Today's Out Spotlight has been the Prime Minister of Belgium since December 2011. He is also the first Belgian Prime Minister of non-Walloon or Flemish descent as well as the only openly gay leader of a European Union country. Today's Out Spotlight is Elio Di Rupo.
Elio Di Rupo was born July 18, 1951, the son of two Italian immigrants. His father was born in San Valentino in Abruzzo Citeriore. Elio, who was born in the small town of Morlanwelz, in Wallonia, was the only of the children to be born in Belgium; his brothers and sisters were all born in Italy. When he was a year old, his father died in a car crash and his mother was unable to raise all seven children. For financial reasons, three of the children were raised in a nearby orphanage.
Di Rupo came in contact with the socialist movement for the first time during his studies in Mons, where he first obtained a master's degree and afterwards a Ph.D in chemistry. He went during the preparation of his doctorate to the University of Leeds (United Kingdom), where his function was that of lecture member of staff in 1977–1978.
He started his political career as an attaché at the cabinet of Jean-Maurice Dehousse in 1980–81. His first political mandate came in 1982, when he was Councillor of Mons (until 1985, and again from 1988 until 2000). In 1986, he was mayor of health, urban renewal and social affairs. Professionally, Di Rupo was at the same time cabinet member and then Deputy Head of Cabinet of the minister of finance of that time of the Walloon region and consequently Deputy Head of Cabinet of the minister of finance and energy of the Walloon region at that time Philippe Busquin (1981–85) and superintendent of the energy-inspection of the ministry of the Walloon region.
He was once described François Mitterrand as being "a character from a novel".
In 2000, Di Rupo became the mayor of Mons, which is the capital of the province of Hainaut.
In 1987, Di Rupo had his national political breakthrough. He was chosen as member of the Chamber of Deputies and went two years later for a short time to the European Parliament.
In 1991, he was chosen as a senator, but shortly afterwards (1992), he took in the French-speaking community his first ministerial function in Education and later also Media. These were his responsibilities until Guy Coëme, who was mentioned in the Agusta-scandal, resigned and Di Rupo went to the federal government in 1994 as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Traffic and Governmental companies. Following the elections in 1995, he remained the Vice-Prime Minister of Belgium and was appointed minister of Economics and Telecommunications. In 1995 he signed the merger of the Belgian airline Sabena with Swiss Air that eventually led to the bankruptcy of Sabena with thousands of unemployed employees as result.
In 1996, at the time of the Dutroux affair, Olivier Trusgnach, a prostitute, alleged that Di Rupo paid him for sex while Trusgnach was still a minor. This accusation could have meant the end of his political career. Di Rupo denied the accusations and a close investigation showed that he was completely innocent. When he was confronted with the accusation that he was gay, he responded "Yes. So what?", and from that moment he has never hidden his homosexuality.
After the federal and regional elections of June 1999 in which, due to the Dioxin Affair, the Christian-Democrats lost many of their votes, Di Rupo negotiated with the Flemish socialists of sp.a, the Liberals and Green Party to form a "pink-green" government. Di Rupo himself was in charge of the function of minister-president of the Walloon region, but already in October of the same year the members of the party chose him as president and in April 2000, he was succeeded in his function of minister-president by Jean-Claude Van Cauwenberghe.
As new president of the party, Di Rupo was forced to make a generation change within the PS and go down a new path. During the regional and federal elections of 1995 and 1999, the PS lost many of its votes, partly because of corruption scandals in the 1990s (named Agusta-scandal and UNIOP-affair), in which the most prominent PS-politicians were involved. PS had been in the government subsequently since 1988 (in the regional government and in the federal government), but the liberal PRL (now MR) became in the 1999-elections as strong as the PS. Apart from those two, Ecolo also became an important political party. Di Rupo realised that drastic action was required to regain the position of the PS. By several measures, such as "Contrat d'avenir pour la Wallonie" (Contract for the Future of Wallonia) and a new generation of party leaders, by which Marie Arena was important, he tried to reassemble the left wing-forces around him. Successfully, because in the elections of 2003, PS regained the electoral score of 1991 and was by far the most important political party before MR. During the regional elections of 2004, it also became the most important party in the Brussels capital region.
