The j-phone: The other i-phone

VERY FUNNY!

Cher 1983 -- You Got To Have Friends

I remember this on cable when it originally aired. I was 20-years-old and I was gay heaven watching this!

If I did not know I was gay then (which I was waking up to by then), I should have. This special was wonderful to watch and the bonus was a Diana Ross and Bette Midler impersonator.

JOY! :)

It's called Just Found A Red Sock In The Laundry (While Washing My Ku klux Klan Sheet) featuring Ty Taylor

From the man who brought us It's All Because (The Gays Are Getting Married), Oded Gross now has this funny music video.

Enjoy!

Could a newborn baby be gay?

The “Tuscan initiative”, sponsored by Italy's equal opportunities ministry, promotes a billboard advertising campaign which uses a photo of a baby to express its message concerning homosexuality.

Baby Used in Homosexual Ad Campaign - Vatican Objects
By Deacon Keith Fournier

My question as a gay man and gay therapist is, "What is wrong with considering babies and children as gay or lesbian?"

The article is about the Vatican objecting to an ad against discrimination of homosexuality showing a baby wearing a hospital bracelet.

The hospital bracelet worn by the newborn bears the French word
"homosexuel" in the place where the child’s name would normally be placed to
tell the waiting world of his or her identity. The campaign slogan is
"Sexual
orientation is not a choice."

The Vatican and others are criticizing it including a gay man himself:

Yet, Gianni Vattimo, well known postmodern philosopher, a self professed
homosexual, is critical of the advertising campaign. In an interview with
the
daily "Corriere della Sera"newspaper he questioned the idea that
homosexuality
is genetic. As for the billboard campaign, he said "The
initiative is in bad
taste, in fact they've made a mess of it."

The reason anyone would think this is in bad taste is that no one likes to think of children as already being homosexual and later coming out as gay.

My thoughts are that it is because when people hear the word gay they only hear gay adult sex. They don't consider homosexuality as anything other than sexual. But when we think of children being straight we don't think of them in adult sexuality terms. We think of them being romantic and cute with opposite gender peers and teachers.

"Do you have a crush on Mrs. T?" we ask a kindergarten boy.

"Do you like Bobby in class?" we ask the first grade girl.

This usually means something romantic and sweet not sexual! So why do people think of gay children as sexual and not sweet?

What do people think of this? Why is this?

First they came for the.................

" In Germany they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I
wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up
because I
wasn't a Jew. Then They came for the trade unionists, and I didn't
speak up
because I wasn't a trade unionists. Then they came for the
Catholics and I
didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came
after me- and by that
time NO ONE WAS LEFT TO SPEAK UP."

Pastor Martin Niemoller

Harry Potter comes out of the closet!

Dumbledore is gay.

Now that Dumbledore is out of the closet in a children's book, what are people going to do?

This is an important conversation people are going to be having openly gay characters in a children's book.

The question is, "What is wrong with that?"

How can this affect children in any other way than positive? I hope the debate starts a conversation around the world that it is okay for children not only to know about and be around homosexuality but that it is okay if they are gay too.

Children struggling with whether or not they might be gay or have parents who are gay and even just hearing about others who are gay will now have a positive reference to consider.
The worst I can see happening? That homophobia starts falling away with this young generation reading children's books that include homosexuality.

Harry Potter fans' favorite magical, wand-wielding headmaster is gay, says the series' author, and as it turns out, many bookworms don't love him any less because of it.

Parents around the country told ABCNEWS.com that when their children heard the news that professor Albus Dumbledore — who was also Potter's mentor — was gay, most of them shrugged it off. To read more go to Dumbledore is gay

San Diego Mayor Supports Gay Marriage

This is the most touching and moving speech by a politician.

**Warning** This is a tearjerker. It really is.

Sonnet XVII: Pablo Neruda | A LOVE POEM

A client gave this to me and while she read it to her husband in my office I burst into tears!! It was a beautifully worded piece and wanted to share it with you all.

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of
carnations the first shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be
loved.
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as
the plant that never blooms
but carries itself the light of hidden
flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the
earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or
when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or
pride;
So I love you because I know no other way.

but this,
where I do not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my
hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

I just loved it as it reflects the darkness that turns into light for our couples. It certainly has happened for Mike and me. This really spoke to me.

Happy Rosh Hashana September 12, 2007

In the Jewish Religion it is Rosh Hashana which means "a new year". I invite everyone to use this time to renew and refresh your lives as I do each Jewish New Year.

Here is a funny youtube about Rosh Hashanah.

