour and John Leguizamo in Violent Night – Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

David Harbour in Violent Night – Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

Unforgettables: Cinematic milestones with Sara Michelle

I believe in Santa Claus: Unwrapping the magical pleasures of Miracle on 34th Street on its 75th anniversary

by Sara Michelle Fetters

SGN Staff Writer

In 1947’s Miracle on the 34th Street, a film overflowing with memorable moments, there is one that stands out above the rest. Disbelieving youngster Susan Walker (Natalie Wood) is secretly spying on Macy’s current Santa Claus (Edmund Gwenn, in an Academy Award–winning performance) — who defiantly insists his name actually is Kris Kringle — as he speaks to scared little war orphan in her native Dutch. The latter blossoms into a state of pure, unfettered joy, even getting to sing a holiday carol with the man she lovingly calls “Sinterklaas.”

Much like the “La Marseillaise” scene in 1942’s Casablanca, this small musical moment is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser that doesn’t leave a single dry eye to be found. But it also hints at the larger themes at play in director George Seaton’s spellbinding comedic drama: Belief. Hope. Kindness. Empathy. Understanding. Faith. Love. All are central factors in how this gem has managed to maintain its status as a beloved

classic for three-quarters of a century.

The plot is familiar to even those who’ve never even watched this black-and-white treasure. Jolly Kris Kringle, worried about the state of Christmas and how it has been commercialized, journeys to New York City to get a firsthand look at what’s going on in the world. Through a series of fortunate events, he ends up being hired by Doris Walker (Maureen O’Hara) to become Macy’s new Santa Claus. She’s lost the Christmas spirit and has passed those beliefs to her daughter Susan. Kris decides he’s going to prove to the duo what the holiday is all about.

There’s plenty more added to the mix, including Doris’s charming next-door neighbor Fred Gailey (John Payne), a lawyer smitten with the single mother. At Macy’s, there’s the head of the toy department, Julian Shellhammer (Philip Tonge), who views Kris’s arrival as a gift from the heavens. On the opposite side is store psychologist Granville Sawyer (Porter Hall), who recommends that the new Santa be immediately dismissed for being psychologically unbalanced.

Other memorable characters pop in and out, and everything culminates in a sanity hearing, where Kris is put on trial and Fred must prove this lovable old man truly is the one, true Santa Claus. It’s as goofy as it sounds. But all the comedic beats are so natural, the emotions so authentic, and the overall dramatic conflict so genuine — who cares how silly it all is? Seaton and his talented cast make the audience believe there really is a Santa Claus, and I don’t think any other film has ever managed to do likewise with an ounce of the same effortless grace.

I was lucky. The first time I saw Miracle on 34th Street was during a winter children’s film festival at a local Spokane theater. It was showing Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Wizard of Oz, White Christmas, and a handful of other titles. But this is the one my mom insisted we go see, and I have been forever thankful she put her holiday-season foot down.

It probably had something to do with her love of the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Or maybe this was a film she watched with her own mother, and so she wanted to share it with me. I honestly

do not know; for whatever reason, I’ve never thought to ask. All I do know is that, much like annual viewings of Holiday Inn and Lady and the Tramp (it’s a Christmas movie, trust me on that), this one has become a December staple in our household, and deservedly so.

For me, I think it may be how forwardthinking so much of it is, and how ahead of its time many of its core elements are. Seaton takes author Valentine Davies’ source material, and instead of minimizing some of its socially cantankerous elements, he emphasizes them. He pulls no punches about Doris being a divorced single mother working in a position of power at a major New York department store. He allows Susan to be an intelligent, constantly questioning youngster who isn’t afraid to speak truth to power or ask difficult questions as she thirsts for knowledge.

The truth is that there is no other film quite like Miracle on 34th Street. The 1994 remake couldn’t recapture the original’s magic, and there’s never been any subsequent cinematic depiction of Santa Claus that equals what Gwenn does here. But as marvelous as all of that is, I think what has allowed Seaton’s film to endure is that Doris and Susan are this story’s primary players, and the director asks the viewer to see things from their point of view, no matter their gender or background.

Just before the trial is set to begin, Fred empathically tells Doris, “Faith is believing things when common sense tells you not to. Don’t you see? It’s not just Kris that’s on trial. It’s everything he stands for. It’s kindness and joy and love and all the other intangibles.” It’s a melodramatic statement, and one that should have drowned the film in saccharine and treacle as it built to its fantastical post office department conclusion.

But that is not the case. The film allows Doris to mull those words with introspective sincerity. She does not dismiss them. She equally does not come to embrace them arbitrarily. Doris must find the truth in those words for herself and, subsequently explain her reasoning to Susan in her own way.

Because of this, Miracle on 34th Street is the gift that keeps on giving. Here’s hoping audiences continue to unwrap its many pleasures for another 75 years.

Now celebrating its 75th anniversary, Miracle on 34th Street is available on Bluray and DVD and to purchase digitally on multiple platforms. It is also currently streaming on Disney+.

Natalie Wood and Edmund Gwenn in Miracle on 34th Street – Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox

Maureen O’Hara and Edmund Gwenn in Miracle on 34th Street – Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox

Books

Boyne’s Broken Places a beautiful journey through painful memories

by Terri Schlichenmeyer Special to the SGN

ALL THE BROKEN PLACES

JOHN BOYNE

© 2022 Pamela Dorman Books

$28.00

400 pages

There are just certain things that are nobody’s business. And in the new novel, All the Broken Places by John Boyne, some secrets must last a lifetime.

Ninety-one-year-old Gretel Fernsby hated the idea that she would have to adjust to new neighbors.

She wasn’t so much bothered by new people as she was by new noise. And what if the new tenants had children? That was the worst of all. Gretel never was much one for children, not her own and certainly not any living below her.