Di Rupo changed, in 2004, the liberal coalition partner for the Christian-democratic party, in the Walloon Government and in the Brussels Capital Government (in the last also the green party Ecolo was part of the government). By doing this, coalitions were made which differed from the federal coalition at that time.
In October 2005, he became Minister-President of the Walloon Region after Jean-Claude Van Cauwenberghe resigned amid a corruption scandal, involving several members of Di Rupo's party. Di Rupo continued as party leader though and has had to deal with the PS's ICDI affair that emerged in May 2006.
In 2006 and 2007, Di Rupo and his party appeared unsuccessful in trying to clean out corruption. This was probably instrumental in the party's losing its first place amongst French community parties 2007 federal election. Di Rupo then decided to take a firmer stance against corruption in Charleroi: he virtually took control of the city's Socialist Party and ordered the Socialist mayor and aldermen to resign.
After former PS president Guy Spitaels urged him to choose between the presidency of the party and of the Walloon Region, Di Rupo decided to organize internal elections for party president in July 2007 rather than in October of that year and announced that he would resign from his mandate as Minister-President if re-elected. On 11 July 2007, Di Rupo was re-elected president of the Socialist Party with 89.5% of the votes.
Following the 2010 Belgian general election, in which the PS emerged as the largest of the Francophone parties and the second largest political party in Belgium, speculation emerged as to whether Di Rupo could be the Prime Minister in a new government. The RTBF raised questions, however, about whether Di Rupo's limited fluency in Dutch would be a stumbling block in seeking that office; every prime minister since 1979 had been a Fleming. In May 2011, he was appointed Formateur by the Belgian king, which gave Di Rupo the task of forming a government. Traditionally, the Formateur also becomes the Prime Minister of the government he forms. He became prime minister of the Di Rupo I Government on 6 December 2011. With Di Rupo's appointment, Belgium ended 589 days without a government, believed to be the longest such streak ever for a country in the developed world. Yves Leterme had resigned on April 26 2010 and had been serving as caretaker prime minister since then.
Di Rupo describes himself as an "atheist, rationalist, and Freemason." He is fluent in Italian and French. Since becoming Prime Minister, his Dutch has considerably improved and he is now considered trilingual according to his teacher.
Di Rupo came out as gay in 1996, and is the first openly gay man to lead a sovereign state after Norway's Per-Kristian Foss briefly served as prime minister of his country in 2002, and the first openly-gay man to win the position in his own right pursuant to an election From Di Rupo's election until 2013, he was one of the only two gay or lesbian national heads of government, the other one being Icelandic Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Out Spotlight
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Out Spotlight
Today's Out Spotlight is an American soccer midfielder who is currently a midfielder for the Seattle Sounders Women of the W- League, a member of the United States women's national soccer team and Olympian. Last week she came out in Out Magazine. Today's Out Spotlight is Olympian Megan Rapinoe.
Megan Anna Rapinoe was born July 5, 1985 grew up in Redding, California with her parents, Jim and Denise, and five siblings, including her twin, Rachael.
In high school, Rapinoe did not play soccer for her school's team instead playing for the Elk Grove Pride
club team. She was a part of the club from 2002 through 2005. Elk Grove plays in the Women's Premier Soccer League. The club won state and league championships, and were the
national runner-up in 2003. Over her four years, she scored 25 goals for the club. But she did compete in other sports for her high school including track as a freshman and
sophomore, and basketball as a freshman, sophomore, and senior all while making the honor roll every semester. She was named Parade and NSCAA All-American as a junior and senior and to the McDonald's All-American Game in 2004.
In 2004, she did not play college soccer what would have been her freshman season in order to play in the 2004 FIFA U-19 Women's World Championship where the United States placed third.
In 2005 as a freshman (in terms of her eligibility status), Rapinoe helped the Portland Pilots to an undefeated season and the NCAA Women's Soccer Championship. She was a NSCAA First Team All-America and was on the Soccer America First Team Freshman All-America. She made the NCAA Women's Soccer Championship All Tournament Team and was the West Coast Conference Freshman of the Year. She was also an All-West Coast Conference First Team and an All-West Coast Conference Freshman Team selection. Rapinoe played and started all 25 games as an attacking midfielder, scoring 15 goals and added 13 assists for 43 points. That year, she also had seven recorded game-winning goals.
