Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Separate church and state: Abolish marriage!

The opinion given in today's CA Supreme Court ruling demonstrates how the fight for same-sex marriage continues to reinforce injustice, not support it. The "Marriage Equality" movement continues to empower the State and a majority of Americans in making sweeping decisions that interfere with the private lives of many, many non-traditional families, and not just queer ones.

The assimilationist strategies that mainline LGBT orgs have been pursuing -- despite their recent successes in the northeast and Iowa -- reinforce long-standing traditions of privileges for the few, not equal rights for all. Lisa Duggan put it this way in a Feb 2006 article in the Nation:

"In a bid for equality, some gay groups are producing rhetoric that insults and marginalizes unmarried people, while promoting marriage in much the same terms as the welfare reformers use to stigmatize single-parent households, divorce and "out of wedlock" births. If pursued in this way, the drive for gay-marriage equality can undermine rather than support the broader movement for social justice and democratic diversity."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040315/duggan

Even if the CA Supreme Court had overturned Prop 8 today, they would not have ushered in a new era of justice. All this gay marriage advocacy stuff does is support (and even INVITE) the State's interference in our vastly diverse and often non-traditional private lives.

Progressives, libertarians and conservatives CAN share common ground on the issue of so-called "same-sex marriage." Privatizing marriage (separating church and state) is a winnable fight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_privatization

While Alan Dershowitz is not my favorite legal scholar, on this issue I think he gets it right:

"Though some traditionalists would be certain to balk at an explicit division between marriage and civil union, a majority of Americans already agree that gay couples should be allowed to join in secular unions with the rights and responsibilities that generally accompany marriage.

So let each couple decide whether they want to receive the sacrament of marriage or the secular status of civil union. And let the state get out of the business of determining who should receive holy sacraments."

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Wednesday, May 13, 2009

THIS FRIDAY: Mutineers!

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Inbred Hybrid Collective and MIX NYC present


A new Book Club Burlesque
Inspired by "Mutiny On The Bounty"


MUTINEERS!
Taking Back the Piers

Friday, May 15, 8 pm 'til late




Location: On-board the Tender SS Lilac
Pier 40 (West Houston at West Side Highway, North Side)
Manhattan, New York

Donation: $5.00

A Book Club Burlesque inspired by "Mutiny On The Bounty" on board the good ship LILAC at Pier 40

With many talented artists confirmed to bring music, installations, dancing, and performance art to the various nooks and crannies of the historic Lilac, this event promises to be the event of the spring. For those who don't know, Book Club Burlesque is responsible for promoting sexy, literate fun through thematic choices. It is in every sense a Book Club, and in every sense a Burlesque party. It has been featured as a Voice Choice (Riverdale Sock-Hop) and features a revolving cast of eccentric contributors. Mutineers celebrates a life on the high seas, a naughty-cal night of art and adventure with plenty of booty-shaking!

Expect to dance ALL NIGHT LONG with DJ ECON from Happy Landing!

All contributors do so for ART's sake alone, but tips are appreciated and gathered in inverse order.
People you should expect to have read the book and been inspired by it:

Agnes DeGarron
Alexis Pace
Andy Thompson
Axon D'Luxe
Ben Lerman
Binky
Club Lum
Darlinda Just Darlinda
Dick Mitchell
Elisabeth Kley
Emily North

Eric Linton
Hex Project
Jeremiah Jones
Jonathan Bitchman
Julian of Nowhere
Lee Kyle
Lance Horne
Maia Star McCann
Miss Em
Ned Stresen-Reuter
Nicholas Gorham
Nicole Jaquis
Peter Cramer
Ricardo Caranza
Robert Appleton
Russ LaChance
Stephen Kent Jusick
Susannah The Goddess Perlman
Xavier
Woody Woods
... and more!

HOW will these people share their vast literary plunder and show you they're 20,000 leagues above the rest?! Come early, Stay Late, FIND OUT!