Once, there was a time when Gretel could imagine herself with many children. That

was nearly eighty years ago, when she was in love with her father’s driver, Kurt. She thought about Kurt through the years — he had fallen out of favor with her father and was sent elsewhere — and she wondered if he’d survived the war.

But Gretel didn’t think about those things much. What happened at the “other place” was not her fault.

She hadn’t known. She was innocent.

That was what she told herself as she and her mother fled to Paris. Gretel was 15 then, and she worked hard to get rid of her German accent, but not everyone was fooled by her bad French or her story. She was accosted, hated.

As soon as her mother died, she sailed to Australia, where she lived with a woman who loved other women, until it became dangerous there too. She practiced her English and moved to London, where she was married and widowed

And now she had to get used to new neighbors and new sounds and new ways for old

secrets to sneak into a conversation...

The very first impression you get of Boyne’s main character, Gretel, is that she’s grumpy, awful, and nasty. Along with the many bon mots she drops, however, the feeling passes, and it’s sometimes easy to almost like her — although it’s clear that she’s done some vile things in her lifetime, things that emerge slowly as the horror of her story dawns.

Then again, she professes to dislike children, but (no spoilers here!) she doesn’t, not really, and that makes her seem like someone’s sweet old grandmother.

Don’t let that fool you, though. Boyne has a number of Gretel-sized roadside bombs planted along the journey that is this novel. Each ka-boom will hit your heart a little harder.

This is a somewhat-sequel to The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, but you can read it alone. And when you finish, you’ll want to immediately read it again, to savor anew.

Kate Scelsa explores real-life magic through contemporary fiction

by Lindsey Anderson SGN Staff Writer

For most, the holiday season is the most magical time of year, but for author and amateur witch Kate Scelsa, magic is possible all year long. Her latest work of fiction, Improbable Magic for Cynical Witches, often miscategorized as fantasy, is a detailed love letter to Scelsa’s passion, “real-life magic.”

Exploring magic in the real world

“Improbable Magic is categorized under fantasy, but I consider it contemporary because it is realistic, and the magic in it is real magic,” she said. “I think sometimes it’s hard for some people to wrap their minds around what that means.

“There’s nothing supernatural about the book. All the magic is based in reality and is based in ritual and it’s sort of — I don’t know how to describe it other than ‘realistic magic,’ which makes sense to me. I think because it involves magic and because it involves witches, it was sort of listed and categorized as a fantasy.”

While authors of all genres typically have a lot of research to do behind the scenes, Scelsa’s background in practical magic meant she already had a vast knowledge of her subject matter when she began writing a book about modern witches. “Well, because it’s been something that I got into in the past ten years, it’s all based on my experience. I’ve had a lot of experience with different ceremonial circles and magical practices and especially tarot,” she said.

“I’m happy to talk about the magic of it, I’m interested in magic and witchy things, and tarot and astrology. Those are all things that I have come to later in life in my thirties. It was something I enjoyed as a young person and kind of lost for a while, then came back to recently. I didn’t pursue all that stuff as a teenager, so this is a little bit my version of letting my teen self have those things and …the perfect witchy coven and the perfect relationship to that kind of magic.”

Following the arc of the tarot

More recently, Scelsa has found fascination in the art of tarot. After learning more

about it, she decided she wanted to incorporate tarot into her book in a unique way. “So, the book is structured around the narrative of the major arcana in tarot,” she explained.

“In the tarot deck, some of the cards are called the major arcana cards,” she continued. “Those cards are the story cards… that often show up in movies when people

Kate Scelsa – Photo courtesy of the author

do a tarot reading, like Death or the Lovers. They are ordered in a certain way that follows this narrative arc, starting with the Fool and ending with the World. That’s kind of a hero’s journey narrative arc.

“So, I studied the major arcana with this group called the Brooklyn Fools, where every week we learned about a different card. I structured this book around that nar-

rative of the major arcana, and in the book, each chapter is preceded by a description of one of the major arcana cards and goes deep into that. So actually I did very little research, because it’s something I love so much that I just kind of let my own experience with it guide how I wrote about it.”

Image courtesy of Pamela Dorman Books

Episode 42: Andrew Shanks

Ash & Lindsey start a somber episode and decide to talk about pop culture so they don't get too sad. It almost works! Special guest Andrew Shanks talks The Ugly Radio, the void, and gives a sneak peak of what's to come! THE UGLY RADIO Instagram: @theuglyradio

NEW EPISODES WEEKLY! FIND US WHEREVER YOU LISTEN TO PODCASTS!

Books

SCELSA

continued from page 10

Inspired by the pandemic

Scelsa’s inspiration for Improbable Magic came at the perfect time for her. Just as she was starting to write her first drafts, the pandemic hit. “I came up with the idea in the fall of 2019, and actually, it ended up being really good timing, because it gave me a project over… the first year of the pandemic.”

With that backdrop, she could dedicate more time to writing, and finished her draft for Improbable Magic in record time. “I found out it helped me write productively, because there wasn’t much else to do. I was just home. There weren’t any excuses.

“I also just let myself have fun with it and enjoy it. We were in such a serious time and things felt so dire, I wanted to let my enjoyment and my passions lead the way. It felt indulgent to write about witches and magic and tarot, just because that’s stuff I enjoy. It happened, and it came pretty quickly. I would say I wrote a draft in about six months, which is sort of unprecedented for me, but it was fun to find out that I could write quickly… The hard lesson is that I do well when all distractions are removed and there’s nothing else to do.”

Straight out of Salem

“I was looking at what would be fun for me to write, what I would enjoy writing,” she said. “Even beyond witches, I have been fascinated by Salem, so the book takes place in modern-day Salem and especially… in October. It becomes a crazy Disney World theme park in October, just overrun with tourists, so I was thinking okay, what would be fun to write about, where should I put these people that would give me the most fun to play with these themes? So I decided to set it in Salem in the fall.”

