PR 12 Ep 4: Meltdowns and Marriage Proposals

This week starts where the show normally ends, with the designers in the backstage waiting room. But this week, we witness a Battle Royale between Helen and Sandro and Ken and Sandro, which ends with Sandro storming out, ripping down curtains, upending mannequins, slapping cameras and disappearing into traffic.

I wonder if he’ll be back ….

But first, this week’s challenge. Tim Gunn introduces Modern Family's Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who with his fiancé — now husband, Justin Mikita — founded the menswear-inspired marriage equality organization, Tie The Knot. However, this is not menswear because, as avid viewers know, menswear challenges are D-I-sasters.

Instead, the designtestants will create looks inspired by the ties that JTF has provided, and they must incorporate at least one tie into their creation. In addition to the ties, there is a trip to Mood and a suggested Go Card™ budget of $200.

A message Sue apparently missed, but let’s rip ….

THE SAFES [from left to right]

KAREN My first thought was that the model was pregnant. That and the lack of screen time lead me to believe Karen will be leaving us soon.

KEN A simple leather dress with a man’s color, it was neither here nor there. I don’t see him at The Tents.

ALEXANDER A basic black pant-suit with a Bow-Tie Clown collar; this is why people hate clowns. I think Alexander’s Broadway costumer experience is showing and this might be part of the road show of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat-and-Tie.

JUSTIN I liked this; fun and flirty, and he used the ties as seaming, creating a bowtie-slash-hourglass silhouette.

ALEXANDRIA Asymmetrical color-blocking with bowtie trim work doesn’t get one to The Tents.

THE SAFE, BUT SHOULD HAVE GONE BOTTOM THREE EXCEPT FOR IMMUNITY

HELEN

She decides that since she’s safe, she’ll take a risk; turns out to be a bad choice, but she struggles after Tim’s crit — because she can’t handle criticism … good job going on the PR because they don’t criticize anything there — and she rethinks and over-thinks her design.

I liked that she was doing a bowtie shape on the front of the dress, but I thought her color palette was sad. And then when she tossed in the baby blue bowtie harness, well, I’ll let Nina explain:

“I’m wondering if the reason you won last week was because of Kate's influence.”

Then she and Heidi told Helen that she’d better bring it next week.

THE BOTTOM THREE

SUE

At Mood, with the suggestion that the designtestants spend $200, Sue spent twice that amount; $400 for some black jersey and some red jersey. I wonder if she didn’t score a dime-bag in the backroom because her money was not well-spent.

Not when you consider she made a black dress — oh, and she made the same horror in red, too — and then sewed ties together to create a kind of exoskeleton. I instantly thought, Spiderwoman and not in a good way.

Heidi was shocked to learn that Sue had made that — remember, the runway show is anonymous this season — and called it, among other things, a mess, and crazy, amateurish and a What was she thinking moment.  The Adorable Zac Posen™ reminded Sue to Keep It Simple Stupid, and dubbed it ‘Octopussy.’ Nina saw that and raised it a ‘Sigourney Weaver in Alien covered in tentacles. She called it bizarre and arts-and-crafts, with no discernible effort; a disappointment. JTF likened it to a women emerging from the sea, covered in kelp.

UP CLOSE

Heidi wondered what she spent $400 and The Adorable Zac Posen™ muttered, ‘Cut jersey?’ Nina said there was no thought to the dress, and Heidi finished up by saying it was a flea-market find.

But, because of Sandro, Sue is safe.

JEREMY

We start off the episode learning that Jeremy’s grandmother had passed the night before, so he’s a little verklempt this week; not too verklempt, however, to constantly mention that his gran had died and that his design was an homage to her, the way she looks in the 1930s and 40s. M’kay …..

So, he wants to update a tuxedo look, with a bright orange lace jacket; right there I became verklempt, too. With wide-legged brown pants; I became verklempt again. Tim asks that he rethink the lace jacket, and he kind of does, but he rethinks it worse.