As a sophomore in 2006, she was among the nation's leading scorers with 10 goals and 2 assists in just 11 matches before suffering her first season-ending Anterior cruciate ligament injury against Washington State University on October 5. She joined Tiffeny Milbrett and Shannon MacMillan as the only Portland Pilots to score 25 goals and 15 assists in just two years.
As a junior she appeared in just two matches off the bench early in the year before suffering a season-ending anterior cruciate ligament injury for the second consecutive season. She was granted a medical hardship waiver by the NCAA, but never used it.
She had one more season of college eligibility remaining, due to her NCAA medical hardship waiver, but opted to enter the Women's Professional Soccer draft instead. Rapinoe's 88 point career (30 goals, 28 assists) is 10th in the school's history despite playing just 60 total games.
She was selected second overall in the 2009 WPS Draft to Chicago Red Stars of Women's Professional Soccer. In the inaugural 2009 Women's Professional Soccer season, Rapinoe appeared in 18 games (17 starts, 1375 minutes) and scored two goals and assisted on three others. She was named a Women's Professional Soccer First-Team All-Star. In 2010, she struggled with illness, but played in 20 games (19 starts) scoring one goal on the last touch of the last game of the season.
In December 2010 she moved on to Philadelphia Independence after the Chicago Red Stars ceased operations. Rapinoe appeared in four games and scored one goal before she was traded to the MagicJack.
While in Germany playing in the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup,
Rapinoe was traded to the MagicJack. It was reported that the "cash
considerations" involved in the transfer were $100,000. This was the
most expensive trade in WPS history. On October 25, 2011, the Women's Professional Soccer
League voted to terminate the MagicJack franchise, leaving Rapinoe and
many other big names as free agents for the 2012 season. In October 2011, Rapinoe signed with W-League (Australia) team Sydney FC as a guest player for two games. In her second and final game against Melbourne Victory, she scored with eight minutes remaining to seal three points for Sydney.
Rapinoe trained with the team at 2006 Residency Training Camp in Carson, California. She came into training with the team early in 2006 and played in four matches. Rapinoe made her United States Women's National Team debut on July 23, 2006 against Ireland. She scored her first and second senior team goals on October 1, 2006 against Chinese Taipei.
Due to two separate anterior cruciate ligament injuries, Rapinoe did not play for the senior team in 2007 or 2008. She did not play in either the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup or the 2008 Olympics.
Upon her return to the United States Women's National Team
in 2009, Rapinoe led the team in points with five (two goals and one
assist). She played in seven games, starting in six. Rapinoe scored
against Norway in the Algarve Cup in a 1-0 victory, and also added a goal against Canada in Toronto.In 2010 Rapinoe started eight of the ten games she played and scored four goals with two assists. One of the assists came in the second match of the Women’s World Cup playoff series against Italy that set up Amy Rodriguez’s game-winning goal. Rapinoe scored against Sweden and China and twice against Guatemala at the CONCACAF Women's World Cup Qualifying tournament, in which she played three games.
Rapinoe was selected as part of the U.S. team for the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup. She came on as a substitute in a group stage match vs Colombia
in the 50th minute and scored almost immediately to put the U.S. up
2–0. Rapinoe started in the USA's last group stage match versus Sweden, in which the U.S. lost 2–1. During the quarterfinal match against Brazil, Rapinoe came on as a substitute and lofted a cross into the box for Abby Wambach's game-tying extra-time header; she would later convert her shot during the penalty shootout to help send the United States to the semifinals. Following the match against Brazil, she was named ESPN's Next Level Player of the Week for completing 5 of 10 crosses while the rest of the team was 0 for 18. She went on to notch two more assists in the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup semi-final and final against France and Japan, respectively. She ended the tournament with 1 goal and 3 assists.Following her appearance in the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup, Rapinoe's hometown of Redding officially made September 10, 2011 "Megan Rapinoe Day". Rapinoe won the Harry Glickman Professional Female Athlete of the Year award at the 60th annual Oregon Sports Awards held on February 12, 2012.
She is a member of the Women's USA Olympic Team. Later this month she will join her teammates to compete in the 2012 London Olympic Games.
"Known for her killer crosses (one in overtime to Abby Wambach during the World Cup last year helped Team USA tie Brazil and send the game to penalty kicks) and fabulous crop of short blonde hair (which has its own T-shirt and Twitter account), Rapinoe has long been a favorite among soccer fans and gay women for her infectious attitude and intense play."
