Category: gay dads

Michael Peterson, Netflix, The Staircase and the LGBT Angle; A Dad Defending His Gay Son; Mr. Kluge’s Anti-LGBT Religious Beliefs

Michael Peterson, Netflix, The Staircase and the LGBT Angle

The Staircase on Netflix is one of those real life crime dramas, and I didn’t expect to find anything LGBT related when I started watching. In fact, this isn’t even my favorite genre and I only started watching because there was nothing else on that night. However, I soon found out there is an LGBT angle, and it’s important to the entire theme of the series.

Here’s a brief description from Wiki:

The Staircase (French: Soupçons, lit. ”Suspicions”; also known as Death on the Staircase) is a 2004 French television miniseries by Jean-Xavier de Lestradedocumenting the trial of Michael Peterson, accused of murdering his wife, Kathleen Peterson.
Following from de Lestrade’s Oscar-winning Murder on a Sunday Morning, filming began soon after Peterson’s indictment. Camera crews were given access to the accused’s extended family, the defense attorneys, and to the courtroom.[3] The film features a brief appearance by Mike Nifong, a future figure in the Duke lacrosse case, working with the team prosecuting Peterson.

It’s a fascinating crime series that had me hooked the instant I started the first episode…for many reasons. I won’t give out any spoilers, but by the time I was finished watching I was stunned. Stunned at the way the process works…or doesn’t work.

The LGBT angle alone made me wonder. Michael Peterson who was on trial for allegedly murdering his wife was a discreet bisexual and he had associations (for lack of a better word) with other men. The defense attorney made an interesting comment, one that I was thinking as I was watching. If Michael Peterson had been involved with other women instead of men, and his sexual associations outside of his marriage had been heterosexual, would he have been treated the same way? Was he treated differently because he was bisexual?

I think he was treated differently. After I listened to the final statements and the homophobic rants of one woman prosecutor, I’m certain his bisexuality made a difference. This also happened back in the early 2000s and the world was still a very different place. Let me put it this way. If I were wrongly accused of doing something and the people on THAT jury held my fate in their hands, as an openly gay man I would be very, very worried.

Overall, the topic of Michael Peterson’s bisexuality was handled very well by his wonderful family and his attorneys. But the way everyone else reacted to finding out that Michael Peterson was bisexual was often hard to watch. Several actually reacted with disdain and shame in the most obvious homophobic ways possible. You could almost feel one or two cringe.

If you haven’t watched anything like this before I highly suggest you check it out. The LGBT angle alone is worth watching. There’s also an episode where a discreet male escort who was associated with Peterson is forced to take the stand in court, and he’s very interesting to watch. The whole thing turned the escort’s life upside down for a while.

You can read more at the link above, and here’s a link to the Netflix page. 

A Dad Defending His Gay Son

I’m always interested in stories like this because they often mimic what I’m writing at any given time. As it happens, I’m working on a novel right now where the focus is on how the straight dad relates to his gay son, and how protective the dad feels toward his gay son. That’s not something that’s explored often. There’s usually an awkward relationship between a straight dad and a gay son, but I think that’s changing.

This one is about a dad defending his gay son in the best way I’ve seen so far…

“Ever since I attended a community progressive dinner party and served an array of Lunchables on a silver platter and Capri Suns I filled with white wine,” he tells Gay Star News.
When Akhavein told his dad about what the nemesis said, his pops responded: “Buy yourself the loudest suit your big gay heart desires” and gave him a wad of cash.

Here’s the rest. There are some excellent photos, too.

Mr. Kluge’s Anti-LGBT Religious Beliefs 

This happened in Indiana of all places. Mr. Kluge is a school teacher and according to this article he’s claiming he was forced to resign because he flatly refused to refer to a trans student with the trans student’s preferred name. Mr. Kluge claims it goes against his religious beliefs.  But the whole story is a little more complicated and I think it’s important to watch the video, too.

Here’s a comment from trans student, Aidyn Sucec…

‘Everybody advocating in support for Kluge needs to think about what is like to be a transgender person and what it is like to live your life knowing that there are people that would say that you are not an actual human being and actively disrespect you,’ said trans student Aidyn Sucec.
‘
‘I think that Mr. Kluge’s religious beliefs have absolutely no place in a public high school,’ Sucec said. ‘I think what he believes is morally just conflicts [sic] with what not only I believe, what my parents believe, what my psychiatrist, therapist, and doctor believe and the school board believe are morally just.’