While she didn’t have to do much research on witchcraft, she did have to explore what the setting of the story would be and learn more about modern-day Salem. “I did a lot of research about modern-day Salem, and watched a ton of YouTube videos of people who take videos on Halloween of everybody’s costumes, people who would do video tours of the different Salem attractions — which are mostly really dated wax museums and run-down, cheesy places.”

She was just as enchanted by the culture of Salem as she was by the magic of it. “I love all that stuff. As much as I sincerely love magic and witches and take all that stuff seriously, I also really love cheesy, campy, run-down stuff that maybe people would enjoy ironically. I love that sincerely. That was where the inspiration came from. “It sort of started with the idea of modern-day Salem and tarot, and once I put those ideas together, along with the idea of Lesbian romance, those all sort of stirred together to create the plot.”

Avoiding Queer clichés

Writing a Queer romance was at the forefront of Scelsa’s rough drafts as well. “I did from the beginning know that it was going to be Queer. Most of what I write is Queer. That’s just my own experience and what I enjoy writing about, so my work tends to go in that direction…

“This was my second book with my same editor, and we had been talking for a while about me writing a Lesbian romance,” she said.

When it comes to writing LGBTQ+ romances, the most important thing to Scelsa is making sure to avoid tired tropes. “You want to make sure you avoid clichés as much as possible, which interestingly enough — even when it’s your own lived experience — doesn’t mean that you don’t fall into clichés sometimes.

“I had an interesting conversation with my editor about a character who is Bisexual and whether or not she was out. We had a conversation about making sure that one character wasn’t forcing another character to come out of the closet, because that’s

sort of an old cliché… around complicated sexuality that I think — even though it’s my own lived experience — when it was on the page, read as [clichéd].”

“It is important to tell stories that feel true to real life but aren’t falling into cliché traps,” she continued. “I’d much rather write something original, so honestly, that’s an answer that is more about writing in general than writing Queer characters. I’d much rather write something that someone hasn’t read before, or met characters exactly like these before. For sure, I must want my characters to feel true to life and original and interesting and do things that you wouldn’t expect.”

Writing for modern-day witches

Aside from seeing realistic and original depictions of queerness, she also hopes her readers can take away lessons about what real magic looks like. “I do hope there’s a better understanding of this idea of a realistic relationship to magic and what modern-day witchcraft can look like, and what a relationship to tarot — and tools like tarot — is,” she said of her book.

To Scelsa, magical practices are less like

fantasy and more like tools that can help people cope with the taxing realities of life. “I think a lot of people have a misunderstanding around how these tools can be used as therapy and …toward self-understanding and self-help, even,” she said.

Scelsa is so dedicated to changing the way people see magical practices that her latest book is a guide for those interested in exploring the practices as ways to live more clearly. “Luminary is a self-help book about all these tools, about tarot and astrology and energy work. For me, these tools have been so helpful and provided alternative ways of working with mental health. Beyond even the fun fantasy element, which I enjoy too, I find that they’re really helpful tools for self-knowledge.

“So, I hope that as the characters in the book sort of come to that conclusion around letting this idea of okay even if you don’t believe in magical forces, maybe you still see that there’s something here that can be helpful when it comes to trying to figure out your life.”

Scelsa’s newest projects

Her latest book takes many of the prac-

tices and ideas readers were introduced to in Improbable Magic and further explains how they work, and how readers can practice them at home. “It’s a magical guide to self-care. It’s about using mystical tools to help with depression and stress. It’s for young adult readers, for teen readers, but I think anybody can enjoy it,” she said.

“It also includes a bunch of different views with different practitioners, my favorite tarot teachers, my favorite astrology teacher, and some cool people that helped me put these tools into a framework that makes them really practical tools that you can use in your daily life. We end up with a conversation about how to build futures for ourselves that look a little different and are maybe less based on arbitrary expectations and more based on our hearts and our own needs and hopes and desires.

“It’s secretly kind of an anticapitalist rant, [in which] I want to empower young people to make decisions that serve them best. But also it’s a fun read.”

Aside from Luminary, Scelsa has several other projects in the works and plans to explore genres and mediums outside contemporary fantasy literature. “I’ve always written in a bunch of genres. I also write plays, and I’m currently working on an opera with a friend of mine,” she said.

“One of the things I’m working on is a graphic novel. I like writing in different forms, even beyond different genres. I think because I like having lots of different kinds of projects, I can switch between them. I also have a band called the Witch Ones that I write with, and my songwriting partners and I just came out with an album in June. You can listen to it on Spotify.

“All my stuff tends to be a little witchy and a little magical. I just change the format every once and a while,” she said with a laugh.

While Scelsa has an endless number of projects at any given moment, she’s going to be stepping back for the time being to focus on her latest work of art: her new baby, who she welcomed in late August. However, she promises to return to writing soon and guarantees that she will continue creating Queer stories, no doubt with more elements of real-life magic.

Kate Scelsa – Photo by Hunter Canning

Image courtesy of HarperCollins Image courtesy of Simon & Schuster

Travel

A unique blend of cultures: A visit to the Big Easy

by Bill Malcolm

Special to the SGN

It feels like Mardi Gras every day on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Between the delicious food, the charm of the French Quarter, the amazing history, and the fun LGBTQ+ nightlife, you can’t go wrong with a visit, even in winter.

What to do

• Walk around the French Quarter and along the banks of the Mississippi River.

• Vue Orleans is the new interactive museum and observatory atop the Four Seasons Hotel at 2 Canal Street. The immersive experience explores the diverse cultures that converged to create New Orleans, showcasing the incredible mix of traditions and nations that made it the great city that it is today. The Voodoo Lady, the miniature baby Jesuses in the king cakes, how the po’boy sandwich got its name — these are just some of the things you will learn about this fascinating city, which is a blend of Spanish, Haitian, African, Italian, Native American, and French cultures, to name a few. Details at https://vueorleans.com.