On July 2, 2012, Rapinoe came out as gay in an interview with Out magazine. It was confirmed that Rapinoe was dating Australian soccer player Sarah Walsh for three years and had even taken her home to meet her family at Christmas time.Rapinoe feels women’s teams are generally more accepting. “In female sports, if you’re gay, most likely your team knows it pretty quickly,” she says. “It’s very open and widely supported. For males, it’s not that way at all. It’s sad.”
Her twin sister Rachael remains a passionate
supporter of her sister’s achievements and stressed her admiration of her
sister’s decision to be transparent concerning her personal life. “I think it’s
incredibly brave to use this talent and platform that she’s been blessed with
in a positive way,” Rachael says, “not just on the field, but providing an example
of how to treat people off the field as well.”“I feel like sports in general are still homophobic, in the sense that not a lot of people are out,” she says. “I feel everyone is really craving [for] people to come out. People want -- they need -- to see that there are people like me playing soccer for the good ol’ U.S. of A.”
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Out Spotlight
Today’s Out Spotlight is the first openly gay person and the first Latino to become executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Today’s Out Spotlight is Anthony Romero.
Anthony Romero was born in New York City on July 9, 1965, to Demetrio and Coralie Romero who emigrated from Puerto Rico, settling in the Bronx to raise their family. When he was young, Romero’s father faced discrimination for a job promotion. A lawyer hired through his father’s union won him the promotion, and the extra earnings helped the family purchase a new home and their first car.
Romero was the first member of his family to graduate high school. He graduated from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 1987 and from Stanford University Law School, and is a member of the New York Bar. He was a Dinkelspiel Scholar at Stanford University, a Cane Scholar at Princeton, and a National Hispanic Scholar at both institutions. In 2003, he was named Stanford’s first Public Interest Lawyer of the Year.
Romero became executive director in September 2001, four days before the September 11th attacks. He is the first openly gay man and the first Hispanic director of the civil liberties institution. Under his direction, the ACLU has achieved its highest level of membership and tripled its budget. This growth has allowed the organization to expand its efforts to champion causes such as lesbian and gay rights, racial justice and reproductive freedom.
In response to post-9/11 government policies, he helped create the ACLU’s “Keep America Safe and Free” campaign, which aims to protect basic freedoms during times of crises. The campaign was successful in its opposition to the USA PATRIOT Act and litigation regarding the torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody. In his capacity as ACLU head, he was involved in opposition to several policies taken under the Bush administration's 'War on Terror'.
Referring to the August 17, 2006, federal court declaration that the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" was unconstitutional, Romero called the court's opinion "another nail in the coffin in the Bush administration's legal strategy in the War on Terror".
He was named one of TIME magazine’s 25 Most Influential Hispanics in America in 2005. Additionally, Time has called him "The Champion of Civil Rights". In 2007, he and co-author and NPR correspondent Dina Temple-Raston published “In Defense of Our America: The Fight for Civil Liberties in the Age of Terror,” a book that takes a critical look at civil liberties in this country at a time when constitutional freedoms are in peril.
Romero has also received an honorary doctorate from the City University of New York School of Law.
In 2010, the ACLU completed the largest fundraising campaign on behalf of civil rights and civil liberties in American history. “Leading Freedom Forward: The ACLU Campaign for the Future,” along with the ongoing Strategic Affiliate Initiative, launched an unprecedented effort to build the organization's infrastructure by increasing funding to key state affiliates, enhancing advocacy capabilities nationwide and securing the ACLU's financial future.
“When you’ve seen prejudice, you understand that we aren’t finished, that we’re still perfecting this American experiment.”
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Out Spotlight
Today's Out Spotlight is a stand-up comedian, actress and an outspoken supporter of GLBT and feminist causes. Today's Out Spotlight is Suzanne Westenhoefer.
Suzanne Westenhoefer was born March 31, 1961 in Columbia, Pennsylvania, the youngest of three sisters. When the girls where between the age from six to two, their father abandoned them and their mother. Their situation was highly unusual for the time and place; Westenhoefer recalled that "there were no other divorced families in the entire town" back in the 1960s. From that experience she and her sister and mother became "very, very bonded" to each other.