It looks old; the pants don’t fit. I love listening to Jeremy speak in those dulcet English tones, but this look was loud and obnoxious.

Heidi hated that he took a gorgeous model and aged her forty years; she was madam, not modern. There was no cool, no sexy, no hip. The Adorable Zac Posen™ liked that it was well-made — I think Jeremy’s saving grace this week is that he can construct — but he called it lackluster. He also hated the peek-a-boo belly button, which, after he said it, I couldn’t stop seeing. Nina also appreciated the work that went into the look, but said it was too serious [read: old]. JTF summed it up by saying it looked like something a sixty-eight-year-old actress would wear when she accepts her Kennedy Center Honor.

Ouch.

UP CLOSE

Heidi reiterated the fact that the look aged the model while The Adorable Zac Posen™ and Nina praised the tailoring.

Jeremy was safe because of Sandro ….

MIRANDA

For me, she falls into that category that I’ll call WTF is she doing here?

Every week she seems to make the same suit-y, midriff-y, pencil skirt-y looking mother-effer, and this week she drizzled it in hound’s-tooth.

Hounds-freaking-tooth!

And she wants to put a fluffy, flouncy, Jeremy’s Gran-type tie on it, until Tim tells her to sex it up. And she takes that to mean an emerald green silk top that she then crops off into, wait for it, another midriff baring top.

Poor Miranda One Note.

Tacky, I said. Go home, I said.

Heidi said, “Where’s the bowtie?’ Miranda pointed to one strip of fabric. Heidi said it wasn’t clever, and very 80s looking, but not like the cool 80s, you know, parachute pants and shiz. The Adorable Zac Posen™ said the top was a killer, and called her out on yet another pencil skirt; she’d better do something different next week, because, as we’ll see with Sandro, The Adorable Zac Posen™ takes no prisoners. Nina simply uttered that it wasn’t modern, while JTF said it didn’t turn out well.

UP CLOSE

Heidi hates the top, hates the no-tie-bow-tie, while Nina says there are too many problems with the look. JTF said there was no taste, and The Adorable Zac Posen™ once again shouted form the catwalk, No more pencil skirts EVER!!

But, because of Sandro, Miranda dodged a fashion Bullet.

THE SAFE BUT HE AUF’D HIMSELF

SANDRO

I had been saying for weeks that the recently Auf’d and scarcely missed, Timothy, was using the show to show the world just how weird and wild and wonderful he was; it didn’t work.

But Sandro was using the show to show the world that he’s a lunatic. Loud, brash, argumentative, testy, misogynistic, rude, did I say Loud?

And he wants feedback, dammit! He wants a Sew Off with The Adorable Zac Posen™. Really? Sandro, you couldn’t thread the needle of The Adorable Zac Posen™; you couldn’t do whatever it is people do to a bobbin to The Adorable Zac Posen™; you couldn’t cut a pattern for The Adorable Zac Posen™. M’kay?

As Tim critiques his look, a Pretty in Pink number, Sandro asks what the judges want of him, and Tim tells him to be himself; sound advice, were it not for the fact that Sandro is crazy. But he wants to do what the judges tell him to do because he thinks it’ll get him to The Tents when all it really will do is get him a room next to Amanda Bynes on a 5150 hold.

His look is, again, a mess. It’s strapless; it’s a mini; it’s a drapery panel sewn to a model’s hip; it’s bowties as straps. It’s also safe, which displeases Sandro no end; he demands some criticism from the judges.

The Adorable Zac Posen™ praises Sandro's garment construction but notes, one more, that the taste level is bad; he asks Heidi if she’d wear it and she actually slapped him and shouted, “NO! Nein! Nyet!”

Sandro is not happy: “What you think?”

The Adorable Zac Posen™ says, “It looks like someone went home with a man in an evening gown and came back with a tie attached to it and her dress ripped. It looked like the walk of shame after an awards show.”

Sandro said, “I had eleven hour.”

The Adorable Zac Posen™ said, “I admire that but you need to focus on the taste level.”

