Some sports for this midweek (Happy 9/9/09 by the way). My local watering hole is a gay sports bar. Now I would prefer if the place had go-go boys dancing in jockstraps, but some dreams are not to be. Being TV free means I’m at the bar on the weekends cheering either the Spurs, Tarheels, Knicks, or Mets (the last two teams break my heart but why focus on the negative?).

This week has been about the US Open. Excited about Melanie Oudin and her run. Want to see Novak Djokovic break through and take the prize.  Love Serena and Venus Williams, but don’t think they play good tennis when they face each other.

I’ve never seen the Open live and up close, but I know what not to do if I ever go. Never rush on the court. Last night Rafael Nadal was changing his shirt after winning his match against Gael Monfils (6-7, 6-3, 6-1, 6-3). Some guy, clearly entranced by a shirtless Nadal, ran on the court and  embraced the athlete before being escorted off by security.

“He was a great fan,” Nadal said. “He said, ‘I love you,’ and he kiss me.”

Sure the whole scene turned out to be harmless and if I saw  Nadal shirtless I might engage in some foolishness, but come on US Open security. You have to do better than this.

Any tennis fans out there? What do you think about this year’s Open?

PS: thanks to Dan Savage for this funny video.

If you saw Boys Don’t Cry, it’s difficult to forget the scene when Brandon Teena is recounting his rape to the town police. They surround him and the officer asking questions wears the standard shades and talks to Teena as if he is a suspect. The officer’s day has been interrupted and his disdain for Teena can only be missed by those who accept the myth that the police are always your friends.

It should surprise no one that scene came to me when I read about the aftermath of a raid on a Fort Worth, Texas gay bar. On Sunday, the Rainbow Lounge was under siege from Fort Worth police and the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. These authorities stormed the establishment, as has been reported by bar patrons, and Chad Gibson continues to be in the hospital with a serious brain injury, an injury caused by either the TABC representatives or Fort Worth officers. How does the city’s police chief Jeff Halstead explain harm coming to a guy who had the nerve to think he could go to a bar and drink without being harassed by arms of the state?

“You’re touched and advanced in certain ways by people inside the bar, that’s offensive,” he said. “I’m happy with the restraint used when they were contacted like that.”

I’ll leave the translation of this line to Dan Savage. He does it better than me. By the way: Halstead’s version of what happened to Gibson has been called a bold face lie by many witnesses.

Apparently someone has informed the chief about the big stinking mess that came out of his mouth and now he is all about reconciliation and community dialogue. Says he will appoint a LGBT liaison and have his officers go through training in how to deal with the gay community (I know a police chief who needs to be sitting in the front of that class). There is also an internal investigation and calls for an independent committee to find out what happened that night.

Hopefully Gibson will pull through this and the residents of Fort Worth will continue to keep the heat on a police chief who sees a brain clot as “restraint.”

PS: RIP Karl Malden.

UPDATE: Gibson was injured while in the custody of TABC agents. Two have been assigned to desk duty pending an investigation.

Out of all the verbiage yesterday about the California Supreme Court’s decision, Dan Savage struck the best note.

“But we have to remember that this is a long game and, despite this setback, we are winning. We’re going to hear a lot about Prop 8 today, and the fight to overturn it, but let’s not forget about Prop 22.”

A mere 9 years ago when California voters gave their opinion on marriage between same sex couples, they answered with a resounding no. With the Proposition 8 vote, the nays were not as loud. Yes a loss is still a loss (and spare us any quips about how being close only counts in horse shoes), but we are winning this argument. Right now  Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and Iowa are states where same sex marriage is a reality, and anyone who says they could have predicted that nine years ago is a lying liar. The polls all point in our favor. As Savage noted, even our enemies know their time is up. All of this needs to be held on to as we handle yesterday’s decision. Is it right that the struggle for rights is such an laborious process? Nope, but we live in the real world. Not some made for TV movie where stuff is figured out in two hours.

