Latest News

Out in the Silence Campaign featured in THE NATION

March 18, 2010

HEY, SAILOR…

by JOANN WYPIJEWSKI
This article appeared in the April 5, 2010 edition of The Nation.

I’m not sure where or when I got the idea, but at some point in my childhood I
asked my mother what “homosexuality” meant. “Well, honey,” she said, pausing,
“that’s something sailors do.”

“Like Daddy?” I asked. My father had been in the Pacific in World War II, and his
sailor hats and dress uniforms, pressed and hanging in an attic chest, held for me
the greatest fascination.

“No, no,” she quickly clarified. “Sailors who make a living of it,” or words to that
effect. Later I learned that “venereal disease” too was “something sailors get”: again,
“not Daddy”; those others, who spend endless stretches at sea, a lifetime of manly
togetherness punctuated by ribald Crossing the Line ceremonies and visits to raffish
ports of call. For the longest time I had no idea what maritime life involved but that
it was wrapped in sex and secrets.

Eric Massa, 50, was a Navy man for twenty-four years. A Catholic, like me, growing
up at the same time as me, when the church didn’t speak to its children of sex, let
alone homosex, he followed in the footsteps of his daddy, also career Navy, and
married like his daddy, had children like his daddy. On those long stints at sea he’d
grasp the tired flesh of fellow sailors, offering “the Massa massage.” If former
shipmates are to be believed, he once rousted a sleeping junior officer by pawing the
man’s privates. He climbed up into the bunk of another sleeping mate and tried to
“snorkel him,” meaning he either smothered the fellow with cock and balls or
wanted to blow him, possibly both. Massa was drunk, naturally, and nobody
reported a thing.

The ex-shipmates who are talking now claim they feared retaliation then, and maybe
that’s true, but a cousin of mine who spent years in the Navy and Marines once
remarked that it was common as rain to discover guys on ships canoodling in
remarked that it was common as rain to discover guys on ships canoodling in
closets. Maybe it all just didn’t seem so big a deal until Massa, now former
Congressman Massa, went on TV to say that while in hindsight inappropriate, there
was nothing at all sexual about his groping, wrestling, tickling, tussling and salty-
talking with his young male Congressional staffers, with whom he also roomed.
Certainly nothing gay. “Why don’t you ask my wife, ask my friends, ask the 10,000
sailors I served with in the Navy?” he shot back at Larry King. It was the shot too
far.

To those who may have missed this version of March Madness, Massa is the center
of Washington’s latest sex scandal. Retired military and a lifetime Republican who
quit the party over the Iraq War, he fit the Democrats’ ideal candidate profile and in
2008 won a traditionally Republican seat in upstate New York. Republicans began
plotting almost immediately to oust him, but Democrats weren’t happy with Massa,
either. He supported some of the president’s priorities but blasted others, regarded
Rahm Emanuel as the “son of the devil’s spawn” but was surprised that any of that
should bother anyone. In February one of his male staff complained of sexual
harassment. There had been a wedding, Massa had danced with a bridesmaid, and
afterward, boys being boys, the staffer suggested what Massa could do with the
woman. “What I really ought to be doing is fracking you,” Massa retorted, ruffling
the young man’s hair and laughing. Massa was drunk. Of course he was.

On March 3 the Congressman said he was just “a salty old sailor” and announced his
resignation. Then he went on radio to say that the Democrats had it in for him,
particularly Emanuel, who once poked Massa in the chest and yelled at him for not
being a team player while they were both naked in the Congressional showers. Enter
Glenn Beck, who latched on to the story, not to explore its most intriguing detail—
those curtainless shower stalls and the dick-swinging games of powerful men—but
to demonstrate how “the Democratic Party is out to destroy this man…the future of
this country is at stake!” Massa was bound to disappoint. Nobody had forced him
out, he said, before rambling on about the price of independence, the daily hours
spent begging for cash, his broken spirits, our broken system, his bout with cancer
and, yes, a groping or tickle fight with staff on his fiftieth birthday. At one point
Massa flipped open a scrapbook, pointing to pictures of a 1983 shipboard ceremony
upon crossing the international dateline and telling his flummoxed host, “If you
were to take this out of context today—can you imagine transporting back to this
today? It looks like an orgy in Caligula.”

