[OutVoice] "This Way Out" Update: GRANTED!

[This Way Out]

GRANTED!


We're delighted to announce that "This Way Out" has received grants from The Yavanna Foundation and the Gay Chemists Support Fund of the Horizons Foundation, plus renewed support from longtime funder The Kicking Assets Fund of the Tides Foundation. We also celebrated our 24th year on the air in April, and we've reviewed below some of the programming those grants have made possible so far in 2012.
  
Of course donations by our listener-supporters provide much-needed additional support - thank you! Please click on the link at www.thiswayout.org to make a secure one-time donation, or to authorize automated monthly donations that begin at only $10.00 (US).  "This Way Out" is a nonprofit foundation under the name of Overnight Productions (Inc.), so all U.S. donors can claim a charitable tax deduction.  You can also review the list of special "thank you gift" CDs we're offering on our website.
  
As always, "This Way Out" continues to provide programming for our global audience that's available nowhere else.  Along with "NewsWrap"©, our weekly international LGBT news review, "Rainbow Minutes" have profiled queer pioneers Alan Turing, Ma Rainey, Edward Carpenter, and Magnus Hirschfeld, and the first same-gender civil marriages in Mexico City.  And also so far in 2012:


= As the new year began, Pride On Screen 2011 featured some of our award-winning entertainment reporter Steve Pride's favorite queer-themed TV characters and shows, and his Top 10 LGBT Movies of the Year, including clips from and comments by the filmmakers of "The Topp Twins: Unstoppable Girls", "We Were Here", "Gun Hill Road", "Beginners", "Weekend", and "Pariah".

= The case against accused Wiki-leaker U.S. Army Private 1st Class Bradley Manning, variously described as gay or "gender confused" and charged with orchestrating the largest intelligence breach in American history, was analyzed by gay activist and former Army Lt. Dan Choi, Bradley Support Network co-founder Jeff Patterson, and R. Clarke Cooper of Log Cabin Republicans, while "Almost Gone (The Ballad of Bradley Manning)", a song written and performed by James Raymond and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Graham Nash, capped off that coverage.

= Pioneering gay performance artist Tim Miller talked about the collision of art and politics.

= Paul Canning of the UK-based "LGBT Asylum News" reported on gay and bisexual Kenyan men being tricked into the sex slave trade in the Persian Gulf.

= Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Cunningham discussed his most recent work, "By Nightfall", and his life as an openly gay writer.

= George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Kevin Bacon, John C. Reilly and George Takei starred in excerpts from the Los Angeles stage reading of "8", based on the actual U.S. District Court trial transcripts of the 2010 lawsuit challenging California's marriage equality-banning Proposition 8.

= You heard comprehensive on-scene coverage from San Francisco and Los Angeles of the February 7th ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding District Judge Vaughn Walker's August 2010 ruling that Proposition 8 violates the U.S. Constitution, including comments by the lead plaintiff couple Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, their 17-year-old son Spencer, co-counsel Ted Olson, and American Foundation for Equal Rights Board President (and new Human Rights Campaign President) Chad Griffin.

= Minnesota's Susan Allen, the first openly lesbian American Indian to win a seat in a state legislature, talked about her road to St. Paul, and being on the front lines in the battle to defeat Minnesota's "Marriage Protection Amendment" at the ballot box in November.

= We had an on-scene report from New Delhi as India's Supreme Court began hearing challenges to a lower court ruling that the country's 148-year-old ban on so-called "unnatural offenses" was unconstitutional.

= Gay "cyber-preneur" Scott Seitz described his development of the new "dot-gay" domain, and his hopes for its future applications.

= Documentarian Tim Wolff and interview subject Albert Carey discussed how "The Sons of Tennessee Williams" led a gay civil rights revolution in New Orleans a half-century ago.

= We featured extended excerpts from Washington Governor Christine Gregoire's exuberant bill signing remarks making her state the 7th in the U.S. to open civil marriage to same-gender couples; comments by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie explaining his veto of marriage equality legislation in the Garden State; and Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley's prediction that the marriage equality law he signed in his state will be supported in a likely challenge to it at the ballot box in November.