• Take the streetcar — using an all-day “jazzy pass,” a steal for $3 — along St. Charles Avenue. The red ones on Canal Street go all the way to City Park, home to a sculpture garden next to the New Orleans Museum of Art.

• Taking a class at the New Orleans School of Cooking and learn how to make jambalaya, gumbo, pralines, and white chocolate bread pudding. (524 St. Louis Street; online at www.nosoc.com)

Nightlife

• Café LaFitte in Exile (901 Bourbon Street) is the oldest Gay bar in the US. It is still going strong.

• The Bourbon Pub (808 Bourbon Street) is celebrating its 47th anniversary. It is a lot of fun. Sit on the balcony to enjoy the scene below.

• “Freaky Friday” at the Oz Bar means drag shows. (800 Bourbon Street) Not Gay but also worth a stop are:

• The House of Blues at 225 Decatur — great for live music and has a good bar.

• Listening to the jazz band at the Ritz Carlton Davenport Lounge (921 Canal Street). It’s a nice break from the honkytonk noise of Bourbon and Canal Streets on a weekend night.

Where to eat

• Try the barbeque shrimp at Neyow’s Creole Café in Mid-City (3332 Bienville Street). Also on the menu: shrimp creole, fried Gulf oysters, pasta on the bayou (fresh Gulf shrimp and crawfish), stuffed crab, and gumbo.

• The red beans and rice and salmon are excellent at Landry’s (8000 Lakeshore Drive), which has a great $18 lunchbox special.

• 33 Galatoire’s Bar and Steak (215 Bourbon Street) is a great option.

• The Napoleon House Restaurant (500 Chartres Street) is located in a 200-yearold French Quarter landmark. The building’s first occupant was the mayor of New Orleans, from 1812 to 1815, who offered his residence to Napoleon in 1821 as a refuge during his exile. Napoleon never made it, but the name stuck.

• Café du Monde (various locations) features café americano and beignets (the fried donut treat). The coffee in New Orleans also contains chicory, giving it a unique flavor.

Where to stay

I stayed at the Marriott on Canal Street. Bargain hunters may also like the nearby La Quinta. All the chains are here, as well as boutique hotels.

Getting there

I took Southwest to the new Louis Armstrong Airport and then the E1 Jefferson

Parrish Veterans-Airport bus from the third-floor departure area to downtown for just $2. Or take the RTA Airport Express route 202.

Other tips

Here are some informative links to plan your visit to the amazing Crescent City:

• Pick up a copy of the weekly Gambit (online at www.bestofneworleans.com).

• LGBTQ+ itineraries: https://www. neworleans.com/things-to-do/lgbt/lgbtitineraries

• LGBTQ+ bars: https://www.neworleans.com/things-to-do/nightlife/gay-bars

There is nowhere else like New Orleans. It makes for a great holiday!

Special thanks to New Orleans and Company for their travel tips.

Bill Malcolm is North America’s only syndicated LGBTQ+ value-travel columnist.

The Bourbon Pub and its friendly bartenders, Drag queen Ivy Drip at Oz Bar – Photos by Bill Malcolm

Dancing into the past

by Jack Hilovsky SGN Contributing Writer

When was the last time you danced?

Disco, hiphop, the two-step? This fall, after a long absence from the stage (thanks, COVID), I decided it was time to get back into the swing and, well, swing. I auditioned for a musical set to start early next year, but then a production called Dare to Dance: Together Again caught my attention.

The Seattle nonprofit Dare to Dance brings adults of all ages and abilities together to move their feet to the music. Choreographers create original works, ranging from AfroCuban to tap to modern. No auditions are necessary. All one needs to do is sign up for the dance(s) that are of interest, attend weekly rehearsals, and then show up to perform them with whatever group of people constitute your dance tribe. This year marked the 11th that Dare to Dance set foot on local stages, including a virtual performance last year. I must admit I had a few ulterior motives.

First, after surviving the last few dire years, my body wanted to sing and dance in a musical. I wanted to be in a happy place and convey that feeling to an audience. Second, I come from a long line of hoofers. My grandmother, great aunt, and their brothers were tap dancers on the amateur vaudeville circuit in northeast Ohio in the early part of the last century. So, dance is in my DNA.

I still had my old black tap shoes from a class I took when I was 18 years old, but they looked shabby and were starting to fall apart. I had the taps removed for a summer job as a waiter the year I graduated from college, and so would need to invest in

new ones and pay to have them reattached. I decided to buy a new pair at Centerstage Dance Shop in the University District. Due to my delaying my decision and supply chain issues, the shoes arrived just three weeks before the performance.

Removing them from the box and slipping them on transported me back to another time. I felt as if I was reconnecting with my ancestral roots, and the sound of the metal on the bottom of my shoes as I grazed the wooden floor brought back memories of my beloved great aunt Loretta, La-La for short. Whenever my parents and I visited La-La, she would break into a soft-shoe. Her warmth and love of dance endeared her to me and left a lasting, joyful impression.

Last week I awoke to an NPR report marking the 50th anniversary of the groundbreaking Free to Be, You and Me The award-winning album and children’s book were released in November of 1972, followed two years later by a television special that won an Emmy and Peabody Award. The actress Marlo Thomas, of That Girl fame, spearheaded all these projects as a way of challenging gender stereotypes and saluting values such as individuality, tolerance, and finding our own identity separate from the feminine-masculine dichotomy.

I often marvel at how lucky I am to have grown up in a time when women and men were challenging rigid definitions about what it means to be male or female.

Who says any one gender has a lock on cooking, knitting, playing a sport, or fixing a broken dishwasher? As a boy — a good little Gay boy — I loved to sing, dance, recite stories, and rearrange the furniture. I sucked at

basketball, though I played a mean game of tennis. I was creative. And that was encouraged by my mom, in addition to society at large.

