Lesbian

State Rep. Brian K. Sims, the first openly gay candidate to win a legislative election in Pennsylvania, recently was asked by another lawmaker to explain a proposed antidiscrimination measure. " 'Tell me about your gay bill,' " Sims recalled Rep. Mario Scavello, a Monroe County Republican, asking him on the floor of the House. Three other Republicans who were nearby listened as Sims argued that it was overdue for Pennsylvania to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protected categories such as race, religion, age, and disability.

Where would you have wanted your teen-age kids on a Saturday night a couple of summers ago - racing up and down country roads in souped-up cars and trucks or home watching "Truman" with the neighborhood lesbian couple? I like to pose that question when I hear how perverted the so-called gay lifestyle is. No, we weren't engaging in behavior that would make the Lord send down his wrath; my partner and I - history buffs - watched the drama about our 33rd president. Just one more example that gay families are no different from most folks.

More than 300 people turned out last night for a $150-a-plate black-tie dinner to raise money to help secure full civil rights for gay men and lesbians and to push for stronger federal policies to combat AIDS. Last night's event is one of a series of similar affairs that will be held around the country to raise money for the Human Rights Campaign Fund. The organization is the largest lesbian and gay political organization in the country. The money raised last night will help the organization lobby Congress and support political candidates that support its goals.

In the frantic and farcical spirit of Pedro Almod?var, My Mother Likes Women is about three grown daughters of a Madrid concert pianist who comically conspire to break up their mother's affair with a classical musician young enough to be their sister. The eldest and youngest of the siblings are merely disapproving of their elegant mother's new liaison. But middle sister Elvira (Leonor Watling, the comatose lovely of Almod?var's Talk to Her), plunges into an emotional tailspin.

Suddenly is an exceedingly long, 94-minute lesbian rampage movie, sort of, in Argentinian Spanish, and we are to think that somewhere in its gritty black-and-white footage there are nuggets of Meaning and several rings of Truth. I didn't find any of these, although the film kept asking me to try. I found, instead, a fabulous cast trapped in Diego Lerman's desultory movie about a sad and sincere Buenos Aires woman named Marcia (Tatiana Saphir) who works in an underwear shop and is accosted on the street by two aimless, horrid women named Mao (Carla Crespo)

Like a certain celebrated TV taproom about to make its last call, Maud's was a place where everyone knew your name. Not to mention your sexual preference. On the fringe of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, itself on the fringe of the Bay Area social carpet, Maud's was a gals-only bar - a Sapphic Cheers that from 1966 to 1989 catered to San Francisco's lesbian community. The pretext of the affectionate documentary Last Call at Maud's is to chronicle the 23-year history of this watering hole where everyone from singer Janis Joplin to San Francisco Police Commissioner Gwenn Craig tossed back a few. But the subtext of this modest production is to provide a thumbnail sketch of the civil rights indignities endured and protests waged by the lesbian community since the postwar period.

Two books published by my company, "Daddy's Roommate" and "Heather Has Two Mommies," are in the middle of the controversy surrounding New York's the "Children of the Rainbow" first-grade curriculum. The controversy, of course, is coming from adults. Many New York school boards, led by Queens District 24, have rebelled against Chancellor Joseph Fernandez' call for a curriculum that includes references to lesbians and gay men - and that includes our books on a suggested reading list.

Somewhere between a Jewish wedding and a very small circus, Sara Felder's June Bride, now at the Painted Bride Art Center, is an entertaining and good-natured one-woman show. Like Felder's Out of Sight last year, June Bride is autobiographical. Felder's m.o. is to tell a story about a major event in her life while punctuating the narrative with some impressive juggling (balls, cleavers, scarves, boxes). The event this time is her marriage to Dev, and the complications of two women planning a traditional Jewish wedding, chuppah and all. "I always wanted a wedding," Felder says "- a big, beautiful, loud, happy, traditional, lesbian, Jewish wedding.

RED. That's the first color I think of when I think of the Man in Black. Red was the color of the Columbia Records labels on my grandparents' Johnny Cash records. You might wonder what a lesbian who was born and raised in South Jersey has to do with Johnny Cash, the country music superstar who died Friday at 71. Well, my story probably is like that of a lot of kids who lived through the '60s, gay and straight. Growing up, my brother and I often slept over at my grandparents' while my parents went off and did whatever parents do when the kids aren't around.

