Gay voters should blame themselves for Prop 8, not black Californians.
Smart LGBT leaders knew our campaign couldn’t make Prop 8 a “gay” issue.
Must we appear as churchgoers or nationalists to deserve our rights?
In part, Prop 8 failed because of inept LGBT leadership.
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By Michael Lucas
Friday, August 31, 2007
Something absolutely outrageous is going on in our community. One particular company, hiding behind its name, Out Professionals, is practicing an odious gay-against-gay form of discrimination. I in turn am speaking out against its President, Michael Tracy, and hoping that others will too, in order that this form of discrimination be utterly squelched.
Out Professionals is a gay networking organization that includes on its web site help-wanted advertisements relevant to LGBT job-seekers. In the past, I have placed ads on that site for positions in the Lucas Entertainment corporate offices. By that means I have come to employ more than a dozen professionals in positions as diverse as that of cameraman, operator, accountant and computer programmer. These employees work happily in their jobs and are compensated with competitive pay and benefits.
A few months ago, we were rejected when we tried to post additional ads for a cameraman and an editor. So I called Michael Tracy, introduced myself and asked why our ads had been refused. He said it is the policy of Out Professionals not to accept listings from adult entertainment companies. Make no mistake about it; Out Professionals is not where I look for my actors. The positions I advertise on OP are every bit as professional as those placed by any other business.
When I told Tracy we had previously given gainful employment to out professionals who found us through the site, he said that OP is now enforcing an anti-adult-entertainment-jobs-announcement policy. I told him that was a form of discrimination.
HE’S AN ARROGANT HYPOcrite. If he will prove that he never has and never will look at adult entertainment and get pleasure from it, I will say I was wrong to call him an arrogant hypocrite.
On the phone, he said, “Do you, Mr. Lucas, misunderstand the meaning of our organization’s name? It’s called Out Professionals. How can you possibly fit in?” I asked whether he thought my company was not professional. I asked whether he thought my company was not out. I told him he should know of all my activism in promoting the well-being of the gay community, including my speaking up about, and placing community service ads against, drug abuse and in favor of safe sex. I told him that my life partner had been President of the Board of the LGBT Community Center for eight years.
My life partner, Richard Winger, and I, make joint decisions, just like any modern married couple. We have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to New York’s gay community in the past 10 years, and our fund-raising efforts have produced substantially more. Next time Michael Tracy or anybody else from Out Professionals uses The LGBT Center’s rest facilities, they should take a good long look at whose name is on a plaque for having donated the money to build them. I let Tracy know all this and told him not to forget that his meetings are held in The Center. He told me he was paying a fee to The Center and wasn’t intimidated by me. I was not trying to intimidate him. I was trying to show him how wrong-headed he is.
I don’t want to let pass as though it were of little importance the fact that my life partner Richard Winger for so long put his whole heart and soul into seeing that The Center would flourish and be a place where the gay community in all its wonderful diversity could thrive and feel welcomed. Richard wants all members of the community to feel welcomed; not just those of whom Michael Tracy approves. Tracy doing this is a violent slap in Richard’s face. It goes against everything he believes in, and the motivations he has for so selflessly giving to the gay community. Richard does not want to see this tin-pot tyrant dividing the community into upper-class gays and lower-glass gays.
I CAN FIND PEOPLE to work in my corporate offices without Out Professionals. Michael Tracy’s obnoxious behavior illustrates the tendency of certain gays and lesbians to treat others in our community as second-class citizens.
Richard Burns, executive director of The LGBT Center, when hearing this story called Tracy’s behavior “ridiculous” and said that professionals qualified to work in my corporate offices should be able to learn of opportunities to do so through the Out Professionals site. In fact, he said that Out Professionals are “crazy” not to take our ads and thus deprive their members of the chance to be gainfully employed.
I now call on Burns to exclude Out Professionals from using the LGBT Center’s facilities unless and until the group changes its policy.
In my 10 years of producing gay adult films that so many have enjoyed, have I done anything to merit this banishment?
Almost all gay people have been discriminated against for various reasons; Michael Tracy is no exception. He got himself into a position of power and now behaves like a KGB agent, discriminating against other gay people, in this instance based on who-knows-what Puritanical impulse that virtually nobody in the community shares.
I don’t believe that most members of Out Professionals agree with this policy; I think this is Michael Tracy’s position, and that he wants to enforce it because he has deep-seated psychological disturbances related to when he was discriminated against earlier in life for being gay. Hip, hip, hooray and 10 Bronx cheers for him that in doing this, he feels superior.
I call on the members of Out Professionals and others in our community to speak out against Michael Tracy’s odious behavior. Who knows how many straight-and-narrow lines all the Michael Tracys out there will decide LGBT people have to toe next? If he won’t change his position, he should be dismissed.
Michael Lucas is the president and CEO of LucasEntertainment.com. You can read more about his thoughts and his XXX movies at LucasBlog.com.
Editor’s note: We would like to point out that op-eds are not necessarily the viewpoint of The New York Blade, but rather are viewpoints of individuals in the community we think will spur discussion among our readers. We invite all readers to respond via a Letter to the Editor or an opinion piece. We can be reached at nybl@hx.com
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