As with men’s magazines of the 1950s, some see only the bodybuilder, others the
object of desire, others a mix of both. Who can say what Massa sees in his
mementos and male staff? It’s almost always the case with sex scandals, though, that
beyond the rococo, there’s a harsher, unspoken reality, a trap so deeply
beyond the rococo, there’s a harsher, unspoken reality, a trap so deeply
commonplace that nobody calls it scandal. Here call it private life or roughhousing
among men; call it a “relapse” into youthful experimentation or just the things guys
do together after drinking a six-pack or several gin and tonics. Call it anything but
the closet, because if it’s that then it’s sexual, and if it’s sexual then you’re queer, and
if you’re queer you might be toast—still, today, in 2010, let alone when people of
Massa’s generation were at the door of sexual awakening.

While the bottom was dropping out for Massa, 3,000 miles away California State
Senator Roy Ashburn was being arrested for drunk driving, having been stopped by
the Highway Patrol on his way back from a gay club with another man. A few days
later Massa told Larry King it was an insult to gays to suggest that he or anyone in
this day and age might be in the closet, Ashburn, 55, a divorced father of four and a
reliably antigay Republican pol for fourteen years, went on the radio and uttered
“the words that have been so difficult for me for so long”: “I am gay.”

It’s easy to get moralistic about Ashburn, and many bloggers have, but oppression is
not the mask’s companion only in sympathetic cases, those anonymous ones where
people carry secrets and have no staffs, no profile, no power except to hurt
themselves and maybe the people they lie to. The Virginia merchant spending hours
in the basement feverishly texting a paramour—the first he has allowed himself in
forty-five years of living—while upstairs his wife plans the family vacation. The big
old queen in Indiana recently married to a woman he loves—she saved his life, he
says—but spending every waking hour in a gay cafe that isn’t really gay because no
one says the word except in whispers. The queer husbands in Vermont who
somehow can’t come out, or need the wife, need the marriage and the kids, but also
need to tell, so form a small, sad brotherhood of support.

That’s speaking only of men, a handful I know or know of, but everywhere there are
queer men and women who don’t fit the now-mainstream image of pretty young
things forming the Gay-Straight Alliance at school, competing on reality shows,
making it on the Human Rights Campaign’s literature for marriage or military
service. Often they live in small towns in rural areas, places like Corning, New York,
where Massa resides, or Bakersfield, California, which Ashburn represented. It
shouldn’t take petty scandals to remind us that for millions the fundamental
question of life isn’t whether they can legally kill someone in a war or cut the
wedding cake but whether it’s going to take all their courage just to get up every
morning and be who they are.

As the Massa flap was wearing itself out, I was in Columbia, South Carolina, at a
screening of a new documentary called OUT IN THE SILENCE . It’s about a teenage boy in
Oil City, Pennsylvania, who comes out almost by accident, to defend another kid,
and discovers high school is a living hell. It has a happy ending, of sorts: the kid
doesn’t kill himself; his mother fights for him; he’s driven from school but gets a
$4,000 settlement for the loss of his education; there’s a small queer community
that’s now pushing an anti-discrimination ordinance in town. The theater was
jammed, a scenario that greeted the filmmakers, Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer,
earlier in Charleston and Spartanburg and almost every small city and town where
they’ve taken the film. The screenings become forums, places to meet where there
has been no place, to talk where there is a desire to talk but little occasion.