Getting in touch with my dancing roots made me appreciate my forebears, those bachelor great uncles, who danced with my grandmother and great aunt. I’ve often wondered, were they Gay? I’ll never know the answer, though I have faded pictures of them from the 1910s and ’20s in all their handsomeness.

After the horrific shootings in Colorado Springs, I am grateful that our community, despite tragedy, is a resilient one. We are fighters. We refuse to cower. I reach back to my own history for inspiration that, despite

the challenges of life, we still have a choice. We no longer need to hide. Or be afraid of crying, or playing with dolls. Or deciding we’d rather go by our own personal pronouns without regard to our biological origin. Like me, we can choose to dance.

Jack Hilovsky is an author, actor and blogger who has made his home in Seattle since 1986. His first book RJ, Farrah and Me: A Young Man’s Gay Odyssey from the Inside Out was published in June 2022. It can be found at Madison Books, Nook & Cranny, and University Bookstore, among other local booksellers.

Jack (l) tap dancing at Broadway Performance Hall’s Dare to Dance: Together Again

– Photo courtesy of Jack Hilovsky

Jack's two great uncles, tap dancers in the 1910's – Photo courtesy of Jack Hilovsky

Four ways to deal with change

Dear Izzy,

I don’t deal well with change. So when I moved to Seattle after college, it took me a long time to settle in. It’s really different here than my little hometown.

After all the time I spent finding places I feel comfortable, they’re all closing. Rent increase sometimes, owners retiring sometimes. I have to start over again, and I’m really stressing out. I don’t know what to do! Why do I always feel so lost?

Emotionally Naked & Afraid

Dear Emotionally Naked,

I hear you. If there is one thing I hate most in this world, it’s change. It’s scary, uncomfortable, anxiety inducing, and stressful as fuck. Especially after you’ve spent a bunch of time getting comfortable and settling into a new place. All to just do it again? No thank you.

Unfortunately — and fortunately — it was the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus that said, “Nothing endures but change.” And he was right. Of all things in the world to be certain about, one of them is change. No matter how badly we wish for things to stay the same in our happy little bubbles, eventually they pop, and we must adapt. But of course, that doesn’t make it any less scary.

A few months ago, I was having the same issue as you. My primary care doctor moved offices, my insurance changed, and suddenly I was left to find new healthcare providers for all of my ailments. I already felt lost in my career and personal life, and now I couldn’t even rely on my doctors to refill my prescriptions. It was chaos and it felt like everything was just piling up.

After an hour or two of melting down and crying to my husband about all the change that was going on, a little voice in my head appeared, telling me that within this chaos of change was an opportunity. An opportunity to reignite old passions, rethink routines, and dive deeper into my personal values. Upon reflection, I realized that this little voice in my head was my resilience, or my ability to cope with change.

While I don’t have the answer as to why you feel so lost, I do know that building up your resiliency will make dealing with change a hell of a lot easier. According to psycom.net, we all have a certain level of resiliency thanks to our genes and the environment we grew up in, but it’s not set in stone. “Practicing different ways of thinking and being in the world can boost your ability to deal with change and help you create a life that is adaptive to new places and unexpected events.”

To help you get started, here are a few ways to practice resiliency that worked for me. A therapist who works with young adults may be able to help you more specifically, but this is a good place to start.

by Isabel Mata SGN Contributing Writer

Ask Izzy is a biweekly advice column about relationships, mental health, and sexuality. Written by Isabel Mata — a Seattle-based lifestyle writer, podcast host, and mental health advocate — Ask Izzy offers tangible expert advice so all readers can have stronger relationships, better sex, and healthier mindsets. Looking for some more guidance? Submit your question to info@sgn.org with the subject line: Ask Izzy Submission.

1. Accept that change is a part of life

It can be hard to deal with change when everything feels like the end of the world. The first step is understanding that change is going to happen, whether you like it or not. Accepting circumstances that cannot be changed allows you to focus on the circumstances you can.

2. Reframe your thoughts to focus on what is in your control

Instead of pushing back against change whenever it comes, try reframing your mindset to see what is in your control.

If your favorite coffee shop is closing, that really sucks. But it’s out of your control. Instead, try and find the opportunity within the unfortunate circumstance. Maybe it is an opportunity to explore and find a new favorite coffee shop where one day you might meet your soulmate! You never know what could happen when you look on the bright side.

3. Strengthen your routines

This might seem obvious, but when you have strong daily routines that are not

dependent on anyone else, it strengthens the foundation of your entire life. Meaning, it is a lot harder to get knocked down when you know that regardless of what the day brings, tomorrow you will wake up, brush your teeth, make breakfast, and keep on keeping on. Having a daily morning and night routine will create structure in a life that might otherwise feel very chaotic.

4. Believe in yourself

If you have gotten this far in life, then you have probably dealt with quite a bit of change. Regardless of how well you handled it, eventually you got through it, and that is what matters. When things are feeling really shitty and you can’t get over the feeling of being lost, it helps to remind yourself that you can do hard things. You have done them before, and you survived! While it sucks to feel that way again, trust in your ability to problem-solve and push through.

Recap

The fact is that change is going to happen, whether you are ready for it or not.

While you don’t have to embrace change with open arms, a perspective shift might make dealing with it a hell of a lot easier. I promise you are more resilient than you know. So keep your chin up, show yourself some love, and look for the glimmer of light in the darkness.

References and further reading: Heraclitus. (2003). Fragments: The Collected Wisdom of Heraclitus (English and Greek edition). Penguin Group USA. Smith, PhD, LPC. (February 21, 2020). The Psychology of Dealing with Change: How to Become Resilient. https://www.psycom.net/dealing-with-change American Psychological Association. (May 17, 2016). 10 Tips to Build Resilience Psych Central. https://psychcentral.com/ lib/10-tips-to-build-resilience

Sandberg, S., & Grant, A. (2017). Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy. Knopf.