The youngest of three sisters, Westenhoefer was born March 31, 1961 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. When the girls ranged in age from six to two, their father abandoned them and their mother. Their situation was highly unusual for the time and place; Westenhoefer recalled that "there were no other divorced families in the entire town" back in the 1960s. Perhaps partly because of that, the mother and her daughters are all "very, very bonded" to each other.
Her middle sister Joan,is also a lesbian activist and their mother is proud of both her girls who are out and proud. Upon meeting other parents of GLBT children, her mother has been has been known to quip, "You have only one?"
Westenhoefer's oldest sister, a born-again Pentecostal, thinks they will be damned for their sins, but nevertheless, everyone manages to get along. "We love each other, and we're never not going to be friends," said Westenhoefer of her family.
After high school, she went to Clarion University. While there, she helped found the college's first gay and lesbian group.
After earning her degree in drama, she moved to New York City in hopes of beginning an acting career. She continued her involvement in GLBT causes, marching with ACT UP and later with Queer Nation after that group split off from ACT UP.
Out, proud, pretty, and funny, she found success as a stand-up comedian and actress.
She started her stand-up career with a three-minute routine at a piano bar in 1990 on a dare from her friends. She was a natural and then her friends urged her to continue and enter a stand-up contest at a West Village cabaret. She won and started getting bookings at other New York clubs.
She got wider attention when she appeared on a January 1991 episode of the Sally Jesse Raphael's show entitled "Lesbians Who Don't Look Like Lesbians." The tall, blond, and beautiful Westenhoefer evidently did not match whatever stereotypical image the producers had of what lesbians looked like.
She didn't perform on the show, but just the fact that she was identified as a stand-up comedian led to more bookings and opportunities to tour.
She was an immediate hit with queer audiences, but she wanted to reach out to the mainstream public. "I want to talk to straight people. I want to dialogue with them. I want them to get over this stereotype stuff. I have a desperate need to convince each straight person that we're fine," she said, adding that from the beginning, "I've always enjoyed the responsibility of being, to some degree, a vocal person for the gay community. I take that on on purpose. It's a mission in my life."
She made her television debut when she was featured in "Out There", a special filmed on National Coming Out Day, October 11, 1993. The next year she was the first openly gay comic to host her own HBO Comedy Special in 1994 which earned her a Cable Ace Award.
Westenhoefer's first comedy album, Nothing in My Closet But My Clothes, was released in 1997. She found humor in her relationships--romantic, familial, and with pets--and in interviewing her sports idol, Martina Navratilova, for The Advocate, among other topics. The album earned a Gay/Lesbian American Music Award (GLAMA) for comedy.
Her second CD, I'm Not Cindy Brady,refers to the fact that some people thinking she played the youngest daughter on the sitcom The Brady Bunch. The album garnered another GLAMA Award.
While she was racking up time and praise for her TV appearances on cable, including stand-up performances on Comedy Central, Evening at the Improv, Caroline's Comedy Hour, Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, and The Jon Stewart Show, the networks were slow to recognize her.
Her first appearance on network TV came in March 2003 when she was a guest on the David Letterman Show. It was a first for Letterman as well: no out lesbian comic had been invited before, nor had any openly gay man.
Letterman's booker had been trying for two years to convince executives to invite her on the show, and when the call finally came, she saw it as both an opportunity and a responsibility. "I felt the need to do really well because I was speaking--and hopefully opening doors--for lots of gay folks," she stated. "I was also scared because I am female. Watch TV; not too many chicks [are] getting the opportunity to do stand-up either."
Westenhoefer has noted there is a bizarre parallel between the boosts to her career by her appearances on Raphael and Letterman: the former occurred the day before the start of the Gulf War, and the latter took place on the eve of the war with Iraq. "Two big milestones of my career, and a Bush goes into Iraq and attacks. There's something creepy about it."
She is also one of four lesbian comedians including Kate Clinton, Marga Gómez, and Karen Williams who were profiled in Andrea Meyerson's 2004 film Laughing Matters. The documentary included interviews with the women as well as segments from their stage shows.
In 2006, she returned to cable television as a panelist on the Game Show Network's revival of I've Got a Secret, a long-running show of the 1950s and 1960s. Joining her on the all-gay panel of the new edition were radio host Frank DeCaro, actor and dancer Jermaine Taylor, and former major-league baseball player Billy Bean.