“For the longest time, the gay movement told people in rural areas, Just move to the
city and come out,” Joe said afterward. He was raised in Oil City, and one sister still
won’t talk to him. “That’s not an answer if you’re connected to your family, your job,
your town. And you can’t expect oppressed individuals to take the whole burden of
coming out on themselves.” The closet is still a product of culture; its persistence the
blackmail note waiting to be written for any sexual outlaw, along the arc of the
Kinsey scale, even salty old sailors who just want some fun with the boy

More Details: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100405/wypijewski

Promoting Political Action

March 14, 2010

Tolerance Increasing in Poconos: Following Film Screening Panelists Note an Improvement in the Treatment of Gay, Lesbian Youths

By Dan Berrett
Pocono Record Writer

Tolerance of gay and lesbian young people is on the rise in the Poconos, though work remains to be done before full acceptance is achieved, a panel of speakers said Saturday.

“There are still issues,” said Anita Lee, of the organization Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, or PFLAG, of Monroe County. “But the Poconos has gotten better.”

Lee and others spoke after a screening of “Out in the Silence” at Pocono Community Theater in East Stroudsburg on Saturday afternoon; it was attended by about 70 people.

The documentary examines what happens in the small Pennsylvania town of Oil City after the filmmakers place their same-sex marriage announcement in the local newspaper.

At first, outrage arose in the Rust Belt town. One letter to the editor of the local newspaper advised the couple, “it would have been better for you not to have been born.”

One of the filmmakers, Joe Wilson, grew up in Oil City with his gay identity closeted. But he returned to his hometown, in part, because of the reaction his announcement sparked. But, more pressingly, he was summoned by a letter. A mother of a gay son, who lived in Oil City and was being bullied, wrote to him looking for help.

The young man, C.J. Springer, described life in his school as “eight hours of pure hell,” because administrators turned a deaf ear and blind eye as students roughed up the young man in the halls.

Lee, of PFLAG of Monroe County, said bullying remained a concern for students in Poconos schools.

Statewide, more than half of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students reported being physically harassed during the past year. Nearly all said they regularly heard the word “gay” used derisively, according to a 2007 study by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.

Still, the panelists noted that conditions locally had improved.

“Years ago, no one was allowed to go to a prom (with their same-sex partner) and now they are,” said Steven Barthold-Rivera, faculty co-sponsor of the Stroudsburg High School Gay Straight Alliance.

The alliance is one of several in local high schools. East Stroudsburg High School North has the longest standing one locally, and progress toward one is being made in Pocono Mountain, Barthold-Rivera said.

The clubs provide a venue for gay and lesbian students who feel isolated and fearful because of their identity. At times, they are suicidal, said Barthold-Rivera.

“There’s power in numbers, there’s unity, and they’re not alone,” he said.

Saturday’s event featured a panel of speakers, each of whom outlined resources for young gay and lesbian students, such as Rainbow Youth, or for their families, such as PFLAG.

“When children come out of the closet, their parents go into the closet,” Lee said.

The speakers also promoted political action. They encouraged attendees to call their state representatives to support bills that would ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The screening was hosted by Pocono Action Lambda Society, and sponsored by more than 50 businesses, organizations, church groups and individuals.

More Details: http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100314/NEWS/3140351

OUT IN THE SILENCE DVD Available To Watch Now on Amazon Video-On-Demand!

February 27, 2010

The DVD of OUT IN THE SILENCE, with all the special features, will be released March 9, 2010. But you can watch the feature film early on Amazon Video on Demand for just a $1.99! ...right now.. before the release date!

Please share the link with friends and family.

More Details: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00358UQM6/ref=s9_simh_gw_p318_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1Q0GXR21R483ED1P15MG&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

Controversial Film Comes To Patterson Library

February 17, 2010

The Observer of Dunkirk, NY

WESTFIELD, NY - Patterson Library has announced a free screening of the film “Out in the Silence” on Friday, Feb. 19 at 7 p.m. Funded in part by the Sundance Institute, the movie follows the story of a small Pennsylvanian town confronting a firestorm of controversy ignited by a same-sex wedding announcement in the local newspaper. The documentary is described as illustrating the challenges of being an outsider in a rural community. It takes place in Oil City, Pa., less than two hours from Westfield.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion, including a prominent player in the film, Roxanne Hitchcock, proprietor of the Latonia Theater in Oil City. Also on the panel are Rev. Steve Aschmann of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Erie, Pa.; Deb Christina, lifelong resident and longtime business owner in Westfield; Beth Robson of the Watchfire Alliance; Marvin Henchberger, executive director of Western New York Gay and Lesbian Youth Services; Bob Reider of PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays); and Father Gordon De La Vars of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.