Brown, B. (2017). Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (reprint). Random House.

Photo by Andrew Neel / Pexels

National News

AFTERMATH

continued from cover

Hateful speech leads to hateful actions

As the LGBTQ+ community grapples with the complex mix of mourning, fear, and outrage following this latest attack, many can’t help but wonder if the recent uptick in slander and political attacks on the community isn’t to blame for this act of egregious violence.

A study in 2016 by Kiesha WarrenGordon and Gayle Rhineberger, published in the Journal of Ethnicity and Criminal Justice, found a direct connection between increased hate speech and demonization of marginalized communities on one hand and hate crimes on the other. The study coined the term “the Trump effect,” because the authors found a direct correlation between hate crimes and Trump rallies, which often seemed to proceed them.

Similar studies have confirmed that when a marginalized community becomes the focus of the ongoing news cycle, the chances of hate crimes against members go up. The International Network for Hate Studies found that increased instances of antisemitic violence occurred after the news cycle had focused on specifically antiJewish rhetoric. The same phenomenon was observed when the number of antiAsian hate crimes spiked after politicians such as Trump associated the COVID-19 pandemic with Asian people; talk of antiIslamic immigration reform also led to increased violence against Muslims.

“A spike in hate crime against Muslims after an Islamic terrorist attack may perhaps be explained by a misdirected ‘defensive’ or ‘retributive’ reaction, as the urge to somehow ‘strike back at the perceived threat,” explained researcher Dr. David Brax, in his research for the Centre for European Research at Gothenburg University.

“According to what we call the ‘threat model,’ hate criminals react to something perceived as a social, physical, or moral threat, a threat to their physical well-being, relative social standing, etc.,” he continued.

This model posits that the motive for the Club Q shooting may run deeper than just generalized hatred, and instead stem from a threat perceived to be coming from the LGBTQ+ community.

Transphobia in the media

This theory finds basis in the fact that antiLGBTQ+ rhetoric, specifically transphobia, has increased monumentally in the news over the last year. By March 2022, Fox News had already aired 86 segments about Trans people since President Biden took office.

Just a few weeks ago, popular Fox News personality Tucker Carlson aired another segment attacking Transgender people with generalizations and fallacies. In it, he commented on a story out of Canada about a Transgender teacher sporting large prosthetic breasts, and generalized that her inappropriate behavior was typical of all Trans women.

“Tucker Carlson was covering some story of a Canadian teacher a couple of weeks ago who came out as Trans and wears these big goofy prosthetic breasts,” said Parker Molloy, author of The Present Age newsletter, on an episode of The New Abnormal podcast. “An inappropriate way to dress for school or anything else, and there is a way to argue that that shouldn’t be allowed at the school based on dress codes or what should be appropriate in a school. Instead, it was used to be like, ‘Look, these are what these Trans weirdos are like, and they shouldn’t have nondiscrimination protections.’

“It’s so frustrating to watch, because that is the only perspective that a lot of people are going to get. The only Trans person they’re gonna hear from is… well, they’re not even gonna hear from that Trans person; they’re gonna hear from Tucker Carlson screaming about how this is leading to the end of society.”

“Us” vs. “them”

Dr. Brax’s study of hate crimes also found that attacks are more likely to target marginalized groups of people when they are constantly “otherized” by society. “According to the ‘oppression model,’ hate crime is more of an everyday, ordinary activity, entrenched in prevailing power structures. According to this model, hate crimes express views and values that are prevalent in society as a whole, and find justification in this fact,” he said. “This model can account for why it is primarily already disadvantaged [people] that are particularly targeted by hate crimes. This model can account for why hate crimes would rise when there is evidence of such justification from the previously ‘silent majority.’”

Using an “us” vs. “them” mentality when it comes to Trans people further isolates and demonizes the community, pushing them away from those who already perceive them as a threat. Over the last year, conservative politicians have attacked LGBTQ+ people, claiming them to be “groomers’’ and insinuating that conversations around gender identity and sexuality are corrupting the minds of young people.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, who recently announced his plans to run for president in 2024, focused on this topic when he advocated the “Don’t Say Gay” law in Florida, banning conversations and literature on LGBTQ+ topics in schools.

The idea that Transgender people are corrupting society was also pushed by politicians like Herschel Walker, who aired a campaign video condemning Trans female athletes, just days after the shooting.

Instead of addressing this issue and taking responsibility for their actions, conservative pundits like Carlson have doubled down in their attacks on Transgender people, even inviting anti-Trans Queer people onto his show.

“The tragedy that happened in Colorado Springs the other night, it was expected and predictable,” said Jaimee Michell, a recent guest on Tucker Carlson and founder of the anti-Trans organization Gays Against Groomers. “We all within Gays Against Groomers saw this from a mile away, and sadly I don’t think it’s going to stop until we end this evil agenda that is attacking children,” she said.

Michell went on to blame Trans and Nonbinary people for the deaths in Colorado, simply for existing in the same community as cis Queers.

Ignorance does not equate to innocence

Not only have conservative media outlets like Fox News refused to take responsibility for spreading hate and misinformation about Trans people, but they have recently begun to deny that the attack in Colorado Springs was a hate crime at all.

“As for Aldrich’s motive in shooting strangers, we can only guess, and we’re not going to guess, both because guessing would be dishonest and irresponsible. You can’t just make up a story because it suits

your preexisting beliefs, but more to the [point], we’re not going to guess, because it would dishonor the memories of the five people who were just murdered in Colorado Springs,” Carlson said on his show just days after the shooting.

Of course, Carlson was against assuming the motives of the person who murdered five in an LGBTQ+ club, but he was not against assuming the motives behind President Biden’s claims that the US needs more gun control to prevent another shooting.

