All in Politics

THE LOVE HOUSE — Marianne Williamson for President

THE LOVE HOUSE — Marianne Williamson for President

NATHAN JAMES
Politics

There’s a very crowded field of Democrats vying for the presidential nomination next year, each hoping to be the Trump-slayer that will align the White House with Congress and restore civility to the government.  Among them are the familiar (Joe Biden), the novel (Pete Buttigieg, the first serious, openly gay man to run in either party), the unconventional (Cory Booker) and the unexpected.  In this latter category is a thoughtful, artistic woman who seeks to shake up the race with a philosophical approach, as befits her history.  Her name is Marianne Williamson, a New York Times bestselling author and philanthropist, and she’s looking to bring “moral healing” to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  As a self-help guru, Williamson knows that to capture the nomination, she needs more than platitudes or a showy presentation.  Williamson understands substance, and believes her constituency wants that, after three years of fluff and drama from the Trump Administration.


The State of the Rainbow

NATHAN JAMES
Politics

Here we are in 2019, the momentous 50th anniversary of the iconic Stonewall Rebellion that began the modern LGBTQ rights movement.  The pitched battles between LGBTQ people and the NYPD that set things in motion on that humid, long-ago summer night led us inexorably to where we are as a community today.  Among the resisters present at the Stonewall Inn when agents of the State Liquor Authority (SLA) and the city’s Vice Squad burst through the doors, were Black drag queen Marsha P. Johnson, Black lesbian Storme DeLarverie, and trans Latina Sylvia Rivera, whose exploits have largely been whitewashed out of the Rebellion’s history. These pioneers and their contemporaries changed the way the world saw the LGBT community, and, reciprocally, how the LGBTQ community looked at itself. It is apropos, therefore, to once again take stock of the state of our beloved rainbow, half a century on, and perhaps glean for ourselves how we’ve fared on our journey, and whether we are still moving forward today.