Now for those who left notes here and  at other places, talking weak noise about how the revolution won’t be televised, it’s war time now, let’s go burn down a few churches,  etc., etc.: please do me a favor? Keep quiet while adults are talking. You keyboard revolutionaries are punks or plants from the other side (which makes you something else but I can’t use that word).  Always ready to quote something from the movie X, but never willing to follow your own advice about murder and mayhem. Grow a pair you sham revolutionaries. If you are sooooooo convinced it’s war time, stop leaving notes here and do what you say needs to be done. I promise to write you letters as you serve time with other prison fools.

For the rest: anyone got a protest story from yesterday to share? Go at it.

Ta-Nehisi Coates and Dan Savage are having conversation about outing today. The back and forth started with Coates’ discussing an interview with Kirby Dick, director of Outrage. Coates confesses he understands the impulse to out those who stay in the closet and actively pursue an anti gay political agenda; however, he’s not clear if the outrage is worth the cost.

“I’m skeptical of man’s ability to bring justice to these people, in this fashion. It smells of divine retribution dispensed by childish mortals. What if the guy you outed kills himself? Can you wash your hands of that? Would you truly feel no guilt?”

Savage admits outing is callous but in some cases the full hammer is more than justified.

“Outing someone, as I wrote when I helped out one asshole and declined to participate in the outing of another, is a brutal tactic and should be reserved for brutes. [Larry] Craig and [Charlie] Crist more than qualify,” Savage responded referring to the Idaho’s former senator and Florida’s governor. “I don’t wanna be dramatic, but Craig and Crist have blood on their hands.”

I’m leaning toward Coates on this. Aside from ruining the life of someone who spent a lot of effort in destroying the lives of others, what is the political upswing with outing? What do we get from it? Could be my naive blinders on, but I’m not sure gays and lesbians get anything when an anti-gay person is shown to be who he/she is. Yes we lose a foe but outside of that not much else changes.

Lastly, this is something I can’t break from: anti-gay bigotry stings no matter if the offender likes his sodomy from Beyonce or Beckham. Or both.

The FBI and Homeland Security are participating in the investigation into who made the anonymous threats at 11 gay bars, but are referring all questions to Seattle Police.  The police department will say little except that it takes the threats seriously.

Police patrols have increased in the Capitol Hill area where the bars are located.

The threats were made in typewritten letters received by the bars on Tuesday. The weekly newspaper The Stranger received a 12th letter saying it should be “prepared to announce the deaths of approximately 55 individuals.”

Despite the threats, business at the bars has shown little sign of slowing down, although many patrons say they are more vigilant. Tonight, an ad hoc group will hold a Capitol Hill Pub Crawl. The group on its Web site is urging gays and their supporters to attend.

The site also reminds people going to bars to look out for each other and “never leave your drink unattended or accept a drink from a stranger.”

Ricin is a poison found naturally in castor beans. It can be in the form of a powder, a mist, or a pellet, or it can be dissolved in water or weak acid.

If made into a partially purified material or refined into a terrorist or warfare agent, ricin could be used to expose people through the air, food or a liquid.

While law enforcement is tight lipped about the investigation, some people within the city’s LGBT community say they suspect the threats came from someone who is gay.

They cite a line in the threatening letters loosely taken from the poem “A Display of Mackerel” by openly gay writer Mark Doty. The poem was published in Doty’s book, Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, which won the 2008 National Book Award for Poetry.

“The targets won’t care much that they’ll be dead and nearly frozen, just as, presumably, they didn’t care that they were living,” the letters said.

Doty told The Seattle Times that he wrote the poem in 1994 as a meditation on the nature of the self and mortality after his partner died of AIDS.

Some, including Dan Savage, the editorial director of The Stranger, say the reference to the poem suggests the letters came from someone who is gay.

“It’s a gay self-hater,” Savage told The Times.

“Somebody who was seriously interested in killing a bunch of people at a gay bar wouldn’t announce the method of the attack in advance.”