Sandro says, "I’m student…I’m learning."

The Adorable Zac Posen™ says, "This is not 'Project Runway': The Student Edition!"

Ouch.

I think that set Sandro on edge, and, while he was safe, he was not in a safe place. He began fighting with all the other designers, shouting at them not to shout at him; pointing at them and telling them not to point at him. It ended with Sandro storming out, ripping down curtains, upending mannequins, slapping cameras and disappearing into traffic. And with Tim saying he won’t be back.

THE TOP THREE

KATE

Again, I loathe Kate; she seems a little self-entitled since she was voted back to the island — and I wanna know who voted her back because they have some ‘splaining to do.

During the crit she calls her look sexy huntress, or something, but then she’s making a tuxedo pant. How many times have I gone a’hunting in my tuxedo pants I cannot even begin to say.

And she does a literal silhouette of the bowtie shape in leather down the pant leg, reminding us all, and the judges later, that this is only the second time in her whole life that she’s made a pant.

Color me unimpressed.

I found it a Meh. The top wasn’t all that flattering, and didn’t seem to jibe with the pants.

The Adorable Zac Posen™ said it was ‘too clever cookie’ and, for once, I wanted to strike him. Heidi called it sexy — which I didn’t see — and modern —which I looked for in vain — and hot —which went missing on my TV screen. Nina admired that she made pants, because Nina lives for a good pant; she even called them ‘sick,’ but in a good way. 

At this point Kate called herself a tough princess, and I wished Sandro had stormed through and pushed her off the runway.

UP CLOSE

The Adorable Zac Posen™ loved that she pushed herself, while Heidi loved the sexy back—which caused me to wonder what happened to the Boobie Obsessed Klum, but this was not breast-a-riffic at all. JTF called the pants amazing; The Adorable Zac Posen™ again said she was growing as a designer.

She gets Third Place.

DOM

Or, as I am apt to see her, The Quiet Storm.

She’s in the workroom, all right, but she barely gets more screen time than Karen, but she’s good; and inventive; and different.

As Tim critiques her look — a black-and-white striped dress with colorful striped bowties that remind Dom of the equal sign—his only remark is too make sure the stripes match up perfectly.

And they did. It was a simple silhouette, but that was all that was simple about it. All the stripes and the chevrons, and the patterns and nothing seemed jarring or out of place.

Nina says it’s adorable and happy and celebratory, while The Adorable Zac Posen™ is once again amazed by her talent at design and styling; he says it’s a lot of stripes, but it works. JTF loved that Dom thought about equality, and the equal sign, when she created the look.

UP CLOSE

Heidi said, ‘She did it again’ in reference to last week’s fun creation. She noted that it was good and playful, and a showstopper. It was also so-not-simple. The Adorable Zac Posen™ loved the texture of the layered bowties.

Dom, The Quiet Storm, gets Second Place.

BRADON

By far my favorite designer this season because he’s good, and adorable, and, thus far, drama free.

Plus we learn all about Bradon and Josh, his partner/husband of eighteen-plus years—which is longer than any number of JLo and Britney marriages, I might remind you.

But, back at the fashion, Bradon was the only designer to use the bowties creatively—take note Alexander—by creating a beautiful top using a technique not-so-ironically called ‘faggoting’ — an openwork decoration of fabric in which thread is drawn in crisscross stitches across an open seam. It’s the perfect word for this challenge, I think.

The top is the showstopper, beneath a tweed jacket and atop a pair of tweed shorts. It was sexy and fun and well-made. Bradon kept saying he needed to make a jacket and it appeared he made the jacket in the two hours of hair and make-up on show day. Props for that, too.

Heidi called it fabulous and added that if she’d had Bradon’s model’s body she’d wear that look every day. Nina loved his use of mixed fabrics and of bowties, and called it cool. The Adorable Zac Posen™ once again scraped by nerves by his brazen use of the word mélange: “The colors and the mélange of textures.”

Someone’s been thumbing their Thesaurus!