Warmly, Joe Kort

80's Cher Doll

Many of you know that I am an loyal diva fan of Cher and Diana Ross. As a child I was not allowed to play with dolls so I would do so in hiding. My sister had Barbies and I would play with them when no one was around and watching.

In the 1990's with the popularity of ebay.com I started collecting the Barbie Dolls I always wanted. I now have most of the dolls I have always wanted and am still collecting more.

Now there is a new Cher doll for 2007. The doll is made to look like Cher from the 1980's.

I always say, "It is never too late to have a happy childhood!"

Can't We All Just Get Along?

Here is an article I wrote about the problems gay men have in terms of being competitive.

Mixed Marriages: Interfacial Couples in Different Cute-gories!

A humorous essay was written in in Time Magazine called, When Your Spouse is Hotter than You by BELINDA LUSCOMBE an editor with Time Magazine on April 26, 2007.

The author talks about the discrimination couples face when one partner is more attractive than the other partner. While this article is in jest, it also should be taken seriously in terms of the prejudice that exists for these couples.

Luscombe writes:

I've been in a mixed marriage for a decade and a half now and gotten used to the stares and nudges. I've even developed a couple of airy responses to the inevitable comments that arise from co-workers and friends along the lines of "Um, your husband is so hot..." Sometimes I go with "Oh, that's not my husband--that's my twin brother," and other times a dismissive "Yeah, but back in Australia I'm considered a great beauty. It's Nicole Kidman who's the hag." Each time, it hurts just a little less.

Like so many in my situation, I didn't mean to intermarry. It wasn't that I had ideas above my station; it was just that I was young and naive enough to think love would conquer all. Also, to be perfectly frank, I didn't think he was that hot. That's what makes this type of discrimination particularly insidious: it's not clear that couples have transgressed against hotness-equality laws until they're already married.

Nobody minds if you date outside your tribe, and people applaud an ambitious play for the hubba-hubba human across the room, but--as my brothers and sisters in the gay community have found--there's a world of difference between what people will accept in the innocent suburbs of hooking up and the judgmental metropolis of marriage.There is even an Urban Dictionary definition.

Elizabeth Hasselbeck from The View on marriage for gays

Elizabeth Hasselbeck from "The View" makes some great points about why gays should be able to marry.

1. For the children.

Children deserve a couple in a committed relationship.

Did you know that in Michigan and some other states, you cannot adopt as a gay couple. You have to adopt as a single person. If people insist on two parents than how could can this be logical that as a lesbian or gay person you cannot be a couple to adopt a child? Insane!

2. For hospital rights and visitations.

Did you know that if you are not legally married you do not have rights within a hospital setting to be in the room with the patient because you are not family.

3. Marriage is a covenant between two people.

4. Civil Unions only provide a certain amount of rights.

The couple does not receive the 1300 and more Federal rights that heterosexuals have. If one partner dies there will not be social security benefits of the other because that is a Federal law privilege not a civil law one.

THANK YOU Elizabeth.

Meeting your new guy’s friends By Kimberly Dawn Neumann

Things are great when it’s just the two of you. But then one day your new beau utters the phrase, “I’d love for you to meet some of my pals” and you know it’s time for the Friend Test.
Don’t panic. This is actually a good thing. He’s seeing you as someone who might stick around for a while, and he’s ready to gauge how you fit with the pieces already in place (i.e., his social circle). But that’s also precisely why it’s very important to make a good impression at this juncture in your relationship.

“In the gay world, meeting a new beau’s friends for the first time is like meeting his family,” says Joe Kort, MSW, a psychotherapist and author of 10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do To Find Real Love. “A gay guy is going to look for his friends’ approval before moving towards exclusivity.”

With that in mind, we’ve gathered some expert and real-people advice to help you sail through that first friend meet-up. Read on to learn more.

It's All Because (The Gays Are Getting Married)

Funny video by singer Oded Gross about why trouble in his life occurs all because of the gays getting married!

Gay Affirmative Therapy Promotional DVD

Here is a DVD promotional piece about the gay affirmative therapy work I do with the GLBT community.

CHILDREN AND SEXUALITY

I talked with a journalist in the June issue of Metro Parent Magazine in the Detroit area about helping parents talk to their children about sexuality.

On the Birds and Bees:

Royal Oak psychotherapist Joe Kort adds that if parents are uncomfortable with their own sexual feelings, they are going to be uncomfortable with their kids.“They don’t want to see their child as sexual,” Kort says.

On Masturbation:

Royal Oak psychotherapist Joe Kort says that throughout history, masturbation has been associated with shame, guilt and all-out fear. “You’ll go blind!” was a common threat, as parents slapped chastity belts and other medieval contraptions on their children to prevent them from the sinful act of “spilling their seed.”

