Mid October 2014 Issue

2 cityXtraMagazine.COM

PROFILE 08 I Love Jax

INSIDE 3 Content

10 Failure of Library Straw Ballot

14 UNF Happenings

18 The HIV Shame Game

23 Stop Going To Church

COVER 12 Florida’s Horror Story: Freak Story

GAY TIMES LEGAL MATTERS

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EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Dr. Harvey Carr,

Joey Amato, OUT Reach Public Relations

Dr. Doug Massengill, University of Lola Chicago

Sebastion Fortino, Project Manager, Meredith Johnson

Contributing Writers

David Vandygriff, Joey Amato, Meredith Johnson, Laura Riggs, Dr. Harvey Carr, Tyler Curry,

Brianna Lee,

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23

JACKSONVILLE

Boot Rack: 4751 Lenox Blvd. (904) 384-7090 bootrack.com

Bo’s Club: 201 5th Ave. N. (Jax Beach) (904) 246-9874 bosclub.com

Club Jax: 1939 Hendricks Ave. (904) 398-7451

clubjax.com

Hamburger Mary’s: 3333-1 Beach Blvd. (904) 551-2048 hamburgermarys.com/jax

Incahoots: 711 Edison Ave.

(904) 353-6316

Park Place: 931 King St. (904) 389-6616

Metro: 859 Willow Branch Ave. (904) 388-7192 metrojax.com

The Norm: 2952 Roosevelt (904) 384-

0029


nig

htlife




I love JAX By Jacob Massengill

For me, the River City has a gravitational pull that’s more than just

a sentimental connection — it has a charm all its own. Here are seven reasons

why: Water /n a t u r e /ou t d oor activities — If you like water, you’ll like Jackson-ville. The heart of

the city is located on the St. Johns River, where you’ll find all sorts of recreational waterway traffic and activity. One of my favorite pastimes is cruising on the river near downtown Jacksonville at night and taking in the views of the illuminated cityscape. As you can imagine, the abundance of surrounding waters makes Jacksonville a fantastic fishing destination. The beaches are ranked some the best vacation spots in the USA. Sports — Golf and f i s h i n g aren’t the only sports Jackson-villians are into. The city cur-rently has professional and semi-professional teams, including the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars, the Arena Football League’s Jacksonville Sharks and the American

Basketball

Association’s Jacksonville Giants. Jacksonville also hosts two notable collegiate football events every year. The annual Florida-Georgia game is played at EverBank Field in October; the game-day revelry is known as “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.” EverBank Field also is the site of the Gator Bowl, which is played on or around New Year’s Day. Music — While it’s certainly no New York or Nashville, Jacksonville sports a vibrant music scene. A few legends spent time or got their start here: Ray Charlestickled the ivories in the LaVilla neighborhood early in his career, Southern rock groups The Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Molly Hatchet all originated here and guitarist Derek Truckshails from Jax. Downtown — Downtown Jacksonville you’ll f i n d u n i q u e c u l t u r a l f a r e , such as the First Wednes-day Art Walk, a celebra-tion of local artists, musicians, museums, bars and restaurants that takes place on the first Wednesday of every month. You’ll also more find more traditional fine art staples, such as the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra and the Museum of Contemporary Art. Along the riverfront, the Jacksonville Landing is a hub of shops, eateries and live entertainment, as well as a spot where you can board a water taxi for a relaxing jaunt on the St. Johns. At night, you can get your hipster bar fix at Club TSI or Dos Gatos, rub elbows with young professionals at the

PROFILE


http://www.jacksonvillelanding.com/

http://www.jacksonvillelanding.com/

http://www.clubtsi.com/

http://www.dosgatosjax.com/

at the upscale Mark’s club/lounge, or get your line dance on at Maverick’s Rock N’ Honky Tonk.

