Could Proposition 8 Finally End?

Originally published on www.vadamagazine.com

Gay marriage has been a huge talking point around the world for at least the last 10 years. If you live in the UK then you will know that the coverage the debate has received in the past six months alone is incredible, and hopefully the debate will end soon and gay marriage in the UK will become an everyday occurrence. In America however the debate has caused a huge divide between political parties, individual states and the everyday American.

Indeed the issue of gay marriage in America is a vicious fight that many gay Americans and their supporters have been fighting for years, where they have been met with success and vast hostility alike. Proposition 8 has been high on the agenda for many people around the world for the last few years, and it looks as though the battle to repeal it is once again rearing its head.

This week alone we have seen several incidents across the pond highlighted in the media surrounding Proposition 8, and the hopeful removal of it, as the Supreme Court is due to consider whether to overturn it on March 26th. This comes after the controversial decision in 2008 to add a clause to the Californian constitution, which stated marriage could only be recognised by the state if it were between a man and a woman.

One incident we saw, which could have huge effects on equal marriage in the US, was 75 leading Republicans signing a brief urging the Supreme Court to strike down Proposition 8. This figure has now swelled to over 100 and includes Hollywood actor Clint Eastwood, who was previously against supporting equal marriage. The official document filed with the Supreme Court has also seen a number of former governors and members of George W Bush’s cabinet change their stance on Prop 8 and sign the document, which could also lead to significant effects on the Republican Party.

The Obama administration has also become involved in the issue this week after filing their own brief to the Supreme Court, which also urges them to strike down the ban on equal marriage in the state of California. The document has been welcomed by supporters of equal marriage in America and could in fact be applied to other states that also ban equal marriage.

The administration said of gay Americans in the document: “They establish homes and lives together, support each other financially, share the joys and burdens of raising children, and provide care through illness and comfort at the moment of death.”

President Obama himself has been quoted this week mentioning how he would remove laws banning same-sex marriage if he were a Supreme Court judge saying: “If I were on the court, that would be the view I’d put forward.”

There is hope that with the weight of the President and his administration behind the repeal of Proposition 8 that it could help with its removal.

The Republicans and the Obama Administration are not the only ones to act vocally this week on the repeal of Prop 8. Hugely popular talk show host Ellen DeGeneres wrote an open letter to the Supreme Court on her website talking about her marriage to actress Portia de Rossi, saying: “Portia and I have been married for 4 years and they have been the happiest of my life.”

Some of America’s largest companies such as Facebook, Apple and eBay have also urged the court to remove Proposition 8.

All this debate in the run up to the Supreme Court’s ruling has also seen the revelation of a new poll that shows 61% of Californians support same-sex marriage, which is a record percentage in the state of California and a 9% increase over five years.

It would appear that in the land of free there is still a huge reluctance to allow some people their basic human right to marry the person that they love, and in America we have all read countless articles and heard news stories about the discrimination some gay people still suffer. But with the backing of the general public, celebrities, super companies, political parties and the president of the United States himself, March 26^th could see a huge step forward for equality not only in America but around the world.

Why Are There So Few Documentaries About The AIDS Crisis In Britain?

Originally posted on www.biggaypictureshow.com

The HIV/AIDS crisis is something that everyone from all different walks of life has heard of. From television, book and films to magazine articles, everyone has a pretty good understanding of what happened during the 1980s.

For gay people especially, the crisis itself is now deeply rooted into our consciousness, whether we were there during the 80s or not. We’ve heard about the people who died, those who fought for funding to try and find a cure and/or proper treatment, and everyone else in between who struggled long and hard to help people who have been diagnosed with the virus, as well as the families of the people who lost their lives due to it.

It’s even deeply rooted into our minds when it comes to sex, as we all now know the importance of safe sex and what it could mean if that one time we weren’t safe, we became unlucky.

But for us Brits a lot of the information we get is from our American counterparts and about what happened over there during the 1980s. For example, in 2011 the documentary We Were Here looked at the AIDS crisis in San Francisco and interviewed a number of people who were there and experienced what happened.

By doing so it became the first documentary to take a deep look at what happened and the impact it had on the people living in San Francisco and how they responded to it. Today How To Survive A Plague opens in select US theatres, which looks at the crisis and the early days of the activist groups ACT UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) and TAG (Treatment Action Group). Those two looks at AIDS in America join the likes of the Oscar winning Common Threads: Stories From The Quilt.

However there has never been a decent-scale, feature documentary (that I know of, at least) that has taken a deep look at the crisis when it hit the UK. After all, HIV/AIDS has significantly impacted on a number of people over here and it has continued to do so since the 1980s.

We’ve all seen and heard about the safe sex advertising campaigns complete with icebergs, headstones and a deeply eerie narration from John Hurt, so we know it was just as bad over here. But do we know anything further than this campaign?

AIDS is still a problem now, with HIV infection rates remaining quite high and rising over recent years. It is definitely still an issue and we need to see and hear more about what actually happened to people living in the UK who were affected by HIV/AIDS during the early days of the disease, whether it was their friends, family or themselves that were affected by it, and whether it was slightly different or worse here than what people felt in other areas of the world. It is slightly ridiculous that for many British people, their knowledge of the AIDS crisis in the US is far greater than on what happened in the UK. Documentaries like these aren’t just about remembering our history, but also potent reminders of a disease that may not be the absolute killer it once was, but which we still need to be vigilant about.

Considering the success of the film We Were Here and the positive reaction it received, it would be interesting and helpful to see the effect a UK version had, told from a viewpoint that’s different from what we’ve already heard from over the pond.