Al Fischer & Charlie Robin

Al Fischer (b. 1965), a gay Catholic school music teacher who was fired after revealing plans to wed his male partner, Charlie Robin (b. 1965), tied the knot in New York on March 9, 2012. Charlie Robin is Executive Director at Edison Theatre, Washington University (Edison serves as a teaching facility for the Washington University Performing Arts Department, which produces three mainstage Edison shows each year and serves as a performance venue for Washington University student organizations.)

As The New York Times reported, Al Fischer and Charlie Robin celebrated their 20th anniversary as a couple with a romantic ceremony at Central Park's Bethesda Fountain on March 9, 2012, followed by tickets to see Broadway's "Priscilla: Queen of the Desert".

The Missouri-based Fischer, was fired on February 17, 2012, from St. Ann Catholic School in north St. Louis county, where he'd worked for four years, after a representative of the St. Louis Archdiocese was made aware of "[Fischer's] plan to unite in marriage with an individual of the same sex," according to St. Ann's pastor. "With full respect of this individual's basic human dignity, this same-sex union opposes Roman Catholic teaching as it cannot realize the full potential a marital relationship is meant to express," Rev. Bill Kempf is quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

The St. Louis Archdiocese echoed those sentiments in a statement, saying it supports the school's action "as it is in full compliance with the Christian Witness Statement signed by every educator in the Catholic school system," according to the AP.


Al Fischer, a gay Catholic school music teacher who was fired after revealing plans to wed his male partner, Charlie Robin, tied the knot in New York on March 9, 2012. Charlie Robin is Executive Director at Edison Theatre, Washington University. The marriage had been in the works since the year before, March 9, the couple's 19th anniversary, when Mr. Robin proposed. "He got down on one knee, put the show on pause and said, "'Just to make it official, will you marry me?'" Mr. Fischer said.

( Read more... )

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/11/al-fischer-fired-gay-catholic-music-teacher-wedding-_n_1337482.html

Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time by Elisa Rolle
Paperback: 760 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (July 1, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1500563323
ISBN-13: 978-1500563325
Amazon: Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time

Days of Love chronicles more than 700 LGBT couples throughout history, spanning 2000 years from Alexander the Great to the most recent winner of a Lambda Literary Award. Many of the contemporary couples share their stories on how they met and fell in love, as well as photos from when they married or of their families. Included are professional portraits by Robert Giard and Stathis Orphanos, paintings by John Singer Sargent and Giovanni Boldini, and photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnson, Arnold Genthe, and Carl Van Vechten among others. “It's wonderful. Laying it out chronologically is inspired, offering a solid GLBT history. I kept learning things. I love the decision to include couples broken by death. It makes clear how important love is, as well as showing what people have been through. The layout and photos look terrific.” Christopher Bram “I couldn’t resist clicking through every page. I never realized the scope of the book would cover centuries! I know that it will be hugely validating to young, newly-emerging LGBT kids and be reassured that they really can have a secure, respected place in the world as their futures unfold.” Howard Cruse “This international history-and-photo book, featuring 100s of detailed bios of some of the most forward-moving gay persons in history, is sure to be one of those bestsellers that gay folk will enjoy for years to come as reference and research that is filled with facts and fun.” Jack Fritscher

John Gray & Marc-André Raffalovich

John Gray (2 March 1866 – 14 June 1934) was an English poet whose works include Silverpoints, The Long Road and Park: A Fantastic Story. It has often been suggested that he was the inspiration behind Oscar Wilde's fictional Dorian Gray.

Born in the working-class district of Bethnal Green, London, he was the first of nine children. He left school at the age of thirteen and began work as an apprentice metal-worker at the Arsenal. He continued his education through attending a series of evening classes, studying French, German, Latin, music and art. In 1882 he passed the Civil Service exams and five years later passed the University of London matriculation exams. He joined the Foreign Office where he became a librarian.