Riverside — Just south of Downtown on the west side of the St. Johns is Riverside, which is perhaps

Jacksonville’s edgiest locale. In 2010 the American Planning Association designated the larger Riverside-Avondale area one of the year’s Top 10 neighborhoods, an honor that also has been bestowed on Park Slope in Brooklyn, N.Y. and Pike Place Market in Seattle.In Riverside, you’ll find elegant residential architecture, numerous parks and a distinct eclectic feel. A mix of bars, boutique shops and cafes makes up the streets of Riverside’s historic Five Points district. Visit the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens. On Saturdays, stop by the Riverside Arts Market, a weekly cultural festival featuring arts, crafts, music and food.The King Street District has become one of the city’s premier nighttime alt-destinations. A cluster of trendy, well-managed establishments, including

Kickbacks Gastropub and The Loft, has transformed the area into a hip, happening scene that has some-thing to offer just about everyone. San Marco Square — Opposite side of St. Johns from Riverside is the San Marco Square, a pleasant district comprising eateries, shops, bookstores, lounges and theaters. Be sure to see a movie at the Art Deco San Marco Theatre, an old-fashioned film house. After the movie, you can head down to Square One, a two-story bar and lounge that often fea-tures live entertain-ment, in-cluding the occasional burlesque perform-ance. St. Johns Town Center — The St. Johns Town Center is Jacksonville’s massive outdoor retail mecca. This large open-air mall features such big-name anchor stores as Barnes & Noble and Best Buy, as well as Apple.


http://mavericksatthelanding.com/

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http://www.cummer.org/

http://www.riversideartsmarket.com/

http://sanmarcotheatre.com/

Failure of Library Straw

Ballot Symptomatic of Jacksonville’s Failure to Reach

“Potential” By Meredith Johnson

Recently the Library Straw Ballot failed by only 1,120 votes out of 86,992 cast in the August 26 Primary Election. A couple of days later, a friend showed me a video on YouTube entitled “Bob Broward & Taylor Hardwick – 1965 & 1992 – Downtown Visionaries.” What struck me was the hope and vision both of these men had for our downtown and for our city as a whole. They spoke of Jacksonville’s “potential,” a word frequently used by local business leaders, community activists and elected officials. Watching that video made it clear to me that our city has been languishing in “potential” for the last 50 years that has yet to attained.

The Library Straw Ballot is the latest casualty of “potential” not realized. A cornerstone of the Better Jacksonville Plan, a half-cent sales tax approved by voters in 2000 and also designed to help Jacksonville reach its “potential,” was improving our libraries. Out of Better Jacksonville Plan funding came the new Main Library downtown, complete with computer labs, a map room, meeting rooms and all kinds of multimedia materials available above and beyond books. But then City Council

began cutting funding for new materials, maintenance and personnel starting in 2005. And now here we are, nine years later – the libraries’ budget has been cut by 41% and weekly hours have been reduced by 288 (including the hours cut by the proposed closure of Maxville Branch Library, approved by the City Council Finance Committee last month) from the peak in 2005.

Funding for our public libraries comes out of what is known as the General Fund, where most of the funding for city services comes from. So every year, City Council has to make hard decisions around the General Fund, which also contains public-safety funding for police and fire. How can libraries compete with police when Jacksonville is experiencing what seems to be a never-ending crime wave? It’s a budget system that was doomed to fail for libraries. And fail it has. Go out to the Main Library or your neighborhood library on a Sunday (they’re all closed) or on a Tuesday at 10:30am (closed until 11am), and watch the seniors, students and parents with young children walk up to the locked doors and watch the surprise and dismay on their faces as they tug on the doors.

Some smart community leaders got together a few years ago and, after doing a ton of research including a well-known study from JCCI, Inc., came to the conclusion that an independent library district was the best solution to the problem of how to adequately fund our

libraries so they will still be around for future generations. Both Alachua and Orange Counties passed similar referenda over 20 years ago to secure stable funding to save their libraries. Our local library advocates rallied around the plan and gathered around 30,000 signatures from registered voters to place an opinion poll as a straw ballot in the August 26 primary election. It failed by a small margin. Only 17% of Duval County voters turned out to vote on that Election Day.

