I read in the NY Times magazine section today about how increasingly middle-school students as young as 11 and 12 are declaring their sexual-affectional identities to friends, family, and teachers. This is a welcome evolution of gay liberation that has resulted from decades of gay activism and the gradual inclusion of more accurate images of LGBT people in media. It is significant that young people with no sexual experience recognize their sexual-affectional identities at such young ages because being gay is more about whom and how we love and how this colors our experience of the world than about sex only. The article points out that parents never question their children when they admit to opposite-sex attractions at a young age, but they nearly always do with same-sex attractions. The common question, ”How can you know for sure at your age?“ is just another form of denial of their gay child’s reality that they would never think to impose on non-gay children. The article goes on to describe some support programs for gay youth, but it also reports what we all assume, that anti-gay bullying and harassment is still pervasive in schools and almost never challenged by teachers or administrators even in relatively liberal school districts.

I'd like to introduce myself to you. My name is Carl. I have been part of the Daddyhunt team for years now, working closely with Chris and Walt as we shaped and built Daddyhunt. As Chris and Walt depart the Daddyhunt team, I am sincerely grateful for their unique contributions to our spectacular success. Our goal will remain the same as it has always been. We are determined to build the biggest and the best internet community for Daddies and their Admirers, men of all ages, all nationalities, and every race.

To keep pace with our amazing growth, we are investing heavily in the infrastructure of Daddyhunt. Next month we will be moving to newer and faster servers, and we are hard at work on a new version of Daddyhunt (Daddyhunt 2.0.) This new version will have chat and a host of other features for our members and supporters. We hope you will help us make this site even more exciting by contributing your comments, suggestions and stories to our exciting new blog.

I have learned so much from this amazing community. So often people speak of the negative aspects of the online world, but through Daddyhunt's members, I have witnessed the Internet's power to improve people's lives. One man described to me how Daddyhunt "saved his life." It provided him a way out of his shell after the loss of his lover. Another man told me that he met his life partner on Daddyhunt. Countless long-term relationships (marriages included) began as an innocent "grope" on Daddyhunt.

As we move forward, we want to be even more responsive to the needs of our members. We know that Daddyhunt only exists because of you and for you, our loyal community of members and supporters. Thank you all for being a part of this exciting phenomenon, Daddyhunt.

As many of you know DaddyHunt was started by the company Pantheon Productions, LLC.  I founded Pantheon Productions in 2002 with the vision of creating an online community for daddies, bears and admirers.  Along the way, my friends Carl and Walt became partners in the business and have helped to develop different aspects of the company.  Walt has worked with me primarily on the video side of the business and Carl on developing and running DaddyHunt.

As the business has grown and changed we’ve decided that it is necessary to split off the personals business (DaddyHunt) from Pantheon Productions.  Carl will be taking over full responsibility for the DaddyHunt business under a new separate company.  Walt and I will become the sole partners in Pantheon Productions, LLC and will continue to run our video production company and HotOlderMale.com.  These changes will take effect in late January.

It saddens me to step down from my role in helping to run DaddyHunt.  I’m very proud of what we’ve developed.  I have received so many wonderful messages from members over the past few years who’ve told me that they’ve met partners on the site, or had some great dates, or met friends, or just that they enjoy the friendly community they find on DH.  As many of you know, I met my husband through these personals, so the DH community is something that I have a great fondness for. 

So we leave you in Carl’s capable hands.  It’s also the same great team running the site – Nicolas and Jason doing customer service and Danny helping to design and build new features.  I know they’ve got lots of great stuff planned for the future on DH so stay tuned.

If you want to keep up with Walt and me, we’ll be producing Pantheon Videos, running the HotOlderMale adult site and we will be writing for the new HOM Blog, coming soon.  We’ll also be hanging out on DaddyHunt as it is the best place on the net for Daddies and Hunters.  Feel free to say hi if you see us online.

Sincerely,
Chris Turner
CEO/Founder
Pantheon Productions, LLC
 

In a real-life case of the controversial 2005 children’s book about gay penguins, And Tango Makes Three, a male penguin couple in the Polar Land zoological park in Harbin, northern China, that last month were separated from their colony for stealing eggs from straight couples, has been given some of their own to look after, and now are being praised as model parents.

The flightless male birds were segregated after they were seen placing stones at the feet of parents before waddling away with their fertile eggs. Zookeepers said the couple were removed from the group not because of discrimination, but so as keep the colony tranquil during hatching time.

Dismayed visitors complained it was unfair to ostracize the couple and prevent them from becoming surrogate fathers, and urged the zoo to give them a chance at daddyhood. In response, zookeepers gave the prospective fathers two eggs to hatch “from another couple whose hatching ability had been poor, and they've [the male penguins] turned out to be the best parents in the whole zoo.”

“One of the responsibilities of being a male adult is looking after the eggs,” stated a zoo worker. “Despite the fact that they can't have eggs naturally, it does not take away their biological drive to be a parent.”

Central Park Zoo in New York City is home to Roy and Silo, the real-life happy penguin dads depicted in the children’s book. Zoos in Japan and Germany also have documented domesticated male penguin father couples.