Gray is best known today as an aesthetic poet of the 1890s and as a friend of Ernest Dowson, Aubrey Beardsley and Oscar Wilde. He was also a talented translator, bringing works by the French Symbolists Mallarmé, Verlaine, Laforgue and Rimbaud into English, often for the first time. He is purported to be the inspiration behind the title character in Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, but distanced himself from this rumor. It should also be noted that Wilde's story was serialised in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine a year before their relationship began. His relationship with Wilde was initially intense, but had cooled for over two years by the time of Wilde's imprisonment. The relationship appears to have been at its height in the period 1891-1893.


John Gray and Marc-Andre Raffalovich with a friend (Miss Gribbell) in the 1910
John Gray's life partner was Marc-Andre Raffalovich, a wealthy poet and early defender of homosexuality. Raffalovich himself became a Catholic in 1896. When Gray went to Edinburgh he settled nearby. The two maintained a chaste relationship until Raffalovich's sudden death in 1934. A devastated Gray died exactly four months later at St. Raphael's nursing home in Edinburgh after a short illness.

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gray_(poet)

Marc-André Raffalovich (11 September 1864 – 14 February 1934) was a French poet and writer on homosexuality, best known today for his patronage of the arts and for his lifelong relationship with the poet, John Gray. (Picture: Marc-Andre Raffalovich As painted by A. Dampier May, 1886)

Raffalovich was born into a wealthy Jewish family, which moved from Odessa in the Ukraine to the French capital, Paris, in 1863. His brother, Arthur, became a noted Parisian financier and economist. André went up to study in Oxford in 1882 before settling down in London and opening a salon in the 1890s. Oscar Wilde attended, calling the event a saloon rather than a salon. This is where Raffalovich met the love and companion of his life, John Gray. In 1890, his sister Sophie married the Irish nationalist politician William O'Brien (1852-1928).

In 1894, Raffalovich started to contribute on the subject of homosexuality (unisexualité, as he called it) to the Archives de l'Anthropologie Criminelle, a prestigious revue founded in Lyon by Alexandre Lacassagne, a pioneer criminologist and professor of forensic medicine. He soon became recognised as an expert in the field, engaging in correspondence with other researchers throughout Europe.

His magnum opus, Uranisme et unisexualité: étude sur différentes manifestations de l'instinct sexuel was published in 1896. In 1897, he started working on Annales de l'unisexualité, and les Chroniques de l'unisexualité with the aim of cataloging everything published on the subject of homosexuality. These have proved useful to historians up to this day.

( Read more... )

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc-Andr%C3%A9_Raffalovich

Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time by Elisa Rolle
Paperback: 760 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (July 1, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1500563323
ISBN-13: 978-1500563325
CreateSpace Store: https://www.createspace.com/4910282
Amazon (Paperback): http://www.amazon.com/dp/1500563323/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Amazon (Kindle): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MZG0VHY/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

Days of Love chronicles more than 700 LGBT couples throughout history, spanning 2000 years from Alexander the Great to the most recent winner of a Lambda Literary Award. Many of the contemporary couples share their stories on how they met and fell in love, as well as photos from when they married or of their families. Included are professional portraits by Robert Giard and Stathis Orphanos, paintings by John Singer Sargent and Giovanni Boldini, and photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnson, Arnold Genthe, and Carl Van Vechten among others. “It's wonderful. Laying it out chronologically is inspired, offering a solid GLBT history. I kept learning things. I love the decision to include couples broken by death. It makes clear how important love is, as well as showing what people have been through. The layout and photos look terrific.” Christopher Bram “I couldn’t resist clicking through every page. I never realized the scope of the book would cover centuries! I know that it will be hugely validating to young, newly-emerging LGBT kids and be reassured that they really can have a secure, respected place in the world as their futures unfold.” Howard Cruse “This international history-and-photo book, featuring 100s of detailed bios of some of the most forward-moving gay persons in history, is sure to be one of those bestsellers that gay folk will enjoy for years to come as reference and research that is filled with facts and fun.” Jack Fritscher

Elizabeth Eden & John Wojtowicz

Elizabeth Debbie Eden (born Ernest Aron; August 19, 1946 – September 29, 1987) was an American transsexual woman whose boyfriend John Wojtowicz attempted to rob a bank to pay for her sex reassignment surgery. The incident was made into the 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon. The character Leon Shermer, played by Chris Sarandon, is loosely based on Aron.