And so our libraries will continue to be gutted year after year until there’s little left of them, and Jacksonville’s mediocrity will continue. Just like the Human Rights Ordinance, just like the Jacksonville Journey, just like so many great things that could’ve been for our city, Jacksonville came so close to succeeding, but we didn’t quite get there. Until we all take a stand together against the status quo that’s been holding us back, we’ll never quite reach that “potential.”

INSIDE



Florida’s

Horror Story:

Freak Show By David Vandygriff

Florida’s Attorney General – Pam Bondi Bondi’s definition of family is nothing short of insulting to the same-sex couples who have adopted and raised children. It also makes you wonder how she feels about heterosexual couples who marry, but don’t have chil-dren. Does the state frown upon them, too? According to the AP story, Bondi believes the state’s pension and health insurance programs would face significant financial and logistical problems if

same-sex marriages were recog-nized. You have to wonder whether Bondi, or Gov. Rick Scott, or anyone in state leadership read the heart-wrenching story earlier this year in the Sun Sentinel about the end-of-life problems faced by Deerfield Beach partners Chris MacLellan and Bernard Richard Schiffer. The financial and bureaucratic obstacles placed in front of the couple — as Richard faced the cancer that would take his life — showed how the marriage ban deprives gays of the legal rights afforded heterosexuals. Do you think Florida’s twice-divorced Attorney General should be deciding who should and shouldn’t be able to marry (or divorce)?

Florida’s Governor – Rick Scott When asked where he stands on gay marriage, Republican Gov.

Rick Scott has said he “supports traditional marriage, consistent with the amendment approved by Florida voters in 2008, but does not believe that anyone should be discriminated against for any reason.” In recent weeks, South Florida judges have called the state gay marriage ban unconstitutional. Right-to-marry and marriage-recognition rulings in Monroe, Miami-Dade and Broward counties have been stayed pending appeals by Bondi. A Palm Beach ruling has not been challenged, but the judge ordered that it only applies in the case of a Pennsylvania man whose husband died in Boynton Beach. With the November election just around the corner, Gov. Rick Scott is playing it safe regarding one of the country’s thorniest political issues — gay marriage. Attorney General Pam Bondi filed a much-anticipated notice Thursday that the state will appeal a federal judge's ruling last month that overturned Florida's voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage. But in the lead-up to Bondi's move, Scott sidestepped questions about whether the state should appeal. "This is a constitutional matter and it is the responsibility of the attorney general to handle cases involving Florida?s Constitution," Scott spokesman John Tupps said in an e-mail before Bondi's filing. Tupps’s statement echoed what Scott told reporters this week

COVER STORY


while on the campaign trail. But it isn’t that simple. As part of U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle's Aug. 21 ruling, Scott and Bondi were removed as individual defendants in the case, which is a consolidation of two separate federal lawsuits and involves gay couples married in other states. The lawsuits include challenges to gay couples' inability in Florida to

get pension benefits or health insurance for spouses. Hinkle left standing as defendants, however, two Scott appointees — the secretaries of the Depart-ment of Management Ser-vices and the Department of Health. Because they answer to the governor, Hinkle wrote that it was "redundant" for Scott to remain a defendant but left the door open for the gov-ernor to be added later. "Rick Scott has been throwing Pam Bondi under the bus for a long time on this issue. He is continuing to hide behind the attorney general but he can't hide

any more," said Daniel Tilley, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida representing SAVE Foundation, a Miami-based non-profit whose members include couples involved in the case. Tilley added: "The fact is he is in effect the client and the client decides how the litigation proceeds. It’s bizarre to suggest as the client that he has no say

in this mat-ter. He has all of the say." The issue of gay mar-riage poses an election-year challenge for Scott, who has the support of Florida Fam-ily Policy Council President John Stemberger, a lawyer responsi-ble for getting the "Florida Mar-riage Protection Act" onto the ballot in 2008 and helping get it passed. Stemberger said Scott has been "solid and consistent" in his opposition to gay marriage. The governor, who has been saddled by low approval num-bers, may not want to alienate Christian conservatives like Stemberger, especially in what is expected to be a tight race against Democratic challenger Charlie Crist. Crist is unabashedly seeking the support of gay activists, however. The former Republican apologized to the gay community last year for previously throwing his support behind the constitutional ban on gay marriage.