According to directors Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer, a geneticist and author of “The God Gene,” “The aim of ‘Out in the Silence’ is to expand public awareness about the difficulties that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people face in rural and small town America and to promote dialogue and action that will help people on all sides of the issues find common ground.”

The film has won wide recognition for its respectful treatment of both sides of a controversial issue. It covers Joe Wilson’s dramatic journey as he is drawn back to his home town by a plea for help from the mother of a gay teen being tormented at school. It is a story about the unique challenges of being different in a small town, and the potential for change when the environment for dialogue is created. A subplot is the economic necessity in modern day rural America for tolerating and even encouraging diversity in order to attract and keep talent.

According to Patterson Library Director Eli Guinnee, the film fits perfectly with the public library goal of promoting knowledge, understanding, and mutual respect.

“The film follows a story of firestorm and controversy, but at its heart is a message that when we take the time to get to know each other positive change can occur,” Guinnee said. “The organizers of this event have done a great job of assembling a distinguished panel and I think the panel will do a great job of carrying on the conversation started by this film.”

The free event is scheduled to run from 7 to 9 p.m. The film runs less than one hour and will be followed by a panel discussion. For more information, call Patterson Library at 326-2154.

More Details: http://observertoday.com/page/content.detail/id/536050.html?nav=5053&actionAlert=emailcontent

Film Is Opportunity To Build Bridges

February 11, 2010

Editorial in the Observer-Reporter, serving southwestern Pennsylvania’s Washington and Greene counties, Feb. 8, 2010:

A documentary called “Out in the Silence” is scheduled to be shown Wednesday at Eva K. Bowlby Public Library in Waynesburg.

The film, produced by Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer, addresses issues faced by gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders.

“Out in the Silence” follows the stories of a mother who takes a courageous stand for her gay teenage son, an evangelical pastor and his wife who befriend Wilson and re-examine their most deeply held beliefs, and local residents who must decide what their cherished, small-town values really mean.

The impetus behind Wilson’s documentary was the announcement of his same-sex marriage that ignited a firestorm of controversy in Oil City, a small Western Pennsylvania hometown he left long ago.

We agree with Wilson when he said what better place to promote dialogue and mutual understanding in small towns and rural areas than in the public library.

Initially, we believed the library should be congratulated for opening its doors to show what many unbdoubtely believe to be a controversial and perhaps uncomfortable subject matter.

But then we thought, “Why not?”

Libraries do not censor reading material, so why would there be any question of censoring film material, assuming the film is not pornographic and counter to established community standards, whatever those might be?

This is an opportunity for people across the spectrum in Greene County, including students, parents, teachers, clergy, health and social service providers, GLBT residents, civic leaders and all those concerned about the well-being of all in their community, to come together and engage in a constructive discussion.

This also is an opportunity to bring people together in a conversation about fairness, equality, and inclusion for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in small towns and rural communities in Pennsylvania and across the country.

Bowlby Library is doing its part by opening its door and providing a place for the documentary to be shown.

Now it’s up to the good citizens of Greene County to show an example to others by coming together to begin the process of building bridges rather than walls on issues that have divided communities.

