BY MATT MILLS – It seems like a good time to take a pink peek at the Emerald Isle, starting with a video smile. Mostly naked men dancing the Gay Gordon to pipe and drum on a street corner in Eugene, Oregon, in front of a gyros stand. You can’t make this stuff up.
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But more seriously, and genuinely Irish, David Norris, an openly gay member of the Irish senate, announced his bid on March 16 to run for the presidency of Ireland. Norris is heralded as the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in that country, and he has an impressive record as a gay rights advocate. He was among those who, in 1993, successfully spearheaded the movement to decriminalize homosexuality in his country.
That’s him below. Handsome devil, isn’t he?
“I don’t see myself as a gay president,” he told The Independent. “I see myself as a president who happens to be gay.” If you succeed, David, I’ll see you as a gay president. Wouldn’t that be grand? I think the only other openly gay world leader right now is Iceland’s premier, Johanna Sigurdardottir. You two could hang out, change the world.
Incidentally, two openly gay people were elected to the Irish Parliament earlier this month.
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Check out this piece from the New York Daily News about how St Paddy’s Day parade organizers in Staten Island tried to ban a gay group from the parade earlier this month. I love the WTF expression on the face of Dominick DeRubbio in the pic on that story. I’ll never understand the impulse to keep people out of a parade because of who they are or what they say.
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We’re here, we’re queer, we’re about to fill our bellies with green beer! Dedication to the cause is mandatory, dignity optional.
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