Bryan Safi needs his own TV show
These videos, produced for a segment called “That’s Gay” for Info Mania (or Current TV, I’m not sure) are a few years old but hot diggity damn they are funny!
Bryan Safi needs his own show. Which is exactly what I tweeted him a few weeks ago and he tweeted me back (swoon) and said he agreed! Read more 
Elder Jay E. Jensen and Marriage Equality
On January 8, 2012 Elder Jay E. Jensen of the Presidency of the Seventy spoke at the Marriott Center in Provo, Utah. The talk was same old, same old. The Desert News covered his Church Educational System (CES) Devotional address and reported that he spoke about the three themes of the Holy Ghost. I don’t want to embed the video but here’s a link
The Desert News failed to report this quote from his address (skip ahead to the 18 minute mark of his talk to hear it):
“The adversary seeks to deorganize and to destroy, especially families, as evidenced today by abortion, divorce, and same-gender marriage.”
Let that sink in for a moment.
Divorce AND marriage are destroying families. What?! Read more
Second Class Citizens Documentary
This video is making the rounds on Facebook so I wanted to share it here. It’s a preview of a documentary that will be completed if the filmmaker, Ryan James Yezek, can raise enough money on Kickstarter. (Click here to see the Kickstarter page and make a donation.) Read more
My Interview on QTalk Arizona
The Joe and Babe show is back for a new year and I was the first guest of 2012.
You can listen to the episode here or find it on iTunes (when you search for QTalk). I was there to promote my new book “Downtown Phoenix.”
From the QTalk website:
We’re baaaaaack!! We’re super-excited to be back on the Internet airwaves in 2012! Our first guest of the year is no stranger to QTalk Arizona, he’s none other than J. Seth Anderson who started our “What The Hell Is Going On In Arizona?”podcast!
Seth has lived in the Valley for many years, but over the past decade has really to come to love downtown Phoenix. He’s very actively involved in preserving historic buildings and working to create better ways of using our existing land. In fact, he’s so active that he recently co-authored a book on the very subject! The book, aptly named “Downtown Phoenix” is now available and it’s a beautiful book with countless wonderfully historic photographs that tell the stories of our downtown.
So I Made a YouTube Video….
Yes, I did.
I made this at the request of someone who is working on a project about homosexuality and Mormonism and approached me to tell my coming out story in an “It’s Gets Better” type of YouTube video.
My goal was to keep this under the 5 minute mark, but it ended up being just over 6 minutes. I’m ok with that. Read more
Like Father Not Like Son
In November 2011, Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney signed an anti marriage equality pledge. The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) created the pledge that commits signatories to fight for a “federal constitutional amendment defining marriage, to appoint federal judges who don’t see a Constitutional right to same-sex marriage, and to back the Defense of Marriage Act” should they be elected to the office of the presidency.
Brother Romney signed this pledge along with Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum. All three were praised by NOM as “three marriage champions.” Of course they are referring to what they call “traditional marriage” and that’s why it really bugs the hell out of me that Romney is being hailed as some great defender of “traditional” marriage.
Politics makes strange bedfellows, for as Mitt Romney lives and breathes he is a product of non-traditional marriages. His father, George Romney, was the descendent of Mormon polygamists who were living The Principle (as it was and is called today) across the border in Colonias Mormonas in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. In the 19th century, to escape persecution and discriminatory marriage laws in the United States, Brigham Young sent some of his followers to Canada and Mexico so they could live their alternative polygamous lifestyles. Read more
“Seth and The City” in this month’s ION Arizona
A few weeks ago I was contacted by ION Arizona, one of the Valley’s LGBT magazines, and asked if I would like to be interviewed for a story about my book. I said absolutely… under one condition: any photo of me would have to be airbrushed within an inch of my life. They agreed and kept their promise. And now the December 2011 issue is out with a delightful story about me and the new book. Thank you ION Arizona! Read more
Marriage is About Commitment, not Just Equal Rights
This story about how we should approach marriage equality in terms of commitment rather than equal rights ran in The Advocate a few weeks ago. I found it on a website called The Third Way, a think tank that advances moderate political ideas like strong private sector growth, clean energy, and making progress on divisive social issues.