UNF Happenings

By Jake Moore

The University of North Florida LGBT Resource Center is gearing up for Transgender Awareness Month. Join us Tuesday November 4

th for a

stand-up comedy show by Transgender funnyman Ian Harvie. Harvie, who has been noted as “the most unique stand-up comic in the country” by Frontiers Magazine, pokes fun about topics that everyone can relate to while providing a queer edge. The event is located at the University of North Florida, Building 58 West, Room 2704. Further we welcome you to

attend our Transgender Day of Remembrance ceremony. The candlelit vigil is held to memorialize of all of those who were killed because of anti-transgender prejudice. The ceremony will include the acknowledgement of many self-identified transgender and gender variant individuals who have been killed over the past year due to their gender identity. The ceremony raises public awareness of hate crimes against transgender people, which is often left out by the media. After the ceremony, we will have a celebration of life where hot cocoa and cookies will be served. This event will take place in the University of North Florida’s Student Union Plaza, Building 57. Along with the comedy show and Transgender

Day of Remem-brance, the Uni-versity of North Florida’s LGBT Resource Center will be hosting many other events including Living Out Loud, a student centered conversation series spotlighting topics within LGBTQA culture, identity-specific weekly support and discussion groups for students, as well as a Thanksgiving potluck for students who may not have a safe and loving home to go home to over the break.

U.N.F





RELIGIOUS CORNER: Unwrapping the Gift

The HIV Shame Game

By Tyler Cutry Throughout the modern history

of homosexual dating and fornicating, there has always been an undeniable and resilient link between sex and shame. The gay movement has made much progress in relinquishing some of the guilt associated with our innate attraction to the same sex, but shame still lingers within our ranks. Sure, we now can be seen holding hands in Texas and kissing in Georgia, but there is still a healthy amount of these guilty thoughts among gay men when it comes to their sex life. And there is no place where shame is more apparent then when it comes to the

conversation of sex and HIV. Why is that? Well, because there is still an unsettling association between gay sex and the pesky virus. And when shame is involved, we are always looking for someone else to blame. Naturally, it is easiest to pinpoint those who outwardly identify themselves as HIV positive as the ones to blame for the continuation of this stain on our community. It is easy to forget that these individuals were also HIV negative at one point in time and, most likely, consumed with the same fears of transmission as the rest of the HIV negative demographic. Now, they must assimilate to the HIV positive ranks and be constantly berated with stereotypes of behavior and health fallacies, which plague a population that should know better. It can be a difficult road for some, depending on how privileged they were before discovering their new identity. As it turns out, those who dish the most shame aren't very good at taking it. Of course, the shaming of those with HIV doesn't occur in a blatantly obtuse fashion. We have come a long way since the AIDS virus was discovered 32 years ago. Then, the viral divide was like a gaping crevice within the gay community that had people plummeting to their death. Now, depths of the crevice are much more shallow. People who are diagnosed as HIV positive are no longer plummeting, but rather cast down into a lower rung in the

community where they are expected to stay. How do we keep them in their place? Through shame in the form of stigmatization and judgment. Just like any prejudice born out of fear, we must eliminate the ominous stereotypes and prerequisite judgments that perpetuate HIV stigma within the gay community. But where do we start? The answer is simple. We assess the language of the HIV culture and remove the words that inherently cast shades of shame. Coming from a community that just recently removed the 'F' word from America's common vernacular, we know that words – whether intentional or not -- are sometimes all it takes to keep a second class firmly in their place. Whether it is the way we address HIV education or the terminology we assign to our status, the HIV language is littered with dirty little innuendos that HIV negative people would never notice and which HIV positive people can't seem to forget. Speaking of dirty, what could be dirtier than the opposite of clean? Any single gay man navigating the gay social media apps is bombarded by the stigmatizing sentiment of associating a person's HIV negative status with being "clean." When asked what he thought about the use of the word "clean" in regard to a person being HIV

INSIDE



negative, HIV activist and acclaimed blogger Mark S. King, had this to say:

"I don't mind people who are simply disclosing their status and want to know mine. But 'clean?’ There are ways to get this information without making me feel like one of the great un-washed."