Eden, then known as Ernest Aron, and Wojtowicz were married on December 4, 1971 in Greenwich Village.

At the time of Wojtowicz's attempted robbery of a Chase Manhattan bank branch in Brooklyn, New York, on August 22, 1972, she was in a psychiatric institution, following a series of suicide attempts. Eden was not previously aware of his plans. After the failed heist, Wojtowicz was sentenced to 20 years, although he was released in April 1978; while imprisoned, he sold the movie rights to the story for $7,500 and subsequently was able to help finance Eden's sex reassignment surgery.

Eden, born in Ozone Park, Queens, died of AIDS-related pneumonia, aged 41, in Rochester, New York. Her personal papers and photographs were donated posthumously to the National Archive of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender History at the Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Transgender Community Center on June 14, 1990. Wojtowicz died of cancer on January 2, 2006, aged 60, in his mother's home.


Elizabeth Eden was an American transsexual woman whose boyfriend John Wojtowicz attempted to rob a bank to pay for her sex reassignment surgery. The incident was made into the '75 film Dog Day Afternoon. Wojtowicz was sentenced to 20 ys, although he was released in April 1978; while imprisoned, he sold the movie rights to the story for $7,500 and subsequently was able to help finance Eden's sex reassignment surgery. Eden died of AIDS-related pneumonia, aged 41. Wojtowicz died of cancer in 2006.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Eden

John Stanley Wojtowicz (March 9, 1945 - January 2, 2006) was an American bank robber whose story inspired the 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon.

Wojtowicz, the son of Polish immigrants, married Carmen Bifulco in 1967. They had two children, and separated in 1969. Wojtowicz later met Ernest Aron (later to be known as Elizabeth Debbie Eden) in 1971 at an Italian feast in New York City. The two had a public wedding ceremony in 1971.

On August 22, 1972, Wojtowicz, along with Salvatore Naturale and Robert Westenberg, attempted to rob a branch of the Chase Manhattan bank on the corner of East Third Street and Avenue P in Gravesend, Brooklyn. The heist was meant to pay for Aron's sex reassignment surgery. Wojtowicz and Naturale held seven Chase Manhattan bank employees hostage for 14 hours. Westernberg fled the scene before the robbery was underway when he saw a police car on the street. Wojtowicz, a former bank teller, had some knowledge of bank operations. However, he apparently based his plan on scenes from the movie The Godfather, which he had seen earlier that day. The robbers became media celebrities. Wojtowicz was arrested, but Naturale was killed by the FBI during the final moments of the incident.

Respected Village Voice columnist and investigative journalist, Arthur Bell, who knew Wojtowicz (and was tangentially involved in the negotiations) reported that paying for Aron's sex change was only peripheral to the real motive behind the attempted heist, which was, in fact, a well-planned Mafia operation that went horribly wrong.

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Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wojtowicz

( Further Readings )

More LGBT Couples at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

Jack Kenny & Michael Goodell

Jack Kenny (born March 9, 1958) is an American actor, television director, writer, and producer. Kenny has been with his longtime partner, Michael Goodell, son of the late US Senator Charles Goodell of New York, and brother of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell since August 1982. The couple were legally married in California in July 2008. (P: Gage Skidmore. Jack Kenny at the 2012 Comic-Con in San Diego)

Kenny was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Sally and John Joseph Kenny, Jr., a business manager for IBM. He is a graduate of the Juilliard School Theatre Center (1978-1982), where his classmates in 1982 included Megan Gallagher, Penny Johnson, Jack Stehlin, and Lorraine Toussaint.