(I am reminded of the joke where the father says to his little boy, "Don't masturbate you will go blind" and the boy responds, "Can I do it until I need glasses?"

On Having Gay Children:

“You can really end up making them feel they don’t belong,” says Kort, warning that the more disapproving you are, the more you’ll damage their self-worth and send them into hiding. “Often a child will turn to the Internet, pushing them to do dangerous behavior,” Kort warns. He says that gay teens can be vulnerable to sex abusers because they have no one else to talk to. He recommends if parents feel uncomfortable, or cannot discuss the topic in a respectful manner, they should seek out assistance, such as family counseling or a sex education class.

I went to see, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry this weekend at an east side theatre in the Detroit Area. The line was filled with people between the ages of 16-15-years-old. The east suburbs of Detroit, Michigan are not the gay-friendliest so I expected to hear a lot of snickering, laughing at parts that were about gay couples and booing if anything was close to a scene of tenderness and romance between men. But, that was not the case.

I was updated to how people are today in terms of seeing and hearing gay issues. The crowed did not boo or hiss or snicker at any parts that I thought would be standard to do during scenes which were pro-gay.

I remember seeing, Midnight Express as a teenager and there was a scene where two men in a Turkish prison kiss. The audience booed and when one of the men in the scene stopped the kissing protesting that he could not do it, the audience applauded and cheered.

That was 1978. This is 2007. Perhaps thing are changing.

I even challenged the woman who took our movie theatres. I went with a straight friend of mine who cannot be mistaken for anything but straight. When the woman taking our tickets showed us the line (which was very long) I said to her, "Are these people all gay seeing this movie" to see if she would laugh. She didn't. Instead she gave me a dirty contemptuous look which normally would have angered me. However it was comforting. Even she was tolerating any anti-gay material that night.

Still, the skeptic in me thinks perhaps the movie did not get jeers because the two main characters were both straight--in the movie and in real life--and were not really gay. Maybe I should have seen Brokeback Mountain at an Detroit east side suburb movie theatre. That would have been the real test.

This audience of youngsters made my inner gay little boy feel safe and welcome.

I loved the movie. Two gay thumbs up!

In Memoriam: Maud Cramer-Kort 1995-2007

I received more than 100 emails from people after I emailed out the death of my dog Maud. I was touched and delighted that so many people felt the desire to send me sympathies. I received pictures of peoples dogs, stories and even the dogs themselves typed me email sending their condolences. That was one of my favorite emails!

I just learned that Oprah lost her 2-year-old dog to a choking accident. It touched my grief about my beloved dog, Maud, who died suddenly of a heart attack June 30, 2007. I wrote an article about it called, "And Then There's Maud"

And Then There's Maud!

Terriers and the People They Own

by Joe Kort, MSW

©2007 All rights reserved.

Have you ever heard of a dog that gives you the middle finger, snubs you when you call, believes that you exist to please her and that she doesn’t have to please you (unless she feels like it)—and channels the worst parts of your mother to boot? A dog that intentionally tries to trip you when you walk downstairs and in the middle of all of your hard work, intentionally shuts off your computer by sitting on the outlet? A dog that laughed at you when you yelled and screamed for obedience? Well that was my dog, Maud, who owned my partner and me for 12 years.
In August, 1995 my partner, Mike, and I purchased a Welsh terrier. At the time, we’d been together for two years and lived together for seven months. As we were nesting, we thought a dog would be a good way to start a family together. Mike is allergic to dogs with dander, so we had to stick with breeds that have no dander, and terriers were one of those.

I see straight people!

I feel like the kid in the movie "The Sixth Sense" when people ask me if I see straight people in my practice. They ask because I am an out gay psychotherapist and wonder if I can translate my work toward straight people.

I understand their thinking as gays and lesbians as well as those in 12-step recovery programs ask therapists if they are gay or in recovery for their need to know the therapist knows something about their situation.

My practice has always been--and still is--65% heterosexual. The reason is that I specialize in imago therapy, sexual addiction, sexual abuse and over time receive heterosexual referrals from clients.

I also receive referrals of straight male clients who want to address sexual issues and feel that because I am gay I will understand. While I do understand sexual issues it is dangerous to believe it is only because I am gay.

There are plenty of unqualified gay therapists who say they be of help and are inadequate. While I have had to address my own sexuality more closely because of my homosexuality, my expertise with sexual issues comes from my professional training.

So, yes I see straight people and welcome any and all referrals.