SAVE Dade Executive Director C.J.Ortuño reflects on President Barack Obama's support for gay marriage.
Reported by STEVE ROTHAUS / Miami Herald Staff. Video by Kristofer Rios / Miami Herald
Liza Minnelli to discuss reissued 'Live at the Winter Garden' recording Tuesday on CBS' 'The Talk'
News release from Liza Minnelli's publicist Scott Gorenstein:
“THE TALK” will welcome the legendary Liza Minnelli for the first time on Tuesday, May 15.
Minnelli will be a guest on the CBS program to talk about her new CD Liza Minnelli Live At The Winter Garden which was recently released by Masterworks Broadway.
The long-awaited Live At The Winter Garden is derived from the original master engineered by Phil Ramone. The recording includes performances from Minnelli's Broadway show in January 1974 as well as three recently discovered live bonus tracks that were not included on the original LP. Only pirated versions off the album have circulated since.
“The Talk” airs on CBS at 2:00PM (EST).
Will Smith backs Obama's gay marriage stance
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BERLIN -- Will Smith says he supports U.S. President Barack Obama's position on gay marriage.
The Hollywood actor says the question of whether gay people should be allowed to legally marry is "about semantics."
He told reporters in Berlin on Monday that "if anybody can find someone to love them and to help them through this difficult thing that we call life, I support that in any shape or form."
Still, Smith says the president's support for gay marriage was a "brave" move in an election year.
The actor is in Berlin to promote his new film "Men in Black III" that premieres in Germany on Monday.
TV Guide: 'Bold and the Beautiful' soap star Joanna Johnson (Caroline Spencer) out of the closet
TV Guide reports that Joanna Johnson (Caroline Spencer on CBS daytime soap The Bold and the Beautiful) has come out of the closet:
At age 50, she's back on B&B in a startling story about how Karen has been living a secret life as a lesbian. Here, for the first time, Johnson is ready to admit that she went years harboring the same secret. Yep, she's gay, too.
Melissa Etheridge: 'Tell everyone I'm very happy'
BY STEVE ROTHAUS, srothaus@MiamiHerald.com
Everyone’s talking about “gay marriage” today, but singing star-activist Melissa Etheridge remembers that when she came out as a lesbian two decades ago, “those two words didn’t go together.”
“I’ve known for years we’re moving in this direction,” Etheridge, 50, told The Miami Herald, reflecting on President Barack Obama’s announced support for same-sex couples. “It’s something you can’t turn back. Ultimately, it’s the balance of life and love in our society.”
Etheridge, who performs Wednesday at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, says she is “pleasantly surprised” Obama made clear his beliefs before November’s election. “It’s a big statement and a joyous statement. It shows his confidence in this country, and that’s a nice thing.”
Many young LGBT people feel change hasn’t come fast enough, but Etheridge disagrees.
“They have to realize that 20 years ago, before they were born, it was very different. It was revolutionary to say you were gay. That’s a huge statement,” she says. “The young are the benefactors of this. They’re able to live their lives openly.”
Someone who couldn’t: John Etheridge, Melissa’s dad, who died in 1993.
“I’m finding out things about my own father. His latentness,” said Etheridge, who believes John “made a choice” to live a straight life and marry a woman.
Etheridge rocked the music world in 1993 with the album Yes I Am, a breakthrough recording that came out just after she did.
Immediately, Etheridge became among the world’s best-known out LGBT celebrities. “I have no discomfort about me,” she says. “I talk about it so much, boy, it’s just out there. I just assume people know that about me.”
Since coming out, Etheridge lived her private life publicly, including a battle with breast cancer in 2004.
In the 1990s, she and then-partner Julie Cypher had two children with rock star-sperm donor David Crosby. After she and Cypher split, Etheridge married actress Tammy Lynn Michaels. They had twins in 2006 and separated in 2010. Etheridge says she and Tammy share custody of the twins.
“Best man” at the Etheridge-Michaels nuptials in 2003, according to People magazine: Linda Wallem, who later created the Showtime TV series Nurse Jackie.
Etheridge and Wallem are now a couple.
“Am I single? No, I have a girlfriend. I’m a lesbian and don’t stay single very long,” Etheridge says. “I’m in love. She was my best friend for 10 years.”
Etheridge describes how she and Wallem crossed the “awkward” line from best friends to partners: “She was helping me through hard times a few years ago. Oh, wait a minute, you’re so nice and delightful. And you have a job, like me, and wow!”
The singing star has a message for her fans: “Please tell everyone I’m very happy. I’m with someone very nice.”
She’s happy the wild days are behind her: “The dark stuff is very sexy, but once you hit 50, you want someone loving and sexy, too.”
IF YOU GO
Melissa Etheridge performs 8 p.m. Wednesday at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood. Tickets $50 to $85. Ticketmaster.com.
SunServe agency in Wilton Manors starts phone tree to inform LGBT community of social services
Here's a news release from SunServe in Wilton Manors:
Visit www.SunServe.org to learn more about SunServe, a nonprofit social service agency serving the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning (LGBTQ) community in South Florida. Call 954-548-4602.
Game-changer? How will gay marriage play on the ground?
BY PAULINE ARRILLAGA, AP NATIONAL WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- On the upper eastern edge of Ohio lies a valley built on the sweat of the working class, where steel mills sit mostly shuttered but a once-struggling Chevy plant endures. It is a place filled with union halls and blue-collar families for whom the auto bailout meant survival, delivered by a president many here see as their savior.
The Mahoning Valley is, without question, Barack Obama country. And native Andre Allie is very much a Barack Obama man: An African-American who "went with history" by voting for him in 2008. A retired auto worker who made air-bag parts. A lifelong Democrat and union member whose wife, brothers, aunt, cousins are all Democrats and union folks, too.
But Allie is also a deeply religious man, an elder deacon at his Baptist church who quotes from the Bible with ease. And he fervently opposes what the president last week decided to publicly support. "It's wrong. Period. It's just wrong," Allie, 54, says of the latest issue to push to the front of the presidential campaign.
Obama's declaration in support of gay marriage was undoubtedly a milestone in American politics and culture. But six months from an election that will decide whether the president keeps his job, a question hovers over the moment: Was it, somehow, a game-changer?
Iconic Key West store Fast Buck Freddie's to close
Falcone, who survives the late Conkle, told The Keynoter that Fast Buck Freddie's was doomed by changes in how people shop, including online, and Key West itself:
"The biggest change happened when the cruise ships arrived" in the mid-1990s, leading to a preponderance of low-price T-shirt and trinket shops on the main Old Town tourist thoroughfare," Falcone said.
