News for the Week Ended June 22, 2011
BY ANN ROSTOW
Good Riddance to Weiner
We’re not going to discuss the marriage equality bill in New York. Not Gonna. Do it. We refuse to jinx the process by writing that we are one vote away from a major breakthrough in the legislative fight for marriage rights. La la la la la la la la. Plus, the outcome is really unclear at the moment, and by the time you read this, something will have happened for good or ill so you know more than I do at this point.
Ironically, I’m in New York right now! In Cortland, just a hop, skip and a jump from Albany. I can send psychic vibrations to the state senate from here. Hold on a sec. (Bzzzzzzzzzzz Zap.) Done. Who said I’m not an activist!
While we’re on the subject of things in New York, I have been bothered by my liberal friends at MSNBC, who have lately been obsessed by the idea that Anthony Weiner was forced to resign by media and political pressure, while Louisiana Senator David Vitter and others have been allowed to wallow in scandal while keeping their seats.
I’m a loyal Democrat and love to expound on hypocrisy, but Weiner’s activities transcended your run of the mill sexcapade. The man sent photos of his junk to women he’d never met. That’s one small step removed from dropping his pants on the subway. Vitter’s prostitutes and Ensign’s affair are standard issue bad boy behavior, but Weiner’s been chugging crazy juice.
There’s something very disturbing about the man; the narcissism, the suicidal risk taking, the sexual dysfunction, the easy betrayal of his wife and the sicko nature of his offenses. Who cares if he never actually “had sex?” Would a peeping Tom be allowed to keep a seat in Congress? Answer, no. And Weiner’s closer to that category than his philandering colleagues.
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People Who Hate Us
So this week, we’ve had an unusually high number of people being mean to gays and lesbians in public places.
We have the two disabled gay men who were kicked out of a pool in Kentucky because they were too close to each other in the water, at one point standing stomach to stomach and splashing each other.
We have the lesbians who exchanged a brief kiss at a Minnesota Twins game and were told by a security guard that the stadium enforces the Ten Commandments. By the way, which commandment bans kissing your partner when one of you is hitting the ladies room and the other is running to your seat to catch the start of the game? Must be number eleven.
Then there was the cashier at a DC Safeway who called her customers “faggots.”
And to top it off, I just read about a Southwest pilot who went on a lengthy rant about gay flight attendants that was picked up by the air traffic controllers and all the other planes.
The nice thing about these stories is that these days, the perpetrators of such nastiness are either fired, suspended or disciplined in some way, and their corporate employers rush to apologize and insist that their business is indeed the friendliest of gay friendly enterprises. So that’s all good.
Still, in the words of Rodney King, can’t we all get along?
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Wind Up The Perry Gossip Mill
To be honest, only half my mind is on this column. The other half is on Albany, where the last thing I heard was that some of the GOP senators who are still hashing out religious amendments to the marriage bill are in a private conference. They could call a vote ten minutes from now. Or they could blow it off for the year.
Although you can’t marry in New York, the state more or less recognizes marriages from elsewhere, so for the next week, Mel and I will once again be legally married. Strangely, it makes a difference to me. If I’m hit by a bus, she’ll be able to sit sobbing beside my broken body and squeeze my hand. And vice versa! It’s reassuring somehow.
It’s interesting that so many of the marriage benefits we seek come into play when we’re dead or dying. Pensions, wills, estate taxes, hospital visitation. What fun we’ll have when we’re finally equal…and kick the bucket!
That said, those of us who are legally married somewhere, but not recognized in our own state, feel the inequity on almost a daily basis. Speaking of my own state, Texas, our governor is once again fighting those gay rumors that hit him a few years back.
Here’s what I remember from my days at the Texas Triangle, which used to be the state’s weekly gay newspaper before it sadly went out of business.
It was just after the Super Bowl, back in 2002 or 2003, I forget. The rumor had it that Rick Perry had been caught in bed with another guy by his wife, who had come home early from some trip or something. Perry’s wife, Anita, was rumored to have hired the best divorce lawyer in town, and she was (allegedly) ready to kick him out the door.