I had never thought about framing my arguments supporting marriage equality in terms of commitment. When my straight friends get married they don’t say it’s for the purpose of filing taxes jointly or having hospital visitation rights or pensions, they say it’s about love and commitment. Because it is. Read more
Book Review: Dancing With Crazy
How much tragedy and heartbreak can one person live through?
Emily Pearson’s new memoir, Dancing With Crazy, gives the answer to that question: a person can live through a hell of a lot and live to tell about it with humor, wit and wisdom. Emily writes that her life was like a dance competition with a merciless partner named Crazy who delighted in her misery and, “thrived on my diminishment. He lived for my utter annihilation.” (p. 11)
From the very first paragraph of this scintillating memoir I was hooked. I couldn’t put it down and read the whole thing in about a day and half. Read more
Phoenix AIDS Walk 2011
The Phoenix AIDS Walk began in 1987. At its peak, the event raised $1 million and was one of the largest community events in Phoenix. After 16 years, the organization that hosted the event closed in 2003 and the Phoenix AIDS Walk disappeared. 4 years later, a group of individuals approached Aunt Rita’s Foundation, which up until that time hosted the annual SAVORlife Fundraiser. Aunt Rita’s Foundation agreed to host the Phoenix AIDS Walk and it was reintroduced in 2008.
I walked in the AIDS Walk in 2009 on Barbra Seville’s team known as “Barbra Seville’s Wonderful 100.” Read more
New Post on Main Street Plaza
Last February I wrote a story for Main Street Plaza about a cozy relationship between John Eastman and Apostle Dallin H. Oaks. Last week John Eastman was appointed Chair of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM).
I see an interesting connection between one of the highest ranking officials from the Mormon Church and NOM.
Read it here.
QTalk Fundraiser at FilmBar
I wrote about the fundraiser event on my blog earlier this month, but this new article on the Downtown Phoenix Journal website explains the origins of QTalk Arizona as well as gives info about the fundraiser.
Come out tonight at 10 p.m to FilmBar or Sunday at 4 p.m. to see You Should Meet My Son and help raise money for Aunt Rita’s Foundation.
Dinner with a Polygamist
Some people asked for the text of the essay I wrote and read on the Mormon Expression podcast. So here it is.
I’m pro-polygamy.
Reactions vary when this comes up in conversation, but overall, I think I’m in the minority.
Regarding my beliefs about polygamy a friend once told me, “you only think that way because you’re a man.” But that’s not why. The reason is because I support the rights of consenting adults to form and maintain their own relationships however they chose to define them.
I didn’t always think like this. While growing up in the mainstream Mormon church polygamy was just a quaint 19th century institution practiced by a few people under very specific circumstances. I learned later this was simply not true but learning about the alternative-lifestyle proclivities of early church leaders didn’t upset me.
Being from Utah my family line had multiple polygamists, but we talked about polygamy in the abstract, an idea that works in theory, like Communism, or a Chevy. Read more
“You Should Meet My Son” at FilmBar
QTalk Arizona in partnership with ‘N Touch Magazine is bringing You Should Meet My Son, a fish out of water comedy, to FilmBar on September 23 and September 25.
A few months ago, Keith Hartman, the writer and director of You Should Meet My Son emailed me and asked if QTalk Arizona could help bring the film to Phoenix. It had debuted at LGBT film festivals and won Best Feature in Ontario, the Best Men’s Feature in North Carolina, and the Best Domestic Feature in Memphis, but hadn’t yet been shown in Phoenix. Read more
Dr. Dina Evan on The QTalk Arizona Network
Author, columnist, and marriage counselor Dr. Dina Evan has joined QTalk Arizona with a new weekly show, The Dr. Dina Hour, about relationships, marriage, and family. She is bringing her years of experience and adding her voice to the LGBT dialogue in Phoenix and Arizona with this new podcast.
You can learn more about her on her website.
On this first episode, she discusses feeling disconnected in our community. Read more