Her comedy special and documentary, A Bottom on Top, aired on LOGO Television in the fall of 2007.
She continues to tour and her latest venture is a starring role in the popular online web drama “We Have To Stop Now” is about to enter its second season, with the first soon available on DVD from Wolfe Video.
Critics have noted that Westenhoefer's language is relatively tame and restrained compared to other queer performers such as Margaret Cho and Lea DeLaria. She acknowledges the difference in style and said "I don't want to ever make my audience uncomfortable."
Westenhoefer has always been a supporter of women's and GLBT rights. She is a strong supporter of Planned Parenthood, after getting pregnant as a teenager, and having the option of choice, allowing her to choose to terminate the pregnancy.
She is strongly committed to the GLBT community and works many benefit appearances into her busy schedule of around one hundred concerts per year. She also encourages other performers to do their part as well: "Host AIDS fundraisers, and breast cancer auctions, and drag queen contests, and drag king contests."
While she is less aggressively political than some other comedians, she counts herself among "the sacred cow-busters." "Sometimes what comics do is we make jokes to get opinions across to people," she stated. "It's sneaky. We're getting you to see our opinions 'cause you're laughing and you've relaxed, and you don't even realize it."
One cause that is especially important is Marriage Equality.
The relationship at the center of Westenhoefer's life, and many of her routines, is with the woman who has been her partner since the early 1990s, Jennifer Houston, a marketing executive.
They were married in California, September 9, 2008. They chose to set their wedding date before the November election, in which Proposition 8 would be on the ballot in California.
Because they were married before the election, their union is among the approximately 18,000 same-sex marriages legally recognized by the state.
The couple maintains homes in Columbus, Ohio, and Los Angeles, California.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Out Spotlight
Today’s Out Spotlight an actor, performer, comedian and writer. He was the first openly gay Asian American on network television series. Today’s Out Spotlight is Alec Mapa.
Alejandro "Alec" Mapa was born in San Francisco born July 10, 1965 into a conservative Catholic Filipino family as a first generation Asian American. He learned early on that any behavior outside the heteronorm was unacceptable in the strict household. “Growing up in San Francisco in the 70's was like watching the last 10 minutes of the Roman Empire,” he said. “I had a schizophrenic upbringing, coming from a conservative Filipino Catholic family, yet we’d go to the Castro Street Fair. I loved growing up there, because the diversity was so great in the seven by seven miles. It makes you less fearful of other people and cultures.”
At school he was taunted by other students and tried to win acceptance by being the comedian. To cope with the pain of the situation at school, he started taking drugs. In high school at George Washington High School Mapa found "a gay and lesbian support group" in the form of the drama club, which he "loved . . . because it was full of misfits." 
One of his first performances was in School's production of Bye Bye Birdie where he starred as Randolph McAfee. His senior year productions were Cabaret and Harvey both in which he had the lead roles. Mapa was also a champion orator in the Humorous and Dramatic Interpretation categories of Speech.
Through drama, he also met a teacher who recognized his ability and potential for success. The teacher gave him an ultimatum that he stop "throwing it all away" through his drug use and poor academic performance. "Her words yanked me off a ledge,". After which he set his sights on college and, despite poor early grades in high school, he managed to get accepted to New York University to prepare for a career in acting. He attended NYU along with fellow comedians and class mates Adam Sandler and Molly Shannon.
Right after graduating he got his first job: he was among the cast of “M. Butterfly” on Broadway. In the cast with a minor role he also served as lead actor B.D. Wong’s understudy. He took over the role of Song Liling, and continued as the lead in a national tour of the play. After it closed Mapa found himself unemployed. “No one knew what to do with me,” he said. So, like his classmates, he ventured into comedy and created his own act and started on the stand-up circuit which led to his getting cast in numerous sitcoms.
Looking back on growing up Mapa recalled that the only Asian-American actors that he had seen on television were Victor Sen Yung, the ranch cook Hop Sing on Bonanza, and George Takei, Mr. Sulu on Star Trek, who himself would come out many years later and become a spokesperson for GLBT rights.
On TV, he made guest appearances on a wide range of show, including The Jamie Foxx Show, Roseanne, Seinfeld, NYPD Blue, Friends, Murder One and Dharma & Greg. He co-starred with Jason Bateman in the short-lived 2001 comedy Some of My Best Friends. What started out as a 3 episode guest part Mapa turned in 3 year season run as Adam Benet in the UPN comedy Half & Half.