= An entertaining conversation about his life and work with groundbreaking openly gay Off-Off Broadway playwright Robert Patrick ("Kennedy's Children", "The Haunted Host", "T-Shirts", "Michelangelo's Models", and many more) included an in-studio performance of one of his original songs.

= You heard Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's remarks opening a historic United Nations Human Rights Council discussion on eliminating bias and violence against LGBT people.

= Ellen DeGeneres urged an MPAA ratings change from "R" to "PG-13" for "Bully", to allow this important documentary to be screened in middle and high schools, where advocates say it most needs to be seen. (After a few "naughty words" were cut, the film got the PG-13 rating.)

= Diverse young LGBT voices hoped for a bigotry-free future in a dramatic reading of poet/filmmaker Ryan James Yezak's "I Want To Know What It's Like."

= Veteran human rights-AIDS-labor activist and Harvey Milk protege Cleve Jones looked beyond the "Gay Agenda" to a broader vision of queer political activism -- and took on "Gay, Incorporated" for good measure.

= "Out" Minnesota parent and teacher Jefferson Fietek discussed the out-of-court settlement of a landmark Department of Justice anti-LGBT bullying lawsuit against the Anoka-Hennepin School District.

= Attorney Pam Spees of the (U.S.) Center for Constitutional Rights explained how Ugandan LGBT activists are suing rabidly-homophobic American missionary Scott Lively in U.S. district court for anti-gay persecution.

= We paid tribute to iconic lesbian-feminist writer of poetry and prose Adrienne Rich, who passed away earlier this year just a few weeks shy of what would have been her 83rd birthday.

= We were on the scene for the Silver Lake (Southern California) celebration honoring trailblazing activist/Radical Faerie Harry Hay on what would have been his 100th birthday, and the dedication ceremony naming the path leading up to his home The Mattachine Steps, where the first meetings of that fledgling gay rights group were held in the early 1950s.

= The constitutional challenge to the U.S. Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) reached a federal appeals court for the first time in early April; our report on the proceedings in Boston featured comments by attorneys for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders and Lambda Legal, and Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley.

= We excerpted an interview by CNN International's Christiane Amanpour with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni about his country's proposed so-called "Kill the Gays" bill.

= You heard excerpted comments on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show" by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa about President Obama's continuing "evolution" on the issue of marriage equality, and a possible plank in this year's Democratic Party platform supporting the freedom to marry.

= Historian Will Fellows discussed his expanded edition of the remarkable 1957 memoir by Helen Branson, a straight woman who ran a "Gay Bar" in Los Angeles during what was probably the most anti-gay decade in American history.

= Legal eagles - and the chief U.S. Census taker - gathered at a major think tank to measure LGBT political power. We had a comprehensive on-scene report from the Williams Institute's annual "Update" Conference in Los Angeles.

= We reviewed the pro's and con's of North Carolina's relationship equality-banning Amendment 1 prior to the May 8th vote by sampling TV political ads from each side. (Sadly, the measure was approved by some 61% of the electorate.)

= The Sweet Inspirations sang background vocals with a host of pop and rock legends, including Elvis Presley. "Out" Inspiration Estelle Brown charted a journey that started in harmony and led to unity -- her co-founding of and ministry with the African-American LGBT-welcoming Unity Fellowship Church.

= Less than 2 weeks after he was named Foreign Policy and National Security spokesman for GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, conservative "out" Republican Richard Grenell bowed to far right outrage and bowed out of the campaign. Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" skewered Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association for celebrating his "pro-family" group's "victory".

= President Barack Obama finally "evolved" to support civil marriage equality in an exclusive interview with Robin Roberts on ABC-TV's "Good Morning America" -- hastened by Vice President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Arne Duncan each announcing his own support. We covered their comments, and provided extended excerpts from the Obama interview, along with analysis by Evan Wolfson of Freedom To Marry; Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts; Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker; and longtime North Carolina lesbian couple Lennie Gerber & Pearl Berlin; all capped by "out" gay singer/songwriter Sean Chapin performing "You Say You Want An Evolution."

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