Here’s more.   



A PG Rated Gay Romance


Altered Parts: Limited Edition


In Their Prime by Ryan Field

Amazon: Amish Indiscretion

Are Engagement Rings Anti-Feminist; TransAmerica Reality TV; Gay Superdads

Are Engagement Rings Anti-Feminist

When I read the following article about a young straight man getting stuck with a $10,000 engagement ring, I couldn’t help thinking in terms of gay marriage and gay relationships. I think that with most gay couples at this point in time, at least from what I’m hearing with friends and from what I’m doing with Tony, we are all equals in our relationships, at least when it comes to rings. In other words, I’m not buying Tony a $10,000.00 engagement ring, and he’s not buying one for me either. We’ve had rings already for a long time. But if we didn’t have them we would buy wedding rings or engagement rings for both of us, and not just one huge ridiculously expensive ring for just one in the relationship.

I’m sure there are gay couples who might think differently somewhere (especially if one is much, much older than the other…those younger second husbands of gay mid-life crisis relationships make out like bandits), but this is what I’ve always known in the circles where I travel. This all gets into a more complicated area, and how in this case there is no gender power in most gay relationships…or gay romances…but I’ll save that for another post.

In any event, in this article a young man who was engaged to a young woman came home one day and found she’d left him, canceled the wedding plans, and decided she wasn’t ready to get married. No problem there. We all have the right to change our minds. Good thing she realized it before they got married. However, as is the case in most of the straight relationships I know, the young man was left holding a $10,000.00 engagement ring that he’d purchased for her with his life savings. And these rings are not investments, at least not unless you have the Hope Diamond or there’s some significant storied famed that comes with the ring. The retail mark up with jewelry is a crime.

When he tried to sell the ring he’d spent most his life savings on, he found that he could only get a third of the original price.

“The offer was staggeringly low,” Opperman says on his website. “Rather than get mad I decided to break even.”

The article goes on to discuss how young men who have been taken this way, and left holding an item that had been marked up tens times its worth, can get back something so they aren’t at a staggering loss. And there’s an emotional investment here, too, that can’t be ignored. If a guy is willing to part with his life savings to buy a tiny little hunk of metal with a clear stone, he’s definitely in love and he’s willing to do anything.

And I can’t help thinking how counter-productive this is to feminism and all the things we hear about these days when it comes to equal rights for women. It just seems to me there’s a double standard when the man is expected to spend thousands of dollars on an engagement ring and he doesn’t receive something of equal value in return. In the same respect, this tradition of engagement rings is just as antiquated as the tradition of the bride’s family paying for the wedding.

TransAmerica Reality TV

From the producers of Ru Paul’s Drag Race, comes a new reality show that might be titled TransAmerica

According to a press release sent to the Huffington Post, Doron Ofir Casting is seeking “beautiful,” “dynamic” and “fashionable” transgender women to take part in a new reality series that will explore the personal and public lives of modern day women who self-identify as trans. “TransAmerica” hopes to redefine stereotypes by exploring the complex world of dating and careers for transgender women, in an effort to both entertain and educate audiences.

You can read more here. I hope they do this right, in the sense that it’s not something that resembles a carnival or sideshow, like TV producers tend to do with anything LGBT, especially with the T part. There are a lot of misconceptions about transgender people out there, and I would hate to see anything that would only promote more misconceptions. I also think there is a hidden aspect that’s rarely discussed often. More straight men out there who aren’t willing to admit it find transgender women highly attractive. If that weren’t the case, the transgender adult entertainment industry wouldn’t be doing so well.

I wish we would see more of this in LGBT romance.

Gay Superdads

This is truly one of the nicest pieces I’ve read in a long time. A gay couple in Arizona, a state like Pennsylvania that doesn’t allow legal same-sex marriage, is adopting fourteen kids.

Despite living in a state where gay marriage is still prohibited, the longtime foster parents have successfully cleared several legal hurdles on their way to adopting a family that requires a 15-seat van just to go to the park, Today.com reports.

The Hams’ journey began back in 2003, when the Phoenix couple took in Michael, then 5, a victim of abuse who was living in a group home.

This is another example of real life heroes who often go unnoticed.

You can read more here. The article goes on to explain one of those things that many people consider real life coincidences, or twists of fate. I’ve been studying metaphysics for a long, long time, and I don’t believe there are any accidents.