Friday, May 15th, 2009
Doors at 8pm, show at 8:30pm
The Lilac is moored at Pier 40
(West Side Hwy and W Houston St)

ABOUT Inbred Hybrid Collective
Inbred Hybrid Collective was established in 2005 with the mandate to stimulate a consciousness of the external factors affecting our human existence. The type of interventions associated with Inbred Hybrid Collective, achieved as artistic concept, constitute a provocation for the public to reflect upon the influence that this immersion has had upon them. Most recently Inbred Hybrid Collective made history as the first sanctioned performance artist at New York's Armory Show. We encourage our artists to fully bring their own creativity to each piece, relating their performance or installation to themes or text, and having sexy literate fun. Past Book Club Burlesque books have included: Lolita, Valley of the Dolls, Less Than Zero, The Scarlet Letter, Archie Comics, the Brothers Grimm Collection, Siddhartha, Stranger in a Strange Land, City of Night, Please Send Money.

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SAVE THESE DATES for these other MIX NYC
events coming up in May and June

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May 31 | 7 pm
Screening of The Polymath
2007, USA, video, color, sound, 75 min.
Union Docs | 322 Union Avenue | Brooklyn, NY 11211
Follow Samuel Delany (author of The Motion of Light in Water) to a literary conference where his books are compared to Joyce and Melville, then accompany him on a cheerful, row-by-row tour of a typical porn theater.
Fred Barney Taylor's The Polymath includes home movies of Delany's middle-class Harlem childhood, a crazy art film he directed in the early '70s, and priceless trivia, like the fact that he wrote two issues of Wonder Woman for DC Comics in which she abandoned her superpowers and became a feminist secret agent. Post-event discussion w/ filmmakers. $5 donation. Reservations suggested. Email bodega@uniondocs.org for details.

June 12 | 8 pm
Forbidden Words, Forbidden Bodies
MIX NYC @ The BAAD! Out Like That! Festival 2009
Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance | 841 Barretto Street 2nd Floor | Bronx, NY 10474
What is forbidden to us is determined not only by the mainstream culture but also by our own home cultures. The selected works look through multiple cultural lenses to speak the artist's truths. They explore what we have been forbidden to speak about, from queer masculinity to HIV status, and what we have been forbidden to want, from a tryst in the restroom to a way out of gendered racial stereotypes.

June 18 | 7:30 pm
Live Wire/Remote, The Education of Abou Ben Adhem, etc.
Anthology Film Archives | 32 Second Ave | Manhattan, NY
World premiers by Jack Waters and Peter Cramer. Waters is a filmmaker, writer, media artist, choreographer, and performer. Cramer is an archivist, filmmaker, performer, and curator. Their 20-year collaboration is currently represented in the development of a multi-media opus-in-progress titled PESTILENCE, a concept initiated in residence at the Emily Harvey Foundation in Venice, Italy. They are the co-founders of LE PETIT VERSAILLES, an Operation Green Thumb garden on the Lower East Side that presents screenings, music, performance, visual art exhibitions, and new media; and the custodians of ABC NO RIO's extensive archives, under Allied Productions, Inc., the artist-run organization they co-founded.

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And check out our Call for Submissions
for the 22nd MIX Festival, coming this Fall



AVAILABLE ONLINE NOW AT MIXNYC.ORG


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MIX NYC
Office: 79 Pine Street #132
New York, NY 10005
212.742.8880
info@mixnyc.org
www.mixnyc.org

MIX NYC promotes, produces and preserves experimental media that is rooted in the lives, politics, and experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and otherwise queer-identified people. MIX's work challenges mainstream notions of gender and sexuality while also upending traditional categories of form and content.

MIX NYC, a 501(c)3 non-profit arts organization, is SUPPORTED by the New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Dept. of Cultural Affairs, Office of State Senator Tom Duane, Materials for the Arts, @Seaport, Experimental Television Center, Babeland, Kodak, HX, Go Magazine, Visual AIDS, General Growth Properties, Ford Foundation, Gesso Foundation, Gill Foundation, Phil Zwickler Charitable & Memorial Foundation Trust, and the generosity of many individuals!