He been was a featured performer on the Logo original stand-up comedy series Wisecrack and recently had roles on two ABC hit shows , as Vern, Gabrielle's gay best friend, on Desperate Housewives and as Suzuki St. Pierre, the gay on-screen host (and the alias of straight—and married—journalist Byron Wu) of the fashion-oriented television channel that covers the inside gossip from Mode and other fashion magazines, on Ugly Betty. Mappa also voices Rick's flamboyantly gay uncle Bakla for the animated series Rick & Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World, on Logo.
In 2008, he hosted Transamerican Love Story, a reality dating program starring transgender woman Calpernia Addams selecting from among eight potential suitors. That same year, he also hosted Dancing With Dogs on Animal Planet. In 2010, Mapa became one of the co-hosts of Logo's The Gossip Queens, a daily series where he helps present celebrity gossip.
His film credits include parts in Bright Lights, Big City, Playing by Heart, and Connie and Carla, among others. He was featured in the movies Super Sweet 16: The Movie and Tru Loved. He also was in his fellow classmate Adam Sandler’s You Don't Mess with the Zohan, and the movie "Marley and Me".
He often jokes that he is sometimes confused with Rex Lee who plays Lloyd on the HBO’s Entourage.
But he hasn’t forgotten performing live, he has gone to write and performed in several one-man shows including "I Remember Mapa", about his experiences growing up gay in San Francisco, and “America’s Gaysian Sweetheart.”, dishing the good and the gossip of working in show business. “Queens love gossip. They want to know who’s horrible and who’s a nightmare,” he says. The show also offered plenty of the social observations and cultural commentary that Mappa’s honed as a columnist for The Advocate where his “Minority Retort” has been a regular feature since 2003. In it he covers everything from personal antidotes to general cultural interest, both amusing and serious, one thing they all hold in common is that they consistently reflect both his wit and his deep commitment to the cause of GLBT rights.
In 2009 LOGO broadcast his comedy special, Alec Mapa: No Fats, Femmes or Asians, which revisits his experience growing up gay in a Catholic Filipino family as well as his life on the dating scene.
Mapa lends his support to various projects supporting the gay, lesbian, and Asian American communities. A tireless fundraiser he has toured the country on behalf of The Human Rights Campaign and The Matthew Shepard Foundation also serving on their board. He also devotes time to fundraising for worthy, Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services, AIDS Project Los Angeles, the Trevor Project, and Lambda Legal. He also has entertained live audiences with Rosie O’Donnell aboard her “R Family Cruises and all over the world with Atlantis Cruises.
Mapa was awarded the prestigious Davidson Valentini GLAAD Award for promoting equal rights for the LGBT community.
Mapa and Jamison ("Jamie") Hebert have been a couple since 2002. They registered as domestic partners in California in 2005, and were married in 2008 before the passage of Prop 8. Last summer, Mapa announced that he and his husband had recently adopted a 5 year old boy through Southern California Foster Family & Adoption Agency, and urged others to do so. 
Describing his family on ‘The View,’ Mapa described them in the way only Mapa can: “We became foster adopt parents this year. My husband’s white, my son’s black, I’m Asian … we look like the last two minutes of It’s A Small World!”
The family happily live in Los Angeles, CA.
Here's a small clip of Alec on The View.
Interview with Alec
Alec at GLAAD award in 2008
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Out Spotlight
Today's Out Spotlight is among America's finest poets, writing about nature and the intersection with human beings she has been compared to Emerson, Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay. A Pulitzer Prize winner she has also received the National Book Award and a Lannan Literary Award. Today's Out Spotlight is Mary Oliver.
Mary Oliver was born to Edward William and Helen M. V. Oliver on September 10, 1935, in Maple Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. Her father was a social studies teacher and coached in the Cleveland public school system. Oliver began writing poetry at the age of 14, and at 17 visited the home of the late Pulitzer Prize winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, in Austerlitz in upper New York state. She attended both Ohio State University and Vassar College, but did not receive a degree from either. As a young poet, she was deeply influenced by Millay and briefly lived in Millay’s home, helping Norma Millay organize her sister’s papers.
She and Norma became friends and Oliver “more or less lived there for the next six or seven years, running around the 800 acres like a child, helping Norma, or at least being company to her” and helping with organizing the late poet's papers.