OUT IN THE SILENCE At The PUBLIC LIBRARY

February 02, 2010

QWAVES PRODUCTIONS
PRESS RELEASE
February 2, 2010

AWARD-WINNING NEW DOCUMENTARY
ABOUT THE LIVES OF GLBT PEOPLE IN A SMALL PENNSYLVANIA TOWN
TO SCREEN AT PUBLIC LIBRARIES IN BEAVER FALLS AND WAYNESBURG, PA

WASHINGTON, DC – February 2, 2010 - Community screenings of OUT IN THE SILENCE, “a stunning documentary” (Philadelphia Inquirer) produced in association with Penn State Public Broadcasting and the Sundance Institute, are scheduled for:

- Tuesday, February 9 at 5:30 PM at the Carnegie Free Library, 1301 Seventh Ave, Beaver Falls

- Wednesday, February 10 at 6:00 PM at the Eva K. Bowlby Public Library, 311 N. West, St, Waynesburg

The screenings will be followed by a Q & A session with filmmakers Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer aimed at engaging the audience in a conversation about fairness, equality, and inclusion for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people in small towns and rural communities in Pennsylvania and across the country.

Exploring topics ranging from religion, safe schools and economic development, to discrimination, tolerance and understanding, OUT IN THE SILENCE offers a compelling model for civic engagement and dialogue and is an ideal tool for bringing people of all ages together to begin the process of building bridges rather than walls on issues that have divided our communities for far too long.

After Wilson’s own same-sex marriage announcement ignites a firestorm of controversy in Oil City, the small western Pennsylvania hometown he left long ago, OUT IN THE SILENCE follows the stories of a mother who takes a courageous stand for her gay teenage son, an evangelical pastor and his wife who befriend Wilson and re-examine their most deeply held beliefs, and local residents who must decide what their cherished small town values really mean.

Wilson and Hamer are working with a variety of civil and human rights organizations, including the ACLU of PA, to take the film to small towns and rural communities across the country. The film has already been broadcast on all stations within the Pennsylvania Public Television Network and The Philadelphia Foundation has provided grant support to help conduct these community educational events, free-of-charge, across Pennsylvania.

“What better place to promote dialogue and mutual understanding in small towns and rural areas,” said Wilson, “than in the public libraries, those great institution where the community, in all its diversity, comes together and that represent our highest ideals as a society: knowledge, lifelong learning, freedom, and equal access for all?”

Wilson and Hamer are hoping that the events in Beaver Falls and Waynesburg attract people from across the spectrum ready and willing to engage in dialogue, including students, parents and educators, clergy, health and social service providers, civic leaders, and all those concerned about the well-being of all in their community.

Previous community and campus screenings of OUT IN THE SILENCE have been highly successful. For example, after a program at the University of Pittsburgh-Titusville, Professor Mary Ann Caton wrote: “Several of our students have been deeply touched by the film. I’ve learned that several who went into the auditorium that night went in with some hostility toward the gay community. But these students have begun to rethink their positions as a result of seeing the film and engaging in conversation with the filmmakers and others in the audience.”

At Marlboro College in Vermont, Student Affairs Coordinator Chris Lenois commented that: “OUT IN THE SILENCE demonstrates that polarizing issues are best handled when people are willing to listen to opposing viewpoints without lashing out or retreating into their own moral corner, which is probably the most valuable lesson any young person could learn.”

And a very encouraging event just took place at the First United Methodist Church in Lancaster, PA. Sponsored by nearly 20 religious congregations in the area, the screening was attended by more than 200 people and was followed by a rich and respectful dialogue. A clip of that conversation can be seen on the project’s Facebook page: http://Facebook.com/outinthesilence

A press kit and more information about OUT IN THE SILENCE and the ongoing community engagement campaign, as well as a short trailer for the film, are available on the Penn State Public Broadcasting website: http://wpsu.org/outinthesilence

The filmmakers are available for interviews.

Contact: Joe Wilson
Campaign Director
OUT IN THE SILENCE
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
O: 202-588-5785
C: 202-320-4172

###

PRIDE Film Festival Highlights Rural LGBTQ Life

January 26, 2010

NPR story on OUT IN THE SILENCE at the Bloomington, Indiana PRIDE Film Festival. This year the theme is “Steer Queer”, focusing on rural and small town LGBTQ life.