He also called it modern and antique, and JTF dubbed it brave and fantastic.

UP CLOSE

JTF said it was his favorite, while Heidi loved all the work that went into it. The Adorable Zac Posen™ finished up with called it a ‘labored labor of love without looking labored.

Bradon gets a much deserved win.

And a much deserved shot at camera time when, inspired by the Tie The Knot organization, he proposed to his partner from the runway. It couldn’t have been cuter, and Heidi will be a perfect groomsmaid while The Adorable Zac Posen™ is the perfect ring bearer. Couldn’t have been sweeter except ….

At the end of the show, Bradon got some Skype time with Josh who told him that the Supreme Court had Auf’d Prop H8 and so Josh asked Bradon marry him. He didn’t even know Bradon had done it from the runway.

:::sniff sniff:::

MY TAKE

Karen?

Ken is sassy and funny but he’s too middle-of-the-road.

Sue? I weans see her stick around a while because you just know she’ll run out of money and be making a dress of toilet pair and bits of her own hair.

Justin. He’s good, but he’s adrift in a sea on so-so. I hope he steps it up. Had his dress been an eye-popping color he might have gone Top Three.

Kate. You aren’t all that.

The Adorable Zac Posen™? I forgive you. Mélange.

What did YOU think?

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Good News Friday, For The 'T' In LGBT: In DC It's Now Easier For Transgender People To Get A New Birth Certificate

I like some good news on a Friday and this certainly qualifies.

Last month, the Washington DC Council passed the country's most liberal policy for updating birth certificates for transgender Americans — one that transgender activists hope becomes a national model—and Mayor Vincent Gray is expected to sign it next week.

This new measure eliminates the requirements for surgery and a court order that previously made it too expensive and inaccessible for most transgender people to complete a legal transition. Plus, even after surgery, the transgender person’s birth certificate wasn’t reissued, it was simply amended.

Kaprice Williams — who transitioned from male to female when she was fifteen — has been waiting four years for a new birth certificate. While this had not been much of an issue — Williams has yet to have gender reassignment surgery — a recent job interview went badly because Williams’ paperwork revealed she is transgender. Now, however, she can get that new birth certificate.

"I'm glad to finally get this so I can move on with the rest of my life. These are basic needs, and you can't do too much without proper credentials."— Kaprice Williams

Nationwide, only 24% of transgender people can have the gender changed on their birth certificates because of restrictive laws, and the lack of a correct birth certificate creates a myriad of problems when enrolling in schools or applying for jobs.

But this new policy — which passed unanimously — means people will now have their gender recognized, rather than having birth certificates, and other documents, saying you aren’t who you say you are. The new policy will grant new birth certificates to transgendered people who provide a statement from a licensed healthcare provider that they have undergone "appropriate treatment" for a gender transition; the measure also exempts them from a requirement to advertise a concurrent name change for three weeks in a local newspaper, effectively outing them.

Still, we have a long way to go in this country; of the 47 states that allow a gender change on birth certificates, only four have dropped the surgical transition standard and, of the rest, about half issue a new birth certificate and half simply amend the old one.

Next up is California; in 2011, the state reduced its standard for securing a court order to a physician's statement that the individual had received appropriate treatment, and now Assemblywoman Toni Atkins, a democrat from San Diego, is sponsoring a bill similar to Washington's.

"Transgender people are entitled to have their official documents and their legal name reflect their true identity without a burdensome and expensive process that endangers their personal safety."—Toni Atkins

It’s yet another step in the process for our transgender brothers and sisters as they fight for equality, and fight to be recognized for who they are, not what it says on a piece of paper. 

via The LA Times

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I Didn't Say It ....

Greg Louganis, Olympic champion diver and out gay man, on the controversy over LGBT athletes and the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:

"I can't begin to imagine what it must be like for a gay athlete in Russia. It was hard enough to compete closeted representing the United States, a country that is considerably evolved on LGBT rights. It is unfathomable to consider what it's like for the Russian athlete - knowing that if you were to come out you could lose everything you've worked your entire life to achieve and then on top of that to be considered a criminal. It is both heartbreaking and heinous."