For more on this story, click here.

Image from the dailymail.co.uk

A recent study has shown that African-Americans in California were far less supportive of proposition 8 -- which banned gay marriage in California in Novemer - than originally believed, but still more supportive than several other groups.

The study by Patrick J. Egan, Ph.D., assistant professor of politics and public policy at New York University, and Kenneth Sherrill, Ph.D., professor of political science at Hunter College, CUNY, under the auspices of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute shows that while exit polls indicated Black voters supported Prop 8 by nearly 70 percent, they in fact supported it by about 58 percent.

The study looked at pre- and post-election polls and conducted a sophisticated analysis of precinct-level voting data from five California counties with the highest African-American populations (Alameda (Oakland), Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco). Based on this, it concludes that the level of African-American support for Proposition 8 was in the range of 57-59 percent.

Egan said, "Party identification, age, religiosity and political view had much bigger effects than race, gender or having gay and lesbian family and friends."

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "...support among blacks is still well above the 52 percent Prop. 8 received from all voters in the Nov. 4 election. Much of that can be attributed to the strong religious tradition in the black community, where 57 percent of African American voters attend church at least once a week, compared with 42 percent of Californians overall."

New laws passed in Australia in November mean widows of war veterans in that Country can apply for pension benefits. The new laws come as a result of a ruling by the United Nations' Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the case of Edward Young of Australia.

According to an article in The Age, Young's partner of 38 years, Larry Cains, served in the Australian Army in Borneo during World War II. The two met in London in 1960 when Cains was a photographer and Young a model.  "He was desperately handsome," Young said, "we spent two weeks together and I told him I wanted to spend my life with him."

Edward Young  Photo: Peter Rae/ The Age

Young's battle began 10 years ago with the death of his partner.  Young applied for the pension only to be told that he and Cains were not a legally recognized couple under the Veteran's Entitlement Act.  The UN court ruled in his favor in 2003, saying Australia breached the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but the government of then Prime Minister John Howard held out on reviewing Mr. Young's case.

A spokeswoman for Veteran's Affiars said the new law will come into effect on July 1 of this year and encouraged others in Young's position to come forward and apply after that date.  "People such as Mr. Young will not be denied a war widow or widower's pension on the basis of a same-sex relationship."

Edwin Cameron, openly gay and HIV positive, has been appointed as a judge to the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the highest court in that Nation.   Judge Cameron becomes the first openly gay man or woman ever appointed to any nation's highest court.  The appointment came from South African President Mothlanthe on Wednesday.

A former Rhodes Scholar and human rights lawyer, Judge Cameron is the co-author of several books, including Witness to AIDS, a memoir on his experiences as a person living with AIDS.

Last summer, Judge Cameron addressed the International AIDS Conference in Mexico, arguing that homosexual sexual conduct should be decriminalized throughout the world, as a necessary step in fighting AIDS.  He elaborated the argument in a scholarly paper co-authored withwith Scott Burris.

We're always thrilled here at DaddyHunt when another mature gay man opens a new door for the rest of us.  Let's hope we see more gay men and women leading our world courts (and legistures and countries) soon.

Editor's Note:  It's two days from Christmas and we take a moment to remember all those men and women who are no longer with us because of the ongoing AIDS epidemic and to acknowledge these small gestures of their memory.

It may have taken 14 years to erect but New York City finally has a granite bench with a view of the Hudson.  Sure it doesn't sound like much, this little bench, but what it stands for is very special.

The inscription reads "I can sail without wind, I can row without oars, but I cannot part from my friend without tears" and that bench is New York City's AIDS Memorial.

Even though you might not be in The City That Never Sleeps take a moment to think about those who have gone, and thank NYC for their granite gesture of support.

Editor's Note: As we get nearer to Christmas day, we thought we'd look at things to be grateful for this year and say thanks.

It might be his age -- after all the General is getting to be well into his warm daddy-ness -- or it could be his happiness to finally be looking at an administration that understands (finally) that sexual orientation has nothing to do with a person's ability to serve in the armed forces, but Colin Powell has stepped into the spotlight to openly say the the U.S. Congress should re-evaluate "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

We need more leadership like this in our Country and so to you, General, we say: "Thank you, Sir!"

Well, guys, the answer is in and the answer is --  "The French."

What?  You actually want to know the question?  Okay, then: What European Union country's male population, statistically, has the longest and the thickest ...well, let's just say the longest and the thickest?

Now we're the first to accept the results of a well-thought-out and fully-documented study, especially one conducted by the very-official sounding "Institut fuer Kondom-Beratung" (whatever that means) but in the interests of fully supporting their findings we are simply going to have to insist on some further -- and very hands on -- research.

According to the researchers, French flag poles are, on average, 6.1 inches long and 5.4 inches around.  The Brits, by comparison, rise to a height of 5.2 inches and have a girth of 4.5 inches, on average.

Does it matter?  Probably not, but interesting nonetheless.  Perhaps interesting only in our never-ending fascination with penis size.  For more on this topic, read R. Jackson's post on the DH Blog.