At Triangle headquarters, we had a number of men call us off the record to report other suspicious activity. One guy said Perry gave him the once over on an elevator. Another knew a guy who knew a guy who had had a fling with the governor. There was nothing we could really write about. And to this day, I have no idea whether any of this was true. I can just tell you that it went on for two or three weeks.
At any rate, the story eventually went away and Anita stuck by her man. But I gather that the memory of the possible scandal has survived enough to insert itself into Perry’s nascent presidential run. Is there a smoking gun out there? Will the guy from the elevator go on record if a tabloid pays him a hundred grand or two? Enquiring minds want to know.
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Loathsome Scott
Moving right along, there was a good ruling Monday out of Wisconsin, where a state court judge ruled that the domestic partner law does not violate Wisconsin’s ban on marriage and similar institutions.
We’ve seen this before. Any attempt to provide a few benefits to same-sex couples in one of the states that has amended its constitution with antigay language is promptly challenged in court. In Wisconsin’s case, the infamous new governor, Scott Walker, decided not to defend the domestic partner law, leaving it up to the ACLU to make the case. And it seems, they made the case well enough for the lower court at least. We’ll see if the evil doers from Wisconsin Family Action pursue the partner law to the state appellate court.
I’m sure they will. But please. The domestic partner law contains a fraction of the many rights of marriage and cannot be considered a “similar or identical” institution. These people would sue us if the local gym gave us a family membership, or if we signed up for joint discount cards at the grocery store. As for Scott Walker, what a despicable weasel. I can’t stand that guy.
In other legal news, the National Center for Lesbian Rights is going to sue the state of Tennessee over their attempt to ban local governments from passing gay rights laws. You remember perhaps that the Supreme Court threw out a similar measure in 1996, ruling in Romer v Evans that Colorado voters did not have the right to deny us access to the political process. Seems as if the morons in Memphis never read the ruling, because they passed their own version of the unconstitutional law earlier this session. Now we’re going after the Hick State, and the NCLR is going to kick their little butts into the 21st Century. Go get ‘em Kate!
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GLAAD Prez Says Goodbye
Moving along, there’s a bunch of news coming out of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) where President Jarrett Barrios has resigned and six out of 29 board members are gone as well. How many board members do they need anyway? Shouldn’t 23 be enough?
I have been vaguely following this story, but only vaguely. I don’t care for GLAAD these days. They sound off in pompous indignation at misperceived slights to our community and spend the rest of their time holding award shows. They also raise and spend a hell of a lot of money, to no apparent advantage, although I gather that their fundraising has fallen off in the last couple of years.
The latest dustup involves GLAAD’s official support for the merger of ATT and T-Mobile, which seemed to have next to nothing to do with the LGBT community and quite a bit to do with the fact that ATT gives them money and there’s an ATT guy on the GLAAD board. GLAAD also wrote a letter to the FCC that appeared to be in opposition to net neutrality, a position shared by ATT. That letter was later revoked, and Barrios claimed someone else wrote it under his signature.
Say what? Did GLAAD have anything to say about Microsoft buying Skype? How about Pandora’s IPO? Wonder if GLAAD is picking up RIMM shares, or whether they thinks they’re too risky. I guess we’ll never know because Barrios is now history along with some of the board.
Do you care? Me neither.
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Not Much To Tell
And now what? There’s a Methodist minister on trial for performing a gay wedding, maybe in Minnesota. Or maybe not.
Nothing’s happening in Albany, although it sounds as if we might have a vote tonight (Wednesday) or tomorrow. That makes sense since important news invariably breaks just after I’ve had to turn in my column.
I was reading about two boys in Ohio who had sex when they were 12 and 11. I’m not sure what’s going with the older one, who got in trouble. But the kid’s 16 now and he’s already been under house arrest for a year, so perhaps we could just let the whole business slide because, well, they were kids!
I also just read about a 7-year-old boy in Michigan who powered up the family car and drove 20 miles at high speeds in search of his father. His mother was at work at the time, but someone reported him and the police finally got him to stop the car. Apparently, the intrepid little fellow was standing on the pedals in order to be able to see out the windshield.
All in all, it’s turning into a slow afternoon, and I’m strongly considering bringing this column to a premature conclusion. With your consent, of course.
Thank you. I promise to make it all up to you in scintillating detail next week.
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