ABC Television may be slamming shut Ellen's closet door
forever
ABC has decided to put Ellen on hiatus during March and April. ABC Entetainmnent President Jamie Tarses said that the network has yet to decide whether an Ellen coming out episode (which has as yet not been taped) will air.
Radical religious groups are taking advantage of this unfortunate turn of events by mounting an unprecedented campaign of pressure against ABC and Disney. Following Tarses' statement, Ellen Morgan sang her way out of the closet during the January 10 taping of the show. In the episode, Ellen attends a rock'n'roll fantasy camp, where she performs a song, which she penned, called "I'm Scared of Being Afraid." In the third take of the song, the Morgan character crooned, "So here's what I have to say ... And by the way, I'm gay! It's okay! "
As the studio audience cheered, she ended the song with the refrain "I'm gay! I'm gay! I'm gay!" A spokesperson for Ellen Indicated that the take was an unscripted, spontaneous improvisation by DeGeneres and would not air.
The coming out song seems to make clear DeGeneres' intention to let her character out of the closet. It may highlight her frustration with the show being placed on hiatus and Tarses' waffling on whether or not to let the character out. On January 14, the radical religious American Family Association issued a release urging people to demand that Disney follow the AFA's hate agenda and force Ellen Morgan to stay in her closet.
Meanwhile, due to ABC's waffling, internet activists on Prodigy have started a campaign to send ABC waffle coupons, pictures of waffles. packets of waffles and homemade waffle recipes via snail mail and e-mail. Only the lesbian and gay community and its supporters can turn the situation around. Do not let religious radicals control what you can watch on television-let Ellen out!
Please join in the Prodigy campaign. Also, write letters and call both ABC and Disney insisting that ABC let Ellen out and renew its commitment to diversity and inclusion in its programming. Contact: Michael Eisner, Chairman and Dean Valentine, President of Network TV and Television Animation, Walt Disney Company, 500 South Buena Vista Street, Burbank, CA 91521, phone: 818.560.1000, fax: 818.560.1930, e-mail: http://www.disney.com/Mail. For ABC: Jamie Tarses, Entertainment President, ABC Television Network, 2040 Avenue of the Stars, Los Angeles, CA 90067, fax: 310.557.7679, e-mail: abcaudr@ccabc.com. For sponsor contacts and more information, visit the GLAAD website at www.glaad.org.
[from the Glaad Newsletter: www.glaad.org]
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this looks like a reliable place for info. I met a Tulane student-a friend of friends-who was abducted during a drunken/drugged night and was missing for a day. When he came to he called first his friends, confused and in pain, and then the police.
His liver had been removed, surgically, stitched back up, etc.
I was in Germany while all of this happened, missed it on the news, in the papers, etc. But it has me spooked, that something like this happens in the U.S. (I've heard of it in Northern Africa, the Middle East).
What can you tell me ... what is the procedure and WHY? If you don't feel like responding I understand, maybe a tedious subject. I have an honest desire to understand this, for some reason. Pre-Med major ... this is the most frightening thing I can imagine. Has it happened more than this one time? What happens to the person (he was told he would not live for more than 7 more years ... Any info is welcome ...
thank you J.J.B please respond to jbigalke@students.wisc.edu
Hi...
this will be the llth Mardi Gras in a row for me ... ya'll always throw me great beads from your balcony.... Please tell Michael Sullivan I said Hi, and I will be there in about two weeks ... hope to see his brother Kevin too ....I was shocked to see Petronius featured on the internet, especially Lee Fetherson as Cher ... wow.... and I was there ....Thanks for the great internet site...I'm going to show my friends ...oh.my name is Herb, and I am an associate member of petronius, you probably would recognize me, but you dont know my name..I often costume as a Hockey Player with a mask painted in Mardi Gras colors ... & I was Stephen Foster (in the showboat costume) in Petronius two years ago ...
Anyway see ya'll real sooon...
Herb Krohn Seattle WA
Dear Rip and Marsha,
I just wanted to thank you for the great websites you sponsor. The information regarding gay New Orleans and Gay Mardi Gras are extensive, interesting, and exciting. Your graphics and site presentation really show that you care.
My fiancee Robin and I are coming to New Orleans for the first time this February, We leave Los Angeles to arrive Saturday, Feb 8, just in time for the last days of carnival (including Mardi Gras) We are staying for a few more days afterwards, to see the city after the crowds have gone. Actually he planned it so we'd have Valantine's day in New Orleans as well. Your web sites have provided me with a good overview of the city and the carnival celebration and I have to say I'm more excited than ever.
I can say for sure that we'll swing by you building to "show" our appreciation for your work. Maybe you'll "throw" us something in return.
Once again, thanks.
Stuart Baur & Robin Rafik Los Angeles, CA