DEBBIE WOODELL says in her op-ed that author Kittredge Cherry did not write her novel "Jesus in Love" to advance the cause of lesbian and gay rights. But the evidence says otherwise. What other reason would there be? There is no evidence to prove Jesus was gay, straight or attracted to others. This is fiction, just like "The Da Vinci Code" and the anti-Christian left swallows it hook, line and sinker. What rights are the gay community lacking? After all, they can get married, have health benefits, even their own parade.

State Rep. Brian K. Sims, the first openly gay candidate to win a legislative election in Pennsylvania, recently was asked by another lawmaker to explain a proposed antidiscrimination measure. " 'Tell me about your gay bill,' " Sims recalled Rep. Mario Scavello, a Monroe County Republican, asking him on the floor of the House. Three other Republicans who were nearby listened as Sims argued that it was overdue for Pennsylvania to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protected categories such as race, religion, age, and disability.

WAY IN THE future, when Emily Kesselman would think back on Jan. 21, 2013, would she want to think, "I'm glad I went to work this morning" or "I'm glad I marched in the 2013 inaugural procession"? That was the question posed by her stepfather when she was on the fence about marching. She could make Jan. 21 an average day, or she could make it extraordinary. She chose the latter. Kesselman and 13 other members of the Philadelphia Freedom Band, the city's only lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender band, will be down in Washington, D.C., Monday to celebrate the second inauguration of President Obama.

Q: I was wondering if you could answer a question for me. My niece is a lesbian. She tells me she does not find men attractive. I get that part and really do not have any objections. I love her for who she is, not who she chooses to love. Last week, I met her "girlfriend" and I am really confused. This women binds her breasts, dresses like a man and has a man's haircut. Honestly, if I was not told she was a woman, I would have thought she was a man. I don't understand why lesbians try so hard to look and act like men if other lesbians don't find men attractive.

As Chaz Bono recounted his transformation from cute little daughter of singers Sonny and Cher to the 43-year-old transgender man standing at the lectern, students at Penn State Abington recalled pieces of their own stories. For Richard Kirchenbauer, 60, it was the memory of seeing a 4-year-old Chastity Bono in Sonny Bono's arms during a performance at the old Valley Forge Music Fair. For Seonne Baylor, 23, it was coming out as a lesbian to her parents. For Erin Donnelly, 18, it was accepting a cousin who revealed that she was pansexual.

In comedy, subtlety and timing separate what's raw from what's vulgar. Raw is the advice my dad gave me about loose women (date 'em). Vulgar is an anxiety-addled woman blurting out that she accidentally had sex with a chicken. The latter sort of line fills Jacqueline Goldfinger's Raw Stitch , where nine women hover around the stools in Quig's Pub at Plays & Players Theatre (rechristened the "bar of bad decisions") and deliver monologues on relationships and sex shared with men, women, priests, carloads of teenage boys, and, occasionally, farm animals.

WASHINGTON - A man who volunteered at a gay community center had a backpack full of Chick-fil-A sandwiches and a box of ammunition when he said "I don't like your politics" and shot a security guard at the headquarters of a conservative lobbying group, authorities revealed Thursday. The guard, Leonardo Johnson, 46, was resting comfortably at a hospital Thursday. Floyd Lee Corkins II, 28, was ordered held without bond on charges that he opened fire a day earlier inside the lobby of the Family Research Council, an influential conservative Christian group that has supported the president of the fast-food chain and his staunch opposition to same-sex marriage.

BURLINGTON, VT. - A Vermont woman whose former lesbian partner fled the country with the daughter born while they were joined in a civil union is suing her and a Virginia pastor who helped them flee to Nicaragua. Janet Jenkins, of Fair Haven, filed the civil lawsuit Tuesday when a jury was announcing its guilty verdict against Mennonite pastor Kenneth Miller, who helped Lisa Miller and daughter Isabella flee. The Rev. Kenneth Miller of Stuarts Draft, Va., who is not related to Lisa Miller, says he's "willing to accept the consequences" of his actions.

NEW YORK - Pioneering astronaut Sally Ride, who relished privacy as much as she did adventure, chose an appropriately discreet manner of coming out. At the end of an obituary that she cowrote with her partner, Tam O'Shaughnessy, they disclosed to the world their relationship of 27 years. That was it. As details trickled out after Ride's death Monday, it became clear that a circle of family, friends, and coworkers had long known of the relationship and embraced it. For millions of others, who admired Ride as the first American woman in space, it was a revelation - and it sparked a discussion about privacy vs. public candor in regard to sexual orientation.