Daniel Greene

Category: Lifestyle

My views on politics, religion, health, intimacy, and more

  • Flying the Rainbow Flag with Pride

    Flying the Rainbow Flag with Pride

    I’ve always been just a little bit of an activist. I wrote research papers in high school about the Nazi extermination of gays and about the Stonewall riots when I was only 16 and 17. I really wanted to learn and teach my history.

    In 1983, when I was 15, I was in my final sex education class (all about sexually transmitted diseases), and they didn’t teach HIV prevention at all. They said they hadn’t received any training about it and they didn’t have a curriculum. They let me stand up in front of the class and teach my peers everything I knew about the disease and how to avoid contracting it / spreading it. Looking back even now, what I said was correct. Less than five years later, the school district not only had a curriculum to teach HIV prevention; they changed the name of sophomore Sex Ed to something like AIDS and Other Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

    I never make a secret of the fact that I love men and chose to spend the rest of my life with one. My husband and I hold hands wherever we go. We enjoy it, and it’s the least we can do to keep pushing the envelope in all sectors of society. We’re here, we’re queer, enjoy it! 🙂

  • Our California Same-Sex Civil Marriage Ceremony

    Andy & I had already been married by our rabbi at Dor Hadash in San Diego on August 8, 2004, but we jumped at the chance to make our partnership legal in California the first Saturday they performed these civil marriages: June 21, 2008. We were married at about 5:30 PM by a deputy named Michael, whom I recognized from the gay community. My friend Paul took this video with my Canon G9 camera, my mom and Andy’s friend David were witnesses, and also present were my mom’s friend Honey and David’s boyfriend Rich. There was an assistant in the room as well.

    At the time we were married, this file was too large to upload to YouTube, I didn’t have the software to facilitate closed-captioning it, and YouTube didn’t yet allow for captions to be uploaded to accompany videos. Now, a year later, “we have the technology” (to quote from the opening sequence of The Six Million Dollar Man), and I have the honor of reliving this moment and crying at the wonder of it all.

    I just want to say this: Love is gr8. Repeal Prop h8!

  • Pride 2009 Official Video – and I helped!

    Rainbow Flag Above Me

    Rainbow Flag Above Me
    Originally uploaded by Daniel Greene

    I am thrilled to be a part of this. My Flickr friend, Jon Gilbert Leavitt (jglsongs on Flickr), asked if he could use my photo Rainbow Flag Above Me in this video to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the first gay pride parade that occurred after the Stonewall Rebellion. A longtime gay activist of sorts, I wrote a paper on the Stonewall Rebellion for a history class in my senior year of high school in 1985. Now, 24 years later, I’m contributing again to the commemoration of this important historic event. Enjoy the video and the song written by Jon and sung by his partner and another artist. Watch for my photo in the montage near the end.

  • What I’m up to these days. Just a wee bit busy!

    I crave excitement and I have a need to achieve. Sometimes, though, it seems that all my projects overlap and the pressure feels crushing. One way that I handle the pressure is to avoid it, which in turn makes the pressure even worse by the time I get back to work on what I’ve been procrastinating.

    So, what are all the things I’m doing (and/or avoiding doing) right now? Well, there is the matter of taxes. My husband’s employer somehow forgot to take out any taxes for him in 2008, and he somehow never noticed this. So I have to pay his tax debt with my tax refund. But to get my tax refund, my tax accountant needs to return my phone calls and e-mails, which so far he hasn’t. The sooner I get my taxes filed, the sooner I get my return, and the sooner we can file my husband’s taxes along with the money he owes. I would be nice if filing jointly were an option for same-sex couples.

    Then there is the Arizona RID State Conference this weekend. I am presenting a workshop on Saturday afternoon titled “Knowing What They’re Going to Say Before They Say It: Using Genre Recognition to Improve Your Predictive Skills.” I’m in a competing time slot with Ari-Asha Castalia, Sharon Neumann Solow, and Teddi Von Pingel, so no pressure there. 😉 (more…)

  • Started the cooler today

    https://twitter.com/#!/danielgreene/statuses/1373268112