No one, anywhere on Earth, should be criminalized for their sexual orientation, and we need to stand up against this intolerance wherever it rears its ugly head, be it Africa or Russia.

We can’t let this type of persecution happen, again.

Oprah Winfrey, on the N-word:

"You cannot be my friend and use that word around me. It shows my age, but I feel strongly about it. … I always think of the millions of people who heard that as their last word as they were hanging from a tree."

Y'all know I have my issues with O, but I gotta hand it to her this time.

Heartbreaking. Succinct. To the point. Perfect.

John Baird, Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, on the proposed boycott of the Winter Olympics in Russia due to their anti-LGBT laws:

"As concerned as we are about the Olympics, that's nothing. That's two, three, four weeks for the athletes and participants and the visitors. This mean-spirited and hateful law will affect all Russians 365 days of the year, every year. It is an incitement to intolerance, which breeds hate. And intolerance and hate breed violence. We wanted more than a verbal commitment to the IOC. And now the comments by the Russian sports minister, Vitaly Mutko, are of deep concern. The Olympics is a great celebration of international sport, of international co-operation. This type of law being enforced flies in the face of the entire Olympic spirit."

Baird, like many, hope the controversy now, will lead to an end of the laws in Russia. But what do we do if the games arrive and the laws haven’t changed?

Particulate in the name of the LGBT community and risk some kind of international incident, and sweep the whole mess under the rug.

Or, do we stay away, which only serves to punish the athletes who’ve trained for years to be there?

Cheyenne Jackson, on how he felt about being an out gay man having to issue a statement about his divorce:

“Yes, it is weird. But it’s a fact. And you just have to accept the way things are. Sometimes I think I am a little naïve to think that people even care, but they do. So you have to understand the significance that your relationship had to other people and I know that our marriage meant a lot to a lot of people…so that’s not lost on me, and I respect that…I didn’t want to have to say anything. The royals, the monarchy over in England always say ‘Never complain, never explain.’  And so I’d love to adhere to that, but the fact of the matter is, I did have to say something.  It was getting a little ugly, and my sister and brother were like ‘What’s up?’ So, it is kind of weird to have to make a statement about it….and Monte [Lapka] and I talked about it and decided what we wanted the statement to say…and it was nobody else’s business….yes, it is weird, but it is a fact.”

One part of equality is that gay couples will divorce, just like straight couples. And, if you’re an out celebrity, your divorce becomes fodder just like a straight couple.

Equality is equality, the good and the bad.

Matthew Mitcham, out gay Olympic champion diver, on the controversy over gay athletes and the Sochi 2014 Games:

"It's really sad. The way they are persecuting people in Russia is quite horrific...The Olympics is the best experience you will ever have as an athlete. Their whole memory and experience is going to be marred by this stuff. They are going to be made to feel unacceptable, inappropriate, and it is a really awful, awful feeling. The Olympics are supposed to be somewhere where they can go to be relieved of that feeling. A place where you can compete and feel that gender and sexuality is not an issue."

Again, how do we handle this? Does Russia get a pass during the games and then we go back to trying to change their laws? Or do we stand up and say No, we won’t be there?

Or, do we go, and stand proud, from every country around the globe, and show the Russian government and the Russian people that the LGBT community does not deserve the vile treatment they are receiving?

Stephen Colbert, on his, and the media's, confusion about the extent and severity of the recent terror threats:

"Without any details, I'm not even sure how panicked I'm supposed to be. At least during the Bush years I could look at this helpful chart and know that my sphincter tightness was orange. But even that's gone now because Obama gave all those colors to the gays for their rainbow."

Just a giggle, but then a question? How come the Rainbow Flag became a part of the terror alert system?

Do I thmell a conthpiracy?

