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The New Hanky Code, Inside "The Normal Heart": Today In Gay

A gay boutique in West Hollywood is turning heads with its new window display, a symbolically HIV-positive mannequin wearing a hospital gown and hooked up to an IV and oxygen tank.  "World AIDS Day is every day," reads a placard in front of the figure. "People are people—end the hate"

Nir Zilberman, the owner of the store, sparked controversy several months ago with another mannequin dressed up like a Holocaust concentration-camp survivor, with a pink triangle to indicate it was gay.

While World AIDS Day is officially December 1, Zilberman is trying to generate awareness year-round: He's organized a candlelight ceremony Saturday evening in front of his store on  Santa Monica Boulevard.


[caption id="attachment_148816" align="alignright" width="251"]DENMARK-GAY-PRIDE-PARADE A lesbian couple at the Copenhagen Pride Parade[/caption]

Copenhagen is hosting the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest in May, and in the days leading up to the ultra-campy musical competition city officials will perform wedding ceremonies for both homosexual and heterosexual couples from around the world.

"We have already scheduled 20-30 couples in our calendar -both Danish and foreigners. On the first of the three days, we start with three Russian gay marriages," organizer Flemming Otto told Reuters. "We would like to strike a blow for the diversity and openness we have in Denmark. We are looking forward to marry all the happy couples, and I'm convinced we'll be very busy."

This year is the 25th anniversary of same-sex civil partnerships in Denmark, which legalized full marriage equality in 2012. At last year's Eurovision, Finland's Krista Siegfrieds ended her performance of “Marry Me,”  with a smooch on a female backup dancer. Given that the show airs in some seriously anti-gay countries, it was a significant statement.


the normal heart

The Normal Heart, Larry Kramer's seminal AIDS drama, finally comes to HBO next month, courtesy of producer-director Ryan Murphy and an all-star cast that includes Mark Ruffallo, Julia Roberts, Jim Parsons and Matt Bomer.

The Hollywood Reporter's May cover is devoted to the film, and the accompanying feature reveals much about the 25-year-struggle to bring the project to life. Barbara Streisand was long-attached to direct and co-star in a Normal Heart film, but she and Kramer could never see eye-to-eye.

As Streisand tells it, she had an offer from HBO to pay Kramer $250,000 for the rights, but he was demanding $1 million "and no company was willing to move on it."

In a 2012 email to Streisand that became public, Kramer offered his own version of events in typically lacerating style: "You had other movies and tours to make first. I sat back with increasing sadness as I watched you (often at the last minute) choose something else to do. … When your options lapsed, I said you could buy it for a million dollars and do whatever you wanted with it. … You kept telling me I wanted too much money. I kept telling you this is my only asset to sell and live on for the rest of my life."

Recounting the years he and Streisand put into trying to make a movie version, Kramer accused her of lacking "the burning passion to make it," a charge she resoundingly rejects. "It was hard for me to be attacked like that by Larry. I worked for so many years on it without ever taking a penny," Streisand told THR recently. "I will always believe in Larry's play and its powerful theme of everyone's right to love."

The Normal Heart premieres May 25 on HBO


Justin Sayre, host of the irreverent and unapologetically queer happening known as The Meeting—has resurrected the hanky code, the ancient color-coordinated telegraphy that allowed gay men to subtly announce their kinks in a pre-Grindr world.

Below, Sayre lays out "The New Hanky Code,"

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