DAILY GAZETTE
Video: Asking Permission
Gay Groups Worry About "Rogue" Gay Marriage Case
More from Mark Morford
Don't Let This Happen To You
Maryland Marriage Ban Struck Down
Gay/Trans Panic Defense Bill Moves Forward
Colorado Dems to Back Domestic Partnership Ballot Issue
Arizona Wants You
VA House Approves Gay Marriage Ban
New Jersy Expands Partner Law
Barney Frank: Trans Issue Holds Up Hate Bill
Bishop Says Priest Molested Him as a Teen
Southern Baptist Leader Arrested on Gay Sex Charge
Cherokee Top Court Upholds Gay Marriage
I Reg, Take Thee David
Fed. AIDS Chief: Drug Companies Stalling on AIDS Vaccine
Washington Blade: Pope is Anti-Gay Person of the Year
Pentagon Spied on Gay Student Groups
Oral AIDS Test is Unreliable
AIDS Meds as Party Drugs?
The Death of an American City
HIV Poz Man Turns Negative | |
The "Other" Gay Lifestyle
By Brian Feist
Our fundamentalists opponents often inflame and rally their followers with talk of the "Gay Lifestyle." I have argued again and again that there is no such thing as a "gay" lifestyle.
By definition, a lifestyle is the culmination of choices we make in how we live our lives. We can choose where we live, how we involve ourselves in our community, how we spend our leisure time, if we have pets-or children-all things that contribute to our lifestyle. While our sexual orientation certainly impacts the choices we make in how we live our lives, it, on its own, does not define a lifestyle.
Award-winning Sarasota filmmaker Tom Murray poignantly demonstrates this in his documentary film, Farm Family: In Search of Gay Life in Rural America, which will be shown at the Tampa International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in October. Family Farm was awarded Best Feature Length Documentary at the Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.
Clearly, most gay people, particularly gay men, gravitate to larger cities, and their lifestyles share certain characteristics of that urban existence. But, as the country mouse learned in that childhood story, city life isn't for everyone. Significant numbers of gay people have chosen a lifestyle that could not be more different from what we consider the "norm." Farming.
Murray, who himself grew up on a Midwestern farm, traveled across the country, interviewing gay men living in rural areas who have embraced farming as a way of life. From Pennsylvania, to Wisconsin and Minnesota, and on to Wyoming and New Mexico, Murray's subjects run the gamut of the American farmer, raising hogs, dairy and beef cattle (yes, there is a difference), horses and crops. They talk about their lives on the farms, and the challenges of being "out" in the country and of meeting potential mates.
Murray takes us to a Gay Rodeo in Minnesota, and to Wyoming's small (there are more people at the Resort on an average Sunday afternoon) but spirit-filled annual statewide "pride" gathering. (All you two-stepping wannabes take note: no one fills out a pair of Wranglers like a real cowboy!)
Having grown up on a farm myself, I found Murray's images of rural life familiar and comfortable. I even felt a little homesick for what always seemed to me to be a simpler, if not saner, way of life. But more than that, Farm Family shows so clearly that a lifestyle is not about how we have sex. A lifestyle is what we do the rest of the time, when we're not having sex.
Don't miss Farm Family, Tuesday, October 12 at 7 PM, at the Tampa International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.
| |
COMMUNITY CALENDAR
presented by the Tampa Bay Business Guild
LINKS
Are You Registered to Vote? It's easy! Click Here!
AIDS Memorial Bells
Tampa Bay Business Guild
Metropolitan Charities/Metro Center
gaystpete.com
Tampa Bay Lesbians
Equality Florida
National Center for Lesbian Rights
Winter Pride Tampa Bay
St. Pete Pride
queertampa.com
King of Peace MCC
First United Church of Tampa
Gypsy Productions
Team Tampa Bay
Una Voce
|