Frank Bruni, for the NYT, on the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi:

"Imagine this: it’s the opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. A huge television event, watched the world over. The American Olympians join the proud march of nations. They’re our emissaries, our exemplars. And as the television cameras zoom in on Team U.S.A., one of its members quietly pulls out a rainbow flag, no bigger than a handkerchief, and holds it up. Not ostentatiously high, but just high enough that it can’t be mistaken. Another American follows suit. Then another, and another. Within minutes the flags are everywhere in the American delegation, subtly recurring bursts of color and of honor, a gay-rights motif with a message: we’re here in Russia to compete, but we’re not here in Russia to assent. We have gay sisters. Gay brothers. Gay neighbors and friends and fans and probably teammates, and we reject the laws of a land that deems it O.K. to arrest them for speaking their truth or us for speaking up for them." 

I’d like to see that, and not just from the American delegation, but from every athlete. Imagine a sea of Rainbow Flags walking through that stadium.

It’d be a beautiful, powerful, message.

Stephen Fry, in an open letter to the IOC and British Prime Minister David Cameron, on the homophobic new laws in Russia:

"I am gay. I am a Jew. My mother lost over a dozen of her family to Hitler's anti-Semitism. Every time in Russia (and it is constantly) a gay teenager is forced into suicide, a lesbian 'correctively' raped, gay men and women beaten to death by neo-Nazi thugs while the Russian police stand idly by, the world is diminished and I for one, weep anew at seeing history repeat itself. 

'All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing,' so wrote Edmund Burke. Are you, the men and women of the IOC going to be those 'good' who allow evil to triumph? The Summer Olympics of 2012 were one of the most glorious moments of my life and the life of my country. For there to be a Russian Winter Olympics would stain the movement forever and wipe away any of that glory. The Five Rings would finally be forever smeared, besmirched and ruined in the eyes of the civilised world."

As I said at the beginning, we cannot let this happen, again.

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Random Musings

This story has been everywhere so, naturally, I'm'a give my two-cents....

On Jeopardy Kids Tournament last week, eighth-grader Thomas Hurley III bet $3,000 on that Final Jeopardy! question up there, and he responded like this:

And while technically correct, his response was ruled inaccurate because of a minor spelling error which is a rule of Final Jeopardy; the answer must be spelled correctly. And, according to Trebek, “Because he misspelled it badly … that’s unfortunate.  The judges are ruling against you.”

Now Thomas and his family are crying foul, with Thomas saying, “I was pretty upset that I was cheated out the final question.  It was just a spelling error.”

Which.Makes.The.Answer.Wrong.

Build a bridge and get over; learn something; check your spelling.

Mark Edel-Hunt took a stand against homophobia from a London stage last week after an audience member shouted abuse as two men kissed onstage.

The heckler was among the spectators at The American Plan and cried out, 'Makes me sick' at the embrace and kiss between the characters Nick and Gil.

Edel-Hunt, who plays Gil, responded by returning to the stage at the end of the curtain call with a sign depicting the Stonewall campaign slogan:

“Some people are gay. Get over it!”

Andy Wasley, from Stonewall, told Gay Star News, was delighted at Edel-Hunt’s reaction: "Given that Richard Greenberg’s most famous play is about a gay man, whoever complained about the kiss proved themselves to be as ignorant about theatre as they are about the reality of modern life. It’s great to see a spirited response to such offensive behaviour.”

I'd say so.

Bravo, Mr. Edel-Hunt

OVERHEARD AT WORK

Client [ranting about Obama]: I have had it with him. He really needs to be stopped.

Bob enters the room

Client: I better be quiet, Bob probably voted for Obama.

Bob: I did. I voted for him twice, and I’m voting for him when he runs for president in 2016.

Client: He can't run for a third term.

Bob [dripping with snark]: Oh, can't he? I wouldn’t be so sure about that.

Client: [red-faced and silent] ....

Kellan Lutz is playing Hercules in an upcoming film and, well, he looks hercu-riffic. Pecs you could bounce a quarter off of, if you were so inclined.

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is also playing Herc in another film, but I’d prefer my he-men to be less ‘roided, if you get my meaning.