More Details: http://indianapublicmedia.org/arts/silence-celebration-bloomingtons-pride-film-festival/

“That’s So Gay”: Anti-Bullying Legislation and LGBT Teens

January 07, 2010

The ACLU of Pennsylvania, a vital partner in efforts to reach and engage people in small towns and rural communities, highlights its work with OUT IN THE SILENCE on its Speaking Freely blog in a post about important legislative work now on the agenda in the state.

More Details: http://aclupa.blogspot.com/2010/01/thats-so-gay-anti-bullying-legislation.html

Out in the Silence wins Audience Award in Long Island

January 05, 2010

OUT IN THE SILENCE won the Audience Award for best documentary at the Long Island Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, which ran November 12-19, 2009. The screening was followed by a panel discussion that included teen representatives from Long Island Gay and Lesbian Youth.

More Details: http://www.liglff.org/nov1409.html#silence

Community Engagement Campaign Receives Major Grant Support

December 12, 2009

The David Haas Fund of The Philadelphia Foundation has awarded a major grant to the OUT IN THE SILENCE Community Engagement Campaign, aimed at conducting events in small towns and rural communities in each of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties to help raise LGBT visibility and promote constructive dialogue in the quest for fairness & equality for all. The Haas Fund support enables the OITS Campaign to offer screening events to qualifying communities in Pennsylvania at No-Cost.

The OUT IN THE SILENCE team is also working with strategic communications firm Active Voice to develop the national community engagement campaign, modeled on the Pennsylvania pilot, for 2010.
For more information, or to request a screening,
contact Joe Wilson: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

“Activists make case for basic human rights”

November 17, 2009

Article in the Herald following Penn State Shenango screening

More Details: http://sharon-herald.com/archivesearch/local_story_318200219.html?start:int=0

Out in the Silence wins Audience Award for Best Documentary

November 17, 2009

OUT IN THE SILENCE was awarded the audience award for best documentary at the Rehoboth Beach Film Festival.

Radio Interview with Kim Young on All Things Erie - WQLN

October 18, 2009

More Details: http://wqlnv2.wqln.org/main/radio/weekend%20All%20things%20erie/podcast/media/wate0910171.mp3

“Sorely Needed and Highly Effective”

October 15, 2009

Preview of OUT IN THE SILENCE by veteran critic Floyd Lawrence for the Erie Times-News.

More Details: http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091015/ENTERTAINMENT0702/310159965/-1/ENTERTAINMENT07

Send A Postcard To The President and Your Senators / Representatives

October 10, 2009

For those of us who can’t, or choose not to, go to Washington, DC for the National Equality March on October 11, it is still important to join together in calls for action in the quest for fairness, equality and human rights for all.

While much of our energy is focused on the hard and necessary day-to-day work still to be done in our communities and in our states, a message to the President, and our senators and representatives, from out here where we are could be an important boost.

So, the idea is simple:

Get a postcard representing your community and send something along the lines of the following message to:

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500

And your federal senators and representatives.

Dear Mr. President / Senator / Representative,

I live in [name of town, county, state].

Because of the threats of harassment, violence, and discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people and allies, I am often forced to live in silence, and fear, in my own community.

I’m writing to ask you to confirm your commitment to fairness, equality and human rights for all people, be a fierce advocate for change, and to: pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, expand Hate Crimes legislation, end ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ and repeal the Defense of Marriage Act now.

It is time to speak Out In The Silence!

[signed]

OutintheSilence.com
Postcard front
Postcard back

More Details: http://www.facebook.com/OutintheSilence

“The Fight For GLBT Rights In Rural America Is Far From Over.”

September 20, 2009

Review of OUT IN THE SILENCE in a special issue of national news magazine IN THESE TIMES focused on “Taking Back Rural America”

More Details: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4905/gay_boys_in_oil_city

Out in the Silence wins Audience Award and Alternative Spirit Award

August 13, 2009

OUT IN THE SILENCE won the Audience Award at the Hardacre Film and Cinema Festival in the small town of Tipton, Iowa, and an Alternative Spirit Award at the Rhode Island International Film Festival.