After all, what could be more shameful than being inadvertently labeled as "dirty?” Who knows whether anyone has ever consciously made the outright connection between an HIV positive person being dirty, but you can only imagine the impact this word can have on the positive community.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 44 percent of people who are HIV positive are unaware of their status. Unfortunately, the people who may be perpetuating the shame game may soon find that it is they who need the bath. This is where the real danger lies. Allowing language like this to permeate our culture only serves to promote the continuation of the HIV epidemic and enforce a

second viral class among the gay community.

Of course, the burden of change rests on the shoulders of those affected the most by the shame game. It may seem easier for HIV positive men to retreat into the shadows when friends and strangers alike unknowingly use language that make them feel like a pariah in dignitaries' clothing. However, many of these accidental offenders are victims of the same phenomenon that was the basis of so much prejudice against gay men and women. They simply don't have a personal connection to the disease. HIV positive men owe it to themselves to speak out against language that demeans their worth. They also owe it to their HIV negative friends to educate them on the reality so that they don't continue to proliferate stigma or believe that they are removed from risk.

HIV positive men aren't victims, vampires, zombies or martyrs. The social and psychological factors surrounding infection are complex, difficult and impossible to simplify into one category.

Of course, the language we use and terminology we've chosen to isolate one another is just the one element of the shaming that goes on within the gay community. Combating HIV stigma is a multifarious problem that will require numerous endeavors and will take time before we start seeing measurable change. Until then, we must remain prudent in our efforts to erasing the divide that only serves to hinder our community and proliferate HIV infection. The next chapter in the fight against HIV begins with learning from our own history and removing words that place shame on some and keep others in the risk pool.

Like I said before, it starts with those who are HIV positive to speak out against hurtful terminology and naïve generalizations that pervade their surroundings.

So I'll start.

My name is Tyler Curry. I am HIV positive and there ain't no shame in my game




Stop Going

To Church By Dr. Harvey Carr

A Letter to the Editor of a

local newspaper read, “I’ve gone for 30 years now and in that time I have heard something like 203,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can’t remember a single one of them. So, I think I’m wasting my time and the pas-tors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all.” Church is not to remember the sermons, because the sermons are not the subject. The subject is God and our relationship with Him. Sermons are meant to be digested, internalized, and incorporated into life, not just something to recall 30 years later. Going to church to listen to sermons is a total waste of time. Going to hear the music is a total waste of time. Going to church to see and be seen is a total waste of time and worse. Going to church because it’s the “thing to

do” on Sunday is even worse. Going to church because my parents did is preposterous. Going to church for any of these reasons… total waste of time. I would recommend that this person stop going to church immediately. It’s all useless and pointless. Sleeping in on Sunday is better for you than any of those things. If you wanted to learn how to perform surgery, would you take a correspondence course or stay at home and try to do it yourself? If you want to learn how to live according to what God wants you to be, you need to go where you can do that. We learn theory

while gathered together, but living our lives is putting that theory into practice. Being part of a church to explore God’s Word and put it into practice is life-sustaining. Being part of a church where the faithful gather to sing songs and hymns and psalms to the God who made everything is a joyful and wonderful way to live. Being part of a church where ALL are welcome to love God and love each other as a real authentic community is part of God’s mission in the world. Being part of a church where, if your life turns into junk suddenly, there will be people around you who will lift you up, share God’s love in tangible ways, and when you’re on your feet you can do the same for someone else is the best. Being part of a church where people’s lives are really and truly being changed and transformed is totally worth every bit of time you spend at it. Being in a true friendship, ongoing and two-way, with the God who is there is what life is all about.


INSIDE

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Mid October 2014 Issue