News, Reviews & Commentary on Lesbian and Bisexual women in Entertainment and the Media

News, Reviews & Commentary on Gay and Bisexual Men in Entertainment and the Media

The Freedom Forum is a nonpartisan foundation dedicated to free press, free speech and free spirit for all people. The foundation focuses on three priorities: the Newseum, First Amendment freedoms and newsroom diversity.

GLAAD - Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation - formed in New York in 1985 and began by protesting The New York Post's blatantly offensive and sensationalized stories about AIDS. Its mission was to improve the public's attitudes toward homosexuality and put an end to violence and discrimination against lesbians and gay men.

IN JULY OF 1999, I began investigating a local Minneapolis "Think Tank" called the "Center of The American Experiment." Intuitively I had sensed very close connections between the Center, a 501(c)(3) charity, and the Republican Party of Minnesota, which set me out to find what actually was happening there.

To make a long story short, what I discovered was an interconnected web of conservative organizations spanning the gamut from academia to law to publishing to politics, all being funded and coordinated by a relatively small but wealthy group of philanthropies, chief among them the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Though the Center has only received about $310,000 directly from the philanthropies, nearly every one of its speakers and presenters is in some way connected to or funded by this movement.

Since 1996 we've produced over 50 exhibitions that suggest the range, depth, and importance of queer artistic expression.

Until the recent advent of Queer Studies, the History of Art has omitted most material of direct relevance to lesbians and gays. Much has been suppressed, much has been lost due to neglect or censorship, and a great deal has simply been overlooked. QAR is expanding the range and depth of knowledge about contemporary and historical queer art, and making this information freely available on our website.

We realize that artistic identity is molded by myriad factors, an amalgam of gender, racial, ethnic and sexual, to name a few. But we also know that honest artistic expression by the queer community plays a role in combating homophobia and advancing the principles of intellectual integrity.