After graduating from Juilliard, Kenny was a member of John Houseman's The Acting Company. His New York acting debut was in The Normal Heart at Joseph Papp's Public Theater, and his Broadway debut was as "Motel, the tailor" in the 25th anniversary production of Fiddler on the Roof.

Kenny co-created the television comedy series Titus (broadcast by Fox Network from 2000 to 2002) with his writing partner Brian Hargrove and comedian Christopher Titus.

He was the creator of the 2006 NBC television show The Book of Daniel, which was cancelled after four episodes had aired. Though NBC gave no official explanation, the program had been the victim of a threatened advertiser boycott by the American Family Association and other groups for its content before a single episode had aired. In a 2006 article in The Advocate, Kenny, who is gay, took issue with the LGBT community for not acting when he and the show were attacked.


Jack Kenny (born March 9, 1958) is an American actor, television director, writer, and producer. Kenny has been with his longtime partner, Michael Goodell, son of the late US Senator Charles Goodell of New York, and brother of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell since August 1982. The couple were legally married in California in July 2008. In 2014, Kenny joined the advisory board of Sci-Fest, the first annual Los Angeles Science Fiction One-Act Play Festival, to be held in May 2014.

( Read more... )

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kenny

More Real Life Romances at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

Carole Maso (born March 9, 1956)

Carole Maso (born March 9, 1956) is a contemporary American novelist and essayist, known for her experimental, poetic and fragmentary narratives often called postmodern. She received a B.A. in English from Vassar College in 1977. She is the recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship for Fiction, an NEA fellowship, and several other grants. Her first published novel was Ghost Dance, which appeared in 1986. Her best known novel is probably Defiance, published in 1998. She is a professor of literary arts at Brown University, where she has taught since 1995, and has previously held positions as a writer-in-residence at Illinois State University in 1991–92 and George Washington University in 1992–93, as well as teaching writing at Columbia University in 1993. A forthcoming novel, The Bay of Angels, incorporates various narrative types—essay, memoir, prose poems, and even graphics—and represents nearly 15 years of work. Parts of The Bay of Angels have appeared in journals and anthologies.

Maso was born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1956, the child of her jazz musician father and her emergency room nurse mother.

Maso admits she was not an avid reader in childhood. Indeed, she did not write creatively until her senior year at Vassar, when she submitted about 50 pages of prose poems as her senior honors thesis. It is at this point that she knew she wanted to be a writer.

Maso eschewed the traditional path to teaching, having never studied formally beyond her Vassar B.A., despite having been offered a graduate fellowship at Boston University. Rather, she devoted 9 years to learning the craft by doing, writing while alternately working as a waitress, artist's model, and fencing instructor. She also did some house- and cat-sitting, which afforded her time to write. Maso has referred to this period as her "apprenticeship years."

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carole_Maso

The Art Lover by Carole Maso is promo and meta-fictional but effortlessly so, without pretense. The narrator is caring for a male friend dying of AIDS, but we also hear the voice of "Carole Maso," the novelist struggling to tell the story, as well as an interpolated scrapbook of everyday NYC imagery, including hand-lettered signs and the charts of the night sky the Times used to publish. It is all seamless and tender and powerful. No one else's take on the age of AIDS sounds (or looks) like The Art Lover, and yet Maso assembles it all so naturally that, after a few pages and a few star charts, you wonder why every novel can't be like this. --David Pratt

( Further Readings )

More Particular Voices at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Particular Voices

Blog Tour: Frankie & Al by Sue Brown

Frankie & Al (Frankie's Series Book 1) by Sue Brown
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press; 1 edition (March 20, 2014)
Amazon Kindle: Frankie & Al (Frankie's Series Book 1)

Dumped by his boyfriend, Frankie Mason goes out with the girls, gets totally trashed, and ends his night by falling in front of a taxi. He’s rescued by a man with beautiful green eyes who takes care of him until he’s put into an ambulance. Frankie curses himself as he realizes he doesn’t have the man’s phone number. Still in pain a few days later, he is dragged out to a club only to be saved by Green Eyes once more. This time, he isn’t letting the man go.