On a return visit to Millay's home in the late '50s, Oliver met photographer Molly Malone Cook, who would become Oliver's partner for over forty years.
In Our World she writes of the moment they met
“I took one look and fell, hook and tumble."
Oliver and Cook, her literary agent as well, made their home together, mostly in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where they lived until Cook's death in 2005.
She recalled "I too fell in love with the town, that marvelous convergence of land and water; Mediterranean light; fishermen who made their living by hard and difficult work from frighteningly small boats; and, both residents and sometime visitors, the many artists and writers.[...] M. and I decided to stay.” The Cape Cod landscape has had a marked influence on Oliver’s work ever since. Known for its clear and poignant observations and evocative use of the natural world, her poetry is firmly rooted in place and the Romantic nature tradition.
Greatly valuing her personal privacy, she has given very few interviews, saying she prefers for her writing to speak for itself.
Her poetry is grounded in memories of Ohio and her adopted home of New England. Influenced by both Whitman and Thoreau, Oliver is known for her clear and poignant observances of the natural world. Her creativity is stirred by nature, and an avid walker, often pursues inspiration on foot. Her poems are filled with imagery from her daily walks near her home: shore birds, water snakes, the phases of the moon and humpback whales. In Long life she says "[I] go off to my woods, my ponds, my sun-filled harbor, no more than a blue comma on the map of the world but, to me, the emblem of everything.”
She commented in a rare interview “When things are going well, you know, the walk does not get rapid or get anywhere: I finally just stop, and write. That’s a successful walk!” She said that she once found walking herself in the woods with no pen and went later hid pencils in the trees so she would never be stuck in that place again. She often carries a 3-by-5-inch hand-sewn notebook for recording impressions and phrases. Maxine Kumin called Oliver "a patroller of wetlands in the same way that Thoreau was an inspector of snowstorms."
Her first collection of poems, Voyage, and Other Poems, was published in 1963, when she was 28.
During the early 1980s, she taught at Case Western Reserve University.
Her fifth collection of poetry, American Primitive (1983), won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984.
Dream Work in 1986 continued Oliver’s search to “understand both the wonder and pain of nature”. For some critics, Dream Work is ultimately a volume in which Oliver moves “from the natural world and its desires, the ‘heaven of appetite’...into the world of historical and personal suffering...She confronts as well, steadily," “what she cannot change.”
Oliver became Poet In Residence at Bucknell University (1986) and the Margaret Banister Writer in Residence at Sweet Briar College (1991), then moved to Bennington, Vermont, where she held the Catharine Osgood Foster Chair for Distinguished Teaching until 2001.
She has also won the Christopher Award and the L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award for her piece House of Light (1990) and New and Selected Poems (1992), won the National Book Award.
The transition from engaging the natural world to engaging more personal realms is evident in New and Selected Poems That volume contained poems from eight of Oliver’s previous volumes as well as previously unpublished, newer work. Oliver’s earliest poems are almost always oriented towards nature, but seldom examine the self and are almost never personal. In contrast,in her later works, she appears frequently. New York Times critics noted “this self-consciousness is a rich and graceful addition.” Oliver summed up her desire for amazement in her poem “When Death Comes” from New and Selected poems:
“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.”
She continued her celebration of the nature with such collections Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems (1999), Why I Wake Early (2004), and New and Selected Poems, Volume 2 (2004). Critics have compared her work to that of great American lyric poets and celebrators of nature, including Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, Edna St. Vincent Millay, John Muir, and Walt Whitman. She has also been compared to Emily Dickinson, with whom she shares an affinity for solitude and interior monologues. Her poetry combines dark introspection with joyous release. Although she has been criticized for writing poetry that assumes a dangerously close relationship of women with nature, she finds the self is only strengthened through an immersion with nature.
Oliver has continued to write publishing a new collection every year or two. Her main themes continue to be the intersection between the human and the natural world, as well as the limits of human consciousness and language in articulating such a meeting.
Recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, in addition to her Pulitzer and the National Book Award, she has also won the American Academy of Arts & Letters Award, the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Prize and Alice Fay di Castagnola Award for her work.
She continues to live in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
"You strode deeper and deeper into the world,
determined to do the only thing you could do,
determined to save the only life you could save.”