One of the biggest news stories on the year has been the onset of virulently anti-gay laws in Russia, and the upcoming Winter Olympics there next year.

But, um, yeah, you wouldn’t know it if you watched FauxNews™ who spent exactly zero hours, hell, zero minutes on the story.

Just further proof that FauxNews™ isn’t news.

But …. Speaking of news, this is the Best.News.Ever.

Ellen, DeGeneres that is, will be hosting the Oscars next year! As an Awards Show Queen™ I am beyond with this news and loved that Ellen Tweeted:

"It's official: I'm hosting the #Oscars! I'd like to thank @TheAcademy, my wife Portia and, oh dear, there goes the orchestra."

I.Can’t.Wait.

I love me some fashion, but I have a problem with some of the people in fashion, like Editor-in-chief of American Vogue, and holy terror … or so I’ve heard … Anna Wintour.

Would it kill her to take off the shades? Would it kill her to update her hair? Would it kill her to eat a sandwich so she looks less Bobble-Head and more human?

And do not get me started on Miss Thang, André Leon Talley, who is some sort of fashionista or something. What the hell is she wearing? It looks like she’s headed for the buffet table, wearing a tent so she can abscond with an entire prime rib and all the chilled shrimp a girl can eat.

They are fashion? M’kay …..

In a recent concert, danced with a Rainbow Flag around her neck and some Twitheads began calling her a Lesbian.

She responded thusly … which is just one more reason I ♥ Pink.

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Troye Sivan Comes Out ... Rod Snyder, Too

Troye Sivan, the 18-year-old actor who played young James Howlett, AKA Wolverine) in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, has come out as gay in a video he posted to his YouTube account:

"On August 7, 2010 I told my family that I am gay. And on August 7, 2013 I want you guys to know that I am gay. It feels kind of weird to have to announce it like this on the internet but I feel like a lot of you guys are genuine friends of mine. I share everything with the internet. Whether or not that's a good thing I don't know but this is not something that I'm ashamed of..."

There is nothing to be ashamed of; you're a gay man. Big deal.

But the big deal is that you're out and proud and open.

We need more of that.

Naturally, as we do here at HOMO HQ, we are sending a copy of The Gay Agenda and the Coming Out Toaster Oven.

Welcome out Troye.

Lotsa folks wanted Wolverine to be gay, or at least Hugh Jackman and his Huge Ackman, to be gay, but now we have you.

Welcome out.

Rod Snyder, president of the Young Democrats of America [YDA] has also come out as gay in a he posted to the YDA website [HERE]:

I’m proud of the work that YDA has done in recent years on LGBT rights, whether it was our fight for the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” our push for employment non-discrimination laws at the federal and state levels, or the remarkable strides toward full marriage equality across the country.

But in the midst of all this historic progress, I’ve never taken the opportunity to tell my own story – that I am a Christian, an American, a West Virginian, a Young Democrat, a rural advocate, a singer-songwriter, a brother, a son, a grandson, a nephew, an uncle, and a gay man.

While society is evolving at a breathtaking pace, there are still many places like my home state of West Virginia where I could be fired from a job or evicted from an apartment simply because of the person I love.  I can’t sit by quietly and leave this fight for equality to others.  This is my fight.

Robert F. Kennedy once said, “Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events; and in the total, of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.” 

The LGBT rights movement is being written and advanced one personal story at a time – in living rooms and churches and schools and city halls and even the Supreme Court.  Today I’m choosing to add mine to this long and courageous narrative.  If my story changes even “a small portion of events,” then it is worth telling.

Welcome out, Rod, and please accept as our gift, a copy of The Gay Agenda and the obligatory Coming Out Toaster Oven.

Coming out is a process that we each take on, and make, at our own pace; the only thing we need to understand is that we all must come out in order to show the world our faces, to make the world understand our dreams and goals and desires, our want of equality.

You’ve made that first step, and I’m sure you’ll inspire others to follow suit.

Welcome out.

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