Unfortunately Frankie has to attend a team-building exercise, nicknamed Womb Weekend, organized by his company. Al is working so he doesn't mind, until he discovers who the team leader is. Al has a lot of explaining to do!

( EXCERPT )

 
Ed & Marchant (Frankie's Series Book 2) by Sue Brown
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press; 1 edition (November 12, 2014)
Amazon Kindle: Ed & Marchant (Frankie's Series Book 2)

Ed Winters despises his job and hates everyone he works with—especially out and proud, happily in love Frankie Mason. He spends his days wishing he could dance, rather than work.

Late to go shopping one day, Ed ends up soaked in Marchant Belarus’s spilled Coke. Ed’s humiliation increases when Marchant, the owner of a BDSM club, realizes Ed is a sub, albeit a very closeted one. Marchant’s attempts to draw Ed out of his shell release years of pent-up anger and hurt over the abuse Ed’s mother and grandmother heaped on him.

Marchant is patient, but nothing he does seems to help until he discovers Ed’s secret love of dancing—a forbidden passion that might be the key to unlocking the confident, secure man Ed could be.

Anthony & Leo (Frankie’s 3) by Sue Brown
Link: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=6188
This product will be in stock on Wednesday 25 March, 2015

Watching Marchant train his new sub leaves Tony unhappy at not having found a Dom of his own. Running Marchant’s BDSM club, Tony sees who the Doms prefer and it isn’t him—too big, too old, and too hairy. When his friend Jordan suggests he look outside the club, Tony’s mind turns to Leo, a man he met in a traffic jam. Tony manages to arrange a date and happily learns Leo is funny, very toppy, and not averse to Tony's lifestyle. As a bonus, Leo sells sex toys.
When tragedy strikes the club, Tony fears he can’t help the mourning club members, but Leo offers his unwavering support. After such a tough start, Tony believes Leo is the Dom he’s been looking for... until he catches him kissing another man.

AUTHOR BIO: Sue Brown is owned by her dog and two children. When she isn't following their orders, she can be found plotting at her laptop. In fact she hides so she can plot and has gotten expert at ignoring the orders.
Sue discovered M/M erotica at the time she woke up to find two men kissing on her favorite television series. The series was boring; the kissing was not. She may be late to the party, but she's made up for it since, writing fan fiction until she was brave enough to venture out into the world of original fiction.

AUTHOR LINKS
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/SueBrownsStories
Twitter: https://twitter.com/suebrownstories
Google+: https://plus.google.com/+SueBrownstories/
Blog: http://suebrownsstories.blogspot.co.uk/
Website: http://www.suebrownstories.com/
Email ID: suebrown.stories@gmail.com

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What You Are by Erin E. Keller

At first I didn't like much the story, Alex was to edged, too harsh, Daniel was too much a punching ball, taking everything Alex was lashing out without apparently back bone. But it's actually those extreme characterization that made the reading interesting. I wanted to see how they were to come together, cause coming together (no pun intended) was obviously the natural outcome. And during their separate paths that had to join somewhere, the characters changed, displaying how Alex was indeed full of insecurity, and how Daniel instead was strong, and able to be the mainstay Alex needed to take back in track his life.

The story isn't really long, and truth be told, I wouldn't have minded a little more background when Alex was doing self-assessment and looking back at his past to correct his present and future. But aside for this, even if in few pages, the plot seemed well developed, the love story between Alex and Daniel slow but steady, even if the attraction was there from moment one, they took their time to bring it to a physical level.

Interesting debut for this author, I'm pretty sure I will read more from her.

Publisher: JMS Books LLC (February 8, 2015)
Amazon Kindle: What You Are

More Reviews at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, My Reviews