“Joe Biden and his allies used this shooting as a pretext for disarming the law-abiding population of the country. ‘We need more gun control,’ Joe Biden said, predictably, not understanding that Colorado’s existing gun control laws, which are extensive, did not prevent this attack.”

He soon twisted his rant to cast himself as a victim in the wake of many calling him out for his anti-Trans rants.

“But it didn’t stop with gun control, because the Second Amendment is not the freedom that threatens the people in charge the most. No, that would be the First Amendment, which is your right to say what you sincerely believe,” he said. Hitting the nail in the rainbow coffin, he concluded, “Your words are a greater threat than any firearm.”

Unfortunately, he went on to claim that he and other conservatives were collateral victims of the Colorado shooting, because politicians are now attempting to hold them responsible for their words.

Of course, Carlson is not a stupid man. He understands his reach, and in a moment of attempted sarcasm, he admitted it, sort of. “You are responsible for this, they told you, because you said the wrong thing,” he said, addressing his viewers. “You are guilty of stochastic terrorism inspired by the violence of your beliefs. Anderson Lee Aldrich committed mass murder because you complained about the sexualizing of children. Every time you object to drag time story hour for fifth graders or point out that genital mutilation is being committed on minors — which it is — every time you say that, you are putting people’s lives at risk. Now, that seems implausible, and yet many are making this claim. Many have made it over the last 24 hours.”

Tucker Carlson – Photo courtesy of Fox News

Shifting the blame

In the last week, Carlson has only doubled down in his claims that the attack in Colorado was not inspired by hatred for the LGBT+ community or stoked by his rhetoric. He recently began mocking news coverage from other networks by seeming to take responsibility, only to recant it moments later.

“If you’ve been watching the news recently, the one thing you know for certain about the accused gunman in the massacre in Colorado over the weekend is that he is a crazed, right-wing, anti-Trans extremist. This is a man who was radicalized by this show, and by the Twitter account Libs of TikTok to hate Transgender people, and that’s why this man walks into a bar, a Gay bar, with a gun and starts murdering people.

“He did that because he was taught by right-wing media outlets to despise and fear the Nonbinary community, and that’s why this show and Libs of TikTok must be hauled into court and bankrupted for what we’ve done, so that we can never promote this kind of horrifying violence again. That’s the real lesson of this mass shooting. So that is what they’ve been telling you again and again and again on various news channels over the last week.”

He concluded his rebuttal by claiming Fox News’s innocence, and that the shooter was not inspired by hatred for the Nonbinary community. “Well, actually, it turns out, we discovered last night, that Anderson Lee Aldridge is part of the Nonbinary community,” Carlson said. “[They] don’t hate them; [they] are one. In a court filing, Anderson’s lawyers wrote this: ‘Anderson Aldrich is Nonbinary; they use they/them pronouns and for all formal fillings will be addressed as Mx. Aldrich.’ That’s the shooter, the Nonbinary shooter. Let that sink in. First, get your chuckling under control and then see what that means.”

The news that Aldrich now identifies as Nonbinary has been interpreted by many as an attempt to receive a lesser charge by refuting claims that the shooting was a hate crime, even though they yelled homophobic and transphobic slurs and rhetoric throughout their violent spree. Carlson is only playing into the strategy of the shooter by validating these claims to mean that the

massacre was not inspired by a hate crime but rather reflects the instability of some in the LGBTQ+ community.

Carlson refuses to discuss the identities of the victims and makes assumptions as to whether or not those played a role in the motive of the crime, but he is quick to jump into identity politics when the perpetrator claims to be a member of the LGBTQ+ community.

Furthermore, Carlson used this new development in the case to call out fellow reporters who have continued to call the shooting a hate crime. “What it means is that virtually everything that NBC ‘News’ has told you about this shooting in Colorado is not only wrong, but it is the opposite of the truth. It is a grotesque and filthy lie. It wasn’t ‘news’ reporting. It turns out it was the most transparent sort of political propaganda.”

Seattle mourns for Club Q

While members of the LGBTQ+ community continue calling out those who have contributed to the uptick in transphobia, they are also continuing to mourn. On Saturday, November 26, members of Seattle’s LGBTQ+ community met at the AIDS Memorial Pathway in Capitol Hill for a candlelight vigil hosted by Seattle PrideFest. Prominent community members joined together to speak, sing, and honor the memory of those lost. Following the event, mourners marched to the Cal Anderson Park Reflecting Pool to lay flowers in honor of the victims.

“May the spirits of the light be with us, may it shed its light and warmth above all. May it give us warmth and compassion, and may we share it with everyone we meet. It is a tragedy that brings us together, but it is love and caring that binds us. We won’t hide. We stand proud. We won’t surrender; we are strong. We are Queer, we are colorful, and we will live openly in the light,” said Sister Alleva Marx of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Abbey of Saint Joan. Seattle’s LGBTQ+ community stands with all those mourning, outraged, and fearful after the Club Q tragedy. While hatred continues to be thrown at us, knowledge, compassion, and critical thinking will always be our greatest tools in fighting for justice.

Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, the suspect in the mass shooting that killed five people and wounded 17 at an LGBTQ nightclub appears with state public defenders before a judge during his advisement hearing in a video link from jail in Colorado Springs, Colorado, U.S. November 23, 2022 in a court artist sketch – Image by Jane Rosenberg / Reuters

A rose left in the Cal Anderson Park Reflecting Pool – Photo by Lindsey Anderson

National/International News

MARRIAGE

continued from cover

According to Politico, Republican Sens. Rob Portman (R-OH), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) have long favored legalization of same-sex marriage and have quietly lobbied their GOP colleagues to get on board.

They alone would give Democrats more than enough votes to pass the bill, but more votes were needed to overcome the 60-vote threshold for bringing legislation to the floor for a vote.

The first key to getting those votes was to limit the bill’s scope.

The bill repeals the infamous Defense of Marriage Act and stipulates that the federal government recognizes all lawful samesex — and interracial — marriages. It also requires states to recognize all lawful marriages performed in other states, regardless of their own marriage laws.

Stopping short of legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide was reportedly the “out” some Republican senators needed to be able to support the measure without fearing backlash from their voters at home.

For example, Sen. Cynthis Lummis (R-WY) said that she accepts her church’s beliefs that a marriage is between a man and a woman, but noted that the country was founded on the separation of church and state.

“We do well by taking this step, not embracing or validating each other’s devoutly held views, but by the simple act of tolerating them,” Lummis said.

In another concession to Republicans, the bill contains language that protects church’s tax-exempt status in case they refuse to perform same-sex or mixed-race marriage ceremonies. This allowed GOP senators to continue to present themselves as champions of First Amendment religious rights.

In a floor speech, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) pointed to the number of religious groups supporting the bill, including the

National news highlights

by Daniel Lindsley SGN Staff Writer

Mom and Trans teen leave Texas for Colorado

After months of fearing that a state government agent would show up at her doorstep, Katie Laird and her son Noah, who is Trans, have moved from Texas to Colorado to escape the shadow of Gov. Greg Abbott’s transphobic policies.

Abbott’s administration has directed the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate for child abuse any parents who provide their children with gender-affirming care.

In the wake of the decision, Texas Children’s Hospital announced a pause in such services, in order to “safeguard our healthcare professionals and impacted families from potential criminal legal ramifications.”

Noah, now 16, told NBC News that as scary as it was living in Texas, leaving wasn’t easy. “It was just hard and it still is hard to leave literally everything I’ve ever known in my entire life,” he said.

His mother said that, whether they live in Texas or not, she hasn’t given up on her home state.

“This is our home,” she said. “We have been pushed from it, and we will keep fighting — no matter where we live — for the state, because we know what happens in Texas has great influence across the nation, and we have to stay in the fight.”

Mormon Church. Some of those groups were invited to be part of negotiations on the bipartisan amendment, Politico noted.

“They see this as a step forward for religious freedom,” Tillis said.

Another tactical compromise was to delay the vote on the measure until after the November election. This allowed Republican senators to commit privately to vote for the bill when it came to the floor, but to avoid having to make a campaign issue.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) reportedly decided in September to delay a floor vote until after the election.

Bill managers Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) agreed because they did not want to risk failure when they knew they could win after the midterms.

This concession also seemed to pay off. Sen. Todd Young (R-IN), for example, voted in favor of the measure after being reelected in the November election, in a campaign in which marriage equality was a non-issue.

The concessions were substantial, and they will not protect all the rights now enjoyed by same-sex couples under the Obergefell decision, but the passage of the bill is still a welcome victory.

“Our community really needs a win, we have been through a lot,” said Kelley Robinson, the incoming president of HRC. “As a Queer person who is married, I feel a sense of relief right now. I know my family is safe.”

Hell’s Kitchen

In New York City, resident Sean Kuilan has been arrested and charged with criminal mischief, reckless endangerment, and criminal possession of a weapon, after security footage caught a man throwing rocks and bricks at the window of VERS, a Gay nightclub in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood.

Police were originally investigating the incidents as hate crimes, said spokesperson Lt. John Grimpel, but as Kuilan is a Gay man himself, it was determined that this was not the case.

According to the NYPD, Kuilan’s stated motive was “exacting revenge” over a personal issue one of Kuilan’s friends had with the nightclub.

“He talks to himself… he has a very strange appearance as far as his dressing, and as he just goes down the street yelling and screaming and ranting,” a neighbor said.

One of the incidents came just hours before a gunman killed five people and wounded 17 others at an LGBTQ+ bar in Colorado Springs, and news of the shooting has Gay New Yorkers on edge.

International news highlights

by Daniel Lindsley SGN Staff Writer

Netanyahu courts conservatives, nationalists

Having struck a coalition deal with the small, ultranationalist faction Noam, former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be confirming Israeli progressives’ fears of rollbacks and worse.

Noam’s leader, Avi Maoz, is known for homophobic rhetoric, disparaging remarks about non-Orthodox Jews, and racist views against Arabs; he is also against women serving in the military. Despite the financial and diplomatic support of Israel from American Reform and Conservative Jews, Maoz has denied such denominations’ legitimacy.

Netanyahu has named Maoz as a deputy minister, which the latter called the “first step in returning the soul to the country.”

The coalition has yet to be finalized, but Israel may soon be led by the most hardline religious and conservative government it has ever had.

Russia protects impressionable adults from “Gay propaganda”

On Thursday last week, as part of the country’s ongoing persecution of sexual minorities, Russian lawmakers officially approved expansions to what they call the “Gay propaganda” law, bans “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” to minors.

Using a “traditional values” framing, the new law specifically expands the ban to apply to adults as well (people aged 18 and older), meaning even advertising, online resources, books, films, and theater productions intended for adults can’t depict samesex unions without incurring a fine of $1,660–33,000. Foreigners in particular could face 15 days in jail and expulsion.

The violations, as dictated by the bill, don’t yet count as a criminal offense, since the Russian criminal code can be amended only through an independent bill. Some lawmakers have said they favor such a measure, though.

Same-sex marriage is constitutionally outlawed in Russia. A 2020 amendment states that the “institution of marriage is a union between a man a woman.”

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine (center) flanked by Sen. Lisa Murkowski R-Alaska and Sen. Rob Portman R-Ohio – Photo by J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Benjamin Netanyahu in Israeli Parliament

– Photo by Abir Sultan, Pool via AP

Vers posted a photo of the broken glass and a rock with the caption: “Come by and join us for a drink! #BusinessAsUsual” – Photo courtesy of Vers Vandal arrested in

Happy Holidays!